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“Oh, how marvellous,” she said sarcastically. Then more thoughtfully, “I could pay all Iris’s medical bills out of the petty cash. Couldn’t I?”
“Yes. Help me with the suitcases?”
“If you help me sort out Iris’s medical bills. Seriously.”
“‘Seriously’? Yes, I’ll do that.” She stood up and stretched, then waited while Roland lifted the heavy cases out of the trunk. She took one and followed him as he rolled the other up to the door, swiped a magnetic card, and entered under the watchful eye of a security camera.
They came to a small office where a middle-aged man in a white shirt and black tie was waiting. ‘Today’s consignment,” said Roland. “I’d like to introduce you to Miriam. She might be making runs on her own in future—if things work out. Miriam, this is Jack. He handles dispatch and customs at this end.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jack, handing Roland a board with a three-part form ready to sign. “This is just a formality to confirm I’ve received everything,” he added for her benefit. Balding, overweight, and red-faced, Jack was about as homely as anyone she’d seen since she’d been pitched headfirst into this nightmare of aristocracy. Miriam smiled at him.
“There, that’s it, then,” he said, taking the papers back from Roland. “Have a nice day, now!”
“My best to your wife,” Roland replied. “Come on, Miriam. Time to go.”
“Okay.” She followed him back to the car. He started the engine and eased them back out into the local traffic around the light industrial area. “Where next?”
“Oh, we pick up the cases for the return leg, then we’re at liberty,” he said. “I thought you wanted to do some shopping? And some other things to see to? How about a couple of hours at Copley Place and messing around Back Bay, then lunch?”
“Sounds good,” she agreed.
“Okay.” He pulled over, into another parking lot. “Give me a hand again?”
“Sure.”
They got out and Miriam followed him into yet another office. The procedure was the same in reverse: Roland signed a couple of forms and this time collected two identical, ribbed aluminium suitcases, each so heavy that Miriam could barely carry hers. “Right, now into town,” he said after he lifted them both into the car’s trunk. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Think you’ve got time to hit the shops and be back by five?”
“I’m sure I have.” She smiled at him. “There’s some stuff I could do with your help for, actually. Want to hang around?”
“Delighted to oblige.”
The Copley Place shops weren’t exactly ideal, but it was totally covered and had enough stuff in it to keep Miriam occupied for a couple of hours. The platinum card didn’t catch fire—it didn’t even show signs of overheating when she hit Niema
After the first half hour, Roland did what many polite heterosexual men did: zoned out and smiled or nodded whenever she asked him for an opinion. Which was exactly what Miriam was hoping for, because her real goal wasn’t to fill her wardrobe with evening dresses and expensive lingerie (although that was an acceptable side effect) but to pull out a bundle of cash and use some of it to buy certain accessories. Such as a prepaid mobile phone and a very small Sony laptop with a bundle of software (“If I can’t go back home, I’ll need something to write my articles on,” she pointed out to Roland, hoping he wouldn’t figure out how big a loss-leader that would make it). She finished her spree in a sports shop, buying some outdoors tools, a pocket GPS compass, and a really neat folding solar panel, guaranteed to charge her laptop up—which she picked up while he was poking around a display of expensive hunting tackle.
She wasn’t totally sure what she was going to do with this stuff, but she had some ideas. In particular, the CD-ROMs full of detailed maps of the continental United States and the other bits of software she’d slipped in under his nose ought to come in handy. Even if they didn’t, she figured that if Angbard expected her to shop like a dizzy teenager, then she ought to get him used to her shopping like a dizzy teenager. That way he’ll have one less handle on me when I stop, she thought, a trifle smugly.
Twelve thousand dollars went really fast when she was buying Sony notebooks, and even faster when she switched to Hermes and Escada and less well-known couture. But it felt unreal, like play money. Some of the clothes would have %> be altered to fit, and delivered: She took them anyway. ‘I figure it can be altered on the other side,” she murmured to Roland by way of explanation. He nodded enthusiastically and she managed to park him for a few minutes in a bookshop next door to her real target, a second hand theatrical clothing shop for an old-fashioned long skirt and shirtwaist that could pass for one of the servants. Theatrical supplier, my ass, she thought. The escape committee is in!
Around two o’clock she took mercy on Roland, who by this time was flagging, checking his watch every ten minutes and following her around like a slightly dejected dog. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’m about done. How about we catch that lunch you were talking about, then head back to the house? I’ve got to get some of these clothes altered, which means looking up Ma’am Rosein, and then I need to spend a couple of hours on the computer.”
“That’s great,” Roland said with unconcealed sincerity. “How about some clam chowder for lunch?”
Miriam really didn’t go for seafood, but if it kept him happy that was fine by her. “Okay,” she said, towing along her designer escape kit. “Let’s go eat!”
They ate. Over lunch she watched Roland carefully. He’s about twenty-eight, she thought. Dartmouth. Harvard. Real Ivy League territory and then some. Classic profile. She sized him up carefully. Shaves well. Looks great. No visible bad habits, painfully good ma
“Why is your uncle putting you on my case?” she finally asked over dessert, an exquisite crème brûlée. “I mean, what’s your background? You said he was thinking one step ahead. Why you?”
“Hrrm.” Roland stirred sugar into his coffee, then looked at her with frank blue eyes. “I think your guess is as good as mine.”
“You’re unmarried.” She kicked herself immediately afterward. Very perceptive, Ms. Holmes.
“As if that matters.” He smiled humourlessly. “I have an attitude problem.”
“Oh?” She leaned forward.
“Let’s just say, Angbard wants me where he can keep an eye on me. They sent me to college when I was eighteen,” he said morosely. “It was—well, it was an eye-opener. I stayed for four years, then applied to Harvard immediately. Economics and history. I thought I might be able to change things back home. Then I decided I didn’t want to go back. After my first year or so, I’d figured out that I couldn’t stay over here just on the basis of my name—I’d have to work. So I did. I wasn’t much of one for the girls during that first degree—” he caught her speculative look—“or the boys.”
“So?” Personal Memo: Find out what they think of sex, as opposed to marriage. The two are not always interchangeable. “What next?”
“Well.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I wanted to stay over here. I got into a postgrad research, program, studying the history of economic development in the Netherlands. Met a girl named Janice along the way. One thing led to another.”
“You wanted to marry her?” asked Miriam.