by Julie Kenner
“Please take the money for a taxi,” said Addie. She slapped down a ten-pound note, which wasn’t enough for the cab fare from here to there. “I can’t understand why you don’t drive. No car, no computer—and you still don’t have a mobile phone. You are so unworldly, Viv.”
And Vivien had coolly agreed.
She had already agreed to be live-in caretaker of Addie’s flat for three weeks, while Addie was in the south of France and Spain.
The flat was the last in a terrace of incredibly gracious London houses, dating from the eighteen hundreds, mostly now turned into apartments to die for. Addie, however, was moving out in the near future. When she had invited Vivien there last week, to suggest she flat-sit, Vivien had glimpsed furniture and belongings already under dust sheets or packed in large sturdy boxes, rather like Addie herself.
“I haven’t decided when I’ll go. The first offer on the flat was way too low. I’m holding out for several thousand more.” She had assured Vivien, “I won’t offer to pay you for flat-sitting. But it’s quiet here—the other flats are empty, as is the next-door property—another reason someone needs to keep an eye on things. But you could paint, couldn’t you? There’s a garden—” She had waved at the closed after-dark drapes. “It’s private, exclusive to this flat. And otherwise, none of this is a big responsibility, is it? I’ll leave you a list of anything you might need to know.”
Addie, Vivien thought, was like certain wealthy people—rather mean. She had chosen Vivien because Vivien owed her a favor and wouldn’t ask for payment.
So all this was like an interview—similar to the interviews Vivien had had with Addie when Addie put her forward for book-jacket illustrations with three reputable publishers. Interviewer and interviewee. They weren’t friends.
I don’t have any friends, Vivien thought, except Ellie, who has now moved back to the States. And no lovers.
That Saturday, after Addie had delivered the keys, Vivien had paused by her ornate, dusty mirror and looked at herself pensively. She saw a slim, pale woman of twenty-eight. Her mass of dark hair poured back from her face and over her shoulders, unrestrained, and her large gray eyes met themselves in the glass, almost questioning. Her second name was Gray. People made jokes about gray-eyed Vivien Gray. And he had said to her, “Eyes gray as glass…”
Angrily Vivien turned from the mirror and the memory.
No friends, no lovers. The one she had loved ultimately hadn’t wanted her, and in the three years since, she hadn’t wanted anyone else. And he was stuck there, in the bottom of her heart, like bottled darkness.
The taxi was hot and stuffy—the underground would probably have been worse. It was late July, the summer like a hot blue lid clamped down over London. When they reached Coronet Square, the trees in the small public park looked tarnished.
Vivien lugged her bags and folded-up easel round to the arched doorway of the gracious ground-floor flat.
Ten minutes later, throwing open Addie’s French doors to the private garden, Vivien, startled and pleased, went out along a lush green avenue, between rowdy bay trees and tangled lilacs, turned a corner and saw—him.
He was a life-size statue. He stood there, six feet tall, and naked but for a little modest drapery at the hips. He had no look of anyone she had ever known—yet his beauty made him seem somehow familiar. Influenced rather by Greek Classical style, but with a hint of Art Nouveau. He was astonishing.
Even his marble was polished by weather rather than stained or chipped—or maybe he had been recently cleaned. At the thought of washing and rubbing this smooth male surface, Vivien felt a strange heat come into her face. How absurd.
His eyes were bleak, yet not truly blank in the way of most statues. His hair was long, thick and chiseled to look like sea waves coiling down his back. His body was faultlessly proportioned—long runner’s legs, the torso leanly muscular, shoulders wide, neck a column. It made her think of lions, pumas, hunting dogs of the Renaissance. His face was that of a pagan god.
She studied him some while.
Tomorrow, she would sketch the statue. It was a must.
Only as she was about to turn away did she see that letters had been cut into the plinth where he stood. Vivien drew off the thin veil of ivy, and read, “My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.”
She thought she knew the words—Shakespeare, surely—but which play? Ellie would have known right off.
The sun now moved behind tall surrounding buildings. Shadows fell, changing the color of the roses to blood.
The flat was absolutely enormous. She hadn’t seen it properly on the previous occasion. A hall, with a spacious cloakroom on one side and a dining room and cupboards on the other, led into a vast, weird and wonderful eight-sided room, with cornices and elaborate plasterwork overhead. It had a narrow window at one end, and more French windows at the other. Further doors led off into a couple of separate halls.
There were, altogether, three bedrooms, plus Addie’s study, which was a barren room full of files and four computers—all switched off and under plastic tents—two bathrooms in ceramic tiles, and a small conservatory off the kitchen that also opened onto the garden. No plants lived in the conservatory. Addie never bothered with things like that, which was why the garden had run, literally, to seed.
The kitchen had a larder full of closed boxes and crates and depleted wine racks and a main area with white counters sparsely manned by microwave, coffee grinder and so on.
The fridge was the size of a small bus, and contained a bottle of Evian, half a carton of milk—which had gone off—and one slice of white bread, and a lettuce leaf that had obviously escaped and hidden long ago. Vivien needed to go shopping.
When she came back from the expensive local store, it was almost seven. The phone was ringing on and on, its tape clearly already message-full. As Vivien touched the phone, it rang off. Then, as she went back down the hall, it began again.
“Hello?”
“Finally! Is that Adelaide Preece?” It was an impatient female voice.
“No, I’m afraid she isn’t here right now.”
“Who on earth’s that then I’m speaking to?”
Vivien frowned. “May I ask who you are?”
“Cinnamon Boyle-Martin.” Then, before Vivien could respond, she added rudely, “and you’re Ms. Whoever, right. So, my partner and I would like to come round tomorrow as agreed. Okay?”
“Why, exactly?”
“Adds must have told you. My partner and I are interested in some of her stuff.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“Too bad. She’s selling off a few things. I’ll bring her letter if I must. Do you have e-mail?”
“No,” said Vivien firmly.
“Well, we’ll be by about ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not—”
“Ciao!” warbled Cinnamon, and was gone.
Had any of this been on Addie’s lists of instructions? There was one under the grinder, but that seemed to be a warning not to use Addie’s coffee beans. The other list, Vivien, who had not paid it much attention, now checked over. Ah. Scratched in the corner she read, Antique scavengers—CS and spice name, poss sun.
Vivien decided to worry about it tomorrow.
As the dark began to gather, she sat by the French windows on a chair released from its dust wrapper. The statue wasn’t to be seen from here. She shut her eyes and, not expecting to, fell asleep.
The nearly naked, perfect man stood before her, among the trees. Slowly his head turned towards her—his eyes gleamed, human and alive, full of dark light….
Vivien woke with a start. It was nearly 11:00 p.m.
She switched on a lamp, which glimmered out through the glass and down the path. Presently she undid the doors and went out.
Looking back up at the building, if she had had any doubts, now she could see there were no lights anywhere, nor in the large house that immediately adjoined this one. Empty, as Addie had sa
id. The dividing garden wall, half-hidden in creepers and trees, was ten feet high at least.
Vivien walked back down the path, feeling strange yet foolish.
He stood there now in darkness. Yet faint illumination from the electric false “gas lamps” of the square dappled him through the leaves.
Vivien stared. Who could ever compare with this?
Are you falling in love with a statue? Vivien asked herself. Listen, Gray, there are some mistakes even you aren’t allowed.
Her heart beat fast. That was the artist in her, she thought sternly, excited by the prospect of sketching this wonderful image.
She could imagine telling Ellie, and Ellie hooting with laughter, hurtling her back to sanity once more. But she couldn’t very well call Ellie in New York on Addie’s phone.
Vivien turned smartly to go back indoors.
Something…
She stopped, looking now intently where her shadow fell away from the dim streetlights. The shadow was faint, too, and broken up by the shade-shapes of leaves—but there beside it stretched another, second shadow, which was male. By some fluke of the garden’s contours, the shadows suggested he stood right beside her. His right arm extended slightly, as if…as if he had put his hand on her shoulder, intimately inviting her to stay….
Vivien looked back—it was irresistible. There he stood, above her, not close at all, unmoved and cold with night.
Vivien had set her alarm clock for seven-thirty, as usual. Unusually, it hadn’t managed to wake her. She opened her eyes just before ten.
She was standing in her robe, hair still damp from the shower and a mug of mint tea in hand, when the door buzzer sounded on the kitchen wall.
Horrified, Vivien remembered what she had thought she wouldn’t forget.
“Hello, yes?”
“Yes, this is Cinnamon Boyle-Martin and my partner, Connor Sinclair. Going to let us in?”
Her instinct was to say no. But good manners forced from her a reluctant “All right. Just a minute.”
She drained her scalding tea like brandy. Confound it, why was she so nervous? They couldn’t be burglars if they knew Addie—could they?
Vivien, vulnerable in her long, belted robe, shook back her hair and undid the front door. And there they stood, against the morning sunlight.
Her first impression was of Cinnamon, as rash and gaudy as expected. The tall man stood just behind her.
As Vivien’s eyes adjusted, every element inside her body seemed to turn itself over. She didn’t know what she felt—but fear was surely paramount.
For she had seen the man at the door yesterday. Clothed and colored in, Connor Sinclair was like Addie’s statue in every way but one: He was flesh and blood.
Chapter 2
His hair was very thick and long, and black—very black. From the tanned, expressionless mask of his face, two eyes, heavily inked in by brows and lashes, looked down at Vivien. They were the color of hot black coffee—and cold as ice. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, both of which showed very clearly the exact lines of a strong and muscular body, broad shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up. His muscled forearms were the deep brown color of oak wood and dusted by dark hair. Beautiful hands, Vivien thought stupidly, powerful and calloused, with long fingers whose ends were squared rather than tapering—a working artist’s hands. Had she noticed this on the statue—the statue whose living double this man was?
Decidedly, his eyes were as bleak and ungiving.
The Cinnamon woman was gabbling off some stuff about Addie, which Vivien wasn’t taking in. Suddenly the man spoke over her, not loudly but with the perfect pitch of an actor.
“Shut up, Cinnamon.” And then to Vivien, he said flatly, “I don’t know who you are, but either you can let us in, or I can call the police.”
“What?” Vivien now stared at him in astonishment.
“Well, you could be a vandal, or a squatter, couldn’t you. Adelaide didn’t say anyone was going to be here, except for herself. I suppose she isn’t here?”
Vivien tried to pull herself together. “No, she’s not. I’m minding the place while she’s away.”
“Really? We’ll have to take your word for that, won’t we.”
From stupefaction, and then purely physical admiration, Vivien felt herself pass into a rapid rage. How had he so flawlessly wrong-footed her? She should slam the door in his face and call the cops herself—
Cinnamon thrust a card and a letter into Vivien’s hand. Vivien read the card: Scavengers Ltd. And then his name: Connor Sinclair. The badly written letter was from Addie. It agreed to something unreadable on Sunday.
“All right,” said Vivien. She stepped aside, and Cinnamon dived past her like some sort of dyed-blond raccoon.
As he moved forward, Vivien found herself shrinking back against one wall, as if to be touched by him might burn her—or would it be frostbite?
He stalked down the hall. Cinnamon was already in the octagonal room, turning round and round, hair and jangly earrings dangling back so she could view the corniced ceiling.
“Pity we can’t scrape that off, eh, Conn?”
“Mmm.”
Noncommittal, he stood there, dominating the space. If the statue was six feet tall, Connor Sinclair was more like six foot three. A difference, then.
Oh, there were plenty. The statue, for one thing, didn’t have these eyes, or these bladed lashes, so dense, long and black. Didn’t have any of the colors. The statue was…unclothed.
A tingling flame stirred out of nowhere, suddenly, in Vivien’s spine. Her sense of sexual desire was so abrupt, so unwanted, it was almost hurtful.
“I gather she’s left crates somewhere?” His musical, infuriating voice.
Vivien gathered herself together again.
“Yes, the kitchen.”
“That’s what I’m going to look at, then. Also there’s something I want to see in the garden. If all that’s quite all right with you?”
His sarcasm was like a wasp sting.
“I can’t very well stop you,” she said.
“No. So I suggest you let me get on.”
Vivien realized that, in this labyrinth of a flat, she must show him the way to the kitchen.
It was like taking the manorial lord downstairs. The second hallway became some long ramble in a stately home, and Vivien, the downstairs maid, lowest of the low.
She could feel him at her back—actually feel his presence, like great heat…cold…pressure.
The kitchen might have been the surface of the moon. She gazed at it dementedly, and surprised herself by saying, apparently as cool as ever, “The crates are in the larder. That’s there—”
“Thank you. I can actually see where it is.”
Cinnamon came springing in with a clatter of her ghastly jewelry.
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Vivien, picking up her pot of mint tea. She would offer these creatures nothing. A shame, it might have been fun to poison them….
Back in her bedroom, Vivien threw on clothes, jeans and a loose black shirt, one of three she preferred to work in. She brushed her hair and it sizzled with sparks.
For heaven’s sake, she thought. He doesn’t matter. They’ll be gone in an hour or less.
Someone rapped on her door. It had to be him. It was like the knock of the Spanish Inquisition—besides, no jangle of bangles.
“Yes?”
She stood glaring up at him. He was plainly as indifferent to her annoyance as to her.
“I need to see the garden now.”
“Do you.”
“The French doors are locked.”
“So you just came along to this room?” She thought, He knew where I was. He must know this flat, I’m sure of it.
“The sooner you allow me to do my work here, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.” As he said this, he glanced at her hair, then glanced, it seemed to her, right into and through her eyes. The effect on her was intense, and to dispel it,
she had to look and move away.
Back then to the eight-sided room. Cinnamon, cross-legged on the floor, had a box-load of items spread out before her like exotic wares on an Eastern carpet. Vivien had no notion if these things—bowls, little boxes, candelabra—had come from Addie’s selected crates or been stolen by the Scavengers from cupboards.
When she had found the key and unlocked the doors, he walked straight past her into the garden.
It was a glorious day, hot already, the shade blue along the path, and the scent of late lilac and rose mingling with the dustier aromas of London. He paused, looking around him.
Vivien thought once more, He knows this place.
He headed off along the path and unfalteringly turned the corner at the biggest lilac tree. He was now out of sight. And he was where the statue was.
Cinnamon rattled out and down the path.
Nearly hypnotized, Vivien followed her.
He was standing looking up…at himself. His hair, which wasn’t tied back, poured down his back in shining black ropes. From this angle, Vivien couldn’t see his face. Correction—yes, she could. For there it was again, looking back at him from the plinth.
Cinnamon, too, was squinting at the statue. Abruptly she announced, “Y’ know, it’s a bit like you, Conn.”
Vivien recoiled. She didn’t know why. As if, ridiculously, the resemblance, so underestimated, had become her property to defend.
Connor Sinclair said, not looking round, “So I’ve been told. I never see it, myself.”
“No, but it is—it could be you, sort of—”
“I’m not that damned effete,” he said.
He turned. He looked over Cinnamon’s head at Vivien. “The statue’s what I’m really after. I expect you guessed that? It’s called Jealousy.”
Vivien swallowed. “Why?”
“You don’t know the quote cut in the base? No—” Scornful of her ignorance, he spoke the line in his dark, extraordinary voice: “‘My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.’ From Othello. Perhaps you don’t know the play.”
“Of course I know the play,” Vivien replied icily. “Presumably this comes after his mind has been turned against his wife by Iago—when Othello begins to plan to kill her.”
