The Perfect Gift

by Christina Skye

  He swore softly as he watched traffic snarl toward Great Russell Street. Perhaps she was right. Emotion had never been his strong suit. Nor had trust.

  He halted beneath the front portico, where a side corridor gave him a clear view of the doorway to the museum offices. Maggie would have to use that door to leave.

  Jared glanced at his watch. The museum closed in an hour. That would give him just enough time to check any new information.

  When Maggie came out, he would be waiting.

  She felt him even before she saw him. He was standing just beyond the museum’s front steps, a tall column of shadow against the gathering twilight.

  She didn’t slow her steps or turn her head as she passed. “Go away.”

  He moved out of the gloom, slipping into pace beside her. “You aren’t going to ask me about the photograph?”

  “Obviously, a fake. That’s easy enough to manage in this day and age with digital equipment.”

  “You’re very certain about things, aren’t you?”

  “Listen, Mr.—”

  “Jared.”

  “MacNeill,” she finished coldly. “Let’s get one thing clear. You know nothing about me, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  “Why does talking about your father frighten you?”

  Maggie managed to keep her voice steady. “Forget the cheap psychology. It’s not going to work any more than your questions. If Nicholas Draycott wants to talk to me about the exhibition, fine. All he has to do is call. But pressure won’t make me arrive at a decision any faster, I assure you. Meanwhile, this conversation is closed.”

  “He says you’re good, Maggie. He doesn’t want you to lose this chance.” Jared gave her an assessing glance. “But maybe you’re afraid of succeeding. Maybe you’re looking for an excuse to bow out before things get rough.”

  “Things have been rough before. It took years of gashed fingers and burned skin to learn what I do. Now I worry about real things that I can taste and touch, not about fantasies in an old house with too many shadows. Not about grainy photographs which are probably fakes.”

  “If that man is your father, why didn’t he appear before now?”

  “My father is dead.”

  “Ask yourself this, Maggie. Was he afraid of something? If so, you might be in a great deal of danger yourself.” His hand closed over her shoulder as she tried to push past him. “There are a dozen more pictures where that one came from. Are you afraid of seeing them, too?”

  “I’m not afraid of solid evidence. You have yet to show me anything close. Now unless you move out of my way, I’m going to call to that nice policeman who’s sauntering toward us and tell him you’re harassing me.”

  “There’s no law against talking to a beautiful woman on a lovely night.”

  “Accosting. Stalking. That won’t sound good in court.” Maggie turned as the policeman drew within earshot. “Excuse me, Officer, but I’m looking for Picadilly Circus. Can you give me directions?”

  “Certainly, miss. But you’re ’eaded dead wrong. What you want is to be ’eaded north, then make a sharp right just beyond the park. Watch for the Santa and reindeer. They’re plenty hard to miss.”

  As Maggie listened, she covertly checked the spot where Jared MacNeill had stood.

  Empty. Apparently, the threat had worked.

  And what if what he told her was true? What if her father was in some kind of danger?

  Christmas tree lights flashed in the distance, and the smoke of roasting chestnuts drifted through the air. Maggie pulled up her collar against the wind and took a deep breath. If her father was alive, he would contact her. She refused to believe that anything could sever the blood ties and affection of a lifetime.

  But as she crossed Jermyn Street and headed north, Maggie couldn’t shake a sense of uneasiness.

  Nor could she shake the lingering impression that someone was watching her.

  TWO CHINESE STONE LIONS STILL GUARDED THE SMALL town house attached to the shop of Anders von Leiden. Maggie paused at the foot of the steep steps. Had it actually been ten years since she had stood here?

  She should have come to visit sooner, but there had been too many easy excuses to avoid seeing a man who could evoke so many bittersweet memories of her father. He had been her father’s best friend, one of the few professionals who had Daniel Kincade’s unqualified respect. When Maggie had finally written, there had been no answer.

  If what Jared had told her was true, Anders would have some clue. There was no one her father would have contacted sooner.

  She rang the front buzzer framed by a pair of coiling brass serpents. The sound echoed hollowly, but there were no footsteps.

  Maybe her father’s friend had moved. Or maybe he was gone, too. Ten years might have taken their toll on the craggy-faced Dutchman. Maggie rang again, and once more there was no answer.

  She turned, her eyes bleak as she made her way back to the street.

  Then the small barred window was thrown open. “We are closed for the night. We will open tomorrow at ten. You will please to come back at that hour.”

  Maggie recognized the gruff voice. She spun around to smile at the man in the worn satin smoking jacket. “You would turn away the daughter of an old friend, Anders?”

  The old man went very still behind the ornate metal bars. “What friend is this?”

  “The man who forged the brass lantern by your door. The man who taught you to facet your first ruby.”

  His voice caught audibly. “Margaret?”

  Time seemed to freeze, heavy with tension and memories. She heard the sound of locks being thrown.

  “Maggie, is that you?”

  He descended awkwardly, arms outstretched. He seemed very pale and far older than she had remembered, but that might have been the effect of the full beard he now sported. “Is this possible? Little Maggie Kincade, all grown up?”

  His arms engulfed her. He locked her tight, rich with the smell of pipe smoke and oranges. His quilted silk jacket was smooth and cool beneath her cheek, just as her father’s had once been.

  Maggie blinked back tears, caught in a wave of bittersweet memories.

  “In the flesh.” She pulled away to study his face. “Mostly grown up, anyway. Depending on who you ask.”

  Shadows veiled his hollow cheeks, and he seemed to have trouble speaking. “Very grown up. Taller than I am now. But there is regret in those lovely eyes. Pain, too, I think.” He cleared his throat brusquely. “Too much emotion for an old man. So now you turn up on my doorstep without a single word.”

  “I meant to phone. Somehow the calls never got made.”

  “As stubborn as your father, I see this. Kincade to the toes, you are.”

  She gave a crooked smile. “I can always leave if you want me to.”

  “And let you out of my clutches? Unthinkable. You must come in at once.” Cane in hand, he guided her awkwardly up the enclosed staircase and through a door to his private flat. “My Annie would love to see how you have grown. She always said you would stand fine and tall.”

  “Is she here?”

  “Alas, no. Annie is gone from me these six years.”

  “I’m so sorry, Anders. I didn’t know.”

  “It was better, no? Her heart gave up before my Annie did, but she was tired.” He flipped on a light, and an amber glow lit walls filled with books.

  He straightened his shoulders. “Enough of this gloomy talk. Tonight we celebrate, no? You will take some very fine sherry.” The warmth seemed to surround her, infectious as his mood. For a moment it almost seemed to Maggie that she had come home after months of wandering. “And now you will tell me everything.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “You do not come with a man? If so, I will certainly toss him from the roof of St. Paul’s.”

  Maggie laughed tightly. “Not a man.”

  “It is good. You must save your fire for work, Maggie. You have the hands of an angel, you know. Just like your father. Maybe you are even better
than the Daniel I knew,” he said gravely. “Now you will drink my sherry and we will talk.”

  Maggie looked back as he closed the door behind her.

  Outside rain drummed at the pavement, and it might only have been her imagination that something moved in the shadows across the street.

  The Dutchman’s house hadn’t changed a bit since Maggie’s last visit. Bookcases still lined the walls, and fine medieval tapestries still glowed above the stone fireplace. There was a cozy, lived-in sense about the small room. The tiny lights strung along the stone mantel gave a hint of cheer to a tree made of sculpted malachite.

  “So, you come to London for the exhibition at Draycott Abbey.”

  “How did you know that?”

  The old man slapped his big hands together. “Me? I know any news about jewels and about you, Ms. Margaret Kincade. I make it my business, no? Lord Draycott is a man well respected.” He nodded briskly. “Very proud you make me.”

  “Don’t be.” Maggie frowned at her sherry. “I might have to bow out.”

  “Why is this?” He paced anxiously. “You are chosen, yet you can tell him no?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “None that have sense, I think.”

  “I need time to think things through, Uncle Anders.”

  He sank slowly into the faded chair before the fire. “Is good to hear that old name. I remember the last time you come here, all knees and pigtails. You love my Celtic silver, remember?”

  Maggie thought of that magic month she had spent with her father in London, poking through hoards of uncut gem-stones. They had argued endlessly about proper faceting styles and new polishing materials. The visit had sealed her fate, for she could think of no other life but jewelry design after that. “I remember. I still like Celtic silver, too, though I’m doing my own designs now.”

  “Show me,” the old man commanded.

  “They’re…more modern. Uncle Anders. My own style. You probably won’t care for them.”

  “Leave an old man to make his own decisions, please.”

  Maggie pulled a small leather case from her handbag and set it on the cherry table before the fire, suddenly uncertain. Her father had died when she was just starting to experiment with free-form work and mixed metal inlays. In a way, showing these things to Anders was almost as difficult as braving her father’s hypercritical eye.

  “So this is your best?”

  Maggie nodded tensely, waiting for his reaction.

  He sat forward, studying the complex silver inlays arrayed on black velvet.

  With careful fingers, he raised a brooch containing five pieces of polished turquoise. “Chinese turquoise. African, too, I think. And this one is from your Albuquerque, no? The Kingman mine, it is called?”

  Maggie nodded. “I wanted to show the variety in the stone colors—how different hues could still work together.”

  “Most interesting.” He pulled a jeweler’s loupe from his pocket and studied the stones. “It is your polishing, too?”

  “Everything.”

  “Hmmmm. Chip solder. You have much patience to position your pieces. Not so many work stones this way now.”

  Maggie held her breath, once again an awkward girl of fifteen on fire with her first taste of traditional craftsmanship. She could almost feel the ghosts of frowning goldsmiths in the room with her.

  Finally the Dutchman sat back. “Is good,” he said at last. “Nice technique and a most unusual sense of line. It is European but with just enough of your brash American flair.”

  Before he could say more, metal crashed loudly in the street, followed by the crack of gravel striking the front windows.

  “What was that?”

  He shrugged. “Just the young animals who look for fun. Nothing else they have to do at night.” He shook his head. “After a while, I learn not to hear them.”

  “Have they bothered you, Uncle Anders? If so, you must call the police.”

  “There is no need, my Maggie. They make noise but nothing more. I can still use my fists well.” His eyes hardened behind his thick glasses. “And I have a weapon in a drawer if I should need it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, please. Tell me instead about this way you layer your metals. It is most intriguing.”

  Rain tapped at the windows as one topic led to another and the hours passed in laughter and noisy argument. When Maggie looked up, she was shocked to see it was well past midnight. “I shouldn’t have stayed so long. You must be exhausted.”

  “Nonsense. Seeing you is a pleasure not to be denied an old man.”

  She hid a yawn. “Really, I should go.”

  “Very well, but I drive you. And first, I show you something.” Cane in hand, he moved to his desk and searched through small boxes tied with plain white string. Finally he dug out a small velvet bag and spilled a dozen colored gems onto the table before Maggie.

  They glinted fiercely, an icy rainbow of color.

  Silently she studied the bright, faceted stones.

  “Well?”

  It was a test, she realized. Ruby, emerald, and luminous tanzanite. Pretty, valuable, but in no way unique. What did the shrewd old dealer expect her to see?

  She drew out her loupe above the ruby. “No inclusions. Very bright. In fact—” She stopped, looked twice to be sure of the pattern she had just noticed. “Is this some new kind of faceting?”

  The Dutchman’s face was unreadable. “You tell me.”

  Maggie turned the stone. “Something’s wrong here. The crown has been cut through and there are tiny fractures on two sides.” She dropped the loupe into her hand, suddenly angry. “An insult to good stones. Who would do this?”

  “Someone with plenty more where those come from,” the old man said softly. His fingers closed on the velvet bag.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “All are this way, fractured and marred. And yet they are worth a nice amount if perfect. Odd, no?”

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Here and there, from different people at different times, for this world of ours is a small one, my Maggie. If a good stone is cut in Sydney, we hear of it in London. If a fine Siberian diamond is shattered in Hong Kong, we hear of that, too. But this—” He took an angry breath. “This clumsiness is without excuse. One does not cut without skill.” He picked up the single emerald, frowning. “But I ask myself if there is a thread.”

  “What kind of thread?” Maggie sat forward tensely.

  “Your father is working on something when he disappears. He calls me in Amsterdam, you see. Very excited, almost like a boy, he tells me I am to prepare for champagne and a night at the Ritz, all to be his gift. And then the next week…” His hand shook as it closed over the brilliant stone. “The next week he is gone.”

  “And you think there could be some connection?”

  The old man shrugged. “One wonders, that is all. He tells you nothing about this project?”

  Maggie frowned, trying to remember. Her father had always had some new scheme in his head. Work was his greatest pleasure, and he had dedicated himself to it completely. Some might even say obsessively. Because Maggie shared his passion, she had never resented the hours of distracted silence and meticulous tinkering.

  “He seemed excited about something. I remember we were to meet in New York the next month and he hinted that I would be surprised. But there was nothing specific. You know how secretive he could be.”

  Anders laughed dryly. “Always a man with his secrets. And no one else asks you about this?”

  “No.”

  “Ah well, then it is of no matter.” He swept the stones back into their bag, then pulled a flat leather case from the same drawer. “This one is for you, my Maggie.” Inside glittered a ring set with three exquisite colored diamonds. “It was your mother’s. Daniel asked me to reset the stones in platinum. He tells me it is a gift for you. But I could not find you to send it. Now, you are here and grown and it should be yours.�
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  Tears blurred Maggie’s vision as she stared at the facets of pink, palest blue, and faint green. For her?

  The stones warmed between her fingers, almost as if her father’s touch still lingered, and she held her breath at the sharp sense of his presence. His gift. So he hadn’t forgotten her. And he had meant to come back.

  A car horn blared, and the moment was shattered.

  “Enough of this sad reminiscing.” Anders cleared his throat loudly. “Finish your sherry, then I take you to your hotel. But you will be careful with this ring, no? Very valuable. Better you show it to no one.”

  Maggie slid her father’s ring into her handbag, then moved to the window. Streaks of rain glittered against the night like the tracks of shattered diamonds. She shivered, unable to delay her next question any longer. This was the one man who might be able to give her answers.

  “What if we’re all wrong? What if—” She swallowed hard. “What if my father is alive?”

  The Dutchman tapped to her side. “What question is this?”

  “The question of someone who’s had too little sleep. Maybe someone who’s just a little scared.” Outside, blurred against the driving rain, a traffic light changed from green to blood-red.

  “Someone is telling you this? Someone makes you believe Daniel is still alive?”

  Maggie heard the anger and disbelief in his voice. “No, not that. It was just a wild thought that came to me.”

  He cupped her chin carefully. “You are certain of this, my Maggie? No friend can say such a thing. Do not listen to those who are not friends.”

  “I know,” she said wearily. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  “Come.” He replaced his satin jacket with a warm wool blazer, then searched about for a pair of glasses. “Now I drive and I tell you how first I meet your father. You know this?”

  She shook her head.

  “It is a rainy night almost forty years ago.”

  “He told me you met in Morocco.”

  “He lies as usual. No, it is Paris. Most definitely Paris. The rain comes down in sheets and I see your father by the Seine. He is standing on the bank at midnight, an empty bottle of Veuve Cliquot at his shivering feet.” The old man chuckled. “And he is stark naked, you understand.”