“Then you have Henry to thank for that.”
She’d always thought the same. “You’re right, I do.”
He lifted his glass, tapped it to hers. “To Henry, then, and his pursuit of the Fates.”
He let the conversation wind into other areas. Damn it, she was pleasant company when she loosened up. The wine added a sparkle to her eyes, a pretty glow to her cheeks. She had a mind that was quick enough to jump into any area, and a subtle and dry wit when she forgot to be nervous about what came out of her mouth.
He gave himself an hour to simply enjoy her company, and didn’t circle back to the Fates until they were in the cab heading back to her apartment.
“Did Henry note down in his journal how he planned to acquire the other statues?” Idly, Malachi toyed with the ends of her hair. “Weren’t you curious if they existed? If they were real?”
“Mmm. I don’t remember.” With the wine spinning gently in her head, she relaxed against him when he slid an arm around her shoulders. “I was thirteen, no, twelve, when I first read it. It was the winter I had bronchitis. I think it was bronchitis,” she said, lazily now. “I always seemed to have something that kept me in bed. Anyway, I was too young to think about heading off to England to find some legendary statue.”
He frowned. It seemed to him that was precisely what a twelve-year-old girl should have thought of doing. The adventure of it, the romance of it would have made a perfect fantasy for a housebound child.
“After that, I was too steeped in gods to worry about artifacts. That’s my father’s area. I’m hopeless at business. I’ve no flare for figures or for people. I’m a crushing disappointment to him.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is, but it’s nice of you to say it isn’t. Wyley Antiques paid for my education, my lifestyle and my piano lessons, and I’ve given nothing back, preferring to write books on imaginary figures rather than accept the weight and responsibilities of my legacy.”
“Writing books about imaginary figures is an art, and a time-honored profession.”
“Not when you’re my father. He’s given up on me, and as I’ve yet to latch onto a man long enough to produce a grandchild for him, he despairs that on his retirement, Wyley’s will pass out of the family.”
“A woman’s not required to birth a child for the sake of a bloody business.”
She blinked a bit at the temper in his voice. “Wyley’s isn’t just a business, it’s a tradition. Oh my, I shouldn’t have had so much wine. I’m rambling.”
“You’re not.” He paid the driver when they pulled to the curb. “And you shouldn’t worry so much about pleasing your father if he can’t see the value of who you are and what you do.”
“Oh, he’s not . . .” She was grateful for the firmness of Malachi’s hand as she climbed out of the cab. The wine made her limbs feel loose and disconnected. “He’s a wonderful man, amazingly kind and patient. It’s just that he’s so proud of Wyley’s. If he’d had a son, or another daughter with more business skills, it wouldn’t be so difficult.”
“Your thread’s been spun, hasn’t it?” He led her into the elevator. “You are what you are.”
“My father doesn’t believe in fate.” She shook back her hair, smiled. “But maybe he’d be interested in the Fates. Wouldn’t it be something if I research and manage to find one of them? Or two. Of course, they don’t have any serious significance unless they’re complete.”
“Maybe you should read Henry’s journal again.”
“Maybe I should. I wonder where it is.” She laughed up at him as they walked toward her door. “I had the best time. That’s twice now I’ve had the best time with you, and on two continents. I feel very cosmopolitan.”
“See me tomorrow.” He turned her into him, slid a hand up her back to the nape of her neck.
“Okay.” Her eyes fluttered closed as he drew her closer. “Where?”
“Anywhere.” He whispered it, then touched his lips to hers.
It was a simple matter for a man to deepen a kiss when a woman was all but melting around him. It was easy to take as much as he wanted when she sighed and wrapped her arms around him.
And when what she gave back was sweet and warm and unbearably soft, it was damn near impossible not to want more.
He could have more, he thought as he changed the angle of the kiss. He had only to open her door, step inside with her. Already there was a purr in her throat and a quiver along her skin.
And he couldn’t do it. She was half-drunk and criminally vulnerable. Worse, somehow worse, the want for her was a great deal more personal than he’d bargained for.
He eased her back with the sudden, certain knowledge that his plans had just suffered a major snag. And the snag could become a large and tangled knot.
“Spend the day with me tomorrow.”
She felt as if she were floating. “Don’t you have work?”
“Spend the day with me,” he repeated and tortured himself by leaning her back against the door and taking her mouth again. “Say yes.”
“Yes. What?”
“Eleven. I’ll be here at eleven. Go inside, Tia.”
“Go where?”
“Inside.” God help him. “Inside,” he repeated as he fumbled a bit with her lock. “Damn it, one more.” He yanked her back against him, kissed her until the blood was roaring in his head. “Lock the door,” he ordered and, giving her a little shove inside, shut it smartly in his own face before he could change his mind.
Six
T
IA wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or lust that drove her to look for the old journal. Whichever it was, it was a powerful force to make her face her mother in the middle of the day.
She loved her mother, sincerely, but any session with Alma Marsh was wearing on the nerves. Rather than risk a germ-crawling taxi, she walked the eight blocks to the lovely old town house where she’d spent her childhood. She was so energized, so full of the delight of the last two days and Malachi, she didn’t even think about the pollen count.
The air was thick as a brick, and so miserably hot it wilted her crisp linen blouse before she’d walked crosstown to Park Avenue. But she strolled along, as she headed uptown, humming a tune in her mind.
She
loved
New York. Why hadn’t she ever realized how much she loved the city, with its noise and traffic, its crowded streets. Its
life.
There was so much to see if you just looked. The young women pushing baby carriages, the boy walking a group of six little dogs that pranced along like a parade. The sleek, black, hired cars taking ladies to lunch, or home again after a morning’s shopping. And look how gorgeous the flowers were along the avenue, and how smart the doormen looked in their uniforms as they stood outside the buildings.
How had she missed all this? she wondered as she turned onto her parents’ pretty, shady street. Simple. On the rare times she actually walked outside of her own three-block radius, she kept her head down, her purse in a stranglehold and imagined herself being mugged, or run over by a bus that jumped the curb.
But she’d walked yesterday with Malachi. They’d strolled up Madison Avenue, had stopped at a little sidewalk café for cold drinks and careless conversation. He talked to everyone. The waiter, the woman beside them with, of all things, a miniature poodle in her lap.
Which could hardly be sanitary.
He talked to shop clerks in Barneys, to a young woman debating over scarves in one of the terrifying boutiques Tia usually avoided. He struck up conversations with one of the guards at the Met, and the sidewalk vendor where he’d bought hot dogs.
She’d actually eaten a hot dog—right on the street. She could hardly get over it.
For a few hours she’d seen the city through his eyes. The wonder of it, the humor in it, the grit and the grandeur.
And she was going to see it again tonight, with him.
She was nearly skipping by the time she reached her parents’ house. There were flowerpots flanking the entrance. Tilly, the housekeeper, would have planted and tended them. She remembered now that she’d wanted to help plant the pots once. She’d been about ten, but her mother had worried so about dirt, allergies and insects that she’d given up the idea.
Maybe she’d buy a geranium on the way home. Just to see.
Though she had a key, Tia used the bell. The key was for emergencies, and using it meant decoding the alarm, then explaining why she’d done so.
Tilly, a sturdy fireplug of a woman with stone-gray hair, answered quickly.
“Why, Miss Tia! What a nice surprise. All settled in, then, after your trip? I really enjoyed the postcards you sent me. All those wonderful places.”
“A lot of places,” Tia agreed as she stepped into the cool, quiet air. She kissed Tilly’s cheek with the easy comfort she felt for few. “It’s good to be home.”
“One of the best parts of traveling is coming home, isn’t it? Don’t you look pretty today,” Tilly said, surprise in her voice as she studied Tia’s face. “I think traveling agreed with you.”
“You wouldn’t have said that a couple of days ago.” Tia set her purse on a table in the foyer, glanced at the Victorian mirror above it. She
did
look pretty, she realized. Sort of rosy and bright. “Is my mother available?”
“She’s upstairs in her sitting room. You go right up, and I’ll bring you both something cold to drink.”
“Thanks, Tilly.”
Tia turned to the long sweep of stairs. She’d always loved this house, the elegant dignity of it. It was such a combination of her parents—her father’s great love for antiques, her mother’s deep need for organized space. Without that combination, that balance, she supposed, it might have been a hodgepodge, a kind of sub-shop for Wyley’s. As it was, the furnishings were arranged with an eye for style as well as beauty. Everything had its place, and that place rarely changed.
There was something comforting in that continuity, that stability. The colors were pale and cool. Rather than flower arrangements, there were lovely statuary, wonderful old bowls filled with chunks of polished, colored glass.
Ladies’ gloves, jeweled handbags, hat pins, cuff links, watch fobs, snuffboxes were displayed behind ruthlessly clean glass. Temperature and humidity were strictly maintained by a climate-control system. It was always seventy-one degrees, with a ten percent humidity rate, inside the Marsh town house.
Tia paused outside her mother’s sitting room door, knocked.
“Come in, Tilly.”
The moment Tia opened the door, her spirits dropped. She caught the faint scent of rosemary, which signaled her mother was having one of her difficult mornings. Though the window glass was treated to filter out UV rays, the drapes were drawn. Another bad sign.
Alma Marsh reclined on the silk-cushioned recamier with an eyebag draped over her upper face.
“I think I have one of my headaches coming on, Tilly. I shouldn’t have tried to answer all that correspondence at one time, but what can I do? People will write you, won’t they, and then you have no choice but to respond. Would you mind getting my feverfew? Perhaps I can ward off the worst of it.”
“It’s Tia, Mother. I’ll get it for you.”
“Tia?” Alma slid the eyebag aside. “My baby! Come give me a kiss, dear. There couldn’t be any better medicine.”
Tia crossed over and gave Alma a light kiss on the cheek. She might have been having one of her spells, Tia thought, but her mother looked, as always, perfect. Her hair, nearly the same delicate shade as her daughter’s, was glossy and swept back in gentle waves from a face suitable for a cameo. It was delicate, lovely, unlined. Though she tended to be thin, her body was turned out with casual elegance in a soft pink blouse and tailored trousers.
“There now, I feel better already,” Alma said as she shifted to sit up. “I’m so glad you’re home, Tia. Why, I didn’t get one moment’s rest while you were gone. I was so worried about you. You took all your vitamins, didn’t you, and didn’t drink the tap water? I hope you demanded nonsmoking suites in all your hotels, though God knows they don’t enforce that. Just come in and spray after some horrible person’s spewed carcinogens into the air. Pull open the drapes, dear, I can barely see you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I can’t indulge myself,” Alma said heroically. “I’ve a dozen things to do today, and now that you’re here . . . Well, we’ll make time for a nice visit, and I’ll work harder later. And you, you must be exhausted. A delicate system like yours suffers under the demands of travel. I want you to arrange for a complete physical right away.”
“I’m fine.” Tia moved to the windows.
“When the immune system’s compromised, as yours must be, it can take several days before you recognize the symptoms. You make that appointment, Tia, for my sake.”
“Of course.” Tia drew open the drapes, relieved when light poured into the room. “You don’t have to worry. I took very good care of myself.”
“Be that as it may, you can’t . . .” She trailed off when Tia turned around. “Why, you’re all flushed! Are you feverish?” She leaped off the daybed, clamped a hand over Tia’s brow. “Yes, you feel a little warm. Oh, I knew it! I knew you’d catch some foreign germ.”
“I’m not feverish. I got a bit hot on the walk over, that’s all.”
“You walked? In this heat! I want you to sit down, sit down right here. You’re dehydrated, courting heatstroke.”
“I’m not.” But she thought she might feel just a little dizzy after all. “I’m perfectly fine. I’ve never felt better.”
“A mother knows these things.” Revived, Alma waved Tia to a chair and marched to the door. “Tilly! Bring up a pitcher of lemon water and a cold compress, and call Dr. Realto. I want him to examine Tia right away.”
“I’m not going to the doctor.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“I’m not.” But she was beginning to feel a bit queasy. “Mother, please, sit down before you aggravate your headache. Tilly’s bringing up cold drinks. I promise, if I feel the least bit ill, I’ll phone Dr. Realto.”