I began my search. A collection of Japanese netsukes of men and women in erotic poses graced one table. Silver repoussé vases filled with iridescent peacock feathers were tucked in corners. On the mantel were a half dozen birds’ nests made from spun silver, each holding eggs carved out of semiprecious stones. On the top of the grand B?sendorfer piano was a collection of tiny enamel-and jewel-framed miniatures of women’s eyes or breasts painted on ivory.
Everything was too out in the open. Any one of these items might be missed. I wandered over to a pair of six-foot-tall glass-and-wood breakfronts flanking either side of the fireplace. Each of these elegant vitrines had four shelves. The cabinet on the right was filled with flowers and plants, the one on the left with animals, all of them exquisitely carved from crystal and gemstones. What duke or lord or banker or vintner had given them to which of my illustrious ancestors? Every piece was worth a small fortune, and there were more than thirty.
Yes, one of these would do.
I opened the jeweled zoo vitrine.
“You seem to have a knack for opening locks in this house. How did you do that?” Monsieur Duplessi asked. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “Your grandmother gave me these so I could open those cabinets and take inventory.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps she forgot to lock them.”
“Perhaps,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
On the top shelf was an onyx panther with sapphire eyes, a -turquoise-and-coral fish, and a pair of agate owls with onyx eyes. Behind the one on the right, I noticed a glimmer of green. Pushing aside the bird, hidden behind it, I found a small jade frog with ruby eyes.
“Perhaps you should turn around,” I said to Monsieur Duplessi. “I don’t want to implicate you in my crime.”
“What crime?”
“If I told you, I’d be implicating you, wouldn’t I?” I joked as, with trembling fingers, I picked up the frog and slipped it in my pocket.
Had Monsieur Duplessi been watching? Even if he had, I’d been quick, and he was halfway across the room, sitting on the couch; he couldn’t have seen what I’d done.
As I was about to close the vitrine, a light glinting off an -amethyst-and-ruby parrot on the bottom shelf caught my eye. Was another object hidden there, too?
Reaching in, I dug my fingers behind the shelf and found an opening in the back of the cabinet. Inside I felt cold metal, a smooth surface . . . I grabbed and, with a little effort, pried out a ring. It was very old, its gold shank worn down by wear so thin it looked as if it might snap if I just touched it wrong. Its bezel held a black cameo surrounded by a halo of tiny rubies. The carving detailed a cherub, with his bow and arrows slung on his back between his wings.
“Look what I found,” I said as I slipped it on my ring finger, which it covered from the base almost to the knuckle.
Monsieur Duplessi joined me at the cabinet.
“I think this was a man’s ring.” I showed it to him. “Don’t you?”
He took my hand to look. The contact shocked me and shot through me and startled me all at the same time. I had been handled by men before—but this was more than my skin being touched; it was as if my very soul were being pierced.
“Yes, a man’s ring,” he said. “And I would guess it’s very, very old. The rubies are cut in a style that suggests it dates back to the Renaissance.”
I left it on, liking its heft, and reached back inside. This time I fished out a pair of emerald-and-diamond earrings.
There was still more that had slipped down in the cubbyhole—or been secreted away in this perhaps intentional hiding place. I pulled out a wide bracelet that matched the earrings and then a ring that completed the set.
I reached back in. There was only one item left, harder to extricate because it was all the way at the bottom of the cavity, and I had to stretch my fingers to grab hold of it.
I had it and pulled it out. I’d rescued half a dozen rubies the size of large walnuts carved into rosettes, strung on a platinum chain. A clasp of a dragon with ruby eyes, his tail in his mouth, operated in a toggle fashion. It was like the circle around the “LL” in the paintings in the studio, and it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite find it in my memory.
I held the necklace up, and the light caught the facets, and the jewels glinted. “It looks familiar, but I can’t figure out why.”
“It’s the necklace that all the women in the portraits are wearing,” Monsieur Duplessi said.
I shivered. He was right. How had I not recognized it right away? In my hand, between my fingers, the jewels began to vibrate slightly. Almost as if they were coming to life. But that was impossible. It had to be my hand that was causing the sensation. Not the necklace.
I walked over to a large gilt-framed mirror and held the piece up to my throat. The rubies had an inner glow, like coals that had been burning for a long time, and strangely they felt instantly warm against my skin, not cool the way jewelry usually feels when you first put it on.
I tried to open the clasp, but my fingers shook so much I couldn’t manage.
“Let me help you.”
Monsieur Duplessi stood behind me. I saw him in the mirror, his black hair curling over his forehead as he bent to focus on the clasp. His lips, the same dark wine color of the stones around my neck, pursed in effort.
His breath heated the back of my neck. As he closed the clasp, its metallic click sounded almost like a murmur, as if the necklace was relieved to once again be worn.
Monsieur Duplessi remained standing behind me a moment longer than necessary. I felt the heat coming off his body and imagined what would happen if I turned around and kissed him. I had never done anything so spontaneous with any man. I was astonished I could even imagine it. I’d only known him for two days. Certainly the woman who had left New York three weeks ago could never have even thought anything so bold. But everything about her and the city where she lived and the tragedy she’d endured seemed far in the past.
I turned. We were only inches apart. His eyes were burning black-green, and a slight smile played on his lips. He waited and watched.
I don’t know for certain, but I believe that I moved toward him first. After all, he wasn’t the type of gentleman to take liberties unless he was sure the attention was wanted.
The kiss was a revelation. An embrace to get drunk on. It sent me into a spill of overwhelming sensation. Behind my closed eyes, I saw my blood in a rainbow of reds. All the shades of ruby from every jewel that had ever been mined. I felt the pressure of his lips as if he were branding me for life and believed that when he pulled back my lips would be burned. This was something to be afraid of and give yourself over to. To worry that it would end and that it wouldn’t.
I could hear my heart beating, or was it his heart beating? I felt a hunger that was more animal than human. I wanted to taste more of him, to feel his fingers on my skin, to feel his skin with my fingers.
He ended the kiss. The air in the room cooled and assaulted me. He stepped back, looking at me, curious, examining me. I should have lowered my eyes. Been demure, ashamed even. I barely knew this man, and yet I did neither of those things.
“Why did you stop?” I asked. Words that could not have been mine. Words that I could never have imagined uttering the day before this day. Or even the hour before this hour. Where was this forwardness coming from? Who was I?
“I do not want to take advantage of you, Mademoiselle Verlaine.”
“Sandrine, my name is Sandrine.”
He gave me one of his dazzling smiles. “And mine is Julien.”
“What a pleasure to meet you, Julien.”
He bowed, took my hand, pressed his lips to it, and then brought my hand up and held it in both of his. For a moment he just stood there, holding my hand and looking at me, as if he was trying to see through me.
“You were not taking advantage of me,” I answered his question from a few moments before. “And to complete the introductions, I am not ‘Mademoiselle.’ I am married.”
He was taken aback. I saw shock but also relief on his face. After all, a virgin can be a certain kind of trouble a married woman cannot.
“Are you married, Julien?”
“No, affianced.”
Had he said it with some reluctance, or was that my imagination?
“How lovely.”