“Where is it?” she mumbled, squinting up at him.
“What?”
“The cat.”
“What cat?”
“The one that slept in my mouth,” she muttered. “I know I have fur on my tongue.”
Sean laughed softly and pulled his arm from beneath her neck. He propped on his elbow and raked the length of her body with his gaze. “If there is a cat, it’s probably lost in the wrinkles of your skirts. We’re both a mess. I should have undressed us.”
He wouldn’t discuss with her why he hadn’t done that. He could not have borne holding her with nothing between them. The pain of their closeness, even fully dressed as they were, had nearly killed him. The powerful urge to give comfort with, as well as to, his body would have wrecked his resolve if he hadn’t left the fabric barriers exactly as they were.
Laura shifted and rubbed her eyes with her fists as a child might do on waking. He brushed the loosened strands of her hair back from her forehead and kissed her brow. “How do you feel?”
She laughed softly and shook her head. “Fuzzy. Could we have some breakfast?”
“Certainly!” he said, rolling off the bed and trying to straighten his clothes. “Right away.” Then he stopped what he was doing and braced one hand on her shoulder. “Will you be all right while I go and order?”
“Of course. Go ahead. I’m quite recovered.” She marched to the washstand and began splashing her face in the water. He watched her for a time to see how steady she was. Then, satisfied she told the truth, Sean left her to her ablutions while he arranged their passage on the train bound for Paris.
A little while later, they sat in the dining room of the hotel drinking the café au lait he had promised her.
Sean thought she looked a bit washed-out. He hoped that was only the result of the medicine he had ordered last night and her earlier bout with the nausea on the ship.
“So, tell me about our business in Paris,” she demanded with a bright smile.
“Our business?” he asked with a quirk of his brow.
“You don’t think for a moment I’m going to let you prevent me playing investigator! Now, tell.” She threw him a saucy wink over the edge of her cup.
Sean fought the urge to embellish his current case, to offer her some trumped-up derring-do to take her mind off her other problem. No, he wouldn’t lie. After all his insistence on honesty, she deserved better than that. Still he found himself tempted.
“My—our—employer is Mr. Frederick Burton, director of the National Gallery. He has set me the task of examining a painting offered for sale by a Monsieur Charles Beaumont. If the provenance proves legitimate and it is what he says it is, I—we—are to purchase it with the funds provided and take it safely home.”
“And?”
“That’s it,” he declared, noting her frown of disappointment.
“I thought it would be something more—”
“Dangerous? Yes, I knew you expected that. But it needn’t be so dull. If you like drawing, then you must be interested in art. This Monsieur Beaumont may have a fine collection as yet unseen by the public. He’s claiming a Rembrandt, at any rate. Won’t you find that interesting?”
She looked distracted. “How will you know if this picture is the real thing and not fake?”
Sean allowed his pride to show. He didn’t often do that, but he wanted her approval. Enough to boast a bit. “I know Rembrandt. I’ll wager I could tell you how many hairs in each brush he used in every known painting he produced. No one knows him as I do. I’ve already discovered two forgeries formerly attributed to him. That’s how I landed this case.” He grinned at her astonishment.
“You said you never studied painting.”
“Art history,” he admitted wryly. “Rembrandt was always my favorite. I’ve read everything ever written about him and his work. Later, as I traveled, examining his paintings and his technique in museums became something of a hobby. More like an obsession, really. I’ve seen them all. At least those not in private, inaccessible collections such as Beaumont’s.”
“So you will simply look at this painting, decide if it’s real, and buy accordingly?” she asked.
“Of course not. I’ll check the provenance and establish how it changed hands through the years, as well as examining the brush strokes, colors, composition and so forth. Burton and I did that together with a fourteenth-century Duccio a few years past in Florence, though I’m not really well versed on Italian painters. I’ve acquired lesser pieces for him since then. This is the most important thing he has trusted me with alone.”
Her eyes looked a trifle glazed as she said, “I’m fascinated!”
Sean laughed aloud and shook his head. “You are not, you little liar! You’re bored to tears. Come on, you wanted sordid disguises, flying bullets, mad dashes through the back streets. Admit it.”
“Childish, aren’t I?” She laughed, too, and blushed. Sean was delighted to see color in her cheeks, whatever the cause.
“Wonderfully so,” he said, standing and offering his arm. “Now let’s go to Paris, shall we, Mrs. Wilder? On my word, I promise you won’t be bored there.”
They arrived at the Hotel Lenoir very late that evening. Both were travel weary, but Sean noticed nothing faint about Laura. She seemed to have bounced back readily enough from her ills of the day before. While that relieved his mind somewhat, he couldn’t feel completely at ease.
There would come a time—probably quite soon—when she would not rally. Something vital shrank inside him every time he let himself think of that.
He tried to picture it, though, so that he could accept it when the worst happened. Laura still and white, beautiful in her final repose. Himself, stoic without and crushed within. It was no use. He could not make himself imagine. There was no preparing for such a thing anyway. Almost as heartbreaking as facing the actuality would be the pretending beforehand, the smiling and making of ordinary conversation, living as though there would always be a tomorrow for Laura. That much he must do for her, no matter how difficult or painful.
Facing the most deadly, knife-wielding bully in Whitechapel had not prompted such dread as he felt now.
Sean knew now that he hadn’t fully understood what he faced until Laura had fallen sick on the ferry. Death was no stranger to him, of all people. Sean could not begin to count the bodies he had viewed over the years, in the bowels of London, on battlefields, during days with the Yard and afterward. But thinking of Laura lifeless? His mind rebelled.
How could he go on this way, wondering if every breath Laura drew might be her last? And if it was this miserable for him, what the devil must it be like for Laura? Surely she marked the apprehension in his eyes every time he looked at her.
If only they could forget she was to die. Like being ordered not to think of elephants, he thought with an inner scoff. He could at least make her forget for a time. That would be something, anyway.
Sean glanced around the modest bedroom of Hotel Lenoir and thought perhaps he should have taken Laura somewhere fancier. Somewhere grand with a suite of rooms. Instead, he had selfishly chosen this place with its antique patina and its shared necessaries down the hall because the memories of his times here gave his soul comfort.
Right now he could use all the comfort to be had. For three school vacations during