Eight Days to Live (2 page)

“Don’t count on it. I’m glad it’s over. You’re right, I am tired.” It’s only that it has been a very exhausting month, Jane thought. She was ready to go home and close herself away and just paint.

“This will wake you up.” Celine poured them both a glass of champagne, and her gaze went back to the three paintings about which she had been previously talking. “You may not see it, but those paintings are very special.” Celine crossed the room and handed the glass to her. “Technique is important, but when there’s so much passion, one can overlook a few mistakes.”

She frowned. “What mistakes?”

Celine chuckled. “See, you may criticize yourself, but I may not. You have an ego like all artists.”

“I never said I didn’t.” Jane grinned. “I’m no Rembrandt, but I’m pretty good. In spite of what your French critics say. They don’t agree that passion is more important. But I do get better all the time.”

“The proof is in the pocketbook,” Celine said. “And name me a great artist who didn’t suffer for their art.” She strolled up to the two paintings at the end of the row. “Me, I prefer to sell your
paintings and not suffer at all. My commission will buy me a fine house on the Riviera.” She tapped the frame of the painting of the castle that towered on a steep cliff that overlooked the sea. “Not like this one. It’s much too forbidding. I don’t like Scotland. Not enough sun.” She tilted her head. “But you must like it. That castle has substance and power. It’s very . . . strong.”

“I don’t know much about Scotland. I’ve only visited MacDuff’s Run a few times.”

“But it had great impact on you.”

“Yes.” She took a sip of her champagne. “You could call it impact.”

“I’ve met John MacDuff. He was here for a charity ball several years ago. I was dazzled. Earl of Cranought, Lord of MacDuff’s Run . . . It’s hard to ignore all that intensity and Rob Roy mystique.”

“I assure you that he’s no Rob Roy.” Though the people on his property looked upon him as something of a folk hero and kowtowed to the Laird. MacDuff had won a gold medal for archery several years ago at the Olympics, then joined the 45th Commando Unit of the Royal Marines and earned a chestful of medals for bravery. “And he’s arrogant as hell.”

“But he’s sexy enough to get away with it,” Celine said. “I tried to throw myself into his bed, but he would have none of me.”

“Then he was a fool.”

Celine nodded. “I think so, too. He doesn’t know what he missed.” She glanced slyly at Jane. “Tell me, did you make it into his bed? I’ll forgive you if you let me sell this painting.”

Jane shook her head. “Our relationship was a little more complicated.”

“Nothing is more complicated than sex,” Celine said. “Nor anything so beautifully simple.”

Jane chuckled. “You’re just trying to live up to your image as a Parisienne.”

“I don’t need to live up to it. I live and breathe it.” She added teasingly, “Come now, tell me the truth. If you visited that cold castle more than once, he must have offered you a warm bed to lure you. Why else would you go there?”

Celine clearly wasn’t going to give up. Just give her the bare bones and make her happy. “Actually, it had to do with a chest of gold coins, a lost ancient family treasure belonging to one of MacDuff’s ancestors. I’d become involved with tracing that chest from its origin in Herculaneum.”

“Ah, a lost treasure.” Celine’s eyes were wide and shining. “Tell me more.”

“There’s not much more to tell. You wouldn’t be interested.”

“Which means you’re closing up and don’t want to share.” She was obviously disappointed. “I would be interested, you know. I’m not just being inquisitive. I consider you my friend as well as my client. It’s natural to want to know about people you care about.” She shrugged, but her expression was wistful. “But I will try to understand.”

Jane stared helplessly at her. Celine was an irresistible force who was all the more appealing because she was sincere. “It’s no big deal.” Though those weeks at MacDuff’s Run had shaken her entire life at the time. “It was years ago, when I was a student in college. I was an art major with a minor in archaeology. I became interested in stories of a young actress, Cira, who was the toast of ancient Herculaneum. She fascinated me. It was rumored that she had escaped the eruption of Vesuvius and fled to Scotland, carrying with her a chest of gold coins that would be worth a fortune today.”

“But you said it was a long-lost MacDuff treasure.”

“Cira changed her name and identity and she and her husband, Anthony, founded the MacDuff family in the highlands.”

“And you went to Scotland to find the chest and found MacDuff. Now that’s a treasure I can appreciate. How romantic.”

“Not at all romantic. I wasn’t the only one trying to trace that chest. Thomas Reilly, a criminal who would take first place on any scumbag chart, was after it, too. He was interested in some specific coins that were supposed to be included with the others. Before it was over it got very ugly. Good people were hurt.”

“But you and MacDuff found the chest and lived happily ever after . . . in bed?”

“No, in the end finding the treasure wasn’t worth it to me.”

Celine shook her head reprovingly. “Treasure of any kind is always worthwhile. This story is very disappointing to me.”

Jane smiled. “Sorry, I’ll try to concoct a more interesting tale for you next time.”

“Please do that. I’m losing faith in you.” She glanced at the portrait next to the one of MacDuff’s Run. “You said this was one of the young men who grew up on MacDuff’s estate? Jock . . . ?

“Jock Gavin. Yes, his mother was housekeeper at the estate, and he grew up running in and out of the castle. He was like a younger brother to MacDuff.”

“He’s quite beautiful, almost an Adonis with that fair hair and those silver-gray eyes. But he’s too young for you.”

“There wasn’t anything like that between us. I painted that portrait years ago. He was nineteen when I did that first sketch. I was only a couple years older and we . . . bonded. Jock was going through a rough time, and I was able to help him through it.”

“Nineteen. He looks younger.” She frowned. “And older. I can’t quite put my finger on it. There’s a kind of an explosive breakability. Intriguing. What kind of a rough time?”

Jane was silent a moment, then said reluctantly, “He was close to a breakdown.”

“Why?”

Jane didn’t answer.

Celine’s gaze narrowed on her face. “You don’t want to talk about it. You were willing to tell me all about MacDuff and that silly treasure but not about this beautiful boy. That’s even more intriguing.”

I don’t have the right to talk about it, Jane thought. Celine might be a good friend, but Jane was still fiercely protective of Jock. What was she going to say about him? That boy you think so beautiful had been chemically brainwashed and trained as an assassin by Thomas Reilly? That gentle kid was one of the good people who had been twisted and hurt? Jock, who had already killed over twenty people before that portrait had been painted? Jock, the boy who had tried to commit suicide three times before she and John MacDuff were able to break through to him and bring him back to sanity?

No, that was just between her and Jock Gavin and would remain that way. “He’s my friend. I don’t gossip about my friends.” She added teasingly, “Which should make you happy. I could have a field day if I decided to gossip about all your affairs.”

“I wouldn’t care. It would only make me seem more fascinating. But it’s good to know that I could trust you.” She smiled. “More champagne?”

“No, I haven’t finished this one.”

“Too bad. I’m trying to get you a little mellow.”

“So that I’ll let you sell the painting of MacDuff’s Run?”

“No, I’ll let you keep that one. And the portrait of the beautiful boy.” She sipped her champagne. “I was only leading into my big pitch.”

Jane gazed at her warily. “Celine?”

Celine moved to the next painting. “Now this is a painting that I feel it is my duty to take off your hands. True, it also has impact. But who would want to keep it with them all the time? It’s depressing. Even the title.
Guilt
. What is that supposed to mean?”

Jane stared at the man’s face in the portrait. He was bearded, his cheeks sunken, his dark eyes burning. She had painted that face years ago. It was one of her works that had been a compulsive obsession until she had finished it. And, once created, she hadn’t been able to let it go. “I have no idea. He doesn’t exist except in my imagination.”

And in those dreams that had occurred over and over until she had completed the painting.

Dreams . . .

No, she wasn’t going to mention those dreams, not even to Celine. “
Guilt
seemed right at the time.”

“You don’t know him? He’s not your favorite uncle or your brother?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no attachment.” She beamed at Jane. “And you can give him up to make us both rich.”

“Celine, I told you that—”

“No, no. Wait until I tempt you.” Celine pulled a card out of her evening purse. “Donald Sarnoff. Computers. San Francisco. He came to me when the show first started and made an offer on
Guilt
. Very nice. I regretfully refused.”

“Good.”

“But then he came back fifteen minutes before the show was over. He said that he had to have the painting.”

“Too bad. He can’t have it.”

“Jane, he offered seven hundred thousand dollars for it.”

“What?”

Celine nodded. “My darling Jane, you’re very successful, but you’ve not reached that particular pinnacle yet. We’d be foolish to refuse an offer like that. Money is important.”

“Yes, it is.” Jane glanced back at the canvas. Celine was right about its being an uncomfortable painting. Yet she had never been able to give it up. It owned her as much as she owned it.

But she didn’t like to be owned. She had fought it all her life. From the time she was a street kid just trying to survive in the slums of Atlanta.

“Jane?” Celine was softly nudging, wheedling. “I could give a release to the papers, and it would increase your status enormously. It would be a great career move.”

Everything Celine was saying was true. But, dammit, she didn’t like the idea of her career depending on how much money her painting was worth.

For heaven’s sake, that was life. Forget the idealistic bullshit.

“May I sell it?” Celine asked. “Make me rich and yourself famous. What do you say?”

Jane looked back at the tormented face in the portrait. She didn’t speak for a long moment. “I say that I may be crazy, but I’m not giving it up.” She finished her champagne. “And that I’m tired and want to go to bed.”

Celine shook her head. “You are crazy.” She shrugged. “But I will keep at you. Maybe I can get this California billionaire to go even higher. You hesitated for a moment.” She made a shooing motion. “Go on upstairs and get to bed. I have to make a few phone calls, then I’ll set the alarm.” She filled her champagne glass again. “Though how you can sleep after such a victory is a mystery to me. I want to go out and celebrate.”

Jane smiled. “Then do it. You deserve a celebration. This is the
best show I’ve ever had, and it’s all due to you. You’re a brilliant woman, Celine.”

“Yes, I am.” She tilted her head, considering. “And I believe I will go out.
Sacré Bleu
, one of us should do it. I don’t know why I like you so much. You’re very boring.”

“True. But I had a rough week at home before I came back here to your Never-Never Land. I could use a little peace and quiet.”

Celine nodded. “You should stay here in Paris. I know you told me how much you love your adopted parents, but they have to be very grim people. Your Joe Quinn is a police detective. And I’ve read about Eve Duncan and how famous she is for her forensic sculpting.” She gave a mock shudder. “But dealing with all those skulls? Very depressing.”

For Celine it would be depressing, Jane thought, so she wouldn’t attempt to explain how Eve’s work brought final closure to many parents of children who had been lost for years. “They’re not grim. They just live in the real world.” She looked around the gleaming marble floors and crystal chandeliers of the gallery. “And this is Cinderella’s ballroom.”

“The real world is what you make it,” Celine said. “And I prefer my world beautiful and full of wonderful toys. When I was a child growing up wearing my sister’s hand-me-downs, I swore I’d surround myself with nothing but things that were new and fresh and unique.” She added, “Like you.”

“My work?”

“Yes, yes. But they only reflect what you are. You’re like me. You grew up tough, but you didn’t let it poison you. You’re still full of curiosity and willing to take risks.” She nodded at the painting. “But refusing that offer is a very big risk. I’ll have to concentrate on showing you the error of your ways.”

Jane smiled. “You don’t feel like concentrating on anything
but celebrating tonight. Go party.” She headed for the elevator that would take her to Celine’s elegant suite. It was a charming apartment, beautifully decorated and totally private. Celine might be a social butterfly, but she clearly liked to divorce herself from the gallery when she got on the elevator and went to her apartment. As Jane punched the button, she glanced back over her shoulder.

Butterfly indeed. Celine was wearing a black Valentino dress that was the height of sophistication, but she was pulling on a red silk cape that made a brilliant splash of color and caused the ebony darkness beneath it to shimmer. “You look beautiful. Have a good time.” She added quietly, “Thank you for everything, Celine. You’re right, it was a wonderful show.”

“Yes, it was. I did splendidly, didn’t I? I can’t talk you into coming with me?”

“Not tonight. But I’d love to have dinner with you tomorrow if you don’t have plans.”

“Then we’ll have another celebration tomorrow. We’ll go shopping and buy you a midnight blue dress with many sequins, I think. It will be dazzling with that wonderful red-brown hair.”

“Sequins aren’t my style. And I don’t dazzle.”

“No, maybe not usually. But you’re beautiful and people stare at you and remember your face after they’ve forgotten all the dazzle around them. But I still think we need a
little
dazzle to set my Paris whirling.” She swept toward the door, with the red silk cape flowing behind her like a banner. “Go to bed, you boring person. I’ll set the alarm to keep someone from stealing you, but don’t expect me in before dawn.”