slim and elegant, and roughly Annja’s height. His neat black hair was clipped short, and his cheeks looked freshly shaved. His suit fit him like a glove. He looked to be in his late twenties, but her immediate impression of him was that he was older.
“Miss Creed,” he cooed in a soft voice. “I’m enchanted to meet you.” He took her left hand in his.
Annja stopped herself from recoiling as he lifted her hand briefly to brush his lips against the back of her hand. Gently but firmly, she reclaimed her hand.
Gesauldi shifted his attention to Johan. “Could we perhaps have some tea? A nice Chinese green tea with mango or peach would be splendid. And some biscuits if that wouldn’t be too much trouble.” He glanced back at Annja. “After all, we want you in the proper mood for the fitting, or course.”
“What fitting?”
Gesauldi’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “Why, for your date tonight.”
Annja took a deep breath. “Did Garin Braden send you?”
Gesauldi lifted his hands and spread his elegant fingers. “Please. I don’t like to bandy names about. Especially when I’ve been asked to keep a confidence.”
Unable to believe what Garin had done, Annja was just about to tell the man politely that she wasn’t interested in being dressed by him. Then she saw the evening dresses on a free-standing clothes rack.
“Was there something you wished to say, Miss Creed?” Gesauldi asked.
Despite her irritation at Garin, Annja was mesmerized by the dresses. “Wow,” she said.
Gesauldi gestured grandly toward the rack. “These are some of Gesauldi’s very best. And, I might add, people do not usually get fitted by Gesauldi himself.”
“May I?” Annja asked.
“But of course. Your attention and your pleasures warm Gesauldi’s heart.” The man took her by the elbow and walked her over to the dresses.
Annja ran her fingers along the material. It was smooth and silky, and she could only imagine what it might feel like against her skin.
“Wow,” she said again.
“Of course you would feel that way. Gesauldi knew you would feel that way. Gesauldi’s creations always leave people feeling this way.”
“You’re a dressmaker?”
He scowled. “Dear woman, Gesauldi is an artist!”
Annja examined the dresses. “Of course you are.” She didn’t know whether to be flattered or angry. “Garin really didn’t think I could dress myself, did he?”
“Did you have a Gesauldi dress for tonight?”
“No.”
“Then you couldn’t have dressed yourself.”
For a moment Annja considered telling the man to take his dresses and go. But she couldn’t. She’d never worn anything that glamorous in her life.
She turned to Gesauldi. “Are you in the habit of delivering your dresses yourself, Mr. Gesauldi?”
He grinned at her, obviously pleased that she was so enraptured. “Only for very special clients or very beautiful women, Miss Creed.” He inclined his head in a respectful bow. “Tonight I am honored to do both.”
Johan leaned forward and whispered behind his hand to Annja. “Do you see, Miss Creed? I could hardly have thrown such a man from the hotel.”
“No,” Annja agreed. “You couldn’t have.”
LATER, soaking in a fragrant bath while Gesauldi arranged the dresses and his tools, Annja sipped green tea and thought about her date. She wondered what Garin was up to.
The attention was extremely flattering. Or quite unflattering, depending on how she chose to view Garin’s efforts. Either he wants to treat me like royalty or he wants to make sure I measured up to his standards. That was an unhappy thought. Annja sipped her tea and chose not to think like that.
THE PHONE RANG while Annja, feeling much refreshed and looking forward to Gesauldi’s fitting, was drying off from the bath. She’d soaked to just preprune stage. She wrapped a towel around herself and picked up her phone.
The phone number was European, but that was all she knew.
“Hello.”
“Don’t tell me it’s true.”
Annja recognized Roux’s voice at once. The old man had a raspy voice that was unmistakable.
“It’s not true,” Annja said, sensing from Roux’s tone that he wanted confirmation.
“Good.” Roux sounded minutely appeased.
“Now,” Annja said, “what’s not true?”
Roux took a deep breath and it made the phone connection sound cavernous.
“That you’re going out with Garin,” Roux snapped. “Tell me that’s not true.”
Despite having grown up in an orphanage in New Orleans, Annja suddenly got the idea of what it might have been like to have to deal with a displeased father. Not surprisingly, it felt a lot like dealing with an irate nun.
“Where did you hear something like that?” Annja asked.
Roux cursed. “So it is true.”
“Who I go out with is hardly any business of yours.” Annja put her phone on hands-free mode, tightened the towel around her and reached for another to wrap her hair.
“It is when it’s Garin,” Roux said.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Not against Garin. Are you going out with him?”
“We’re having dinner.”
Roux cursed again. “Do you find yourself so enamored of him that you can’t control your hormones?”
“I resent that,” Annja said.
“By all means, feel free.”
“I’m in perfect control of my hormones.”
Roux vented a derisive snort.
“I’m going to dinner with him to pay off a debt,” Annja said. “Garin helped me out while I was in India.”
“A debt?” Roux sounded as though he couldn’t believe it. “You don’t pay off a debt like that. At the very least not in the manner in which you’re doing it.”
“Dinner’s not exactly the worst thing that I could imagine having to do.”
Roux snorted again.
“And,” Annja went on, “as I recall, you don’t mind waving the debt card around when you want my help with something.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I helped you find the sword.”
“So what? I’m going to owe you forever now?”
“No,” Roux said. “Having the sword means you have a duty and an obligation to the powers behind that sword.”
“Whatever powers might be behind this sword, it’s definitely not you.”
Roux sighed in displeasure. “I help you with what you’re supposed to do. We’re on the same side.”
Although she didn’t say anything, Annja doubted that. Roux, like Garin, had his own agenda. Neither of them chose to entrust her with it. Roux was always exactly on the side of Roux.
“Harboring any leniency with Garin is a mistake,” Roux said.
“There’s