warned, pointing a finger at her niece as the younger woman turned and left the room.
Alexandra ignored her niece’s surprising show of audacity. The heiress was in too good a humor to be bothered by Ellen’s reaction. Alexandra was as excited as a child waiting for Santa on Christmas morning. She was zealously looking forward to this evening’s meeting. It was to be, perhaps, the most important meeting of her entire life.
“Ellen,” Alexandra shouted loudly, “our visitors should be here soon. Where are you?”
Ellen, attired modestly in a simple white piqué dress she’d worn for several summers, returned to the drawing room.
“Right here,” she said, managing a smile.
While Ellen dreaded seeing the intimidating Mister Corey again, she wanted to be present for this little conference so she would know exactly what ensued. Alexandra, who successfully dealt daily with titans of rail, steel and telegraphy, seemed to lack all common sense when it came to the issue of staying young.
Ellen was afraid that the two scheming strangers would easily convince Alexandra that they held the secret to eternal youth. And, therefore persuade her aunt to pay an astronomical sum of money to take her to their so-called Magic Waters.
“They’re here!” Alexandra announced excitedly at the knock on the door. She waved a bejeweled hand at Ellen, “Go let them in, please. No, wait just a minute.”
Alexandra always insisted on staying seated when greeting guests. She preferred to play the role of a monarch on a throne, expecting her lowly subjects to come forward to bow and beam and fawn over her.
“Ready?” Ellen asked, barely concealing her annoyance as Alexandra fussed with the shimmering silk skirts that swirled around her feet.
“Yes, you may admit them,” said the queenly Alexandra and Ellen went into the foyer to open the door.
The smiling Padjan entered the marble-floored vestibule. In his arms was a large green paper bag that he held as gingerly as if he were carrying a piece of fragile crystal. He was followed by Mister Corey who was clean shaven and surprisingly immaculate in a white linen shirt and neatly pressed dark trousers. Ellen felt her stomach contract.
“Good evening, Padjan, Mister Corey,” Ellen calmly acknowledged. “Won’t you come inside and meet my aunt?”
Padjan, the crown of his bald head gleaming in the light of the wall sconce, nodded eagerly. But first, he turned and carefully placed the bag on the table beside the door. Then he and Mister Corey followed Ellen into the suite’s large drawing room.
“Aunt Alexandra, this is Padjan,” Ellen indicated the smaller man. “Padjan, may I present my aunt, Miss Alexandra Landseer.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Padjan stepped forward, bowed from the waist and, taking the hand Alexandra offered, said with sincere enthusiasm, “It is a true pleasure to meet such a great lady, Miss Landseer.”
Charmed, she said, “Forget the formalities, call me Alexandra.”
Nodding, Padjan released her hand and moved aside.
“And this,” said Ellen, glancing up at him, “is Mister Corey. Mister Corey, my aunt, Alexandra Landseer.”
Mister Corey was not impolite, but he did not grin or bow to the seated heiress or take her outstretched hand as Padjan had done. “Miss Landseer,” he said and almost imperceptibly nodded.
Within minutes Alexandra and Padjan had their heads together, talking like two old friends. Padjan knew exactly what Alexandra wanted to hear and he wasted no time telling her about his Lost City and its Magic Waters.
Mister Corey said little.
Ellen said even less.
The two of them sat at opposite ends of a long brocade sofa. Ellen, paying close attention to the conversation taking place between Padjan and her aunt, was nevertheless vitally aware of Mister Corey’s strong masculine presence.
Occasionally casting covert glances at him, she wondered what he was thinking. He looked bored. Disinterested. And he looked as if he was bored and disinterested much of the time. He was, she surmised, a man who was experienced and world-weary. She got the impression that he had been everywhere and done everything and that he expected life to hold no further surprises or joys for him.
How, she wondered, had he ended up living in an old tenement building far from his native America? Hawking magic elixirs at street carnivals?
“Just you wait right here!” Padjan was saying as he nimbly rose to his feet and hurried out into the foyer.
In seconds he was back with the green paper bag. Gingerly placing the bag on the footstool before Alexandra, he looked up at her and said, “Here is proof that I am who I say, a member of the Anasazi, the Ancient Ones who the world believes have disappeared.” Dark eyes flashing, he opened the bag, swept it aside and withdrew a beautiful pottery artifact. He placed the artifact on the stool before Alexandra. “This came from the mystical Lost City,” he proudly declared. “You will see nothing like it anywhere else in the world.”
Alexandra sat up straighter in her chair and reached out to touch the exquisite urn. An avid collector of pre-Columbian art, she immediately recognized that the piece predated many within her own collection, that it was authentic and not some modern reproduction.
Her bejeweled hands running admiringly over the precious artifact, she said, “Ellen, perhaps you’d like to retire to your room now. The gentlemen and I have some business to conduct.”
“If you don’t mind, Aunt Alexandra,” Ellen tried to sound casual, “I’m finding this so fascinating that I’d prefer to stay and—”
Alexandra looked up from the relic she was admiring. “I do mind,” she cut Ellen off.
Ellen, mortified, felt Mister Corey’s dark, disapproving gaze touch her. Without meeting his eyes, she was certain they held an expression of mild disdain. He was, she felt sure, silently rebuking her for meekly allowing her aunt to dismiss her as if she were a child.
Well, she didn’t care what he thought. He knew nothing about her relationship with Alexandra or why she allowed the older woman to order her about. She was not surprised that her aunt had insisted she leave. She had expected it.
She was always banished from the room anytime finances were to be discussed.
Alexandra patiently waited until the door was shut and her niece was out of earshot, then said, “Gentlemen, let’s get down to business. I want to hire the two of you to take me to the Magic Waters and—”
Interrupting, Padjan shook his head. “Miss Landseer, there are four in our party. If one goes, we all go.”
Alexandra frowned. “Four? We’ve no need of four people. Can’t you just leave the other two here?”
A deep shade of red appeared beneath Padjan’s smooth copper skin. “Never,” he said and he was no longer smiling. “If you are ever to see the Magic Waters, you will take all four of us.”
“Oh, all right,” said Alexandra. “You will take me to your Magic Waters.”
“I
