Moving Target (7 page)

The twelve-foot-high front gate had cameras as well as the usual number pad. Because she hadn’t been told the gate code, she punched the button marked visitor and spoke her name into the microphone grille.

“Welcome, Ms. Charters. The Warricks are expecting you.” The voice was clear, pleasant, and male. “Please follow the main drive to the house.”

The gate retracted just enough to allow her through. The instant her van cleared a hidden detector, the gate closed so quickly that it all but banged into her bumper. Soon she was surrounded by tightly mowed lawns, fountains, and trees that owed more to Italy than to the New World. The drive was at least a quarter mile long. The house itself was big enough to be called baronial: pale stone facade, three stories, with vertical windows set at regular intervals on all levels. Olive trees and cypress pruned into unlikely shapes lined the long walkway to the entrance.

Though Serena knew this tract of land had been nothing but rocky desert when she was a girl, the house and grounds looked as if they had been in place for five hundred years.

Wonder if they need any hangings for their castle walls?
Serena thought wryly.

The Warricks certainly could afford her weaving. One of her continuing sources of bittersweet amusement was that she didn’t have enough money to buy her own work. She could barely afford to keep a favorite piece off the market and in her own home.

As soon as Serena turned off the engine, the massive front door opened. She half expected to see a leggy young thing in a French maid’s outfit, but the person waiting for her was very tall and masculine in outline. She got out of the van and stood, waiting for him to come to her. As she waited, her fingers strayed to the ancient cloth she wore beneath the neck of her blouse. Soothing, almost silky, yet somehow even softer than silk, the texture calmed her.

The man walked down the stairs with an ease that suggested youth, fitness, or both. His hair looked dark, except where it was woven through with silver that glistened in the artificial light. Erect and clean-shaven, he didn’t appear particularly casual despite the slacks, golf shirt, loafers, and light wind jacket he wore.

Without being obvious about it, he looked through the van’s windshield to see if she was alone. He scanned her with equal discretion. There was nothing to raise warning alarms in her black jeans, black cotton pullover, and black sandals. The black leather purse she carried was big enough to double as an overnight case, but many women had such purses and carried nothing more lethal inside than makeup, water, and comfortable shoes.

“Welcome to the Warrick estate, Ms. Charters.”

“At the moment, I feel more like Alice in Wonderland.”

White teeth flashed. “I reacted the same way the first time I saw it. I’m Paul Carson. The Warricks are eagerly awaiting you inside. May I help you carry anything?”

“Like the pages?” she asked.

He had the grace to look chagrined. “Sorry. We’re all excited. The color copies were intriguing, but not particularly useful.” He shrugged. “You understand, I’m sure.”

“You want to see if the pages have more to offer than the copies, is that it?”

“Of course.”

“That’s why I brought them. I’d like to know, too.”

Intent, pale eyes that could have been blue or gray or green watched while she pulled a large leather portfolio from the rear of her van. She noticed his scrutiny and raised her left eyebrow in silent question.

“I’m sorry if I seem rude,” he said quickly. “Some habits are impossible to break. I spent twenty years in the Secret Service and ten more as Mr. Warrick’s chief of security. We have so few strangers to the estate that, frankly, I’m nervous.”

“I’m getting that way myself,” she said. Then she smiled. It was hard not to. The idea of someone who looked like Carson being nervous around an unarmed woman was amusing.

“Again, I apologize,” he said. “It’s just that so many young women carry concealed weapons today.”

“I’m not one of them.”

“Good, because I would have to ask you to leave any weapon in your van. House rules.” He smiled again. This time he let his approval of her feminine form and elfin face show in his voice. “Have you eaten?”

Serena blinked. The man was damned handsome, even if he was twenty years older than she was. The twinkle in his eyes hadn’t aged one bit. “Eaten? I think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“I was weaving. When I’m weaving . . .” She shrugged. “My stomach isn’t growling, so I must have eaten something somewhere along the way.”

“As soon as I introduce you to the Warricks, I’ll see what we have in the kitchen.”

“That’s not necessary, Mr. Carson.”

“Paul.” He gestured for her to precede him up the wide marble stairs. “And it’s very necessary. I have a niece your age. I’d feel terrible if she fainted at my feet because I hadn’t thought to feed her.”

“That must be how Picky feels.”

“Picky?” He opened the massive front door and turned to her.

“My cat. He’s always leaving, er, delicacies around for me to eat.”

“Delicacies?” He closed the door behind them. “Such as?”

“Obviously you don’t have cats.”

“No.”

“Picky catches all manner of small things, but he only eats the juicy bits. He leaves the crunchy stuff for me.”

“Ugh. No wonder you don’t eat. This way, Ms. Charters.”

“Serena.”

“Serena. Unusual name. Quite lovely.”

“I’m told it’s a very old name.” As she spoke, her eyes took in the extraordinary etchings, paintings, armor, and framed pages from illuminated manuscripts that lined the hallway. They were more striking than even the Louis XV rug whose plush length softened the stone floor. “According to family legend, the first girl born in every generation is given Serena as part of her name. It’s been that way since the twelfth century, one Serena per generation.”

“Dammit, Paul, where is she?” demanded a rusty, irritated voice. “I could die before I—”

“We’re in the hall,” Carson cut in quickly. Then he said softly to Serena, “I’ll apologize in advance for Mr. Warrick. He is rude, arrogant, and brilliant.”

“I’ll try to concentrate on the last part.”

“We all do,” he said ironically. “Some days it’s easier than others. This way.”

Serena didn’t know if the space she entered was officially called a “great room,” but it should have been. French and Italian antiques lined the walls and made graceful conversational groupings that any museum would have been proud to own. The Warricks seemed to have a special fondness for the ornate. Ormolu decorated or held everything that could support its gilded splendor. She was certain that the porcelain thus displayed was the best of Sèvres, the crystal was hand carved, and the furniture was signed by the master craftsmen of their times.

Though it wasn’t Serena’s style, she smiled at the luxurious result and admired the painstaking artistry that went into each piece.

Then she saw the medieval French tapestry hanging on the far wall and all thought of furnishings vanished. The complexity of the hanging could only be fully understood by another weaver: the delicate weft, the intricacy of the pattern, the hachure technique of blending colors so that there appeared to be many more than the medieval palette of two hundred, the gold and silver threads among the fine wool, the thousands of hours of work, and the keen eye that first imagined and then taught others the design. Unicorn and aristocratically dressed maiden, knights arrayed for battle, colorful tents where favored members of the court rested after a picnic of wine and cheese and meats; the tableau was a slice of time that had survived to cross the years into the twenty-first century.

The tapestry’s humanity cried out to Serena. Aristocrat or peasant, knight or knave, all people hungered for food and rest and beauty. The weaving both described and understood the imperfections of human nature and the fleeting perfection of a certain moment in time.

Motionless, she simply absorbed the faded yet extraordinary tapestry that had been woven and embroidered by nameless workers so many centuries ago. Silently she saluted the long-dead men and women who had created such beauty from nothing but a handful of threads.

“—stand there like a sheep caught in headlights. Bring that portfolio to me!”

Belatedly Serena realized that there were people in the room. They were all but hidden by the magnificent furnishings.

“Father,” a woman’s voice said wearily, warily, “there’s no need to be that rude. Not everyone is used to living with antiques that once graced the castles of French and Italian kings.”

“And queens,” Serena said, looking back to the far wall. “That’s a woman’s tapestry. Extraordinary. Except in the Louvre, I’ve never seen anything to touch it.” Reluctantly she turned her attention from the enthralling woven portrait of a time long lost. “I’m Serena Charters.”

“Of course you are,” the old man retorted. He was thin, quick, had wispy white hair and hands that looked delicate despite their enlarged knuckles. He seemed more like a vigorous seventy than nearly one hundred. “Anyone else wouldn’t have been allowed past the front gate.”

“This is my father, Mr. Warrick.” The woman was like her voice: of medium coloring except for her skillfully bleached hair, of medium height, and educated yet still casual, with a strong flavor of New York. “I’m Cleary Warrick Montclair. The young man with the good manners is my son, Garrison Montclair.”

Serena nodded at Garrison, who looked perhaps eighteen at first glance. When he moved to greet her, she noticed the Safavid rug beneath his feet for the first time. Only the French tapestry could have kept her from noticing such a glorious example of textile art. The rug’s colors were still vibrant after five centuries, the designs both crisp and flowing.

“Delighted to meet you,” Garrison said.

Serena realized that she was staring at the rug rather than paying attention to her hosts. Talk about rude. Guiltily she forced herself to look away from the gorgeous rug to the hand Garrison was holding out to her. As she shook it firmly, she realized that up close he looked at least ten years older than she had thought. He had the assurance that came from wealth and exclusive education. If he also had the arrogance, he hid it well.

Probably one arrogant man in the house was enough, she decided with faint humor.

Having been raised essentially without men, Serena found them amusing and impossible by turns. Fascinating, too. Rather like large cats. Really large. But, as G’mom had assured her granddaughter many times, Men aren’t worth the trouble of housebreaking.

Serena had always taken her grandmother’s words at face value. Only when she grew older did she wonder why—if men were that much trouble—women went to such unlikely extremes of dress and cosmetics to get one of their own.

Garrison’s friendly hazel eyes smiled at her. Two warm hands surrounded her own. Softly curling chestnut hair caught and held light as he gave her a slight bow.

“My pleasure, Ms. Charters. Or may I call you Serena?” Garrison asked.

She wondered if a woman had ever refused him. “Serena is fine, Mr. Warrick.”

“Oh, please,” he said, laughing. “There’s only one Mr. Warrick here, and that’s Granddad. I’m Garrison, chief flunky for the House of Warrick.”

Cleary gave her son a sidelong glance that he ignored.

Serena hid a smile. Perhaps a possessive mother was the reason that the charming young scion didn’t have a wife at his side.

“Enough nonsense,” Warrick said curtly. “Bring me the bloody sheets now.”

Garrison rolled his eyes but made no other objection. “If I may . . . ?” he asked, holding out his hand for the portfolio.

For an instant Serena’s fingers tightened on the leather. A peculiar sense of possessiveness gripped her. She had to force her hands to loosen. It was ridiculous to be so wary. The man who owned the baronial splendor surrounding her certainly wouldn’t simply grab four leaves from a manuscript nobody had ever heard of.

“Of course,” she said.

She handed over the leather portfolio and told herself she was an idiot for the silent cry of objection that rose within her when the pages left her hand. She was acting like a mother cat with only one kitten.

It was an effort, but she forced herself not to follow Garrison as he crossed the costly rug and laid the portfolio on an antique table in front of his grandfather. The surface of the table gleamed with a mosaic of semiprecious gems—lapis and malachite, ivory and ebony, carnelian and mother-of-pearl. For all the attention Warrick paid to the table, it could have been made of clay.

With surprisingly nimble fingers, he undid the buckle on the portfolio and opened the leather wide with the impatience of a conquering knight spreading a woman’s thighs. Silence filled the huge room while he turned the first sheet, then the second, the third, the fourth.

He looked up, pinning her with dark eyes. “Where did you get these?”

“I inherited them from my grandmother.”

He said something that she couldn’t hear, something that sounded very much like bullshit.

“Excuse me?” Serena said.

“Where are the rest of the sheets?”

Serena was sure that hadn’t been what the old man said, but she answered anyway. “This is all I have.”

He snorted. “Likely story. Want to try again? Where are the rest of the sheets?”

“Yes, let’s try again,” Serena said tightly. “I don’t have any other pages.”

Warrick gave her a look out of eyes that had faded from their original brilliant blue but had lost none of their searching clarity. “When did she die?”

“A year ago.”

“Why did it take you so long to get these appraised?”

Irritation flared. Serena subdued it and tried to remember that Warrick had the reputation of being as brilliant an appraiser as he was rude. Even so, she had no intention of going over the whole sad, sordid tale of her grandmother’s death.

“I’m a busy woman,” Serena said through her teeth.

“And I’m an old man. I don’t have time to waste with a clever young baggage who thinks to take up where her purported relatives left off.”

She stared at him, wondering suddenly if he wasn’t more than a little bit senile. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”