Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) Read Free Page B

of well-tended flowers surrounded the huge Norman English "castle," framing it like a rare and expensive painting. A pair of stone lions reclined in bored and regal splendor on either side of the massive double-wide front door.
    Nikki eyed them, wondering if they'd been put there in Louis B. Mayer's time as a sly tongue-in-cheek reference to the MGM mascot—Hollywood legend had it that one of his mistresses used to live in the house.
    "Welcome to the world of the rich and famous," Nikki muttered to herself as she swung her leg over the saddle of the bike and stood up.
    She was bent over, peering into the side mirror, her helmet dangling from one hand, finger-fluffing her hair with the other, when she heard the front door open. She looked up quickly, the beginnings of a warm smile of greeting turning up her generous mouth at the corners.
    A small, dark-haired woman in a simple blue dress with a plain white bibbed apron tied over it stood in the wide doorway, staring down at her with a stern expression on her face. "Miss Martinelli?" she inquired.
    Nikki's smile faltered and she nodded, suddenly feeling as if she were back at boot camp about to be chewed out by a superior officer for something she hadn't even realized she'd done. "I was just making a few quick repairs," she said, gesturing toward the mirror.
    "Indeed," the woman replied briskly, sounding like a cross between Mary Poppins and a drill sergeant.
    Nikki wondered if it was her or the Harley. Probably both, she thought sourly, knowing what most people expected from a woman who rode a "hog."
    "I'm Marjorie Gilmore. Mr. Kingston's housekeeper. I heard your motorcycle when you came up the drive," she said, giving Nikki the distinct impression that the noise had been unnecessarily excessive. "Won't you come in, please?" She stepped back from the doorway. "We've been expecting you."
    And you're late.
    Marjorie Gilmore didn't say the words but Nikki definitely heard them. She glanced at her watch, checking to see if the unspoken accusation was true. She was gratified to see that it wasn't; like anyone who'd grown up in a military household, she had a keen appreciation of the value of time and abhorred wasting it. Hers or anyone else's.
    "Miss Martinelli?" the housekeeper prompted, making Nikki realize she was dawdling.
    Not wanting to keep the woman waiting while she strapped her helmet to the Harley, Nikki tucked it under her arm and mounted the wide, smooth stone steps. "Ma'am," she said, suppressing the urge to salute as she moved past the woman and into the house.
    The door shut behind her with a sharp click. "This way," Marjorie Gilmore said, and turned to lead the way across the polished black-and-white marble of the huge foyer and down a long carpeted hallway that led off into the depths of the house.
    Nice, Nikki thought, her gaze darting from side to side as she followed the housekeeper. She gathered quick impressions of light and color and quiet good taste without any of the ostentatiousness the magnificence on the outside had led her to expect. And then the housekeeper stopped and stepped aside, ushering Nikki through the doorway ahead of her.
    "Miss Martinelli has arrived," she said, and melted back into the hall. The word finally hovered, unspoken, in the air behind her.
    "Thank you, ma'am," Nikki said to her back, determined to out-polite the woman if nothing else. And then she turned smartly, in her best parade-ground style, to face the people gathered on the other side of the room.
    Her first, unedited thought was that they were the most beautiful group of people she'd ever seen—which was saying a lot in an environment where beauty was a prerequisite for success and even coffee-shop waitresses were expected to be gorgeous. Viewed singularly, any one of them was enough to merit a long second look of awe and admiration. Viewed as a group they were almost—Nikki struggled to find the right word. Overwhelming, was the only one she could come up with.
    An