It wasn’t her travel pack. It wasn’t hooked around her waist. She was going to forget about it. She was going to—
Just as he’d predicted, she wandered to the next case, leaving the purse behind.
He started forward, ready to leap to the rescue.
D’Alessandri beat him to it. He picked up the purse, pushed his way to Rosamund’s side, and offered it to her.
She took it, absently thanked him, and tucked it under her arm.
D’Alessandri laughed and spoke, then lifted his hand toward the lock of her hair that draped over her eye—and without knowing how he did it, Aaron had crossed the room and had D’Alessandri’s wrist in his hand. He locked eyes with the Italian and said, “Don’t . . . touch . . . her.”
He must have looked as if he meant business, because the Italian nodded. Just nodded. And when Aaron dropped his arm, he backed away, viewing Aaron the way a man would view a rabid grizzly bear.
Rosamund, being Rosamund, barely noticed that he’d made a royal fool of himself over her.
Taking the purse from her, he extracted the chain that served as a handle, threaded it up her arm, and rested it on her shoulder.
She frowned and pushed her hair out of her eyes again. “I’m not supposed to wear it that way because . . .” She squinted, trying to remember why.
“It’ll ruin the line of your jacket,” Aaron supplemented. “Better to ruin the line than to forget the purse.”
“Right. Thank you.” She lavished a smile on him, clutched his sleeve and asked, “Have you seen the Mycenaean knives in this case over here?”
“Very impressive. Go ahead and look.” Aaron let her and the little crowd around her wander away. He started to pull his handkerchief from his pocket and wipe his face, then remembered the scent that perfumed it and feared that if he smelled that fragrance, he’d start rampaging through the ballroom, using the Mycenaean knives to cut the throat of any man who dared look at Rosamund.
“You look a little frazzled, Aaron.” A warm, soft, feminine voice spoke beside him, in French, and he turned to see the model Pacquin. She was twenty-one, dressed in designer red silk, glorious in her beauty.
“Does it show?” In their way, she and Aaron were friends. They’d both had to grow up at an early age.
“You mean, did anyone notice when you leaped like a gazelle across the ballroom to forbid DeMonte to touch your woman?” She chuckled warmly. “Everyone did.” Young as she was, Pacquin had done and seen everything, and now she watched Rosamund with the smile of a woman wise beyond her years. “She’s almost pulsating with innocent sexuality, and it’s like a magnet. Every man here thinks he’s the only one who can break through that innocence and mate her.”
“How do they know?”
“Men are almost doglike in their instincts. Except you, Aaron.” She placed her hand on his chest over his heart. “You’re pulsating, too, but it’s dangerous. Wolf-like. Attractive, especially when you watch her like that. It tempts a woman to see if she can turn your attention to . . . other matters.”
He looked at her, so slim, so gorgeous, so young, so knowledgeable. He knew that if he said the word, she would take him into a bedroom, unzip his pants, and relieve him of this persistent hard-on.
A month ago he would have accepted the invitation, and gladly.
Now he didn’t give a damn whether he had sex with her. One woman and one woman only had his attention.
Rosamund.
Pacquin knew, of course. She smiled and removed her hand. “If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about DeMonte getting to her. I’d be more concerned about Louis Fournier.” She nodded toward the crowd around the case.
Fournier, one of the wealthiest men in the world, a disgusting old lecher, and a man renowned for his conquests, was holding a Egyptian clay clock vessel in his gloved hands and pointing out the markings to Aaron’s own personal librarian—while Rosamund was looking dazzled and enticed.
Dear God. Fournier wanted Rosamund, and he had figured out the one way to seduce her.
Aaron started forward just as Fournier replaced the piece in the case, took Rosamund’s arm, and walked toward the velvet rope that separated the ballroom from his private quarters.
Every person at the party watched with avid excitement.
Aaron tried to follow.
The security guard, a man of impressive bulk and mean little eyes, stopped him with a fist in his tuxedo jacket. “Not without an invitation.”
“Rosamund!” Aaron yelled.
Rosamund glanced back and saw him. “He’s my friend,” she told Fournier.
Fournier made a lazy gesture that allowed Aaron to come through. “If he is your friend, he can stay . . . in the corridor.”
Chapter 26
Rosamund waited while Louis tapped in a security code that would allow them into his personal library, and while she did, she tossed a conspiratorial smile at Aaron. She’d done it! She’d managed to gain access to Fournier’s collection. Aaron didn’t have to threaten and intimidate some poor employee into letting him in to steal the prophetess’s journal. Best of all, Rosamund had managed this based on one conversation about Egyptian antiquities with a fellow enthusiast. Aaron had to be happy.
But he didn’t look happy. He looked like he wanted to grab her and—
Then he did—grabbed her arms and pulled her close, so close they stood chest to chest, so close she breathed in his scent.
Her heart beat faster. Her breath quickened. “What are you doing?” she asked.
She understood her own reaction. She really did. In the limo they had been intimate as she’d never been intimate before. Of course his closeness affected her.
But to recognize his scent . . . how had he managed that? Was that some kind of sexual branding?
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” he whispered furiously.
She took a deep breath. Yes, sexual branding was the correct term, because she now unwittingly displayed all the signs of arousal. Her nipples pressed hard against the inside of her bra, her skin felt hot and too tight, and between her legs . . .
“Rosamund?” He shook her slightly.
She focused on him. He smelled great, but he looked grumpy. About what? She had done what they had desperately needed her to do. “Louis invited me to look over his manuscripts.”
Aaron cast a guarded glance at the older man’s back. “Or his etchings.”
“What? Wh-what do you mean?” Aaron was being very odd. “Is he also a collector of etchings?”
Louis opened the door and turned back to them. “I assure you, Mr. Eagle, that I’m not so unimaginative as to show Dr. Hall any etchings, nor would she be seduced by anything so pedestrian. As she explained, I intend to show her my . . . manuscripts.” He smiled at her.
She smiled back.
Louis Fournier was not a handsome man. Probably he never had been, for he was short, no more than Rosamund’s height, and naturally slender, with narrow shoulders and no excess flesh to round out his form. Now he was old, stooped, bony. His thin face sagged like a basset hound’s, his ears stuck out, his faded brown eyes were world-weary, and his thin lips had disappeared with the march of time.
But he had something. Charm or charisma or power that made Rosamund realize that the man, even now, would be hard to resist. “Louis assured me the journal he has purchased isn’t something transcribed for Sacmis, but her actual writings in her own hand. It allegedly came with her from Casablanca to her place in the French court, and she left it behind when she fled the city during the storming of the Bastille.”
“Quite right. Are you ready, my dear?” Louis indicated a small vestibule beyond the door where lights blinked in a dazzling security array.
“Yes.” She yanked at her arms. “If Mr. Eagle will let go of me.”
Without warning, Aaron wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, a soft, slow, explicit exploration of her mouth that cared nothing about their audience—and after thirty seconds, she didn’t care, either.
He tasted of passion and champagne, smelled of luxury and leather, and the memory of those moments in the limo rose like an irresistible tide, making her forget Louis and the security guard and the prophetess of Casablanca. There was merely Aaron, invading her heart and mind, feeding her carnal pleasure until her knees collapsed and only his embrace kept her on her feet.
Unhurriedly he released her, steadied her, and when she opened her eyes, he was watching her with such sensuality she wanted nothing more than to take him by the hand and lead him somewhere dark and warm, where they could—
“Now are you ready, my dear?” With a suave smile, Louis offered his arm.
She took it.
As they stepped inside a small, bare access room, Louis said, “Mr. Eagle, you have lipstick on your mouth.”
Aaron locked gazes with Louis. Removing his handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his lips, took a deep breath—and smiled.
Louis swung the heavy door shut behind them with a solid thud, leaving Aaron behind.
“What was that all about?” she asked the air.
But Louis apparently thought she was really asking him. “I believe most people would call that a pissing match. I should have won.” He glanced at her swollen mouth. “But I did not.”
In exasperation, she said, “I don’t understand men.”
“That’s obvious.” Louis placed his hand on a screen. A blue light scanned his palm, and a beep sounded. “But you’re a librarian. Have you ever considered researching the gender?”
“Yes. I suppose I could. But there are so many more interesting subjects waiting for me to delve into!”
Louis gave a bellow of laughter. “Indeed. Why would you bother?”
Was he offended? She didn’t think so. He had laughed. But as they had both agreed, she didn’t understand men.
She observed as Louis leaned forward, placed his eye at a peephole, and allowed a red light to scan it.
This vestibule was obviously filled with the latest in security. They’d come in one door. They would enter the library through another.
“Your Mr. Eagle has a very impressive résumé,” Louis said.
“He does?”
“He’s the best fine antiquities thief in the world.”
“No, he’s not.” Fresh air puffed over her, removing dust and lint. “He’s an enforcer, like the Godfather.”
“Really.” Fournier’s voice was cool. “That’s not what my research revealed.”
Taken aback, she asked, “You have researched him?”
“I had him researched,” he corrected. “All of my guests are researched, some more extensively than others. I don’t like to be surprised.”
“If you thought he was a thief, why would you let him in?”
“Because he was bringing an interesting date with him.” Louis inclined his head to her.
“You had me researched?” Her voice squeaked with astonishment. “Before the party?”
As Louis performed his security checks, numbers beside the inner door began to illuminate in a random pattern. “Only the tiniest bit, but it was enough to intrigue me. You see, my dear, I worship at the altar of knowledge, and you have fascinating credentials. I wanted to meet you, to see why you were dating a . . . thief.”
“Honestly, he’s not a thief. He’s an enforcer. I’m not happy about it,” she assured him, concentrating on the numbers, catching glimpses of some intricate pattern that was forming. “But we’re trying to track down the prophetess of Casablanca, so he’s the enforcer I need.”
“No. You need me.” Cynicism etched every line of Louis’s face. “But I suppose you know that.” Stepping back, he studied the numbers at the door; then in rapid succession, he pushed the next three numbers.
The lock on the door to the library released with a slow whoosh.
“It’s a sequence,” he told her. “It changes every time I come in. I wrote the program myself, and not even the finest computer created today can see the progression within the required time—and only a few people in the world have the brain to put the numbers together.”
“You’re one of them.”
He gave a little bow.
“What happens if you don’t succeed?”
“The doors are locked and whoever’s within is electrocuted.”
She laughed.
He didn’t.
With great precision, he placed his hand on one spot on the unlocked door and pushed it open.
Stepping into the imposing chamber, she gave a gasp.
Irving Shea’s collection had been impressive, with relics and antiquities and manuscripts, but with the layman’s disregard for their age and fragile nature, he left them on open shelves in full light.
Louis Fournier concentrated his attention on documents, and when it came to the preservation of those documents, his library compared favorably to the Vatican’s.
“The glass over the shelves is bulletproof and air-locked. The lighting is low, the lowest limit to preserve the ink. We handle everything with gloved hands, and I’ve got the most modern equipment to verify the authenticity of the documents.” Louis watched in open delight as she walked reverently toward the shelves containing the scrolls. “This is my passion. And yours.”
The first title she read raised goose bumps on her skin. “You have a copy of the Seventh Gospel? Is it real? No, it can’t be. They were all destroyed in the sack of Rome by the Visigoths.”
“Why don’t you look at it and see what you think?” Fournier handed her a pair of gloves.
She couldn’t believe he was serious, but he pressed a series of electronic buttons by the case, and with a whoosh, the vacuum that protected the scrolls was released.
“Please.” He indicated the scroll.
She put down her purse and donned the gloves, opened the case and lifted the tray that contained the text. She visually examined the edges of the paper, the gilding on the roller, the splotches left by time and water.
Fournier indicated the microscope. “Go ahead and unroll it. I keep the best restoration team in the world on retainer, and they have done marvelous work with this gospel.”
With the instruments at hand, she peeled back the edges and examined them, then slid the document under the microscope. The media was parchment, a volumen of great age. As the Latin words came into focus, she realized Louis was right. He had an authentic copy of the Seventh Gospel.
She looked up, troubled. “This is not just rare. This is a legend. No one knows that it really exists, yet you have it. It deserves to be studied, translated, a gift to the modern world.”
“How very Indiana Jones of you. You think it should be in a museum.” He was openly amused.
“Or a library.”
“Do you know how much I spent on keeping the manuscripts and scrolls in my possession preserved? This system, with its vacuum seal, its special lighting, its perfect climate control, cost me over six hundred and fifty million dollars. How much does the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library spend to protect its collection?”
She shook her head. “Nothing even close.”
“In the last five years, I’ve paid the team who does my restoration over seventy-five million to work in my library.”IT
“Seventy-five million? That’s absurd. How big is your team?”
“Eight people, the best in the world. But I don’t pay that much for their work. I pay for their silence.” Louis rested his hand on one of the marble bookends carved into the shape of a gargoyle’s head. “Have you heard any rumor of the Seventh Gospel?”
“No.” She searched her memory. “Not even in restoration circles.”
He inclined his head.
“But I did hear that you’d purchased the prophetess of Casablanca’s journal.”
“I bought it at a private auction. Others were involved. The seller. The other buyers.” He shrugged with Gallic fatalism. “Those people cannot be silenced, at least not without bloodletting. And while the prophetess manuscript is of interest
to collectors like me, it’s not that valuable.”
“Why not?”
“It’s indecipherable. Some people say it’s a hoax, that the prophetess was not literate.”
“Or that she wasn’t a real prophetess,” Rosamund reminded him.
“Ah, but I believe that the prophetess wrote in the language of her tribe, an obscure script that has proved impossible to translate—and believe me, I’ve had the best linguists here to try.”