Flirting With Forever (28 page)

“How do I know it’s real?” Jacket said, examining it closely. “Besides, it’s got something engraved on it.”

“It’s my mark.”

Jacket tossed it back. “Nothing personal, man, but I’l stick with cash.”

Peter’s heart sunk. “I don’t have any coins with me,” he said, though he knew where he could get them.

“Coins?” Jacket laughed, and Peter’s vision darkened.

“Come back when ya got ’em, pal.”

A voice—Jeanne’s voice—cal ed, “Hel o? Is anybody here?”

Peter stepped directly into Jacket’s line of vision, close enough for him to feel Peter’s breath on his face. “Sir, you have misjudged me. Let me make myself plain. I want the painting now, and I wil pay you for it.” He lowered his voice as the model emerged, hopping in one shoe as she slipped the other onto her foot. “It is as clear to me as it wil be to your fiancée what has transpired here. One of us is going to take that painting now, break it in two and destroy it. Which of us shal it be?”

Jacket’s eyes flashed, and for a long moment he said nothing.

The model grabbed her coat off the bed. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing,” Jacket said without breaking Peter’s gaze.

“Go.”

Jeanne cal ed, “Hel o? Hel o? I’m sorry it took so long.

The meter maid and I were having a little disagreement over how close I was parked to the hydrant.”

Anastasia shrugged. “Okay, then. ’Bye.” She ducked out of a door in the back.

“It’s me,” Jeanne cal ed as her footsteps drew closer. “Is anybody here?”

Jacket stepped around Peter, pul ed the painting off the easel and snapped it with his foot. He dropped it into a large, barrel-like contrivance and wiped his hands on his breeks. “Fuck you,” he said.

Jeanne stuck her head in the door. “Peter? Oh, Christ!

Jacket, hi. I, uh, see you’ve met Peter.”

“Oh yes,” Jacket said. “We’ve just been chatting over pints.”

“Ah, you Brits,” she said, laughing nervously. “It’s al
pint
this and
perambulator
that. Peter, can I see you in the other room, please?”

Peter nodded and bowed to Jacket. “Many thanks.”

Jeanne pul ed him into the main room. “
What
did you say to him?” she demanded. “Please tel me you didn’t say anything.”

But before Peter had time to answer, the door through which he had entered the apartment opened and Campbel Stratford stepped through.

“… real y isn’t necessary,” she said to an older man holding the door open. “Real y, Mr. Bal , even without a doorman, the building is quite—” She stopped when she saw Peter.

He hadn’t seen her for more than a month, and he had never seen her dressed in the clothes of her time. The effect took his breath away. She wore closely tailored men’s breeks of a dark, heathered brown that brought her hips and legs into stunning perspective and an equal y formfitting shirt. Her hair was loose and fel in streaming ringlets of crimson sunlight over her shoulders. He’d never seen a woman look like this, not even in the salacious tableaux of the king’s private parties, and while part of him felt the old wound reopen, another, less estimable part was titil ated by the shameless rejection of propriety. Stil another, keenly aware of the eyes of the other men upon her—for Jacket had entered the room as wel —nearly drove him to madness with the desire to rol up his sleeves and scrap.

“Peter,” she said.

His heart soared. Would this woman who had just said His heart soared. Would this woman who had just said his name in that hauntingly sweet voice, who gazed upon him with tremulous uncertainty, destroy everything he loved with a tawdry exposé? They had shared something that night. Surely she had felt it, too.

“Peter,” she said softly, “I think we should talk.”

Aye, this was a woman who could be reasonable.

“
You!
” Cam said, banging open the kitchen’s swing door and hoping the return might knock Peter senseless. “You have a goddamned lot of nerve.”

She didn’t like the way he looked at her, that “been there, had that” gaze that made her want to stick a paint-brush in his eye, and she hated the way her heart had done a high jump when she’d first seen him. It wasn’t that he looked so good in the khakis and work shirt, she told herself, though, to be frank, Rusty had never fil ed out that shirt the way Peter did. It was just that he looked so
different,
so … part of her world.

She didn’t know how he got here, he had no right to be here and in about three minutes she was going to have to deliver a riveting explanation to a roomful of people who were probably lining up their popcorn and soft drinks right now.

“
I
have a lot of nerve?” Peter rubbed his head. “Is there something you’d like to tel
me,
‘Mrs. Post’?”

She flushed.

“What difference did it make what my name was? You apparently knew it wasn’t the truth.”

“Aye, the truth was a rather precious commodity that night.”

The fire in his eye only fanned her fury. “But you, you’re a paragon of honor.
School for Wives
. Hilarious. That was a month of hard work.” Her voice choked on the last words, and she had to muster iron determination to banish the memory of nearly destroying her career. “You’re a jerk.”

He hesitated. “I-I am not proud of that. I was put in a difficult situation by a friend and al owed myself to believe that excused a wil ful deception. I was wrong, and I apologize.”

“Yeah, wel , this time I don’t need to depend on secondhand sources. This time I know the story perfectly.”

“I don’t think you do know the story.”

“Don’t I?”

“I would assert there are pieces of which you are not aware, pieces which might persuade you to abandon your project.”

“Such as?”

“There are people who wil be hurt.”

“Real y?” She gave him a look.

“I cannot deny I wil be affected, but that is not why I’m asking you to stop.”

“Then why are you? Tel me the pieces.”

He faltered. She could see the enormous pride in his eyes. “Can you not trust me?”

“Trust? Are you serious? No, I cannot trust you. You

“Trust? Are you serious? No, I cannot trust you. You nearly destroyed my writing career.”

Their eyes met, and he squared his shoulders. It was eerie the way he projected his position, even in the building engineer’s castoffs. She thought of that night at his studio and al the things she had hoped for. She wondered if he had done any of those things he had done that night without an ulterior motive. She wondered if he had done any of those things because he cared for her.

“Since I see you cannot trust me, I wil tel you. I should like you to do this for Ursula.”

She felt an irrational anger as she watched his fingers seek out the emerald.

“Ursula? The woman of the street raised to pampered society mistress by way of your bed?”

Peter looked as if he had been punched. “How … ?”

“We are not entirely without means where I come from.”

The flip answer did not satisfy as she had expected, and she found her tongue loosening further. “I have seen your models. I have seen your portraits of her. And I have experienced your methods.” The past five weeks had given her more than enough time to satisfy her curiosity on the life of Peter Lely, though it had satisfied little else.

“Might I guess which had the most impact on your decision?”

Cam inhaled. “Fuck you.”

“I see you and your artist share a deep esteem for poetics.”

“What my artist and I share is a deep esteem for the truth.”

truth.”

An odd stiffness came over Peter. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of his decision and made a deep bow. “I wish you both great joy.”

But she didn’t want his wishes, and she certainly didn’t want his reserve. She wanted his emotion.

“You have much happiness upon you,” he said. “Can you not find it in your heart to leave Ursula out of the story?”

How dare he manipulate her to protect a woman who hadn’t even bothered to be true to him? “Ursula
is
the story.

Rescued from the streets, she abandons her rescuer. It’s a classic ‘whore with a heart of stone’ story.”

“It’s a lie.”

“Al art is fiction, mine more than most.”

“You’re making a mistake. And I hope you see that before it’s too late.”

“Is that a threat?”

The door swung open slowly and Jeanne’s head appeared. “Hey, kids. How’s it going?”

“Great,” Cam said. “Party in a box. Peter was just going.”

“Going … ?” Jeanne waited for a location.

“Going?” Bal said, appearing next to her in the doorway.

“Gone.” Jacket strode by, tossing a bottle into the recycling bin and reaching for the refrigerator door.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” He pul ed out four beers, handed one each to Jeanne, Bal and Cam, then gave Peter a smile that made Cam wonder exactly what had transpired before she arrived. “Pleasure to meet ya, buddy.”

“I’m Woodson Bal ,” Bal said. “Jeanne tel s me you’re an artist.”

Jacket choked, and Peter accepted Bal ’s outstretched hand.

“’Tis kind of her,” Peter said. “I paint.”

“I was just tel ing Jacket here the stuff he does—oh, it’s marvelous, don’t get me wrong—just isn’t what moves me anymore. It’s the new guard pushing the old guard, the Jackets of the world, out of the way. Not that Mr. Sprague here wil ever be going hungry, right?” He gave Jacket an affectionate thump on the back, and Jacket grimaced. “I’m looking for something new, something that knocks your loafers off, something that says in the context of everything that’s come before me, ‘This is where I stand,’ you know what I mean? Not an iconoclast for iconoclast’s sake. A synthesizer. Someone who stands upon the shoulders of giants and doesn’t say …”

“‘Fuck you’?” Jacket suggested.

“Wel ,” Bal said, pushing his thick black frames up with a finger, “I think I was going for ‘Y’al be damned,’ but I suppose ‘fuck you’ captures the essence as wel . Someone who stands on the shoulders of giants and doesn’t say ‘fuck you,’ but says, ‘I understand, and I see even more.’ Do you see what I mean?”

Jacket tipped the beer and swal owed thoughtful y.

“Sounds like an irritating little sod to me.”

Peter crossed his arms and slouched against the counter. “You’re a patron?” he said to Bal . “A col ector?”

Bal beamed. “As if my life depended on it.”

“I can see where you find the ‘fuck yous’ of the world tiresome,” Peter said. “They betray a lack of substance. It’s al rhetoric. And when the posturing’s done, where are you?”

“Exactly,” Bal said, and Cam postured a discreet middle finger in Peter’s direction.

Bal rubbed his hands. “Wel , Cam, I hate to chat and run, but the Gators are on in half an hour.”

Cam silenced Jeanne with a sharp look. “No problem, Mr. Bal . I real y appreciate the ride.” She gestured for Jeanne to fol ow as she walked Bal to the elevator. When the elevator door closed behind him, Cam whispered, “How did he get here?”

“What do you mean, ‘How did he get here?’ The same way you did. He landed at your desk.”

“Couldn’t have. No Amazon in 1673.”

“Amazon?”

Peter appeared behind them. He smiled. “Do you mean the river?”

Cam didn’t say anything. Jeanne gave her a look and said, “Yes.”

“Ah. I’m afraid the river did exist in 1673. And for a good deal before that. I’m certain of it.”

“Thank you,” Jeanne said.

Cam rol ed her eyes and jabbed the DOWN button.

“No, no, no,” he said, holding up his palms. “I cannot stay. Thank you for the kind offer, though. I am most sensible of your generous hospitality.”

Jeanne giggled, and Cam shot her a glare that would have ignited marble.

Ignoring this, Jeanne said, “Do you need a ride? I’m heading back to the office. I mean, like, what exactly do you do now?” She met Cam’s eye in a quick sidelong glance.

“What town do I have the pleasure of visiting?”

“Mount Lebanon,” Cam said dryly.

“There is a smal public house I spotted across Mount Lebanon’s strand. I believe I shal retire there.”

“For the night? It doesn’t work like that here.”

“Don’t fret, Miss Turner. I’m very resourceful.”

“So, you’re not going to go. You’l stay?”

“Jesus, Jeanne.” Cam looked to see if Jacket was nearby, but he seemed to have disappeared into the studio. “He can stay or he can go. I don’t give a rat’s ass.”