Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [115]
His wife had not been pleased with her husband’s disappearance, and in retaliation had refused to speak to him for the first three days after his return with Genevieve in tow. And then she went into labor, screaming imprecations in languages Genevieve couldn’t even begin to recognize, and hadn’t stopped until little Sylvia arrived, small and perfect and taking over in the screaming department where Chloe had left off.
It seemed a good time to vacate, but Chloe wouldn’t hear of it, and Genevieve had always had a weakness for babies. “Wait until we know Peter is on the mend,” she’d said. “Wait until the baby stops crying all the time. Wait until Sylvia sleeps through the night.” And “Wait until Bastien tells us what’s going on.”
It would be a cold day in hell for the last, Genevieve thought. When she finally announced she was going back to New York, no more delays, Bastien simply told her that her apartment had been sold and her belongings packed up and put in storage, by order of Madame Lambert. The only thing sent on to her in North Carolina was her passport.
It was that simple.
He would probably always walk with a slight limp. He no longer needed a cane, and it had only been three months since Harry Van Dorn had riddled him with bullets. He’d come a long way in a short time, but there was nerve damage in his thigh, and all the hard work and therapy in the world wasn’t going to change that.
He wouldn’t work in the field again. From now on he’d be behind a desk, gathering intel. The Iceman would exist no longer, the best closer in the business would work no more. He’d retired from the field, his last mission a spectacular failure on his part, at least. For some reason it didn’t bother him. He’d paid for his screwup, Genevieve was alive and happy and back at work, he expected, having recovered from her brief sojourn in the world of death and intrigue. She would have recovered from her infatuation quite quickly, he expected, the moment she got back into her Armani and Blahniks.
He’d been in London three months—a month in hospital, another month in rehab and a month stuck in his empty, sterile apartment—until he finally got leave to go out of town. He’d put it off too long; he had to put the Wiltshire house on the market. It was part of a world that he’d never live in. Fires in the hearth, babies on the rug, gardens with the scent of wild roses filling the air. Not for him. He’d become another Thomason—cold and efficient, but not quite so ruthless. Madame Lambert wouldn’t work forever, even though she looked far younger than she had to be. There was always room for advancement in the bloody Committee.
He couldn’t drive his car. It was a standard, and working the clutch was a little more than he was up to, so he rented an automatic and headed out into the country on a bright, warm summer day that seemed to mock his bleak mood.
He stopped for lunch on the way, for some reason putting off getting to the house. Once he arrived he’d need to call the real estate agent, go through the place and see what needed work, see if someone could come in and do something about the overgrown gardens. He’d meant to do that earlier in the spring, but things had taken a strange turn. But life was back to normal, his icy control was back in place, and he could move forward as he’d meant to all along, before things had gotten sidetracked.
He turned into the winding driveway, frowning. The weeds that had choked the paving stones were gone, the hedges neatly trimmed. Had he hired a gardening firm and not remembered? It was always possible, considering it had been a rough few months.
The back door was unlocked, another unnerving occurrence. He wasn’t worried about unpleasant sur- prises and he was no longer worthy of being terminated. Not worth the trouble of setting up a hit—he could live out the rest of his life any way he wanted it.
He stopped dead in the hallway. The place was spotless—sunlight sparkling through the tiny windowpanes on either side of the door, fresh flowers on the table. There were car keys lying there,