With a wink he stood back while Madame de Joncourt let them out into the street and closed the door behind them.
It felt colder than it had been, with a raw wind that chased sharply down this narrow lane between the houses, and he knew if he could feel it cutting through his heavy coat then she, with her light cloak, would feel it keenly, so his mission then became to guide her quickly to her brother’s house, where she’d be warm.
For all the missions he had led, this should have been an easy one. He’d led his men by night through fields more treacherous than this—the slow, mud-churning wheels of carts and waggons crossed by swifter, finer carriages were nothing when compared to rolling cannon fire. And crowds, no matter how large they might be, were nothing when compared to enemies concealed by shadows.
That there was a crowd, growing more raucous by the minute, should perhaps have been a warning to him.
But as he prepared to cross the street she took his arm of her own choice, before he’d offered it, and he looked down at that and she looked up at him, and that left all his senses fully occupied.
He’d always thought her eyes were blue. In fairness she had rarely ever looked directly at him, and the few times that she had she’d looked away, not held his gaze this long. But now he saw with clarity her eyes were green, the colour of new leaves.
And he forgot the cold, the wind, the people pushing all around them, and the chaos of the rolling wheels and skittish horses.
When the first brick struck his shoulder he was unprepared.
His first thought—that it had been thrown at him on purpose—quickly vanished when he saw that many in the crowd around them were now foraging for stones and clods of mud and broken bricks and any other refuse they could find, their voices rising, their attention fixed upon the cart now drawing near to them, a frightened-looking man of middle age crouched in its open back, exposed to all their fury.
Jean-Philippe had seen men carted through the streets before. He knew how swiftly any crowd could turn to open riot.
Acting from instinct he angled his body so it would shield Lydia’s, sweeping her back into the recession of a doorway that, while closed, would give her shelter. Pressing close, he wrapped himself around her so the blows would strike him first.
They did. Repeatedly. A clump of mud and small stones that had missed its target struck and shattered on the doorframe and he felt her jump and start to tremble, so he bent his head and murmured words of reassurance, low and calm over the wailing of the injured man, and all the ugly shouts of his tormentors.
Fear, he knew, was mostly in the mind, and he would spare her that. He’d long since learned to channel his own fear to action, so it was surprising to him now to feel it twist within his chest—a fear not for himself, his safety, but for hers. It lingered even when the mob had passed them by, the angry tumult growing fainter down the street, and there was no more danger.
Stepping back, he gave them both the space to breathe. Her face was pale, and she appeared to still be shaking but she only drew her cloak a little tighter as though wanting him to think it was the cold, and he had seen enough cadets who did not wish to show him weakness that he recognized her brave attempt to seem more strong in front of him, and though he was not fooled by it he understood her need to make the effort. Having satisfied himself she was unharmed, he waited for her to collect herself sufficiently to leave the sheltered doorway, then he offered her his arm again, and once again she took it, holding tighter to him this time, and they crossed the street in silence.
But the feeling, strange and new, stayed firmly lodged beneath his ribs, as though once having taken hold it was now part of him, and he had no idea what to do with it.
We always fear what we don’t know, he’d told the young de Joncourt boy.
And walking now with Lydia’s gloved hand upon his arm, her warmth beside him, Jean-Philippe admitted there was truth in what he’d said. Because in all his twenty-seven years, with all that life had dealt him, he had not known anything like this.
Charley
The taxi would have flattened me if I’d been looking to the right, but as it was I had just time enough to leap back, out of range.
Niels always said the way to tell a true New Yorker was to watch the way they crossed a street. “They’re always three steps off the curb to start with,” he’d say. “Daring cars to hit them.”
I was not a true New Yorker. I stayed safely on the sidewalk till the light had changed, but even so it could be an extreme sport, crossing streets in New York City, and today I needed to take extra care because of what I carried.
Sam had built a custom crate for me—exactly measured, light, and narrow—adding wooden handles at the sides to make it easier to carry, but even something built as well as Sam could build it wouldn’t have been able to survive a speeding taxi, and until the day was over what was in the crate officially belonged to Isaac Fisher. So I took my time.
The fact that I had Isaac Fisher’s painting in my hands was an achievement in itself, and Frank had made sure everybody knew it. “In my whole entire life,” he’d told the board, “I can’t remember Isaac giving anything to anybody. Well, he gave me chicken pox, but even then he argued I should pay him fifty cents for all the time I got to spend home sick from school. So, well done, Charley. No one else here could have done it.” He had gallantly left off the “told you so” he could have added, because he had told me I should go alone to Isaac Fisher’s house.
I’d thought that I should take Malaika with me. “She’s so good at doing deals.”
“And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t take her. Never set two salespeople against each other.”
And that had reminded me. “How did you know that Tyler was a salesman?”
“Tyler who?” But he’d been smiling. “Kiddo, there are salesmen in this world, and there are salesmen. There are ones like Lara and Malaika, honest ones that want to treat you right so they can have your business back again. But then there are the ones with shiny shoes, and smiles from here to here, as slick as snake oil. Guess which kind your Tyler was?”
I’d had to smile myself. “His shoes were shiny.”
“Yes, they were.”
“What kind of shoes does Isaac Fisher wear?”
“Well, that depends,” he’d said, “on who he’s dancing with.” He’d poured himself a cup of coffee. “If it’s you, he’ll probably wear good, old-fashioned loafers.”
“Why is that?”
“You’re nice.” He’d said that gruffly, in the tone he used when giving out a compliment. “And to old guys like me and Isaac, nice girls are about as rare and powerful as Kryptonite.”
I wasn’t sure that Isaac Fisher thought of me as Kryptonite, but he had worn his loafers when he’d met me at the door. He’d made me tea, and we had sat together in his kitchen talking for an hour or more, about his family and Cross Harbor and the old store, now long gone.
And then he’d said, without my even prompting him, “That painting, now. I think it ought to be at the museum, and I’d like for you to have it. Can you give me a receipt, though, for my taxes?”
I had promised him I could, once it had been appraised.
When I’d reported all this to the trustees, Sharon had jumped right on that. “And who,” she’d asked, “is going to pay for this appraisal? If you hadn’t put Dave Becker on your acquisitions team, we could have gone to him, but now we can’t, is that right? It would be a conflict. So, we’d have to pay an outsider, and where will we get money to do that?”
She’d thought she had me in a corner, I could tell, and it had given me a lot of satisfaction to be able to reply, “I have a cousin in New York who owns a gallery, and she said she would do it for us free of charge. If,” I had added calmly, “that’s all right with everybody?”