Elite Ops: Black Jack Part 8

Travis knew the creature Lilly Belle was. Silent, stealthy, but too d.a.m.ned curious. She was known for her inability to keep her nose out of danger. Even within the Ops her reputation was fairly solid in that regard.

She stepped into the room, obviously surprising her uncle with her clothing, as well as her demeanor.

Desmond Harrington rose to his feet, shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

"I have the limo outside," he stated, his tone grating. "We need to leave, Lilly."

A smooth, negligent shrug of her shoulders was the first indication Travis saw of the agent he once knew. Lilly pursed her lips thoughtfully as she propped her hands on her hips and surveyed the room silently for long moments.

"You said you didn't know anything about where I've been or what I've been doing for the past six years," she told her uncle. "You lied to me."

A dark frown creased Desmond's brow. "At the time, I had no idea," he bit out, his tone icily angry now. "If you recall, I informed you I would hire investigators to pursue the subject.

Their report came in weeks ago."

"And I wasn't told?" She leaned a shapely hip against the back of the couch Travis sat in. A move that Desmond clearly understood. Lilly Belle was in the room right now.

"Could we discuss this at home?" Desmond demanded. "With your mother present, if you don't mind, rather than with this gentleman." He made the last word sound like a curse.

"Funny, Uncle Desmond," she mused then. "Your investigators know so much now, but they didn't find me in the six years I was missing?"

His expression became pinched. "We believed there was no way you could have survived that explosion," he answered. "You were declared dead when no evidence of your whereabouts could be found."

"And now my whereabouts are known," she drawled, her tone cold.

"Once we had your new . . . ," he looked uncomfortable, "ident.i.ty was rather easy."

Travis wanted to shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He rose slowly to his feet and moved to the bar. All the while he kept his gaze on Lilly's face through the large mirror on the other side of the room.

"This gentleman, as you call him, seems to know more about me than you or Mother," she informed him, her tone calm and quiet as she moved from the couch.

That wasn't a good sign. A nice calm tone from Lilly Belle was usually something to be wary of.

Desmond grimaced. "And I know more about him than he can imagine. He's not the sort of person you want in your life, Lilly."

"I think I've always been able to make that decision on my own, Uncle Desmond," she reminded him, her smile tight now.

d.a.m.n, good ole Uncle Desmond was really starting to p.i.s.s her off now. And he seemed to realize that. Travis was almost amused.

Travis watched as the other man took careful control of himself and attempted to repair the damage.

"I regret I haven't given you the information I received," he stated, and there seemed to be sincere regret in his tone. "The psychologist you were seeing in the hospital suggested it might be best that you remember certain things on your own. In the interests of your health, we elected to wait." He cast Travis and Nik a harsh glare. "Victoria, please . . ."

"Lilly," she informed him, the quick, sharp tone of her voice drawing a reaction from her, as well as surprise from Desmond. "Please, call me Lilly."

Travis cast the other man a tight smile of victory. She was Lilly Belle, Lady Victoria Harrington be d.a.m.ned.

"Lilly." Desmond obviously didn't approve of the name. "Please, dear. Let's return to the house, and we'll discuss this. The limo is waiting outside."

"I brought the bike. I'll follow you back."

Desmond frowned, obviously caught off guard. "What bike?"

"My motorcycle," she stated, watching him carefully now. Travis could feel the tension radiating from her now.

Desmond shook his head. "You have no such thing."

"Really, I do." She strode across the room. "I'll meet you at home." Pausing at the door, she turned back to Travis. "I'll be in touch."

"I'm certain I'll enjoy the experience," he taunted her, to remind her of the few stolen moments they'd had in the kitchen.

Amus.e.m.e.nt gleamed in her green eyes before she pushed through the kitchen door and, he knew, strode to the garage.

"Henry, make certain the garage door is open for her," he ordered the butler as he hovered silently on the other side of the room. "And make certain Miss Harrington has access to the house whenever she wishes."

"Very good, sir." Henry nodded stiffly and followed her.

Travis turned back to Desmond. He was watching the door with a sense of bemus.e.m.e.nt, as though the woman that had stepped through it were a stranger rather than the niece he had once been rumored to love.

"She's not the woman you lost six years ago," Travis reminded him quietly. "Try to turn her into that woman and you'll make an enemy of her."

Her uncle turned back to him slowly. "If I allow you to have your way, she'll remain one step above a criminal," he said hollowly. "Or slip those final inches and be lost to us forever."

"Lord Harrington, I didn't return to destroy Lilly's life, I returned to save it," Travis informed him.

Desmond grunted rudely. "Your past actions do not speak of your desire to save her.

Training in demolitions and explosives. Military and martial arts training in Asia for eighteen months while conducting so-called ventures into pirate-held territories. And that doesn't count the dozens of near arrests, near fatal crashes, and G.o.d only knows how much weapons fire she's faced while she's played your wh.o.r.e." By the time he finished his face was bloodred, his blue eyes snapping with rage, and his accent more clipped than usual.

Travis tilted his head and watched curiously. It had been a while since he'd seen such a blue-blooded tantrum.

"Perhaps I should remind of you the reason why she was learning how to fight, how to kill, and how to protect herself," Travis stated calmly when the other man had finished. "Because you and your polite, well-heeled English society, your blue-blooded aristocracy, allowed her to nearly be murdered. You accepted her death, gave her a nice tear-filled burial, and went about your lives without once questioning the results you were given, despite the inconsistencies. Get your head out of your a.s.s, Desmond. She's a big girl, she's been a big girl for a long time, and she's d.a.m.ned sure more woman than your prissy little English boys can handle. You can accept it, and help me protect her, or you can continue to stand in my way and bury her for real next time." Travis turned on his heel and headed into the living area of the house. "Let me know what you decide. Before it's too late."

He didn't turn back to the other man as he delivered his parting shot. Nik opened the door that led into the short hallway and then into the house that was as pristine, just as f.u.c.king modern and icy cold, as the reception room.

As cold as Travis's f.u.c.king life had become.

Lilly parked her cycle at the curved cement and stone steps that led up to the mansion her family had taken for the spring and summer months. She had beat her uncle home. No surprise there.

The low heels of her boots were silent as she climbed the stairs, and the lack of sound seemed odd. Shoes made noise. Even sneakers made a slight noise when walking. But hers didn't, and it wasn't the shoes. It was her.

It was the way she walked, the way she moved. She could move silently, or if she thought about it, as she made herself do now, she could allow the slight click of the heels.

Had Travis trained her how to walk with such stealth as well?

The door opened, and the butler stood aside as Lilly stepped into the warm, golden wood tones of the entryway.

Shedding her leather jacket, she handed it to the butler, then lifted her head as her mother walked into the foyer. She carried some papers she had been reviewing, probably her latest financial statements. Her mother had come into her first marriage independently wealthy and she was amazingly adroit at managing her own finances.

Lady Angelica Harrington. She was also a distant cousin as well as a confidante and friend to the Queen. She moved in circles so influential it boggled the mind. Her social life was her career-the parties, teas, luncheons, and charity events.

Her son, Lilly's brother, Jared James Harrington, was a solicitor with a law firm that the Queen often relied upon. He had been introduced to his wife by the Queen and had married with her blessing. He had become just as cold and unemotional as her mother sometimes seemed to be.

"Oh my G.o.d! What on earth are you wearing?" Lady Harrington's tone wasn't scandalized, it was purely horrified.

"Leather," Lilly answered gently, wis.h.i.+ng she could find a way to take that fear from her mother's eyes. "Did you think that because you didn't inform me about my past, it wouldn't come back to haunt you? Or me?"

She pulled her gloves from her hands and slapped them on the s.h.i.+ny, dark cherry bureau that sat in the foyer as she held her mother's gaze.

Angelica lifted her hand slowly to her throat, her pale blue gaze flickering with indecision as she watched her daughter now. She wasn't quite certain how to handle this version of Lilly.

Her poor mother, Lilly thought. She likely had dreamed of having her daughter back, but Lilly doubted she had imagined the woman who had returned. Even Lilly didn't know the woman who had returned.

Lilly pushed her fingers through her hair, feeling the long strands drifting through her fingers and over her shoulders as a familiar wildness rose inside her. She knew this feeling, she had known it for a long time. The same feeling she had fought before her supposed death six years before.

"Who am I?" She stared back at her mother, suddenly fearful, almost terrified that despite the urge to solve the mystery of those missing years, perhaps she really didn't want to know.

"My daughter," Angelica whispered, her voice filled with sorrow. "The daughter I never want to lose again."

Lilly wanted to hit something. With her fist. Her fingers curled with the need to ram it into a wall, a door, a bed, a punching bag . . . A memory flashed in her mind. A sweat-stained punching bag swinging before her, her fists pounding into it, her heart racing, perspiration pouring down her body . . .

Just as quickly, it was gone. The second before the memory was able to solidify, it was gone.

"Your daughter changed," she rasped. "What did she change into?"

Who was she? Where had she been? Why had she run?

"Lilly." Her mother's hand dropped from her throat as she stepped closer, the silk of her dress floating gently around her knees as the faintest hint of cigarette smoke wafted to Lilly's senses.

She blinked. She saw her mother through a sniper's scope. She was wearing her mink coat.

Cigarette smoke drifted in a cold breeze. Lilly blinked again and it was gone.

"Lilly?" Angelica reached out for her, her cool, graceful fingers touching Lilly's arm gently as she attempted to draw her closer. "I want you to enjoy being with the family again. Those years you were gone." Angelica blinked back tears that filled her eyes as Lilly stared down at her. "You were alive, yet you didn't allow us to know it. You changed your pretty face." Her mother reached up and touched her face. "Even your eye color is different. You changed everything, as though your family no longer mattered."

And those changes had had their consequences. Her brother had walked out of the hospital when he came with her mother and uncle to see the woman the doctors were claiming was Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Jared had sworn his sister would never deny her family to such an extent.

Why had she done it? Changed so much of herself?

"There are no answers." Her mother's voice cracked with emotion. "Desmond and I have tried to find the answers. All we can find is a woman that lived as though she wanted to die.

As though she had lost everything precious to her. And yet we were right here." A tear slipped down Angelica's cheek then. "Was I so wrong to keep that from you? Was I wrong to hope you never remembered that you were trying to run away from us?"

"That wasn't it!" The words, the emotions, flew from her lips before she thought, before she could understand why.

There was a memory there, for just a second. For just a fragile moment clarity had almost overtaken her, only to disappear once again.

"Then what was it?" her mother cried out desperately. "Tell me, Lilly, why can't I call you Victoria as I once did? Why do you wear leather clothes and boots that make you look like the tramp? Why the changes to your appearance and why the changes to yourself if you weren't trying to deny the very people who loved you?" Her face twisted. "I nearly died when I thought I was burying my only daughter. Instead you were out raising h.e.l.l and throwing away everything your father and I tried to provide for you. You left your family, Victoria, for a life that bordered on the criminal and a lifestyle that was little better than that of a terrorist."

Lilly stood still and silent, watching the emotions that tore through her mother as she felt something shut down inside her. The woman her mother was talking about wasn't her.

Something didn't sound right, it didn't feel right. Something was wrong with the scenario her mother was laying out.

She hadn't been a terrorist. She hadn't been a criminal.

She looked down at the clothes she wore and felt a shudder go through her.

"I wouldn't have turned my back on you," she whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.

"Not like that. I don't know what happened. I don't know who I am or what I was doing, but I do know my family was everything to me."

Sure, her mother was difficult-to say the least. And yes, Lilly had often wanted to run away from all the expectations and rules piled on top of her, but she had never imagined turning her back on her family, pretending to be dead, going through reconstructive surgery, and taking up a life of crime-or something close to it-just to escape it.

She had followed in her father's footsteps as an informant for MI5. She had worked diligently to uncover evidence the agency needed to identify terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, and other criminal elements. And she had done it, ultimately, to protect the ones she loved.

So what had happened? Why had she turned her back on all of that?

Just then the door opened, and Lilly swung around to meet the furious expression of her uncle. No, her stepfather. G.o.d, why had her mother married Desmond Harrington, her father's half-brother and business partner? Had she missed her husband so much that she had married his brother to replace him?

"Victoria." He stopped as his bodyguard came in behind him and closed the door. "At least you made it home."

Anger ripped through her, and she had no idea why. She loved her uncle. He had been an integral part of her life from her birth to her death.

"Of course I made it home." She had to fight back the conflicting emotions she didn't know what to do with. "It seems I'm a rather good rider."

He wiped his hand over his face as he shook his head, obviously weary and attempting to hold on to his temper. Desmond Harrington was known for his temper, courtesy of his red hair, but he was also known for his compa.s.sion and logic.

"A rather good rider," he muttered as he rubbed at his forehead before lifting his head and staring past Lilly to her mother. "It seems, my dear, that this hardheaded child has found a new hobby."

He pulled his jacket off, handed it to the bodyguard, Isaac, then strode through the foyer to the living room.

"It's obviously not a new hobby," she stated as she followed him and her mother, only to pause just inside the door and watch as he strode to the bar. "A Crown on ice would be lovely," she suggested as he lifted a decanter of liquor.

Desmond paused before pouring the desired drink as well as a snifter of brandy for her mother.

"Crown and ice." Her mother sounded furious now. "That is not a proper young lady's drink, Victoria."

"I asked you to call me Lilly, Mother." Lilly stepped into the room and accepted the drink from Desmond before striding to the sofa and lounging back. She smothered a sigh of exhaustion. Lifting the drink to her lips Lilly sipped the smooth liquor, nearly closing her eyes at the pleasurable burn that hit her stomach.

She watched as Desmond handed her mother her drink then took his seat beside her on the couch. Strange, she had never seen her mother sit with her father like that, close, intimate.

They had rarely sat on a couch, they had each had their own chairs instead. But the distance she had always sensed between her parents was present here as well.

"We need to discuss tonight," Desmond told her firmly after taking a long sip of his drink, as though needing fortification.

"What is there to discuss?" Lilly asked him. "I met a friend for drinks. I'm of age, I have no curfew. What we do need to discuss is what the h.e.l.l you were doing following me at this hour of the night."