by Cindy Dees
“Planning to rob the joint, are you?” I quipped.
She retorted, “I’d love to have some of these pieces in my home, but I can do without the fifteen to twenty years in prison, thank you. No, I only wish to pick up a few statues and compare them to your outline. They all sit on pressure pads, so I had to disable the security system.”
I was glad to let her don cotton gloves and handle the rare pieces as we moved from room to room, comparing various statues to our drawing. She tried a few statues that were around a foot tall, and most of them were noticeably smaller in diameter than my outline. She tried a statue nearly two feet tall next, and it was a little too big.
Cat commented, “I’m beginning to feel like Goldilocks. First too small, then too big. Maybe the next one will be just right.”
She picked up a statue of a monk in long, Franciscan robes. It was about eighteen inches tall. Although the exact outlines didn’t match, the size was just right. And, when Catrina turned him upside down, his robes did indeed form a wavy oval about the same shape as my outline. Catrina put the priest back on his stand. “If your statue is from roughly the same era, that’s about the size I’d guess it is.”
I examined the bald man’s long face and slender form. I couldn’t imagine Elise being so attached to a dour fellow like this. This statue might be the right size, but it definitely wasn’t the right subject matter. That weird, internal vibration I’d developed concurred.
“What do you think the little round thing on my statue is?” I asked Catrina.
“It’s not part of the person. It’s something sitting at your person’s feet. Could be a container of some kind like an urn or pot, or perhaps a pedestal of some kind.”
I nodded. Logical. “Any further ideas on who my statue is?”
Catrina shook her head. “Depending on how old your piece is, portraiture might not have been that well-developed an art form yet. Prior to the Renaissance, wealthy and important people typically had small statues made of themselves instead of paintings.”
She examined the drawing of the outline once more. “The profile of this clothing lies too close to the body to be Elizabethan. By then, women wore wide, round skirts, and men wore hoses and short pants. So, this has to be pre-Elizabethan. Assuming we’ve guessed the size correctly and the way these folds fall, I’d guess we’re looking at a single-layer garment. That rules out most of the Renaissance, when noble women were swathed in multiple layers of cloth as a sign of wealth.”
I let her continue to think aloud without interrupting.
“So that leaves us with a pre-Renaissance figure, or possibly a religious figure, since religious clothing tended to consist of simple robes.”
I interjected, “One thing I do know is this is not a Christian statue. I was told it comes from an old religion, neither Catholic nor Protestant, that survived the Reformation.”
Catrina’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Practically no pagan religions survived that period. In fact, as early as the twelfth century, the wholesale Christianization of Europe was already in full swing.”
She eyed the outline anew. “It could be male or female, although not many pagan religions made human statuary. If our hypothesis is correct that this is an outline of draped fabric, then we’re definitely looking at a human figure. Let me do a little research for you. May I keep this picture of its base?”
“Of course. I’ll make one for myself at home tonight.”
Catrina nodded and we turned to leave the now deserted museum. We stepped into the chamber holding the incredible Dame à la Licorne tapestries. I was just admiring their rich cinnabar hues and intricate milles fleurs decorations when a man burst into the room.
Well, he didn’t actually burst. I nearly did. His presence behind me filled me up, flooding me with sensations I couldn’t even begin to name. And he didn’t actually come into the room. He stopped in the doorway, framed by ancient, hand-hewn stone. He looked as if he would have belonged in that doorway when the blocks were new. There was something primal about him, an aura of recklessness, of seizing life by the throat, that spoke of older times than today’s tame, modern era.
Our gazes jerked to one another simultaneously. Good grief, was I having the same effect on him that he was having on me? I don’t know how long I just stood there and stared at him, but I’m sure it was too long to be polite or even remotely civilized.
He looked like an errant knight who just happened to be wearing a leather motorcycle jacket. Did I mention he was beyond gorgeous? Tanned skin. Intense eyes that were the most remarkable silver-grey. Stormy. Keen. Intelligent. They looked right through me. Dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, not a long one, but extremely sexy. Broad shoulders, lean hips, long legs with just the right amount of muscle beneath those snug black jeans. Taller than me by several inches.
Pick your favorite dark-haired, bedroom-eyed, bad-boy movie star. Now double his sex appeal. No, triple it. Then, put him in a mysterious, mystical room out of time. And then, have him stop in his tracks when he lays eyes on you, have his eyes widen, have him smile just enough to pop a dimple at you, and have him walk right up beside you, look you in the eye, and murmur in a soft Scots brogue…
“You are possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. What are you doing for the rest of your life?”
I stared up at him. He stood far too close to be polite or even remotely civilized. His body heat wrapped around me like silken ropes, drawing me to him in an invisible embrace. My jaw undoubtedly was hanging open wide enough to catch flies. I mean, what’s a girl supposed to say to something like that? It’s not a line I’d ever had directed at me before. And certainly not from a man who exuded so much sexual appeal I could hardly breathe.
It might not be love at first sight, but it was definitely lust at first sight.
“Wow,” I managed to breathe.
He smiled. And my knees about buckled.
Now, for the record, I am not a go-weak-in-the-knees kind of girl. I’d never reacted to anyone this way before. Ever. But there I was, in danger of collapsing into a moaning, writhing heap on the floor.
Thankfully, Catrina intervened tactfully. “I’m sorry, sir. The museum is closed. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
He barely took his eyes off me as he replied, “I’m not here to see the museum. I’m here to see the curator. Catrina Dauvergne.”
“That would be me,” Catrina answered dryly.
Was that a laugh I heard in her voice? Surely she wasn’t missing the absurdly sexual vibes leaping back and forth between this incredible stranger and me.
He shook himself slightly and tore his gaze away from me. And just like that, I felt cold. Bereft. Like the sun had gone behind a cloud. I watched in unreasoning jealously as he turned to Catrina and held his hand out to her. I know Catrina’s deliriously happy with Rhys Pritchard, who came into her life recently. But she got to touch this man before I did, even if it was only to shake his hand. I wanted that hand on my skin!
It was at about that point that I began to think that maybe I was losing my mind. First the ghost in my mirror, then all those vague, inexplicable feelings and now my instant obsession with this man whose name I hadn’t even heard. Wouldn’t you know it, I actually heard laughter in my head then. A lilting, girlish sound. Like something—or someone—alien within me thought this was the funniest thing she’d witnessed in ages.
Catrina took his hand graciously. “And you might be?”
“I’m Robert Fraser.”
Oh, crap. That thought echoed through my head on several levels. First, this was the art thief from England. Catrina hadn’t reset the alarm system yet, and this guy was a crook. An entire museum full of priceless treasures was at his mercy.
Second, this was the art thief from England. And I’d just fallen like a ton of bricks for him.
Third, this was the art thief from England. I worked for Interpol to stop men like him, and…I didn’t give a damn that he was a thief. I wanted him. Th
e only reason I was suddenly contemplating detaining him and searching him had nothing to do with the safety of the museum and everything to do with getting my hands on him. Now.
Fortunately, I was shocked into immobility by his next words to Catrina.
“I saw a bit on the Internet about an exhibition here recently. It featured a number of Black Madonna images. I’m interested in learning more about them.”
Could it be? Was he involved in the theft of Elise’s statue? Why else would an international art thief show up within days of the crime and be asking questions on such a closely related subject? Black Madonnas, huh? From what I recalled, they were old. Not Christian. Religious, and probably wearing simple robes. Nah. Surely it couldn’t be that simple.
Danged if that weird vibration of certainty in my gut didn’t kick up again, though.
I spoke up casually. “Catrina, how about I stay with Mr. Fraser while you lock up?”
She ignored my hint, dammit. Instead, she said, “Come with me, Monsieur Fraser. Several of the pieces from that private exhibit are on public display now. They’re this way.”
Reluctantly, I tagged along behind the two of them, keeping an eagle eye on Fraser for many reasons and trying to figure out if anything was already hidden under that sloppy jacket. There was certainly room to have something squirreled away under there. Who knew how long he’d been in the museum by himself with the alarm system deactivated. Cripes.
Of course, if he were smart, he’d just move some object to a hiding place within the museum, like a restroom or a broom closet, where it was outside the net of security. Then he could come back later at his leisure and pick up his prize. Before I left I’d have to warn Catrina and suggest she do a complete walk-through of the collection to make sure everything was where it belonged.
The idea of an art thief wandering around this place after hours gave me a giant case of the jitters. Yeah, that was it. Jitters. That’s why my stomach leaped and jumped like a gamboling fawn as I watched him saunter alongside Catrina. It had nothing to do with how well he wore a pair of jeans or my craving to get inside those jeans. The faded denim cupped his rear end just right…
…and I was not going to ogle said rear end! I was going to act like a professional!
I tore my gaze away hastily. And it alighted on his broad back. Hmm. That definitely wasn’t padding holding out the broad leather shoulders of his coat. Nope, not gonna look at those, either. My errant gaze went next to his right ear. I stared fixedly at it rather than let my gaze roam an inch.
I tried to reason with myself. He was so not my type. I like stable, upright, dependable guys. The kind who don’t steal art. I never have gone in for dark and dangerous men. I shuddered to think how my uptight German father would’ve reacted had I ever brought home a guy with long hair and a leather jacket. The words tactical nuclear meltdown came to mind. And still, my body—my very soul—hummed with need for this man.
Catrina filled in Fraser on the basics of the Black Madonna cult. It dated back to the early Middle Ages. It was thought to have been based on various, much older goddess cults—some predating Christianity by a lot—that gradually combined over time. The black coloration of their Madonna images had nothing to do with racial origin, but rather the blending of all colors to form black. And the Madonna herself was purely a mother image in their belief system and not a Christian reference at all.
Catrina explained how some scholars speculated that, in fact, the Virgin Mary image was lifted from the Black Madonna cult as a way of incorporating the pagan imagery into Christianity. It was a common practice in the medieval Christian church to assimilate the pagan beliefs they couldn’t eradicate.
I listened avidly as Catrina outlined some of the stories and rumors about biblical women fleeing after the crucifixion of Jesus to southern Europe and bringing their goddess beliefs with them. She ended by saying they were mostly legends, though. That brought to my mind Elise’s comment about each person having to determine the truth of legends for themselves. Were these particular legends true? Yup, I had another one of those vague feelings just then. Except it wasn’t the least bit vague, and it was more of a certainty than a feeling. And it believed without a doubt that the stories were true.
I forced myself to tune back in to Catrina’s minilecture. She was talking about how, by the Middle Ages, the Black Madonna cult centered itself in southern France, mainly in today’s Languedoc region. The cult had left no written histories behind. At least none had ever been found. I was intrigued when Catrina commented as an aside that, just because there was no written record of a thing, that didn’t make it untrue. So, she believed the stories about the Black Madonnas of Languedoc, too? Interesting.
The two of them stopped, and I almost ran into Robert’s back, so busy was I avoiding looking at him.
“This is a typical Black Madonna image,” Catrina was saying.
I looked at the statue. Ah, yes. I’d catalogued it last month. It came from the basement of a home Catrina had purchased not long ago. There’d been a provenance question of whether or not the artwork cached in the basement had been sold along with the house itself. That’s how Catrina and I met, in fact. She’d called me to inquire after the legalities of it all. She’d wanted to make sure she definitely owned it free and clear before she displayed it at the Cluny.
The statue was made of a black, softly glossy substance that I knew from my previous examination of it to be highly polished ebony. The female figure was unnaturally slender, carrying an elongated baby that frankly, looked like a little old man. The piece was nearly four feet tall, an extravagant size for the medieval period, during which the Crusades emptied the coffers of most people in Europe who might have commissioned it. The statue was roughly the size of an altar piece for a small, private chapel.
At a glance, most people would probably confuse this for a statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. But the sword slung over the woman’s shoulder was probably the biggest giveaway that this mother was different. Also, there were no halos adorning mother or child, which was the norm on Christian pieces.
My attention was snagged by Robert’s’s reaction to this piece. His eyes blazed and his body went rigid for a moment when he saw the lady. “Do you have any catalogues with more of these Black Madonnas in it?” he asked with thinly veiled eagerness.
My eyes narrowed. What was he up to? Suspicion rumbled in my gut, completely driving out for a moment the overwhelming attraction I felt for him. And in that second, I declared my reaction to him temporary insanity. A passing feeling.
The alien in my brain snorted in disbelief in the back of my head.
He paused in a doorway to let Catrina precede him, then looked back and put an arm out for me to go ahead. As I glided by him, my feet barely touched the floor. I held my breath, almost giddy with awareness of him. And then his hand touched the small of my back. Just a brush of his fingertips across my spine, but it robbed me of thought, of speech, of breath.
And my moment of sanity passed.
I concentrated with all my might on having only rational, logical thoughts and pointedly ignored the tug of need pulling me toward Robert. But it was hard, let me tell you. Catrina seemed prepared to take this guy upstairs and settle down in her office for a long talk, but my sane, professional self was having none of it. This guy was leaving the Cluny before me, or that wasn’t an Interpol badge in my purse.
I tried to be subtle, but finally I had to come right out and say, “Catrina, it isn’t good security procedure to leave the museum open like this after hours. You need to close up shop for the night, and the two of you can take your conversation elsewhere.”
Catrina stared at me, shocked by my bluntness. A question shone in her gaze, something along the lines of, “Have you lost your mind?” But for some reason she bit her tongue and didn’t voice it aloud. Thank goodness.
I ushered the two of them firmly out of the building. A shroud of night had fallen over the abbey, and its dark alcoves and stone
walls seemed even more alive than ever. I could swear I heard horses’hooves clattering over the cobblestones as a tardy traveler arrived at the hostel, racing to beat the closing of the portcullis and the posting of the guards for the night. A line of monks paced across my mind’s eye, their deep hoods drawn up over their heads, the leader of the procession swinging an incense burner, the deep, dark, male tones of a prayer chant echoing off the stone walls.
I blinked, and the image was gone. It was just a museum again. In downtown Paris. On a Monday evening. Cars whizzed past outside, and the air smelled of diesel fumes. Firmly planted in my own century once more, I followed Robert and Catrina from the museum. One of the night guards let us out and relocked the grate behind us. I turned quickly, bumping squarely into Fraser.
I did it intentionally, of course. Not because I was that desperate for sex—although in retrospect, maybe I was—but because I wanted to know if he had anything under his coat. He reached out quickly to steady me, his hands gripping my shoulders with easy strength. Damned if that wasn’t knowing amusement glinting in his eyes. Unaccountably irritated at the idea that he might know exactly what I’d just done, I nodded shortly and stepped out from under his mesmerizing touch.
When I got home, I was going to make a call to the Paris police and suggest they keep a very close eye on one Robert Fraser. And then I was going to imagine him joining me in my lonely bed.
The unseasonably warm evening convinced me to walk home. That, and I do some of my best thinking when I’m walking. It took me a number of blocks to walk off my reaction to Robert and settle down to wondering exactly what he was up to. I made a mental note to warn Catrina about him tomorrow.
I turned west along the Seine. At night it was an enchanted ribbon of black, reflecting the twinkling city lights. A river barge full of tourists passed by, a party of some kind in progress aboard it. The street around me was dark and deserted by comparison. By day this area teemed with artists and pedestrians. But abruptly, I was aware of the deep shadows of the long line of linden trees following the bank of the Seine, the silence of the shopping district around me, closed down for the night. There weren’t even any cars passing through here.