Homeport

by Nora Roberts

  “Giulietta Buonadoni.”

  “Okay, got it. The Dark Lady, a mistress of one of the Medicis.”

  “Lorenzo the Magnificent—at least he was her first protector,” Miranda specified, grateful that Andrew’s knowledge of the era was thorough enough. It would save time. “The bronze was of the lady herself, no mistaking that face. She wanted me to do the tests, the dating.”

  He waited a beat. “Elise could have handled it.”

  “Elise’s field is broader than mine.” There was a hint of annoyance in Miranda’s tone. “Renaissance is my era, bronzes my specialty. Elizabeth wanted the best.”

  “She always does. So, you ran the tests?”

  “I ran them. I ran them again. I had top members of the staff assisting me. I did everything, personally, step by step. Then I went back and did it all again.”

  “And?”

  “It was genuine, Andrew.” Some of the excitement leaked through as she leaned forward. “Late fifteenth century.”

  “That’s incredible. Wonderful. Why aren’t you celebrating?”

  “There’s more.” She had to take a breath, steady herself. “It’s a Michelangelo.”

  “Jesus.” He set his cup aside hurriedly. “Are you sure? I don’t remember anything about a lost bronze.”

  A stubborn line dug its way between her eyebrows. “I’d stake my reputation on it. It’s an early work, brilliantly executed—it’s a gorgeous piece, echoing the sensual style of his drunken Bacchus. I was still working on documentation when I left, but there’s enough to support it.”

  “The bronze wasn’t documented?”

  Miranda began to tap her foot in irritation. “Giulietta probably hid it, or at least kept it to herself. Politics. It fits,” she insisted. “I’d have proven it without a doubt if she’d given me more time.”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  Unable to sit, Miranda unfolded her legs and got up to jab at the fire with a poker. “Someone leaked it to the press. We weren’t nearly ready for an official announcement, and the government got nervous. They fired Standjo, and she fired me. She accused me of leaking it.” Furious, she whirled back. “Of wanting the glory so badly I’d have risked the project to get it. I would never have done that.”

  “No, of course not.” He could brush that aside without a thought. “They fired her.” Though it was small of him, he couldn’t quite stop the grin. “I bet that set her off.”

  “She was livid. Under other circumstances, I might get some satisfaction out of that. But now I’ve lost the project. Not only won’t I get credit, but the only way I’ll see that piece again is in a museum. Damn it, Andrew, I was so close.”

  “You can bet that when the bronze is authenticated and announced, she’ll find a way to get Standjo’s name in it.” He arched a brow at his sister. “And when she does, you’ll just have to make sure yours isn’t left out.”

  “It’s not the same.” She took it away from me, was all Miranda could think.

  “Take what you can get.” He rose as well, wandering over to the liquor cabinet. Because he would have to ask. “You saw Elise?”

  “Yes.” Miranda slid her hands into the pockets of her robe. Because she would have to answer. “She looks fine. I think she’s well suited to managing the lab there. She asked how you were.”

  “And you told her I was just dandy.”

  Miranda watched him pour the first drink. “I didn’t think you wanted me to tell her you were turning into a brooding, self-destructive drunk.”

  “I’ve always brooded,” he said, saluting her. “All of us do, so that doesn’t count. Is she seeing anyone?”

  “I don’t know. We never got around to discussing our sex lives. Andrew, you have to stop this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a waste and it’s stupid. And frankly, though I like her, she’s not worth it.” She lifted her shoulders. “No one’s worth it.”

  “I loved her,” he murmured, watching the liquor swirl before he drank. “I gave her the best I had.”

  “Did you ever consider that maybe she didn’t give her best? Maybe she was the one who didn’t measure up?”

  He studied Miranda over the rim of his glass. “No.”

  “Maybe you should. Or maybe you should consider that the best you had and the best she had didn’t equal the best together. Marriages fail all the time. People get over it.”

  He studied the liquor, watching the light flicker through the glass. “Maybe if they didn’t get over it so easily, marriages wouldn’t fail so often.”

  “And maybe if people didn’t pretend love makes the world go round, they’d pick their partners with more care.”

  “Love does make the world go round, Miranda. That’s why the world’s so fucked up.”

  He lifted his glass and drank deeply.

  five

  T he sky shimmered with a cold, gray, angry dawn. Restless, dark, and full of sound, the sea hammered against the rocks and rose up to punch its white fists into the raw and bitter air. Spring would have a fight on its hands before it could beat back winter.

  Nothing could have pleased Miranda more.

  She stood on the bluff, her mood as fitful as the churning water below. She watched it spew up from the rocks, ice-edged and mean, and drew in the ancient violence of its scent.

  She’d slept poorly, tangled in dreams she blamed on temper as much as travel fatigue. She wasn’t one for dreaming. It was still dark when she’d given up on sleep, and had dressed in a thick green sweater and dun-colored slacks of soft wool. She’d scraped out the last of the coffee—Andrew wasn’t going to be pleased when he awoke—and had brewed herself half a pot.

  Now she sipped that coffee, strong and black, out of a big white mug and watched dawn claw its way to life in the unhappy eastern sky.

  The rain had stopped, but it would come back, she thought. And as the temperatures had dropped sharply through the night, it would likely come back as snow and sleet. That was fine, that was dandy.

  That was Maine.

  Florence, with its white, flashing sun and warm, dry wind, was an ocean away. But inside her, in her angry heart, it was close.

  The Dark Lady had been her ticket to glory. Elizabeth was right about that at least. Glory was always the goal. But by God, she had worked for it. She’d studied, pushing herself brutally to learn, to absorb, to remember, when her contemporaries had jumped from party to party and relationship to relationship.

  There’d been no wild rebellious period in her life, no thumbing her nose at rules and traditions while in college, no mad, heart-wrenching affairs. Repressed, one roommate had called her. Boring as dirt had been the opinion of another. Because some secret part of her had agreed, she had solved that problem by moving off campus and into a small apartment of her own.

  She’d been better off, Miranda always thought. She had no skill for social interactions. Beneath the armor of composure and the starch of training she was miserably shy with people, and so much more comfortable with information.

  So she had read, written, closed herself into other centuries with a discipline fired by the hot light of ambition.

  That ambition had one focus. To be the best. And by being the best, to see her parents look at her with pride, with stunned delight, with respect. Oh, it galled her to know that motivation was buried inside her still, but she’d never been able to dig it out and dispose of it.

  She was nearly thirty, had her doctorate, her position at the Institute, a solid reputation in archeometry. And a pitiful need to hear her parents applaud her act. Well, she would just have to get over it.

  Before long, she thought, her findings would be proven. Then she would make certain that she gained the credit she deserved. She would write a paper on The Dark Lady, and her own involvement in its testing and authentication. And she would never, never forgive Elizabeth for taking the control and the joy out of her hands. Or for having the power to do so.

  The wind rose, sneaking unde
r her sweater like hands grabbing at flesh. The first thin, wet flakes began to swirl. Miranda turned from the sea, her boots clattering on rock as she climbed down the cliff.

  The steady beam of the great light continued to circle atop the white tower, shooting out over the water and rock though there were no ships within its range. From dusk to dawn, year after year, she thought, it never failed. Some would look and see romance, but when Miranda studied the sturdy whitewashed tower, she saw reliability.

  More, she thought now, than was usually found in people.

  In the distance the house was still dark and sleepy, a fanciful silhouette from another time etched against an unforgiving sky.

  The grass was a sickly winter brown and crunched under her heels from frost. The scar of her grandmother’s once lovely garden seemed to scold her.

  This year, Miranda promised herself when she passed the blackened leaves and brittle sticks of stems, she would give it some time and attention. She would make gardening her hobby—she was always promising herself a hobby.

  In the kitchen, she poured the last of the coffee from the pot into her mug. After a final glance outside at the fast-falling snow, she decided to drive to the Institute early, before the roads were covered.

  From the warm comfort of his rented Mercedes, he watched the Land Rover glide effortlessly over the thin layer of snow on the street, then turn into the parking lot beside the New England Institute of Art History. It looked like a vehicle that should have been driven by a general during an elegant little war.

  She made quite a picture herself, he mused, watching her climb out. About six feet of female in her boots, he judged, and most of it wrapped in a steel-gray coat that owed more to warmth than fashion. Her hair was a sexy stoplight red that escaped in untidy curls from a black ski cap. She carried a thick briefcase that bulged a bit with its contents, and she moved with a precision and purpose that would have made that wartime general proud.

  But beneath that long-legged stride was the arrogant and unwitting sexuality of a woman who believed herself a step beyond the physical need for men. It was a swinging, aloof gait.

  Even in the dim light, he recognized her. She was, he thought with a slow smile, a hard woman not to notice.

  He’d been sitting there for nearly an hour now, entertaining himself with various arias from Carmen, La Bohème, The Marriage of Figaro. Really, he had all he needed for now, and had done what he needed to do, but he was grateful he’d loitered long enough to see her arrive.

  An early riser, he decided, a woman who liked her work well enough to face it on a cold, snowy morning before most of the city stirred. He appreciated a person who enjoyed their work. God knew, he loved his.

  But what to do about Dr. Miranda Jones? he wondered. He imagined she was using the side entrance, even now sliding her key card through the slot, adding her code on the number pad. No doubt she would carefully reset the security alarms once she was inside.

  All reports indicated she was a practical and careful woman. He appreciated practical women. It was such a joy to corrupt them.

  He could work around her, or he could use her. Either way, he would get the job done. But using her would be so much more. . . entertaining. Since this would be his last job, it seemed only fair it include some entertainment in addition to the thrill and the profit.

  He thought it would be worth his while to get to know Miranda Jones, to indulge himself with her. Before he stole from her.

  He saw the light flick on in a window on the third floor of the sprawling granite building. Straight to work, he mused, smiling again as he caught the shadow of movement behind the window.

  It was about time he got to work himself. He started the car, pulled away from the curve, and drove off to dress for the next part of his day.

  The New England Institute of Art History had been built by Miranda’s great-grandfather. But it was her grandfather, Andrew Jones, who had expanded it to its full potential. He’d always had a keen interest in the arts, and had even fancied himself a painter. He’d been at least good enough to convince a number of healthy young models to take off their clothes and pose for him.

  He’d enjoyed socializing with artists, entertaining them, acting as patron when one—particularly an attractive female one—caught his eye. A ladies’ man and enthusiastic drinker he might have been, but he’d also been generous, imaginative, and had never been afraid to put his money where his heart lay.

  The building was a strong gray granite, spreading over a full block, with its towering columns, its wings and squared-off archways. The original structure had been a museum with carefully tended grounds, huge old shade trees, and a quiet, rather stern-faced dignity.

  Andrew had wanted more. He’d seen the Institute as a showcase for art and for artists, as an arena where art was displayed, restored, taught, and analyzed. So he had cut down the trees, slabbed over the grounds, and erected the graceful and somewhat fanciful additions to the original structure.

  There were classrooms with high light-filled windows, carefully designed laboratories, lofty storerooms, and a beehive of offices. Gallery space had been more than tripled.

  Students who wished to study there were taken on merit. Those who could afford to pay paid dearly for the privilege. Those who couldn’t, and were deemed worthy, were subsidized.

  Art was holy at the Institute, and science was its deity.

  Carved in a stone lintel above the main entrance were the words of Longfellow.

  ART IS LONG, AND TIME IS FLEETING

  Studying, preserving, and displaying that art was how the Institute spent its time.

  It remained basically true to Andrew’s conception fifty years later with his grandchildren at the helm.

  The museum galleries it held were arguably the finest in Maine, and the work represented there had been carefully chosen and acquired over the years, beginning with Charles’s and then Andrew’s own collections.

  The public areas swept the main floor, gallery spilling into gallery through wide archways. Classrooms and studios jammed the second level, with the restoration area separated from them by a small lobby where visitors with the correct passes could tour the work spaces.

  The labs occupied the lower level and shot off into all wings. They were, despite the grand galleries and educational facilities, the foundation.

  The labs, Miranda often thought, were her foundation as well.

  Setting her briefcase aside, she moved to the Federal library table under her window to brew coffee. As she switched the pot on, her fax line rang. After opening her blinds, she moved to the machine and took out the page.

  Welcome home, Miranda. Did you enjoy Florence? Too bad your trip was cut so rudely short. Where do you think you made your mistake? Have you thought about it? Or are you so sure you’re right?

  Prepare for the fall. It’s going to be a hard jolt.

  I’ve waited so long. I’ve watched so patiently.

  I’m watching still, and the wait’s almost over.

  Miranda caught herself rubbing a hand up and down her arm to warm it as she read the message. Though she made herself stop, the chill remained.

  There was no name, no return number.

  It read like a sly chuckle, she thought. The tone taunting and eerily threatening. But why, and who?

  Her mother? It shamed her that Elizabeth’s name was the first to form in her mind. But surely a woman of Elizabeth’s power, personality, and position wouldn’t stoop to cryptic and anonymous messages.

  She’d already hurt Miranda in the most direct way possible.

  It was more likely a disgruntled employee at either Standjo or the Institute, someone who felt she’d been unfair in her policy or work assignments.

  Of course, that was it, she decided and tried to breathe clearly again. A technician she’d reprimanded or a student who was unhappy with a grade. This was only meant to unsettle her, and she wouldn’t allow it to work.

  But rather than discarding it, she slipped it
into her bottom drawer and turned the key in the lock.

  Putting it out of her mind, she sat to outline her day on paper. By the time she’d completed the first tasks on her list—reading her mail and memos, organizing her phone messages—the