Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night

“Hilliard believed that his portrait miniatures were best viewed in private,” Phoebe mused aloud. “He felt that the art of limning put too many of his subjects’ secrets on display. You can see why. These two look like they kept all kinds of secrets.”

“You’re right there,” Marcus murmured. His face was very close, giving Phoebe an opportunity to examine his eyes more closely. They were bluer than she had first realized, bluer even than the azurite-and ultramarineenriched pigments Hilliard used.

The phone rang. When Phoebe reached to answer it, she thought his hand drifted down, just for a moment, to her waist.

“Give the man his miniatures, Phoebe.” It was Sylvia.

“I don’t understand,” she said numbly. “I’m not authorized—”

“He’s purchased them outright. Our obligation was to get the highest possible price for their pieces. We’ve done that. The Taverners will be able to spend their autumn years in Monte Carlo if they choose. And you can tell Marcus that if I’ve missed the danse de fête , I’ll be enjoying his family’s box seats for next season’s performances.” Sylvia disconnected the line.

The room was silent. Marcus Whitmore’s finger rested gently on the gold case that circled the miniature of the man. It looked like a gesture of longing, an attempt to connect to someone long dead and anonymous.

“I almost believe that, were I to speak, he might hear me,” Marcus said wistfully.

Something was off. Phoebe couldn’t identify what it was, but there was more at stake here than the acquisition of two sixteenth-century miniatures.

“Your grandmother must have a very healthy bank account, Dr. Whitmore, to pay so handsomely for two unidentifiable Elizabethan portraits. As you are also a Sotheby’s client, I feel I should tell you that you surely overpaid for them. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from this period might go for six figures with the right buyers in the room, but not these.” The identity of the sitter was crucial to such valuations. “We’ll never know who these two were. Not after so many centuries of obscurity. Names are important.”

“That’s what my grandmother says.”

“Then she is aware that without a definite attribution the value of these miniatures will probably not increase.”

“To be honest,” Marcus said, “my grandmother doesn’t need to make a return on her investment. And Ysabeau would prefer it if no one else knows who they are.”

Phoebe frowned at the odd phrasing. Did his grandmother think she did know?

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Phoebe, even if we did do it standing up. This time.” Marcus paused, smiled his charming smile. “You don’t mind my calling you Phoebe?”

Phoebe did mind. She rubbed at her neck in exasperation, pushing aside her black, collar-length hair. Marcus’s eyes lingered on the curve of her shoulders. When she made no reply, he closed the box, tucked the miniatures under his arm, and backed away.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said mildly, seemingly unaware of Phoebe’s clear signals of uninterest. “We can celebrate the Taverners’ good fortune, as well as the sizable commission that you will be splitting with Sylvia.”

Sylvia? Split a commission? Phoebe’s mouth gaped in disbelief. The chances that her boss might do such a thing were less than nil. Marcus’s expression darkened.

“It was a condition of the deal. My grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.” His voice was gruff. “Dinner?”

“I don’t go out with strange men after dark.”

“Then I’ll ask you out to dinner tomorrow, after we’ve had lunch. Once you’ve spent two hours in my company, I won’t be ‘strange’ any longer.”

“Oh, you’ll still be strange,” Phoebe muttered, “and I don’t take lunch. I eat at my desk.” She looked away in confusion. Had she said the first part aloud?

“I’ll pick you up at one,” said Marcus, his smile widening. Phoebe’s heart sank. She had said it aloud. “And don’t worry, we won’t go far.”

“Why not?” Did he think she was afraid of him or couldn’t keep up with his strides? God, she hated being short.

“I just wanted you to know that you could wear those shoes again without fearing you’d break your neck,” Marcus said innocently. His eyes traveled slowly from her toes over her black leather pumps, lingered on her ankles, and then crawled up the curve of her calf. “I like them.”

Break her neck? Who did this man think he was? He was behaving like an eighteenth-century rake. Phoebe took decisive steps toward the door, her heels making satisfyingly sharp clicks. She pushed the button to release the lock and held the door open. Marcus made an appreciative sound as he strolled toward her.

“I shouldn’t be so forward. My grandmother disapproves of that almost as much as she disapproves of being cut out of a business deal. But here’s the thing, Phoebe.” Whitmore lowered his mouth until it was inches from her ear and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Unlike the men who have taken you out to dinner and perhaps gone back to your flat for something afterward, your propriety and fine manners don’t frighten me off. Quite the contrary. And I can’t help imagining what you’re like when that icy control melts.”

Phoebe gasped.

Marcus took her hand. His lips pressed against her flesh as he stared into her eyes “Until tomorrow. And make sure the door locks behind me. You’re in enough trouble.” Dr. Whitmore walked backward out of the room, gave her another bright smile, turned, and whistled his way out of sight.

Phoebe’s hand was trembling. That man—that strange man with no grasp of proper etiquette and startling blue eyes—had kissed her. At her place of work. Without her permission.

And she hadn’t slapped him, which is what well-bred daughters of diplomats were taught to do as a last resort against unwanted advances at home and abroad.

She was indeed in trouble.

“Was I right to call you, Goody Alsop?” Susanna twisted her hands in her apron and looked at me anxiously. “I nearly sent her home,” she said weakly. “If I had . . .”

“But you didn’t, Susanna.” Goody Alsop was so old and thin that her skin clung to the bones of her hands and wrists. The witch’s voice was strangely hearty for someone so frail, however, and intelligence snapped in her eyes. The woman might be an octogenarian, but no one would dare call her infirm.

Now that Goody Alsop had arrived, the main room in the Norman apartments was full to bursting. With some reluctance Susanna allowed Matthew and Pierre to stand just inside the door, provided they didn’t touch anything. Jeffrey and John divided their attention between the vampires and the chick, now safely nestled inside John’s cap by the fire. Its feathers were beginning to fluff in the warm air, and it had, mercifully, stopped peeping. I sat on a stool by the fire next to Goody Alsop, who occupied the room’s only chair.

“Let me have a look at you, Diana.” When Goody Alsop reached her fingers toward my face, just as Widow Beaton and Champier had, I flinched. The witch stopped and frowned. “What is it, child?”

“A witch in France tried to read my skin. It felt like knives,” I explained in a whisper.

“It will not be entirely comfortable—what examination is?—but it should not hurt.” Her fingers explored my features. Her hands were cool and dry, the veins standing out against mottled skin and crawling over bent joints. I felt a slight digging sensation, but it was nothing like the pain I’d experienced at Champier’s hands.

“Ah,” she breathed when she reached the smooth skin of my forehead. My witch’s eye, which had lapsed into its typical frustrating inactivity the moment Susanna and Annie found me with the chick, opened fully. Goody Alsop was a witch worth knowing.