Corpus Christmas

“Not exactly,” Shambley corrected him disdainfully. “My new book will merely cite some of these works as examples of general currents in the late nineteenth century. And it will probably sell fewer than five thousand copies nationwide, Reinicke, hardly enough to start a stampede for the Erich Breul House.”

“Of course, of course,” Winston Reinicke said heartily. “Still, one never knows what will further the cause, eh? Something for everyone.”

“Speaking of which,” said Shambley, “I’m told that Rockwells and Sharpes are rising in value. Have you considered them for your empty spaces?”

Sigrid sensed a sudden intake of silence around the buffet, almost as if everyone had stopped breathing.

Then Reinicke said, “ Lydia, my dear, shall we take Albert and Marie some of these crab puffs? They must think we’ve gotten lost, eh?”

Murmuring polite phrases, the older couple arranged several hors d’oeuvres upon a plate and departed.

“Still pulling wings off flies, Roger?” Hester Kohn’s tone was light but there was a wary look in her hazel eyes.

Shambley ignored the other woman’s gibe. “Are you in the art world, too, Miss Harald?”

“No.”

“Miss Harald’s a police officer,” Hester Kohn told him.

Shambley looked at Sigrid with the most animation he’d shown yet. “How appropriate. Robbery, may one hope?”

“No,” Sigrid replied, wondering why Shambley had glanced so pointedly at Benjamin Peake. “If you don’t expect your book to sell many copies, Dr. Shambley, what are you pla

“Publicity comes in many forms, Miss Harald,” he said. And with a languid wave of his small hand, he parted a space between Sigrid and Hester Kohn. “Permésso,” he said and drifted toward the door.

Hester Kohn exchanged a glance with Benjamin Peake, then flashed her professional smile at Sigrid. “Would you excuse us, please, Miss Harald?”

Sigrid barely had time to nod before the two followed Shambley from the room.

At the end of the table, a waiter lifted the lid on the silver chafing dish.

“Swedish meatballs?” he asked.

Sigrid nodded hungrily.

Jacob Munson hesitated in the doorway of the drawing room. Only a moment before he’d seen Hester out here in the hall, a flash of purple and red followed by Benjamin, and he had thought it would be pleasant to tell them of Buntrock’s a

“Was ist los?” he asked, peering around a bookcase at the three who stood there glaring at each other. In his agitation, he realized he’d spoken in German. “What’s going on?” he repeated in English. “Hester? Ben?”

“A hypothetical question,” Shambley said smoothly. “To which they gave a hypothetical answer. Scusatemi, per favore.” He smiled and walked past Munson into the great marble hall.

Before the i

“Worked through lunch again, hmm?” he asked, eyeing her plate of appetizers.

“Have a stuffed mushroom,” she advised. “I think they just came out of the oven.”

“You’ll spoil your appetite.”

“Never.”

He laughed. “You must be the only woman in the western world who doesn’t worry about her figure.”

A lot he knew, she thought, watching Francesca Leeds across the room on Søren Thorvaldsen’s arm. Now there was a figure worth worrying about. There was no envy as she noted the way Lady Francesca’s copper hair fell in artful tangles around her lovely face, the way the silky gold fabric enhanced her perfect figure. Yet, Sigrid did find herself wondering again why Francesca Leeds seemed so familiar, almost as if they’d met in another life or something.

There was a pleased expression on Thorvaldsen’s rugged face and Francesca was smiling.

“Elliott said you’ve agreed, Oscar. That’s grand of you.” With a graceful gesture, she laid her cool fingers on his neck and pulled him down so she could kiss his cheek.

“How pretty!” said Roger Shambley, who had approached u

Thorvaldsen frowned. “That’s a tasteless remark, sir.”

“Unlike your taste?” drawled Shambley. “But then you and Oscar Nauman have identical tastes, don’t you?”

His eyes glittered beneath his heavy brows as they swept Francesca’s body with an insulting deliberation that was like a physical pawing. Thorvaldsen’s brawny hand shot out and grasped Shambley by the lapels and for a moment they could see the brawling stevedore he’d once been as his right hand drew back in a fist. Sigrid started forward, but Nauman had already caught his arm before it could throw the punch.

Immediately, Thorvaldsen released Shambley with a muttered apology.

Shambley straightened and drew himself up arrogantly. “I think you will pay for that,” he told Thorvaldsen, then turned from the room and walked up the wide marble staircase.

The restaurant was intimate and candlelit, but di

“Will you stop projecting your guilt feelings onto me?” Sigrid said tightly. “For the third time, I’m not angry and I am not jealous.”

Her fork clattered sharply against her plate as she put it down and reached for her wine glass.

Nauman pushed a broiled scallop around his plate moodily, wishing all the hurtful words to come were already said so that he could touch her hand or make her gray eyes dance with laughter again.

“If you’d just let me explain-”

“Damn it, Nauman, there’s nothing to explain. ” Her gold-colored earrings swung back and forth with each word. “There can’t be many sixty-year-old virgins walking the land and what you did before we met is none of my business. Aren’t you going to eat your scallops?”

He handed them over. He didn’t know which a

“You really don’t give a damn, do you?” he asked disconsolately.

“It’s illogical to be jealous about things that were over and done with before I knew you,” she said, transferring his scallops to her plate. “I just mind that I was so stupid.”

“Stupid?” he asked hopefully.

“Stupid. I knew she seemed familiar, but I thought it was my imagination. And all the time, there was that portrait of her in your apartment.”

He paused in the act of signaling their waiter. “Portrait? I’ve never done a portrait of Francesca.”