“Thank you,” Whitmore said, standing far closer to her than was normal in polite society. “Sylvia left a package for me.”

  “If you would be seated, Dr. Whitmore.” She gestured to the chair in front of her desk.

  Whitmore’s blue eyes moved from the chair to her. “Must I? This won’t take long. I’m only here to confirm that my grandmother isn’t seeing zebras where there are only horses.”

  “Excuse me?” Phoebe inched toward her desk. There was a security alarm under the desk’s surface, next to the drawer. If the man continued to misbehave, she would use it.

  “The package.” Whitmore kept his gaze directed at her. There was a spark of interest there. Phoebe recognized it and crossed her arms in an effort to deflect it. He pointed to the padded box on the desk without looking at it. “I’m guessing that’s it.”

  “Please sit down, Dr. Whitmore. It’s long past closing time, I’m tired, and there is paperwork to be filled out before I can let you examine whatever it is that Sylvia set aside.” Phoebe reached up and rubbed at the back of her neck. It was cricked from looking up at him. Whitmore’s nostrils flared, and his eyelids drifted down. Phoebe noticed that his eyelashes were darker than his blond hair, and longer and thicker than hers. Any woman would kill for lashes like those.

  “I really think you had better give me the box and let me be on my way, Miss Taylor.” The gruff voice smoothed out, deepened into a warning, though Phoebe couldn’t understand why. What was he going to do, steal the box? Again she considered sounding the alarm but thought better of it. Sylvia would be furious if she offended a client by calling the guards.

  Instead Phoebe stepped to the desk, picked up a paper and a pen, and returned to thrust them at the visitor. “Fine. I’m happy to do this standing up if you prefer, Dr. Whitmore, though it’s a great deal less comfortable.”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had in some time.” Whitmore’s mouth twitched. “If we’re going to proceed according to Hoyle, though, I think you should call me Marcus.”

  “Hoyle?” Phoebe flushed and drew herself up to her full height. Whitmore wasn’t taking her seriously. “I don’t think he works here.”

  “I certainly hope not.” He scrawled a signature. “Edmond Hoyle’s been dead since 1769.”

  “I’m fairly new at Sotheby’s. You’ll have to forgive me for not understanding the reference.” Phoebe sniffed. Once again she was too far from the hidden button underneath her desk to use it. Whitmore might not be a thief, but she was beginning to think he was mad.

  “Here’s your pen,” Marcus said politely, “and your form. See?” He leaned closer. “I did exactly what you asked me to. I’m really very well behaved. My father made sure of it.”

  Phoebe took the pen and paper from him. As she did, her fingers brushed against the back of Whitmore’s hand. Its coldness made her shiver. There was a heavy gold signet on his pinkie finger, she noticed. It looked medieval, but no one walked around London with such a rare and valuable ring on his finger. It must be a fake—though a good one.

  She inspected the form as she returned to the desk. It all seemed to be in order, and if this man turned out to be some kind of criminal—which wouldn’t surprise her a bit—at least she wouldn’t be guilty of breaking the rules. Phoebe lifted the lid of the box, prepared to surrender it to the odd Dr. Whitmore for his examination. She hoped that then she could go home.

  “Oh.” Her voice caught in surprise. She’d expected to see a fabulous diamond necklace or a Victorian set of emeralds in fussy gold filigree—something her own grandmother would like.

  Instead the box contained two oval miniatures, set into niches that had been formed to adhere perfectly to their edges and protect them from damage. One was of a woman with long golden hair tinged with red. An open-necked ruff framed her heart-shaped face. Her pale eyes looked out at the viewer with calm assurance, and her mouth curved in a gentle smile. The background was the vivid blue common to the work of the Elizabethan limner Nicholas Hilliard. The other miniature depicted a man with a shock of black hair brushed back from his forehead. A straggling beard and mustache made him look younger than his black eyes suggested, and his white linen shirt was also open at the neck, showing flesh that was milkier than the cloth. Long fingers held a jewel suspended from a thick chain. Behind the man, golden flames burned and twisted, a symbol of passion.

  A soft breath tickled her ear. “Holy Christ.” Whitmore looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? This must be the set of miniatures that just arrived. An old couple in Shropshire found them hidden in the back of their silver chest when they were looking for a place to store some new pieces. Sylvia reckons they’ll fetch a good price.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt about that.” Marcus pushed a button on his phone.

  “Oui?” said an imperious French voice at the other end of the line. This was the problem with cell phones, Phoebe thought. Everybody shouted on them, and you could hear private conversations.

  “You were right about the miniatures, Grand-mère.”

  A self-satisfied sound drifted out of the phone. “Do I have your complete attention now, Marcus?”

  “No. And thank God for it. My complete attention isn’t good for anybody.” Whitmore eyed Phoebe and smiled. The man was charming, Phoebe reluctantly admitted. “But give me a few days before you send me on another errand. Just how much are you willing to pay for them, or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “N’importe quel prix.”

  The price doesn’t matter. These were words that made auction houses happy. Phoebe stared down at the miniatures. They really were extraordinary.

  Whitmore and his grandmother concluded their conversation, and the man’s fingers immediately flew across his phone, transmitting another message.

  “Hilliard believed that his portrait miniatures were best viewed in private,” Phoebe mused aloud. “He felt that the art of limning put too many of his subjects’ secrets on display. You can see why. These two look like they kept all kinds of secrets.”

  “You’re right there,” Marcus murmured. His face was very close, giving Phoebe an opportunity to examine his eyes more closely. They were bluer than she had first realized, bluer even than the azurite- and ultramarine-enriched pigments Hilliard used.

  The phone rang. When Phoebe reached to answer it, she thought his hand drifted down, just for a moment, to her waist.

  “Give the man his miniatures, Phoebe.” It was Sylvia.

  “I don’t understand,” she said numbly. “I’m not authorized—”

  “He’s purchased them outright. Our obligation was to get the highest possible price for their pieces. We’ve done that. The Taverners will be able to spend their autumn years in Monte Carlo if they choose. And you can tell Marcus that if I’ve missed the danse de fête, I’ll be enjoying his family’s box seats for next season’s performances.” Sylvia disconnected the line.

  The room was silent. Marcus Whitmore’s finger rested gently on the gold case that circled the miniature of the man. It looked like a gesture of longing, an attempt to connect to someone long dead and anonymous.

  “I almost believe that, were I to speak, he might hear me,” Marcus said wistfully.

  Something was off. Phoebe couldn’t identify what it was, but there was more at stake here than the acquisition of two sixteenth-century miniatures.

  “Your grandmother must have a very healthy bank account, Dr. Whitmore, to pay so handsomely for two unidentifiable Elizabethan portraits. As you are also a Sotheby’s client, I feel I should tell you that you surely overpaid for them. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from this period might go for six figures with the right buyers in the room, but not these.” The identity of the sitter was crucial to such valuations. “We’ll never know who these two were. Not after so many centuries of obscurity. Names are important.”

  “That’s what my grandmother says.”

  “Then she is aware that without a definite attribution the value of these miniatures will probably not increase.”

  “To be honest,” Marcus said, “my grandmother doesn’t need to make a return on her investment. And Ysabeau would prefer it if no one else knows who they are.”

  Phoebe frowned at the odd phrasing. Did his grandmother think she did know?

  “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Phoebe, even if we did do it standing up. This time.” Marcus paused, smiled his charming smile. “You don’t mind my calling you Phoebe?”

  Phoebe did mind. She rubbed at her neck in exasperation, pushing aside her black, collar-length hair. Marcus’s eyes lingered on the curve of her shoulders. When she made no reply, he closed the box, tucked the miniatures under his arm, and backed away.

  “I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said mildly, seemingly unaware of Phoebe’s clear signals of uninterest. “We can celebrate the Taverners’ good fortune, as well as the sizable commission that you will be splitting with Sylvia.”

  Sylvia? Split a commission? Phoebe’s mouth gaped in disbelief. The chances that her boss might do such a thing were less than nil. Marcus’s expression darkened.

  “It was a condition of the deal. My grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.” His voice was gruff. “Dinner?”

  “I don’t go out with strange men after dark.”

  “Then I’ll ask you out to dinner tomorrow, after we’ve had lunch. Once you’ve spent two hours in my company, I won’t be ‘strange’ any longer.”

  “Oh, you’ll still be strange,” Phoebe muttered, “and I don’t take lunch. I eat at my desk.” She looked away in confusion. Had she said the first part aloud?

  “I’ll pick you up at one,” said Marcus, his smile widening. Phoebe’s heart sank. She had said it aloud. “And don’t worry, we won’t go far.”

  “Why not?” Did he think she was afraid of him or couldn’t keep up with his strides? God, she hated being short.

  “I just wanted you to know that you could wear those shoes again without fearing you’d break your neck,” Marcus said innocently. His eyes traveled slowly from her toes over her black leather pumps, lingered on her ankles, and then crawled up the curve of her calf. “I like them.”

  Who did this man think he was? He was behaving like an eighteenth-century rake. Phoebe took decisive steps toward the door, her heels making satisfyingly sharp clicks. She pushed the button to release the lock and held the door open. Marcus made an appreciative sound as he strolled toward her.

  “I shouldn’t be so forward. My grandmother disapproves of that almost as much as she disapproves of being cut out of a business deal. But here’s the thing, Phoebe.” Whitmore lowered his mouth until it was inches from her ear and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Unlike the men who have taken you out to dinner and perhaps gone back to your flat for something afterward, your propriety and fine manners don’t frighten me off. Quite the contrary. And I can’t help imagining what you’re like when that icy control melts.”

  Phoebe gasped.

  Marcus took her hand. His lips pressed against her flesh as he stared into her eyes “Until tomorrow. And make sure the door locks behind me. You’re in enough trouble.” Dr. Whitmore walked backward out of the room, gave her another bright smile, turned, and whistled his way out of sight.

  Phoebe’s hand was trembling. That man—that strange man with no grasp of proper etiquette and startling blue eyes—had kissed her. At her place of work. Without her permission.

  And she hadn’t slapped him, which is what well-bred daughters of diplomats were taught to do as a last resort against unwanted advances at home and abroad.

  She was indeed in trouble.

  21

  “Was I right to call you, Goody Alsop?” Susanna twisted her hands in her apron and looked at me anxiously. “I nearly sent her home,” she said weakly. “If I had . . .”

  “But you didn’t, Susanna.” Goody Alsop was so old and thin that her skin clung to the bones of her hands and wrists. The witch’s voice was strangely hearty for someone so frail, however, and intelligence snapped in her eyes. The woman might be an octogenarian, but no one would dare call her infirm.

  Now that Goody Alsop had arrived, the main room in the Norman apartments was full to bursting. With some reluctance Susanna allowed Matthew and Pierre to stand just inside the door, provided they didn’t touch anything. Jeffrey and John divided their attention between the vampires and the chick, now safely nestled inside John’s cap by the fire. Its feathers were beginning to fluff in the warm air, and it had, mercifully, stopped peeping. I sat on a stool by the fire next to Goody Alsop, who occupied the room’s only chair.

  “Let me have a look at you, Diana.” When Goody Alsop reached her fingers toward my face, just as Widow Beaton and Champier had, I flinched. The witch stopped and frowned. “What is it, child?”

  “A witch in France tried to read my skin. It felt like knives,” I explained in a whisper.

  “It will not be entirely comfortable—what examination is?—but it should not hurt.” Her fingers explored my features. Her hands were cool and dry, the veins standing out against mottled skin and crawling over bent joints. I felt a slight digging sensation, but it was nothing like the pain I’d experienced at Champier’s hands.

  “Ah,” she breathed when she reached the smooth skin of my forehead. My witch’s eye, which had lapsed into its typical frustrating inactivity the moment Susanna and Annie found me with the chick, opened fully. Goody Alsop was a witch worth knowing.

  Looking into Goody Alsop’s third eye, I was plunged into a world of color. Try as I might, the brightly woven threads refused to resolve into something recognizable, though I felt once more the tantalizing prospect that they could be put to some use. Goody Alsop’s touch tingled as she probed my body and mind with her second sight, energy pulsing around her in a purple-tinged orange. In my limited experience, no one had ever manifested that particular combination of colors. She tutted here and there, made an approving sound or two.

  “She’s a strange one, isn’t she?” Jeffrey whispered, peering over Goody Alsop’s shoulder.

  “Jeffrey!” Susanna gasped, embarrassed at her son’s behavior. “Mistress Roydon, if you please.”

  “Very well. Mistress Roydon’s a strange one,” said Jeffrey, unrepentant. He shifted his hands to his knees and bent closer.

  “What do you see, young Jeffrey?” Goody Alsop asked.

  “She—Mistress Roydon—is all the colors of a rainbow. Her witch’s eye is blue, even though the rest of her is green and silver, like the goddess. And why is there a rim of red and black there?” Jeffrey pointed to my forehead.

  “That’s a wearh’s mark,” Goody Alsop said, smoothing it with her fingers. “It tells us she belongs to Master Roydon’s family. Whenever you see this, Jeffrey—and it is quite rare—you must heed it as a warning. The wearh who made it will not take it kindly if you meddle with the warmblood he has claimed.”

  “Does it hurt?” the child wondered.

  “Jeffrey!” Susanna cried again. “You know better than to pester Goody Alsop with questions.”

  “We face a dark future if children stop asking questions, Susanna,” Goody Alsop remarked.

  “A wearh’s blood can heal, but it doesn’t harm,” I told the boy before Goody Alsop could answer. There was no need for another witch to grow up fearing what he didn’t understand. My eyes shifted to Matthew, whose claim on me went far deeper than his father’s blood oath. Matthew was willing to let Goody Alsop’s examination continue—for now—but his eyes never left the woman. I mustered a smile, and his mouth tightened a fraction in response.

  “Oh.” Jeffrey sounded mildly interested at this piece of intelligence. “Can you make the glaem again, Mistress Roydon?” To their chagrin, the boys had missed that manifestation of magical energy.

  Goody Alsop rested a gnarled finger in the indentation over Jeffrey’s lip, effectively silencing the boy. “I need to talk to Annie now. After we’re through, Master Roydon’s man is going to take all three of you to the river. When you get back, you can ask me whatever you’d like.”

  Matthew inclined his head toward the door, and Pierre rounded up his two young charges and, after a wary look at the old woman, took them downstairs to wait. Like Jeffrey, Pierre needed to overcome his fear of other creatures.

  “Where is the girl?” Goody Alsop asked, turning her head.

  Annie crept forward. “Here, Goody.”

  “Tell us true, Annie,” Goody Alsop said in a firm tone. “What have you promised Andrew Hubbard?”

  “N-nothing,” Annie stammered, her eyes shifting to mine.

  “Don’t lie, Annie. ’Tis a sin,” Goody Alsop chided. “Out with it.”

  “I’m to send word if Master Roydon plans to leave London again. And Father Hubbard sends one of his men when the mistress and master are still abed to question me about what goes on in the house.” Annie’s words tumbled out. When through, she clapped her hands over her mouth as though she couldn’t believe she’d revealed so much.

  “We must abide by the letter of Annie’s agreement with Hubbard, if not its spirit.” Goody Alsop thought for a moment. “If Mistress Roydon leaves the city for any reason, Annie will send word to me first. Wait an hour before you let Hubbard know, Annie. And if you speak a word to anyone of what happens here, I’ll clap a binding spell on your tongue that thirteen witches won’t be able to break.” Annie looked justifiably terrified at the prospect. “Go and join the boys, but open all the doors and windows before you leave. I will send for you when it is time to return.”