by Nora Roberts
Chuckling, she took the figure of the man and woman into her palm. “But they look so pleased with themselves, trapped forever in that moment of anticipation. It’s hard to imagine some stoic samurai with something like this dangling from his obi.”
Finley merely smiled. “And yet that’s precisely how I like to imagine it. Worn by a warlord, into bed and into battle. One of the Tokugawa family, perhaps. I enjoy giving a history to each of my possessions.” He replaced the figure. “Shall I give you the tour before dinner?”
“Yes, please.” Agreeably, she slipped a hand through his arm.
He was knowledgeable, erudite and entertaining, Dora thought. Why, before an hour was up, she was violently uncomfortable she couldn’t have said.
He took a greedy delight in all that he’d acquired, yet she understood greed. He was unfailingly correct in his manner toward her, yet she felt increasingly as though she were being subtly violated. It took all of her skill and control to play out her prescribed role as they moved from room to room. By the time they were nearly finished, she’d begun to understand that one could have too much of even the beautiful and precious.
“This is the pin I mentioned earlier.” Excited by the fact that he was showing her each and every one of the smuggled items, Finley offered her the sapphire brooch. “The stone is, of course, magnificent, but the workmanship of the setting, and again, the history, add intrigue.”
“It’s beautiful.” It was, the gleaming blue eye winking up at her from its bed of delicate gold filigree and fiery diamonds, both beautiful and tragic. Tragic, she realized, because it would be forever behind glass, never again to grace a woman’s silks or make her smile when she adorned herself with it.
Perhaps that was the difference between them. She passed her treasures on, gave them a new life. Finley locked his away.
“It was said to belong to a queen,” Finley told her, waiting, watching her face for a sign of recognition. “Mary, Queen of Scots. I often wonder if she wore it when she was arrested for treason.”
“I’d rather think of her wearing it when she was riding across the moors.”
“And this.” He chose the etui. “This belonged to another queen with a sad fate. Napoleon gave it to Josephine. Before he divorced her for being barren.”
“You give your treasures a sad history, Edmund.”
“I find poignancy increases their meaning for me. The trinkets of the rich and the royal, now a part of the collection of a commoner. Shall we dine?”
There was lobster bisque and Peking duck so delicate it all but melted on the tongue. The meal was served on Limoges and eaten with Georgian silver. Dom Perignon was poured into antique Waterford that glittered like crystal tears.
“Tell me about your shop,” Finley invited. “It must be exciting for you to buy and sell every day, to handle lovely things time and again.”
“I do love it.” Dora fought to relax and enjoy the meal. “I’m afraid most of what I have falls far below your collections. What I stock is a mixture of antiques and estate items, along with . . .” Junk—she all but heard Jed’s sneering and comforting voice. “Novelty items,” she said a bit primly. “I love the foolish as well as the beautiful.”
“And, like myself, you appreciate the having, the control. There’s something innately satisfying about making your own business out of something you love. Not everyone has the opportunity, or the courage, to make it a success. I believe, Isadora, that you have a great deal of courage.”
Her stomach fluttered, but she managed to swallow the bite of duck. “My family considers it stubbornness. I hate to confess, but I frighten very easily.”
“You underestimate yourself. After all, you came here, to me.” He smiled, watching her over the rim of his glass with eyes as sharp as carved jade. “For all you knew, DiCarlo might have been acting on my orders. After all, he is—was—an employee.”
When she went pale and set down her fork with a rattle, he laughed, patted her hand. “Now I have frightened you. I apologize. It was merely said to illustrate my point. What sense would it make for me to have DiCarlo break into your shop and steal a few trinkets when I could so easily acquire them myself?”
“I doubt I’d have very much you’d find interesting.”
“Oh, I disagree.” He smiled and signaled for dessert. “I believe I’d find a great deal of what you have to offer of interest. Tell me,” he said, “do you ever come across any Grueby?”
“I once had a statue of a boy—badly chipped, I’m afraid.” She fisted and unfisted her hands in her lap as the creamy chocolate soufflé was served. “I noticed your vase in the library. It’s lovely.”
She relaxed into the discussion of pottery, and began to believe that she’d imagined he’d been baiting her.
Later, they had coffee and brandy before a sedate fire in the drawing room. The conversation was easy again, like that of old friends. All the while Dora’s nerves drummed. She’d never wanted to escape so badly in her life.
“I’m sorry you can’t extend your visit.” Finley passed a small porcelain nude from hand to hand.
“Running a business doesn’t give one as much flexible time as some people think. I’m sure you’d understand.”
“Yes, indeed. There are times when I feel a prisoner of my own success. Do you?” He skimmed a fingertip over the nude’s glossy breast. “Feel trapped?”
“No.” But she couldn’t shake the sensation that the walls of the room were shrinking in on her. “You must have marvelous contacts.” Again she scanned the room. She couldn’t watch the way he was fondling the nude. “Do you do much of the traveling and acquiring?”
“Not as much as I’d like. Over the years I’ve had to delegate that pleasure. But I take the occasional trip to the Orient, or Europe. I even get to the east coast from time to time.”
“I hope you’ll let me return your hospitality if you’re ever in Philadelphia.”
“I wouldn’t think of taking the trip without paying you a call.”
“Then I hope you find the time to come east soon. It was a wonderful meal, Edmund, a delightful evening.” She rose to play her final scene, the contented guest taking a reluctant leave.
“Believe me, it was my pleasure.” He stood, took her hand and kissed it gallantly at the knuckles. “I’d be happy to arrange for my car to take you to the airport tomorrow.”
“That’s so nice.” It made her feel ashamed of the urge she had to rub her hand clean on her jacket. “But I’ve already arranged transportation. Please, call me if you—if there’s any news about DiCarlo.”
“I will. I have a feeling it will all be sorted out very soon.”
* * *
When she returned to the Beverly Hills Hotel, Dora waited until the limo had driven away, then simply stood on the sidewalk breathing slowly and waiting to calm. She didn’t want to face Jed until she had herself under control.
She felt idiotic to be shaken. Though she knew she would have to tell him how the evening had affected her, she wanted to be cool and precise when she did so.
Then she saw the dark sedan pull up across the street. And the man with the gray suit.
On a skidder of panic she bolted into the lobby.
Jumping at shadows, Conroy, she berated herself while her heartbeat roared in her ears. Chin up, she punched the button for the elevator. It was just jet lag. It helped a great deal to believe it. She was overtired and overstressed. Once she’d gotten through relaying everything to Jed, she’d get a good night’s sleep and be fine again.
By the time she’d ridden up to her floor and slipped the key into the lock, she had herself back in line. She was even able to smile when she walked in and saw Jed scowling out of the window.
“Ah, you waited up for me.”
“You’re always good for a laugh, Conroy. You really ought to—” He broke off after he’d turned and gotten a look at her. He hadn’t known anyone could appear so exhausted and still stand on both feet.
“Wh
at?” Such were her nerves that she groped at her throat and stepped back. “What is it?”
“Nothing. My mind was wandering. Have a seat.”
“I’d just as soon get out of this dress first.” Habit had her going to the closet for a hanger.
“Let me give you a hand.” He tugged down the zipper for her. Casually, he gave her shoulders a quick massage and found them, as he’d suspected, knotted with tension. “You want a nightgown or something?”
“Or something.” She sat tiredly on the edge of the bed to remove her hose. “You had something for dinner, didn’t you?”
“I’m a big boy now, Conroy.” He unhooked the black strapless bra, tossed it aside, then slipped the thin nightshirt over her head.
“We had duck.”
“Beats the hell out of my cheeseburger.”
“It was excellent. The house—really, you should see it. It’s immense, with all these lofty rooms leading into other lofty rooms. I’ve never seen so many museum-quality pieces in one place.”
When her eyes began to droop, she shook her head. “I need to wash my face. You should see if you can get some kind of financial report on E. F., Incorporated.” In the bathroom she ran the water cold, scooping it up with both hands to splash on her face. “The butler served coffee out of a Meissen worth ten, twelve thousand.” She yawned and splashed more water. “And a paperweight in the library—an Alméric Walter. I watched one go at Christie’s a couple of years ago for fifteen big ones. Plus this—”
“I don’t want an inventory.”
“Sorry.” After choosing a tube from the bathroom counter, she began creaming off her makeup. “I’ve never seen a collection to compare with it. Never heard of one to compare with it. You can’t even call it a collection, really. It’s more of a private little empire.” Dutifully, she dabbed on moisturizer. “And there was something odd about the way he showed it to me.”
“In what way?”
“Like he was waiting for me to do something, say something.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain exactly, but the atmosphere was different than it had been in his office.” Her eyes met his in the mirror. There were faint bruises of fatigue under hers and a fragility to her skin now that it was without the shield of cosmetics. “He spooked me, Jed. He was a perfect gentleman, a perfect host. And being alone with him terrified me.”
“Tell me.” He combed a hand through her hair. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”
Relieved, she nodded and walked back in to sit on the side of the bed. “He took me all through the house,” she began. “And like I said, there was something off about the way he showed off his pieces. A handful of them in particular. I could feel him watching me when I looked at them, and it was . . . it was like watching someone masturbate. I kept telling myself I was imagining it because he was being so charming. We had dinner, this elegant dinner in this elegant room on elegant china. And we discussed art and music, and so forth. He never touched me in a way that wasn’t perfectly correct, but . . .”
She laughed a little. “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t say I was being an overimaginative female when I tell you this, because that’s exactly how I feel. But I felt as though he was seeing me naked. We’re spooning up this incredibly delicate soufflé with Georgian silver and I felt as though he could see right through my dress. I have no explanation for it, just that unshakable and very creepy feeling.”
“Maybe he was thinking of you that way. Men do, even elegant ones.”
She could only shake her head. “No, it wasn’t like that—not really sexual on either side. It was more like being defenseless.”
“You were alone.”
“Not really—or not often. He has an army of servants. I wasn’t really afraid that he’d hurt me. I was afraid he wanted to. And there was that business in the bathroom.”
“He took you into the bathroom?”
“No. I went into the powder room after dinner. I was freshening my makeup, and I kept feeling like he was right there, watching over my shoulder.”
She blew out a breath, grateful that Jed didn’t snort and tell her she was being a fool. “I honestly didn’t think he had anything to do with this whole business after I’d left his office this afternoon. And now, I don’t know what to think. I do know that I wouldn’t want to go back into that house even if he offered me my pick of his pomanders. Which, I might add, were wonderful.”
“You don’t have to go back. We’ll see if the IRS wants to poke a few fingers into Finley’s pie.”
“Good.” There was a throbbing over her left eye she couldn’t quite rub away. “You might see what you can find out about a sapphire brooch—possibly sixteenth-century. The stone looked to be about eight carats in a horizontal setting of gold filigree with some small, round-cut diamonds. He made a real issue of showing it to me.”
“Fine. You did good.”
“Yeah.” She gave him a sleepy smile. “Do I get a detective’s gold star?”
“That’s gold shield, Nancy. And no. You’re retiring.”
“Good.”
“You want something for that headache?”
She stopped rubbing her temple long enough to grimace. “Morphine, but I didn’t bring any along. I do have something less effective in my makeup bag.”
“I’ll get it. Stretch out.”
She took him up on it without bothering to crawl under the sheets. “I forgot. I saw this guy in a dark sedan—God, that sounds like a Charlie Chan movie. Anyway, I saw him pull out after the limo when we left. Then he drove up a few minutes after I got back. I don’t know why Finley would have me followed to and from his house though.”
“He didn’t. I did. Where the hell do you keep pills? You’ve got all these little bottles.”
“The pills aren’t in a bottle, they’re in a box. What we call a pillbox in the trade.”
“Smartass.”
“The little one with the enameled violets. What do you mean you had me followed?”
“I’ve had you tailed all day. Local PI.”
She was smiling when he walked out with the pills. “Almost as good as flowers,” she murmured. “You hired a bodyguard for me.”
“I hired him for me,” he said lightly.
After pillowing her head on her folded arms, she shut her eyes.
Straddling her, he began to rub her neck and shoulders. “Relax, Conroy, you don’t get rid of a stress headache by tensing up.”
But his fingers were already working their magic. “Jed?” Her voice was a thick murmur, hardly audible.
“Yeah.”
“Mirrors. I forgot. He has dozens of them. You couldn’t walk into a room without seeing yourself coming and going.”
“So he’s vain.”
“I’ve got a cheval glass I could probably sell him.”
“Shut up, Conroy. You’re off the clock.”
“Okay, but I don’t think he just likes to watch himself. I think he likes to watch.”
“Okay. He’s a vain pervert.” He ran the heels of his hands down the sides of her spine.
“I know. That doesn’t make him a smuggler. I wish . . .”
“Wish what?”
But whatever she wished, it would remain unsaid. She was asleep.
Quietly, he turned down the covers and, lifting her, slipped her between the sheets. She never stirred. Jed studied her a moment before he turned off the lights, got in bed beside her. After a little while, he gathered her close to hold her while he joined her in sleep.
Because his arms were around her, her first shudders awakened him. Instinctively he tightened his grip, his hand soothing at her neck.
“Hey. Hey, Dora, come on. Pull out of it.” He heard her gasping gulp of air, and her body trembled hard as she broke through the surface of the dream. “Bad one, huh?” he murmured.
She responded by pressing her face to his chest. “Can you reach the light? I need the light.”
“Sure.” Keeping an arm firm aroun
d her, he shifted to grope for the switch. The light flashed, cutting through the unrelieved dark. “Better?”
“Yeah.” But she continued to shiver.
“Want some water?”
“No.” The instant panic in the word had her biting down on her lip. “Just stay right here, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
And because he didn’t, her fluttering heart began to settle again. “That was the first nightmare I’ve had since I reread Stephen King’s The Shining.”
“Scary book.” Though his eyes were far from calm, the kiss he brushed over her hair was light and easy. “Too bad about the movie.”
“Yeah.” Her laugh was shaky, but it was a laugh. “I didn’t know you went in for horror stuff, Skimmerhorn.”
“It relieves tension. It’s tough to worry about life’s little problems when you’re reading about kiddie vampires or the walking dead.”
“I’ve always been a sucker for the walking dead.” Because he didn’t ask, didn’t press, she found herself able to tell him. “I was in that house, Finley’s house all those rooms and mirrors. All those things, those beautiful things. Did you ever read Something Wicked?”
“Bradbury. Sure.”
“In the carnival, that house of mirrors? Remember, if you bought a ticket, they promised you you’d find what you wanted inside. But it was a very nasty trick. That’s what it was like. I wanted to see all those beautiful things. Then I couldn’t get out. DiCarlo was in there, too, and Finley. Every time I turned, one of them was there, reflected all around me. I kept running into walls of glass.” Taking comfort in the heat of Jed’s body, the press of muscle, she cuddled closer. “I feel like a jerk.”
“You shouldn’t. I’ve had some beauts.”