"A number of them." He noticed Vince's avaricious glance at a pair of nineteenth-century dueling pistols. Obligingly, Roarke used the palm plate and his code to release the lock on the reinforced glass case. He drew a pistol from its slot, passed it to Magda's son.
"Beautiful."
"Oooh." Liza gave a little shudder, but Eve caught the bright lust in her eyes. "Isn't it dangerous?"
"Not in its present state." Roarke spared her a smile and showed her another case. "The little one there, the one with the jeweled grip. Designed for a lady's hand and her purse. It once belonged to a wealthy widow who, in the unsettled days of the early part of the century, carried it with her whenever she took her morning walk with her Pomeranian. She's reputed to have shot an unlucky mugger, two looters, a discourteous doorman, and a Lhasa apso with carnal intentions regarding her Pom."
"Goodness." Gilt lashes fluttered over Liza's violet eyes. "She shot a dog?"
"So they say."
"A far different time." Mick studied a semiautomatic in gleaming chrome. "Amazing, isn't it," he said to Eve, "that anyone with the price in his pocket and the desire in his heart could pick up one of these over the counter, or under it, before the Gun Ban?"
"I always thought more stupid than amazing."
"You aren't a defender of the right to bear arms, Lieutenant?" Vince asked, turning the dueling pistol in his hand. He imagined himself looking very dashing.
She glanced back at the mean little automatic. "That's not designed to defend. It's designed to kill."
"Still." With some reluctance, he replaced the pistol in its slot and wandered over to where she stood with Mick. "People continue to find a way. If they didn't, you'd be out of a job."
"Vincent, that's rude."
"No, it's not." Eve nodded. "You're right, people find a way. But it's been some years since we've had disturbed children slaughtering other children in school hallways, or half-asleep spouses shooting their partners when they stumble in the dark, or neighborhoods under siege from gangs who carelessly shoot bystanders while they try to shoot each other. I think the old slogan was, Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People. And it's true enough. But a gun gives them a hell of a lot of help."
"I can't argue with that," Mick put in. "Never did like the ugly, noisy things myself. Now a good sticker – " He strolled away a bit to a display of knives. "At least a man's got to get close enough to look you in the eye before he tries you with one of these. Takes more courage to stand toe-to-toe and stick a man than it does to blast away at him from a distance. But me, I'll stick with my fists."
He turned away, grinned. "A good, sweaty brawl solves most disputes, and mostly everyone can limp away from it and have a pint. We broke some noses in our day, didn't we, Roarke?"
"Probably more than our share." He relocked the case. "Coffee?" he said smoothly.
CHAPTER SIX
Eve strapped on her weapon and eyed her husband. He was enjoying a light breakfast in the sitting area of their bedroom. The morning news was playing on the wall screen and the stock reports skimmed by in a puzzling series of codes and figures on the tabletop unit.
The cat, Galahad, lounged beside him, with one of his dual-colored eyes aimed hopefully at a slice of Irish bacon neglected on Roarke's plate.
"How can you look like you've just come home from a week's vacation in some pamper spa?" she demanded.
"Clean living?"
"My ass. I know you were up till after three, drinking whiskey and telling lies with your pal. I heard his looney laugh as the pair of you stumbled upstairs."
"He might have been a bit unsteady at the end of it." He turned to her, his eyes blue and clear and rested. "A few fingers of whiskey's never been known to set me under. I'm sorry we woke you."
"It couldn't have been for long. I never heard you come to bed."
"I needed to pour Mick into his first."
"What are you going to do with him today?"
"He has business of his own, and will make his way about well enough. Summerset can tell him where I'll be if he wants to know."
"I thought you'd probably work from here today."
"No." He watched her over his coffee cup. "Not today. Stop worrying about me, Lieutenant. You have enough on your plate."
"You're the main course."
He laughed at that and rose to kiss her. "I'm very touched."
"Don't be touched." She gripped his arms once, firmly, to make her point. "Be careful."
"I'll be both."
"Will you at least use a driver? And the limo." The limo, she knew, was reinforced and could withstand a hailstorm of boomers.
"Yes, to set your mind at ease."
"Thanks. I've got to get going."
"Lieutenant?"
"What?"
He cupped her face in his hands, gently touched his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. "I love you."
Everything inside her shifted, shimmered, settled. "I know. Even though I'm not a French redhead with a rich daddy. How much did you take her for?"
"In what area?"
She laughed, shook her head. "Never mind." But at the door she stopped, looked back at him. "I love you, too. Oh, and Galahad just copped your bacon."
She strode down the hall, but caught the mild exasperation in Roarke's voice. "Haven't we discussed that sort of behavior?" It made her smirk a little as she took the steps in a jog.
At the bottom, lurking as she thought of it, was Summerset. He held her leather jacket between one long thumb and one bony finger. "I will assume you'll be home for the evening meal unless I hear to the contrary."
"Assume all you want." She took the jacket, but glanced back up the stairs as she shrugged into it. "I need you a minute."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Stuff the attitude back up your pointy nose," she suggested, but she kept her voice lowered. She aimed a finger at the front door, then swung it open. "Come on."
"I have several tasks on this morning's schedule," he began.
"Quiet." She shut the door behind him, drew in a breath of sweet spring air. "You've been with him for a long time, and you know all there is to know. First give me your take on Mick Connelly."
"I'm not in the habit of gossiping about houseguests."
"Goddamn it." She rapped a fist on his chest, an impatient gesture that caused Summerset to show his teeth. "Do I look like I want a cozy gossip here? Somebody wants to shake Roarke. I don't know why, I don't know the bottom line, but someone's looking to cause him trouble. Give me your take on Connelly."
Summerset's eyes, which had gone black as onyx at the fist to his chest, narrowed. Considered her. "He was wild as they all were. They were wild times. My understanding was he had a difficult home life, but then all of them did. Some worse than others. He came around when Roarke settled in with me. Polite enough, if rough around the edges. Hungry, but they were all hungry."
"Did he ever square off with Roarke?"
"There were words and fists at one time or another between all of them. Mick would have cut off his fingers for Roarke. Any of them would. Mick looked up to him. Roarke took a beating for him once, from the cops," Summerset added with a sneer. "When Mick fumbled a pass off after a pocket dip."
"Okay. All right." She relaxed a little.
"This is about the chambermaid."
"Yeah. I want you to use that yard-long nose of yours for something other than looking down at inferiors. Sniff around, past and present. If you catch a whiff of anything, anything that's off, contact me. You can monitor Roarke without putting his back up. He expects you to know where he is. Make sure you do."
Summerset put a hand on her arm to stop her from turning away. "Is he in any sort of physical jeopardy?"
"If I thought he was, he wouldn't get out of the house even if I had to drug him and put him in restraints."
Forced to be satisfied with that, Summerset watched her go down the steps to where her increasingly dilapidated city-issue vehicle was parked.