A Hidden Fire

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “You and my grandmother are far too interested in my love life, or lack thereof. But thanks for calling me ‘gorgeous.’”

  “You are,” Charlotte sighed. “You have the most perfect skin. I kind of hate you.”

  “And you have the perfect husband and two perfect children, so I think you win. Is Jeff enjoying having you home every night?”

  Charlotte smiled and nodded. “Yes, all joking aside, thanks for taking the evening hours. It makes a huge difference with the boys involved in so many activities now.”

  “No problem. I can always use the cash.”

  “Speaking of cash, did I tell you someone very wealthy and very generous just donated a couple of letters from the Italian Renaissance to the library? We should be getting them in the next couple of weeks.”

  “Letters? What are they?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Not sure. I haven’t seen them. I guess they’re a couple letters from some Florentine poet to a friend who was a philosopher. Late fifteenth century, supposedly very well-preserved. I should remember the names, but I don’t. They were in some private collection, from what I hear. Honestly, I have no idea why the university is getting them.”

  “Huh.” Beatrice frowned. “We have hardly anything from that period. Most of the Italian stuff we have is late medieval.”

  “I know,” Charlotte shrugged again, “but they were donated, so no one’s going to complain.”

  “When do they get here?”

  “A few weeks, maybe closer to a month or so.” Charlotte laughed. “I thought Christiansen was going to piss his pants, he was so excited when he told me.”

  “And thank you for that mental image,” she snorted. “I’m going to go to check the dehumidifiers in the stacks. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Beatrice was still shaking her head when she entered the manuscript room, chuckling at her playful supervisor. Charlotte Martin’s enthusiasm for books and information was one of the reasons the young woman had decided to pursue a master’s degree in library science. Far from stuffy, Beatrice had discovered that most libraries were small hotbeds of gossip and personal intrigue. Intrigue that she enjoyed observing but also tried to avoid by hiding in her own small department.

  She checked the moisture readings in the stacks, tracking and resetting the meter for the next twenty-four hours. She walked to the center of the room to empty the plastic container from the dehumidifier that pulled excess water from the thick, South Texas air, so it wouldn’t damage the delicate residents of the manuscript room.

  After completing her duties in back, she pulled one of her favorite books from the shelves and opened it, poring over the vivid medieval illuminations in a German devotional. After a few minutes, she tore herself away to go help Charlotte with some filing before she settled at the reference desk for the evening and began to work on a paper for one of her classes.

  At five-thirty, Charlotte waved good-bye, and by seven o’clock, Beatrice heard the familiar steps of Dr. Giovanni Vecchio—mysterious Ph.D., translator of Tibetan texts, and all around hot-piece-of-gossip-inducing-ass—enter the reading room.

  “Good evening, Miss De Novo. How are you tonight?”

  She heard his soft accent as he approached and saved the file she was working on before she looked up with a smile. He was wearing a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and a grey jacket that evening. His face was angular, handsome in a way that reminded her of one of the photographs in her art history textbook. His dark, curly hair and green eyes were set off by a pale complexion that seemed out of place on someone with a Mediterranean background.

  Beatrice decided that no one should be that good looking—especially if they were smart. It simply put the rest of the population at a disadvantage.

  “Fine, thanks. I’m fine.” She sighed almost imperceptibly, and straightened her black skirt as she stood. “The Tibetan manuscript again?”

  He flashed a smile and nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  Beatrice went back to retrieve what she had begun to think of as “his” manuscript and walked out to Giovanni’s table in the far corner of the small room. Setting it down, she noticed he already had his pencils, notebooks, and notes from the week before laid out on the table. He was nothing, if not organized and well-prepared.

  “Do you need the spiel?” she asked as she handed him his silk gloves.

  He smirked. “Not unless you are required to give it every time I’m here.”

  “I’ve seen you here a few weeks now. If you won’t tell, I won’t.”

  “Your flagrant disregard of protocol will be our secret, Beatrice,” he said with a wink that set her heart racing. She hated her name, but maybe she didn’t hate it quite as much when it rolled off his tongue with that sexy accent.

  She just smiled and tried to breathe normally. “I’ll be at the desk if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded and slipped on the gloves to pick up the book. As always, she noticed the seemingly incongruent features which only added to the mystery he presented.

  His fingers were long and graceful, reminding her more of an artist than a scholar, but the body beneath his casually professional wardrobe looked like that of a trained athlete. He appeared fastidious in his appearance, but his hair always seemed just a bit too long. No matter how he was dressed, she always smiled when she saw his expression, his concentrated frown and preoccupied gaze were one hundred percent academic.

  Suppressing a snicker, she went back to writing her paper.

  They both worked quietly for another hour. When she finished her homework, she looked in her bag and realized she had forgotten the paperback she was reading that morning.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  He looked up from his work. “What?”

  She frowned and looked up, surprised he had heard. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s nothing. Just forgot my book at home.”

  She thought she heard him snort a little.

  “What?”

  He couldn’t contain the small chuckle. “You’re in a library.”

  “What?” She couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, I know, but I was reading that one. Besides, I can’t exactly go wander around in the fiction section looking for a new book. I’m working.”

  “True.”

  “Unless you want to finish up early so I can go do that.”

  He frowned and looked at the clock on the wall. “Do you really need me to?”

  Beatrice laughed out loud. “No! Of course not, I’m just teasing. I don’t expect you to cut your research time short for me.” She chuckled quietly as she turned to the computer to check her e-mail and look at her stock report online. She took careful note of a few investments she had left from her father’s estate and emailed herself a reminder to move one of them when she got back home.

  She glanced at the man copying the Tibetan book and realized he almost looked annoyed. She cleared her throat. “Thanks, though…for offering. That was nice.”

  He cocked one eyebrow at her. “Far be it from me to keep a woman from her book. That could become dangerous.”

  She snorted and shook her head a little. Giovanni smiled and returned to his transcription. They both worked in silence for a while longer before she heard him put down his pencil.

  “What was it?”

  “What?” Beatrice tore her eyes from the computer monitor.

  “The book. The one you forgot?”

  She frowned. “Oh…uh, Bonfire of the Vanities. Tom Wolfe.”

  His lips twitched when he heard the title. “Oh.”

  “Have you read it?”

  His smile almost looked rueful as he turned back to his work. “No.”

  “It’s good. It’s set in New York. I’ve never been, have you?”

  He nodded as he took out a blank sheet of paper and started a new page of careful notes. “I have. It’s very…fast.”

  “Fast?”

  “Yes, I prefer the pace of Southern cities.”

  “I can see that.”

&
nbsp; “Can you?”

  She looked up to see Giovanni staring, his blue-green eyes almost burning her with the intensity of their focus.

  “I—I think so,” she said, glancing down to avoid his gaze.

  He stared for another minute before she noticed him look back to his notes.

  Beatrice let out a breath, oddly disturbed by their conversation. After another half an hour, he stood and began to pack up his materials to leave.

  She watched him in amusement, his deliberate movements somehow reminding her of her late grandfather when he came home from work for the day. She flashed for a moment to the image of her Grandpa Hector emptying his pockets and setting his old-fashioned pocket watch on the dresser in her grandparents’ room.

  Beatrice walked over to collect the manuscript and return it to the locked stacks. By the time she came back, she caught only a glimpse of Giovanni as he rushed out the door with a quick, “Goodnight, Beatrice,” called over his shoulder.

  She watched him walk out the door with an admiring look, reminded again that there was nothing haphazard about the way Dr. Giovanni Vecchio moved. He walked with a fluid and silent grace that seemed as effortless as it was swift.

  Beatrice exited the room a few moments after him, locking up behind her and making sure all the lights were off. She no longer expected to see him waiting for the slow elevator, and she thought she heard the click of the stairwell door as it closed down the darkened hall.

  “Five flights of stairs?” she wondered quietly. “No wonder he has such a great ass.” The elevator dinged just as she pushed the button to go down.

  Chapter Three

  Houston, Texas

  October 2003

  “Going out this evening?”

  Giovanni looked up from buttoning his shirt to see Caspar standing at the door to his large suite of rooms on the third floor of the house. The heavy drapes were still drawn to protect the room from the setting sun, but Giovanni was feeling uncharacteristically light as he finished his evening preparations.

  “Yes.” His voice was clipped, but cheerful, as he answered. “Daylight savings time, Caspar.”

  Though most of his existence without sunlight did not bother him, Giovanni did envy the mortal freedom of movement during daylight hours. Thus, the short days of winter and the early dark was always something he considered cause for celebration.

  Caspar chuckled at the boyish excitement on his friend’s face. He went to hang the dry cleaning in the large walk-in closet at the back of the room.

  “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” he sang, while instinctively dodging the balled up socks Giovanni threw at him. A large grey cat sitting quietly in the corner of the bed unfolded itself and went to investigate the socks.

  “Still a smart ass,” Giovanni chuckled.

  “Still a dark and twisted demon of the night,” Caspar retorted as he hung the pressed shirts on the racks.

  He grinned. “Don’t tell the priest.”

  Caspar looked over in surprise. “Is Carwyn coming to town?”

  Giovanni nodded and bent to tie his charcoal grey shoes. “December, most likely. He said he’ll make a proper visit and stay for a few months.”

  “Excellent,” Caspar replied. “I’ll make sure his rooms are ready for him.”

  “I think he’s bringing one of his beasts, as well.”

  The cat curled around Caspar’s legs and chirped until he reached down to stroke its thick grey fur.

  “Sorry, Doyle. I guess you’ll have to sleep inside for a bit while the wolfhound is in town.”

  Doyle made his displeasure known by lifting his tail and leaping back onto the bed.

  Giovanni glanced at the cat as it tiptoed across his pillows. “Make sure the gardeners check the fences, as well. I know his dogs are well-trained, but I’d hate to have one wander off like last year. Also, prepare them for the massacre that will no doubt ensue in the flower beds.”

  “Of course.” Caspar paused, quietly observing his friend’s evening preparations and looking at his watch to check the time. “It will be pleasant to see him for a longer visit this time. More like the old days.”

  “Yes, it will.” He trailed off, his mind already darting to his agenda for the evening.

  Caspar noted his friend straightening the collar of his white shirt. “You shouldn’t wear white, you know. It washes you out, and you’re already pale as a corpse.”

  Giovanni frowned and turned to him. “Funny. You’ve been watching the English women again, the ones with the clothing show, haven’t you?” He shook his head in mock sorrow tsk’ing his friend as he looked in the mirror, trying to tame his hair.

  Caspar sighed. “I can’t help it. Their sardonic British humor and impeccable fashion sense lures me in every time. I do love an ironic woman.”

  Giovanni snorted and turned, grabbing his black coat from the chair by the dressing table and checking it for cat hair. “When was the last time you had a date with a woman who wasn’t on the television?”

  “Six months. When was the last time you did?”

  “Last week.” Giovanni shrugged on his jacket, satisfied it was free of grey fur.

  Caspar scowled. “That doesn’t count and you know it.”

  Giovanni walked toward the door, chuckling. “That didn’t seem to be her opinion, or at least, she wasn’t complaining.”

  Caspar listened to his steps recede down the hallway and turned to Doyle. He looked into the cat’s thoughtful copper-colored eyes. “It doesn’t count if they can’t remember, Doyle.”

  Doyle looked at Caspar critically, curled into a ball, and began purring on Giovanni’s pillow.

  “Last week?” Caspar muttered as he left the room, turning out the lights behind him. “More like thirty years.”

  Giovanni walked down the stairs, pausing to grab his car keys from a drawer in the kitchen before he walked into the dim light of the evening. Unwilling to waste the dark, he sped over surface streets, hoping to reach his destination before closing.

  When he pulled the Mustang into the parking spot near the University of St. Thomas, he looked at the clock on the dashboard of his car. He only had fifteen minutes left before the chapel closed, so he strode across the green lawn and headed toward the octagonal brick building which housed Mark Rothko’s black canvases.

  As he entered the deserted chapel he had not been able to visit in months, he nodded at the docent, bypassed the various books of worship near the door, and took a seat on one of the plain wooden benches. He quieted his mind and allowed his senses to reach outward as he stared at the seemingly static paintings that lined the white walls.

  His skin prickled in awareness of the lone human by the door. He allowed himself to concentrate on the solid beat of the man’s heart as his ears filtered the myriad noises flowing in and around the small building.

  Giovanni’s eyes rested on the black canvas in front of him. The longer he stared, the more the texture and subtle swirls of paint leapt out from its depths. No longer merely black, the paintings whirled and grew, taking on dimension never noticed by the casual observer.

  He sat completely still and let his soul rest in the simplicity of the quiet room. Too soon, he heard the guard’s heartbeat approaching. He stood and turned, not willing to have his peace interrupted by the words of the docent asking him to leave.

  As he exited the chapel, he saw the cover of the Holy Bible sitting on the shelf by the door. He was reminded of his phone call that afternoon with one of his oldest friends.

  “I’m coming for a visit,” the priest had informed him. “A proper one.”

  “Out of whiskey or deer?”

  “Neither, Sparky. You’re getting in one of your moods again, I can tell.” Carwyn’s Welsh accent tripped across the phone line.

  “Oh, you can tell from across an ocean? You must be old,” Giovanni quipped in the library as he spoke on the old rotary phone. “I don’t need last rites yet, Father.”

  “No, but you do need a
bit of fun. That’s why I’m interrupting my very busy drinking and eating regimen to come for a visit.”

  “Has Caspar been tattling on me again? Irritating child. And I’m not getting in a mood.”

  “Just the way your voice sounds right now tells me you’re already in one,” Carwyn lectured him all the way from his remote home in Northern Wales. “I’m coming for a visit, and I’m bringing one of the dogs. Lock your demon cat up.”

  “I have a project going right now.” He attempted to distract his friend as he stared at the flickering candle on his desk, repeatedly passing his fingers through its flame. The fire leaned toward him, dancing in the still air of the library. “And Caspar’s cat is not a demon.”

  “The cat is yours; and you know it’s far more demonic than we are. I’ll not have it sleeping on my head again.”

  “It’s not like you can suffocate.”

  “No, but I can get cat hair up my nose, which is not a pleasant way to wake up. What’s your project?”

  “Do you remember the job I did for that London banker about five years ago?” Giovanni lifted his fingers, pinching the air and drawing the candle flame upward.

  “Not really, you know I find most of that dreadfully boring.”

  “It was a Dante thing.”

  “Oh yes, the Dante thing. Not much, I remember you mentioning it, that’s all.”

  “Mmmhmm. There was an expert I heard rumors about—one of us. He was young but sounded like he was worth tracking down. In the end, I couldn’t find him. Didn’t need him anyway, but a mutual acquaintance mentioned a Boccaccio manuscript he had.” Giovanni let the flame grow to a foot tall before he began manipulating it to curve and twist before his eyes.

  “How very fascin—”

  “It was a rare copy. Florentine.”

  “Why is this interesting to me?”

  “Because I think it was one of mine.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

  “From your library?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was he?”

  “An American, turned in Italy around ten years ago while he was there working. I looked for him, but he vanished quite admirably.”