He would probably have kept up the small talk for a good long while — she didn’t seem to be going anywhere — but then he heard a voice calling his name.
“Matthias!”
Matthias turned to see Donald bearing down on them. Donald, short, round, and slightly bald, had probably brought Marigold with him but Marigold was nowhere in evidence, fortunately. Off somewhere conniving with the Junior Leaguers, he supposed.
“Donald,” Matthias said, shaking hands. “This is Natalie Johnson. Natalie, this is my law partner, Donald Burke.”
“Charmed,” Donald said, and Natalie’s smile widened and she said, “Thank you. I’m pleased to meet you, too.”
“Have you been in the auction room yet?” Donald said. “I swear they’ve got a chamber pot in there like my grandma used to have. Passing it off as an ancient Greek urn.”
Natalie laughed. “I’m trying to imagine what Anita would say if you told her that.”
Matthias remembered the curator from her visit to his house and how she had carefully evaluated his Yuan dynasty plate before taking possession of it. He could just imagine what she’d say if Donald accused her of passing off a chamber pot as an ancient Greek urn.
“Betcha every museum in this country has a room full of fakes they’d like to disown,” Donald expounded, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, “that their experts were sure were genuine, until some sort of testing or another told them otherwise.”
“I’m sure they do,” Natalie said and turned to Matthias, effortlessly including him in the conversation. “Can you imagine what it must be like trying to stay ahead of the forgers? Everyone wants to acquire great pieces for their collection. I wonder how often they buy something they suspect is fake because they want so badly for it to be real?”
• • •
Natalie sipped her champagne and looked at Matthias. He was wearing a tux, just like in the movies, and he looked devastatingly handsome in it. He wore it with ease. For a moment she tried to picture Joe in a tux and that made her smile.
But Matthias wasn’t just attractive. He seemed like a really nice guy, too, though he had an apparently unquenchable thirst for small talk. But he was calm, and she was very partial to calm people. Probably because she’d grown up in a house full of people who never let an emotion go unexpressed. Much as she adored Brianna, she was as dramatic and emotive as the rest of them.
He was a little older than she was but he treated her as if they were the same age, which she appreciated. He gave her the sense of being reliable. If she needed another glass of champagne, he would get it for her. If she needed dinner, or a handkerchief, or a shoulder to cry on, he would provide it. If she needed her tire changed, he would get it done. Not, probably, by doing it himself, she thought, eyeing his immaculate tuxedo and carefully tended hands. But he would make sure it got done. A man you could lean into when you needed.
All of that put together made her think it was okay that she was wondering what it would be like if he kissed her.
“I think a lot of people talk themselves into buying the fake because they want it to be real,” Matthias was saying. “Not just museum curators.”
She liked him. She liked that he could talk like that and not just the small talk that he seemed so very fond of.
“Oh, look, there’s old Cassadine, I better go pay my respects. I’m going to be in his courtroom next week,” Donald said and headed in the direction of a distinguished-looking gentleman of elderly vintage. “Nice to meet you, Natalie!” he called over his shoulder, and she waved back at him in acknowledgment.
A moment later, she heard the sound of a violin and then a group of musicians began to play.
“Oh, there’s the dancing,” she said, remembering how Brianna had gone nearly insane trying to find exactly the right musicians for the gala, her favorite local group having split up after a nasty divorce between the cellist and the violinist.
Matthias picked up the cue and said, “Would you like to dance?” Not like a college boy who didn’t know how to dance — Joe probably would have changed the subject instead of exposing himself to possible embarrassment on the dance floor. Well, Joe wouldn’t have been here in the first place.
“I’d love to,” she said, and he set their glasses down and took her hand and led her to the area of the gallery set aside for dancing.
He didn’t move awkwardly, shuffling his feet like it was a torture to be gotten through, but moved confidently and competently, leading her through a simple waltz, and when it was obvious they both knew what they were doing, he smiled down at her and took her through a more complicated foxtrot.
She was vaguely aware that there were other dancers nearby but she didn’t pay any attention to them. There was just Matthias, and the warmth of his hand in hers, the spicy smell of his cologne, and his dark eyes riveted on her face.
When the song ended, she was breathing a little harder than usual, and he said, “Would you like to step outside for a few minutes? They always decorate the courtyard beautifully for this affair. Unless you’ll be too cold?”
“That would be wonderful,” she said. A little thrill went through her when Matthias put a hand on her back as they walked toward the double-doors that let out into the enclosed courtyard. He lifted two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and handed one to her, then pushed open the door.
The fairy lights were aglow, and music drifted out from the main gallery after them. It was cooler outside but not cold. A moment later Matthias had taken off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It was warm from his body and smelled good like him. She couldn’t help snuggling into it.
By unspoken agreement, they moved away from the doors, toward a corner of the courtyard where two stone benches faced each other. She sat down and discreetly scooted her shoe off her left foot — she was developing a blister. A small price to pay for getting to go to the ball.
“You’re a wonderful dancer,” she said, sipping champagne and hoping her heart would calm down. Or maybe not.
“My mother forced me to take ballroom dance lessons for years,” he said. “I was a very unwilling student. Although now I owe a debt of gratitude to her.”
“I used to watch Dancing with the Stars,” she admitted. “I thought it would be so much fun to learn.”
“I don’t even know what Dancing with the Stars is,” he said, the first thing he’d said that made her think about how different they were. He was probably a very wealthy patron of the arts, and she was a broke college kid from a poor family. She and Brianna had first seen the show when she was in the hospital. When you get out, Nat, you’re going to take lessons so you can dance just like that. Just like that. When you get out, Nat.
But she didn’t want to think about those days. It was nice to be with someone who didn’t know, who had no idea, who just thought she was a young woman whose company he enjoyed. She was so tired of people hovering, and watching, and worrying. He wasn’t worried about her at all.
So far, the ball had been everything she had hoped it would be. Champagne, music, dancing, a handsome man sitting with her in the courtyard. She tilted her head back to look up at the sky.
“What do you see?” Matthias asked.
“It’s what I don’t see,” Natalie said. “I promised myself there would be dancing under the stars.”
“It’s too bright out here for that,” he said. He got to his feet, set his champagne on the bench, took her glass and did the same with it, then took her hand and helped her to her feet. “But I know the spot.”
He led her out a gate in the courtyard, out into the grounds proper. She clung to his hand as he led her over the lawn, away from the lights of the courtyard, and from the museum itself.
“Here,” he said, coming to a halt. He was a shadow in the darkness and when she looked up, the stars glittered in the midnight velvet sky, icy in their perfection.
“And now we just need the dancing,” he said, and gently took her into
his arms. This time, he led her in a waltz to music that only they two could hear, but the music got slower and slower until for a moment they were simply swaying under the stars. And then they stopped even that, and Matthias said, “Natalie,” and leaned down and kissed her.
The most beautiful, perfect, heartbreaking kiss of her life.
• • •
Brianna had no idea where Natalie had disappeared to. She’d been dealing with one drama after another all night — the burned-out light in the fountain and missing vegan hors d’oeuvres were just the preliminaries in an onslaught of details that needed to be attended to — and here it was almost ten, and she was just now having a moment to sip some coffee and eat an asparagus spear.
She had taken a moment to scan the crowd in the main gallery but didn’t spot her sister. She hoped Natalie hadn’t gotten bored to death and gone home. Brianna would have to check her phone to see if she’d texted a message.
She saw Mrs. Curtin gesturing frantically at her, so she gulped the rest of the asparagus — which gaucherie Mrs. Curtin would almost certainly remark on — and went to see what the old dragon wanted.
“Yo,” she said, too tired to work up a more polite inquiry.
“I’m about to introduce all the donors for the silent auction,” Mrs. Curtin said. “But I can’t find Mr. Gustafson.”
“I haven’t seen him all night,” Brianna said.
“He’s here,” Mrs. Curtin said. “Somewhere. I saw him earlier.”
“I’ll go hunt him down,” Brianna said.
She checked out the East Gallery and then the smaller ones that radiated from the main gallery. She spooked a couple groping in a corner, but she couldn’t seem to scare up Mr. G. Still, if she showed up empty-handed, Mrs. Curtin would just make her keep looking, so she might as well cut out the middle man and keep looking. She stepped out into the courtyard but no one was out there.
Mrs. Curtin gave her an inquisitive look when she came back in but she shook her head. She spotted Donald Burke, whom she knew was Mr. G’s partner in his law office. She buttonholed him. “You mind checking the bathroom?”
“I’m on it,” he said, but a moment later he returned, shaking his head, too.
Across the room, Mrs. Curtin’s lips were a thin unhappy line in her face. Brianna supposed she had to go report.
“I’ve looked everywhere,” she said, enumerating the places where she’d been. “And Mr. Burke checked the men’s facilities for me.”
“Where could he be?” Mrs. Curtin looked extremely vexed.
“He might have gone home,” Brianna said.
“He knew I was going to introduce the donors before the silent auction ends at midnight.”
“He’s not that interested in, you know, acclaim.”
“It’s not acclaim, dear,” Mrs. Curtin said. “It’s recognition, and everyone wants it.”
Duly corrected, Brianna said, “Sure. Do you want me to call his house?”
Mrs. Curtin sighed. “I suppose you may as well.”
Brianna went down to her office, dug her cell phone out of her handbag, which she’d stashed in her desk earlier, checked for a message from Natalie (there was none) and then dialed Mr. G’s house from her desk phone. There was no answer. Beverly must have gone home for the day. And either he wasn’t there or he was ignoring the phone. She knew from having borrowed it that he had a cell, but she didn’t have that number memorized, so she had to boot up the computer, and look up his file, and by the time she’d found it, Mr. Burke was sticking his head in the door and saying, “Mrs. Curtin sent me to tell you he’s been found.”
“Where the heck was he?”
“Canoodling with someone on the grounds, I suspect.”
The idea of Mr. G canoodling with someone on the grounds made her smile. He was much too proper for that.
She dropped her cell phone back into her bag, dropped her bag in her desk drawer, and walked out of the office back to the main gallery. She saw Mr. G talking to Mrs. Curtin, and waved in his direction.
“Ms. Daniels?” It was one of the valets. Which meant, uh oh, someone had gotten a ding. Brianna sighed and went to see what she could do.
• • •
She had been so lovely and ethereal in the garden, a sylph in the darkness, glowing, a north star, maybe his north star. He had gathered her into his arms, and it had felt so right and perfect that he’d felt lightheaded, and then he did something unexpected; he had kissed her in a public place. Just leaned down and kissed her because he wanted to and he suspected she wanted him to. And she had … and it had been sweet and giving and perfect.
And then the kiss had ended, and she had taken his hand and brought him back to the courtyard, which was right, because the way to end a magic moment was not to try to sustain it for too long but to accept it for the gift it was.
And then he’d come in for more champagne and Mrs. Curtin had accosted him and he was amused to find that he had been missed, and search parties sent. I was kissing a girl in the garden, he wanted to say, but that was so unlike him no one would believe it.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I have to have a word with someone; I’ll join you in the East Gallery in just a moment.”
Mrs. Curtin did not seem inclined to let him out of her sight, but he insisted, and took a glass of champagne out to Natalie.
“There’s a thing I have to do,” he said. “Mrs. Curtin just cornered me. Did you want to come in or — ?”
She hesitated and said, “I think I’ll sit out here for a few minutes. I had a wonderful time, Matthias.”
And that was right, too, not to force their connection to last the whole night. An interlude, that was what this was. So he should just say good night and leave. But he couldn’t quite do that, so he leaned down and kissed her once more, for luck.
• • •
Brianna watched Mrs. Curtin do her thing in the East Gallery, and clapped heartily when Mr. G was introduced along with his Yuan dynasty plate. She wondered if anyone else knew he’d replaced it with the Maltese Falcon. Almost certainly not.
When the little ceremony was over and Brianna slipped back into the main gallery, she saw Natalie coming in from the courtyard, looking beautiful and glowing and … and like she had been kissing someone.
Brianna grinned. Who on earth … ? There were, like, three eligible men in this crowd, and they were all seventy. Maybe Natalie had been kissing a seventy-year-old. Or maybe one of the valets, which would explain why he’d been distracted enough to create a ding in a $200,000 car.
“Having fun?” she said.
Natalie’s eyes were shining. “It’s everything I thought it would be.”
“I’m so glad,” she said. “I’ve got maybe another hour here and then we can sneak out. You gonna be okay?”
“I’m going to be fine.”
• • •
“Thinking about replacing the Yuan dynasty plate with something else?” Donald asked.
Matthias realized he was staring at what was almost certainly Donald’s grandma’s chamber pot masquerading as a Greek urn. He shook his head. “No, I’ve already replaced the plate.”
“Yeah? I’ll have to stop by and admire.”
That made Matthias laugh. “I’m not sure you’ll admire. How about you? Is Marigold coveting the Romanov tiara?”
“Oh Christ, don’t tell me there’s jewelry. You know all I’ll hear is, ‘But it’s for a good cause’ when really she just likes things that sparkle.”
Matthias thought of Natalie in the courtyard under the fairy lights, her skin bare; no rings, no bracelets, no necklaces, just some discreet pearls in her ears. For a moment he was seized with the wild desire to adorn her, to give her something glittering, to draw people’s eyes. But their eyes were drawn to her anyway; she did not need jewelry to attract attention.
Donald seemed to read his mind because he said, “Who’s the girl?”
Matthias shrugged. “Natalie Johnson. Mrs. Curtin introduced us. Don’t kno
w that much about her except she’s a senior in college.”
“Not doing a lot of talking?” Donald said with a knowing nudge, even though Matthias wasn’t the kind of man who went around making out with women he barely knew. Although that was exactly what he’d done, kissing Natalie in the starlight.
“We danced,” he said.
“Ah, that’s what the kids call it these days?” Donald said and Matthias laughed.
“You really are a pig.”
“Oink, oink,” Donald said. “Oh, there’s Brianna, do you think she can get the waiters to cut Marigold off? Because if she has any more champagne, she’s going to say the hell with restraint and I’ll be the proud possessor of a Romanov tiara.”
• • •
“Good time?” Brianna asked. She turned the heater up full blast because the night had gotten quite crisp, but the little Ford barely spat out a puff of warm air. Someday, when her ship came in …
Natalie had been staring out the passenger side window, her head leaning against the headrest. Now she turned to look at Brianna. “The best,” she said. “You are the best sister ever.”
“Well, we’ve known that all along,” Brianna said. “Although I think you may have had a little too much champagne.”
“Maybe. I feel a little lightheaded.”
“Kissing boys’ll do that,” Brianna said, and Natalie shook her head and said, “How you know these things, I’ll never figure out.”
“Nice guy?”
“Really nice.”
“Glad.”
“Me, too.”
A few minutes later Brianna pulled the Ford into the driveway. She’d left the porch light on, but you couldn’t see the peeling paint in the darkness.
Home.
And huddled on the front step, the devil who had come to spoil it all.
• • •
“I need to start carrying Mace.”
Richard could hear Brianna’s voice carry down the sidewalk, which he guessed he was fully supposed to do.
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