And just like that, she packed it all in.
Steering a new course, she finagled a position with a charity-events planner. It was at a fund-raiser for the St. Stephens AIDS Trust that she ran into her long-lost friend Rubin Woolf. The rapport was immediate. And strong. As though the decade just passed had come and gone in the proverbial blink. Except Rubin’s hair was now spiky all over and he’d traded the Coke bottles for an ultra-hip pair of I. M. Pei-style glasses. He mentioned that having inherited the family house in Stanmore, he’d promptly sold it, using the proceeds to open an antiquarian bookshop in Cecil Court. Would she like to work for him? He needed an educated assistant with a bit of flash to chat up the male clientele. Some of the more valuable volumes could fetch upward of thirty thousand pounds.
If he’d asked her to set sail on HMS Bounty, she would have readily agreed.
Rubin’s estranged lover, Regina, had always been a tad bit jealous of their relationship, mistakenly thinking it was a sexual attraction. Simply put, it wasn’t an attraction. It was a bond. Different kettle altogether. And the reason why they’d never once slept together.
Over the years she and Rubin had weathered many a summer storm—his prostate cancer, her decade-long affair with a married man. Weight gains. Lost friends. Shaky finances. Lost faith. He held her hand when she’d had the abortion. She was at his side for the annual PET scan. They cried for the one and celebrated the other.
She and Rubin had now been together longer than most spouses stay married.
Admittedly there were times—usually when she saw a couple like Peter Willoughby-Jones and Edie Miller who, if not bound for happily ever after, were on track for a few good years—that she regretted the path not taken. She’d never married. She had no children. Had never even owned a dog.
From Blitz kid to woman of a certain age. Proverbial blink.
“You mustn’t brood. It’s not allowed,” she chastised.
Hearing the shop bell merrily tinkle, Marnie yanked off her reading glasses, stowing them in the desk drawer. Her movements well practiced, she stood up and smoothed a hand over her chin-length blond bob. She then checked her Jil Sander sheath for any stray pieces of lint, Rubin’s bit of flash ready to take the stage.
The customer stood at a bookcase, his back to her. She quickly sized him up. Hugo Boss jacket. Black leather messenger bag. John Varvatos calfskin boots. Not their typical customer.
“Good afternoon. Just browsing or are you looking for something specific?”
He slowly turned in her direction. “I’m looking for a volume of love poems.”
My God, he’s beautiful. Like a young Johnny Depp. And that accent. To die for.
“Perhaps you should try the public library,” she retorted. Uncharacteristically snippy, she suspected it had something to do with the fact that she was old enough to be the beautiful young man’s mother.
And that realization incited a tumult, the kind she hadn’t experienced since childhood, suddenly hit with a burst of gut-twisting insecurity. Twenty years ago she would have taken great delight in making this beautiful young man beg for her phone number. On your knees, boy. Proverbial blink.
The beautiful man took several steps in her direction. He came to a standstill less than an arm’s span from where she stood. Blatantly invading her personal space.
He winsomely smiled. “I’m too transparent, I fear.” “Absolutely see-through.” Even as she said it, Marnie wondered at his game. He’d just transmitted a sonar-strength vibe wrapped in a come-hither smile. But why?
Could it be that he was one of those men who actually preferred older women?
At that thought, she felt a small dribble of confidence.
“You do know that you’re an angel.”
“Ah, yes. ‘May she grow in Heavenly light,’ ” Marnie flippantly replied.
His smile broadened. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I very much doubt that.” Particularly given the fact that she’d quoted the Cheltenham school motto.
“Dine with me this evening.” He stepped even closer. “Please.”
Marnie finally deigned to return the smile, her confidence fully restored.
“Perhaps.”
CHAPTER 46
“Now that I have plied you with strong spirits, perhaps you will reveal the true purpose of this delightful but unexpected visit.”
“Right.” Cocktail glass in hand, Caedmon strolled over to the window. Peering down at Cecil Court, he sighted a few late-afternoon shoppers browsing at the book carts. All quiet on the western front. “Do you happen to have a laptop computer handy?” he asked over his shoulder.
If Rubin was surprised by the request, he gave no indication, wordlessly trudging to the court cupboard in the foyer. From where he stood at the window, Caedmon could hear a cabinet door squeak on its hinge. A few moments later, Rubin returned with a computer in tow. Shoving several volumes aside, he made room for it on the bed.
“I assume you want me to boot up?”
“If you would be so kind.” Deciding to plow right into it, Caedmon said, “In the year 1307 the Knights Templar, fleeing the auto-da-fé, sailed to the undiscovered New World where they established a colony in Arcadia, Rhode Island.”
Rubin derisively snorted. “An utterly outlandish claim.”
“Nullius in verba.” As he spoke, Caedmon tugged at the silver signet that he wore on his right ring finger.
About to take a sip of her martini, Edie, instead, lowered her cocktail glass. “Translation please. The only Latin I know is the pig variety.”
“Take no one’s word,” he obligingly translated. “Or, put another way, seeing is believing.” Caedmon walked over to where their host now held court in his outrageously carved Tudor chair. Hit with a childish impulse, he dropped the signet ring into Rubin’s cocktail glass. “That was found buried at the Templar colony in Rhode Island.”
His brows drawn together in an annoyed frown, Rubin fished the bauble out of his cocktail glass. Bringing the ring up to his face, he carefully examined it. A moment later, the frown reworked itself into an awestruck expression. “There’s an inscription that I can’t quite make out.” He peered over the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses as he brought the ring closer to his face.
“Testis sum agnitio,” Caedmon informed him. “In addition to the signet ring, a number of other artifacts were uncovered at the site, including several gold coins that predate the auto-da-fé.”
At hearing that, Rubin gasped aloud, nearly dropping the ring back into his cocktail glass. “And where are these gold coins and other—”
“Safely secured,” Caedmon interjected. Before leaving the States, he’d taken the precaution of renting a long-term airport locker, not about to risk losing the valuable artifacts to a London pickpocket. “The archaeological evidence strongly suggests that sometime in the early sixteenth century, a massacre took place, the colony completely destroyed by the Knights of Malta. After carefully sifting through the evidence, the two of us”—he pointedly glanced at Edie, indicating that she was very much a full and equal partner in the venture—“came to the conclusion that the Templars had constructed a hidden vault a few miles from the settlement site.”
“My God! Did the two of you actually find this vault?”
“We did. However I must inform you that the archaeologist who provided us with the necessary research was murdered.”