Garden of Thorns Read online

  Maybe she took that smile off and put it in a box at night. Mark thought. Maybe she took off her whole face. Without her mask of cosmetics he could pass her on the street and never recognize her.

  If the corners of Jenny’s mouth had crimped any tighter, or the corners of her eyes tilted with any more amusement, her courtesy would’ve turned sardonic. “I really can’t predict, Mrs. Ward, just how long the survey will take. It depends on what we find.”

  “I understand. You scholars are so lucky not to have to live in the real world. The point is, you see, that pieces of old pottery and stuff won’t provide lots of jobs like Victoria Square will. We have to think of the good of the community.”

  Presumably Jenny’s and Mark’s jobs, temporary academic foolishness, didn’t count. “We’ll do the best we can,” Jenny murmured, and turned pointedly toward the group of students.

  Preston had them lined up on an unattributed patch of ground, showing them how to use their hoes. “A smooth, slow, scooping motion. You’re not chopping cotton here.”

  Travis’s broad, blunt face, a sketch made with a child’s outsized crayon, looked slightly offended. He leaned closer to Mark and muttered, “Think the Rangers will make it into the World Series this year?”

  “What? Oh—ah—well, they’ve got Nolan Ryan, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, sure, he’s a good pitcher, for an old coot over forty.”

  Jenny, approaching forty herself, winced. “The sooner I can get the volunteers to work, the sooner we’ll have the survey finished and you can bring in your shops.”

  “Much as we’d like to stay, Dr. Galliard,” Sharon replied with a gracious nod, “we have to be getting on over to the Lloyd. That big reception tomorrow night, you know—honestly, you can’t take your eyes off the caterers and the florists for a minute.”

  “You’ve used those same florists for years,” said Travis. “If they haven’t figured out by now how to cram flowers into a jug….”

  “Let’s go, darling,” Sharon interrupted. “We’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, Dr. Galliard.

  “Thank you,” Jenny said.

  “And you, too, Mr. Owen, of course. My mother and brother can’t wait to meet the good doctor’s second-in-command.”

  Mark said, “Thank you. I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

  “Don’t worry,” Travis confided in a stage whisper, “Dolores always serves good booze.”

  As the Wards walked back toward the driveway, their voices trailed behind them. “My mother takes great care with her wine list, darling. I’d hardly call it ‘booze’.”

  “I said it was good, hon. That’s all I meant.”

  They climbed into the BMW. Simultaneously the doors slammed. The car jerked around and roared down the drive in a spatter of gravel.

  So that was one of the Coburgs. Despite Sharon’s polite words, Mark was willing to bet the others were hardly holding their breaths waiting to meet him, the hired help.

  “The problem with financial backers,” said Jenny, “is that they so seldom stay in back.” Meditatively she unbuttoned and removed her flannel shirt. Beneath it she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a lurid green Loch Ness Monster. “Did you see that bloke’s belt buckle? Were they having me on?”

  “Pulling your leg because you’ve never been in Texas before? No, I’m afraid they’re for real. Local products just as much as I am. Except some of us Texans believe our own publicity.”

  “Right.” The focus of her eyes shifted from somewhere beyond Mark’s back to his face. Her level look reminded him of the Duke of Wellington in Goya’s famous portrait—the squared jaw of resolution, the slightly narrowed eyes and flared nostrils of cynicism. She didn’t suffer fools gladly, he thought. Good. Neither did he.

  A black bird with the long tail of a B-17 bomber glided into the nearest tree and uttered a rusty, grating squawk. Jenny looked up. “What kind of bird is that?”

  “A grackle. Sounds like it needs some oil, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does.” Her imperious expression cracked into a smile. With a decisive about-face she turned toward the volunteers. “Let’s get to it.”

  Mark followed, wiping his forehead. As he’d predicted, the day was hot, and the warm wind didn’t bring much relief. He’d have to take a few extra minutes to run over to his apartment and shower and change before he went to meet Hilary.

  But as Jenny had said, it was early days. He detoured to the tool pile, armed himself with a couple of trowels, and strode into battle.

  Chapter Two

  Clutching her purse and carry-on bag, Hilary ducked behind a couple of people as broad as they were tall and let them force a path through the crowded terminal. She peered around her unsuspecting escort, searching for Mark’s sturdy body and flashing grin. Her stomach quivered with nausea, whether because of nerves, or airplane food, or because she’d just started a prescription of birth-control pills, she couldn’t say.

  He was leaning against a pillar, slapping a folded newspaper against his thigh and surveying the crush of passengers with that sharp-honed look she remembered altogether too well. Taking a deep breath—here we go—she zigzagged through the crowd. “Mark! Here I am!”

  He jerked upright. “Hilary!”

  “Sorry I’m late. My flight into Chicago was delayed….”

  “I was late, too—couldn’t find a parking place. No problem.” They jockeyed, clashed carry-on and newspaper, and achieved a perfunctory hug. He kissed her cheek and ushered her through a revolving door into the baggage claim area. “You cut your hair. Makes you look like Audrey Hepburn.”

  Hilary assumed he liked Audrey Hepburn, but didn’t think it was politic to ask. “Thank you. A last indulgence before I left Paris.” Her cheek tingled with the warm, slightly damp spot he’d kissed. Her stomach hiccupped. She considered what to say next. “Nice to see you again,” was true but banal. “I thought I’d never see you again,” was also true but begged too many questions along the lines of, “Then why are you?”

  “Thank you for your letters,” she said at last.

  “Thank you for yours,” he responded. “The fellowship went all right?”

  “Great. I spent lots of time in the Louvre, and we took field trips to the Loire chateaux. But all that French cooking—I’ve gained weight.”

  Mark playfully opened the placket of her coat far enough to peek at her tailored pants and silk blouse. “Nope. You’re just right.”

  She wrenched away. “Mark!”

  He dropped her coat and stiffened like a soldier put on report. “There’re the bags. You still have that same set of Samsonite?” Without waiting for her answer, he stepped toward the carousel.

  Damn, she thought. He didn’t mean anything. I blew that one. Back to square one.

  The Samsonite secured, they walked out to the parking lot discussing European politics, friends in Scotland, and Texas weather. As soon as they reached Mark’s mini-van, Hilary shed her coat and tossed it into the back. The car was so hot, Mark turned on the air conditioner.

  He deftly extricated them from the spaghetti tangle of airport roads and zoomed onto the freeway, turning into the glare of the westering sun. Half of Hilary’s face was hot, the other cool, as she surreptitiously inspected Mark’s profile. Except for his short hair, she’d seen that profile on medieval effigies, brow, nose, and chin uncompromising planes, mouth chiseled so finely it would have been cold and severe except for the play of expression at its corners. The blue-green Madras shirt he wore set off his gray eyes. They were his most intriguing feature, illuminating his face without softening it, revealing his intelligence without betraying his thoughts.

  He knew she was watching him. He said quietly, “I didn’t think you were going to come back to the States so soon.”

  “Ben’s back in prison,” she told him. “Parole violation.”

  “Surely you wouldn’t have had to see him even if he was out!” Mark glanced at her, his brows raised indignantly.

  “He’s my
mother’s stepbrother, even though he’s closer to my brother’s age. We’re all one happy family, right?”

  “Wrong. He raped you. That makes him a lot worse than just the black sheep of the family.”

  Hilary flinched. Yet Mark’s frankness was one of the things she liked in him. She’d been taught from infancy to sweep unpleasantness under the rug. Even though the Chase family carpet was by now mounded over a dump of denial, still everyone tiptoed around it, like Elizabethan aristocrats holding pomanders to their noses so they wouldn’t smell the stink of their own unwashed bodies. “No,” she said, “I’m the black sheep. I should never have told anyone what Ben did to me. I just made trouble. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to people of our social standing.”

  Mark’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. This time his glance was sharp and hot. “That’s a load of bull, Hilary, and you know it.”

  Knowing intellectually and knowing emotionally were two different things. Despite the breeze of the air conditioner, she was sweating.

  The highway was a shining strip of cellophane. Light reflected from the windows of other cars struck Hilary’s eyes like flashbulbs. The tall buildings of Fort Worth rose ahead, silhouetted against a vast blue sky that faded to pinkish gray at the horizon. It was because the land was flat that the sky looked so huge, she told herself. Still she felt that if she wasn’t careful, she’d slip into that greedy sky and fall forever.

  “Hilary?” Mark asked. He fumbled for her hand.

  Gratefully she clasped his fingers. “My parents are getting divorced. They’re being very civilized about it—no raised voices, no accusing fingers. Just those sidelong glances at me, letting me know it’s all my fault.”

  “When my parents got divorced,” he said, “I thought it was my fault. Of course, I was only fifteen, I didn’t know any better. And they were anything but civilized. It was open warfare. I suppose I could blame my own divorce on my parents.”

  “Because you wouldn’t have found yourself in a shotgun marriage at seventeen if they hadn’t turned on each other and on you? I’ve always thought it was a little too easy to blame your problems on someone else.”

  “In my case, yes. But not in yours.” His hand bounced hers against the upholstery, admonishing her to behave.

  “All right, I can blame Ben for a hell of a lot. But still…. Damn it, I wasn’t going to dump this on you so quickly. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s better to get it out of the way.” With a firm squeeze Mark released Hilary’s hand and put his own back on the steering wheel. “So your job at the Lloyd isn’t only a career move but an escape?”

  “Yes. I thought if everything worked out, I could get my Master’s next year, and maybe find permanent job. I feel hypocritical living even partially on my father’s money.”

  “Good move, then, to avoid paying rent here by house-sitting.”

  “Condo-sitting, rather. The owners won’t be back until May.”

  “You could’ve moved in with me—I have a funky little garage apartment a few blocks from Osborne House. I’ve been staying there off and on for years. My landlady makes the best tamales you’ve ever eaten.”

  The stream of traffic slowed, narrowing to ooze past a pickup and a Cadillac that had apparently decided to move into the same lane at the same time. Police cars bracketed the accident, their red and blue lights pale in the sunshine. Behind them flags the size of football fields rippled over a car dealership, the Stars and Stripes and the Lone Star given equal billing.

  Exhaust seeped into the car and again Hilary gulped down nausea. She still felt the thrumming of the airplane’s jet engines and wondered how long it would be before she came down with a migraine. She’d known this reunion would be awkward.

  Mark had considered her moving in with him, which would’ve meant confronting issues of family and intimacy she wasn’t ready to confront. And yet, why had she turned down job offers in Milwaukee and Sacramento to come here, pills in her carry-on, if not to confront those issues?

  Mark studied the road as if he had an exam on it. She’d ignore what he’d said, he’d ignore it, they’d sweep it under the rug…. “Did you get the dig started?” she asked.

  “Sure did. Looks real promising.”

  “Do you like Dr. Galliard?”

  “Yes, I do. And respect her, which is more important. She’s a real pro. Reminded me of the Duke of Wellington.”

  “One of those women you’d call handsome rather than pretty?”

  Mark laughed. “Well, yeah, but I meant in manner, not looks. You should’ve seen her dealing with Sharon Coburg Ward.”

  “I get to meet the Coburgs at a reception tomorrow. Nice of them to invite me—I won’t officially be an employee of the Lloyd until Wednesday.”

  “I gather what the Coburgs want is what the Coburgs get, particularly at the Lloyd. That new wing to house Arthur’s souvenirs is a pretty tempting carrot, but the deal hasn’t gone through yet.”

  Hilary smiled indulgently at his cavalier dismissal of one of the country’s important art hoards as “Arthur’s souvenirs”. “Do you think they’ll add the Regensfeld artifacts to the Coburg Collection?”

  “Oh my gosh,” Mark exclaimed, “I plumb forgot to tell you. Take a gander at that newspaper—the suit over the artifacts was settled today.”

  “Oh!” Hilary reached back to the middle seat and grabbed the paper. A headline in the corner of the front page read, “Artwork to return to Germany.” The article was short and to the point, the reporter assuming the average Fort Worthian had a low tolerance for medieval religious artifacts, no matter how controversial.

  When she looked up, they were on an elevated stretch of road beside the downtown area. A garden surrounding a series of pools and waterfalls added a grace note to the stark glass and steel towers. On the horizon the sun was swollen and blood-red. Hilary squinted. Her temples twinged. No, she ordered herself. You’re not going to get a headache.

  She said, “So the Regensfelders decided it’d be cheaper to pay ransom than to hire lawyers and fight for their artifacts? They’re probably right—East Germany doesn’t have much cash for food, let alone artwork.”

  “Please! Not ‘ransom’ but ‘finder’s fee’!” Mark peered out the windshield like a mole, his mouth crimped with sarcasm.

  “Well,” Hilary conceded, “Arthur Coburg did save the artifacts from the Russians in 1945. God only knows what would’ve happened to them if he hadn’t. They were at Osborne House until he died, weren’t they?”

  “Now they’re at the Lloyd. Until what’s-his-name, the art expert, takes them away. Next month, I gather.”

  “What’s-his-name is Nicholas Vasarian. I’ve been hearing about him for years.” Hilary folded the newspaper and tucked it into her carry-on. “I’d kill to work with those artifacts—one of them is a Giotto, you know.”

  Mark exited the freeway and turned north. The sudden release from the light and heat of the sun made the breath of the air conditioner seem colder. Hilary shivered. “Almost there?”

  “Just up the way. It’s not too far from the Lloyd. I’ll come get you tomorrow on my lunch hour and take you to the car lease place.”

  “Thank you, Mark.”

  “You’re welcome, Hilary.” They shared a quick, affectionate smile.

  The townhouse’s blond brick facade rose behind a yard in which a redbud tree bloomed like a twist of cotton candy. The condos on either side seemed well kept, and more than one late model car was parked along the quiet, tree-lined street.

  Hilary thought the suspicious woman next door would demand a driver’s license and a major credit card before disgorging the key, but at last Hilary was inside her temporary home. It turned out to be comfortable rather than stylish, the owners going in for overstuffed furniture and mementos from their various trips. Ceiling fans added a tropical touch. The plants were yellowed and drooping—probably the neighbor was supposed to have watered them. Mark wrestled Hilary’s suitcases to her bedroom upstai
rs while she found a watering can and fussed over her new charges.

  When she started to unpack, he stood in the bedroom doorway, discussing Osborne House and the Coburgs—not surprising that he’d study up on the people who disbursed his salary. And who had a hand in disbursing hers, Hilary told herself. She, too, had researched the famous family.

  “I’ve always wondered,” Mark said, “why a gently reared Englishwoman, a lady-in-waiting of Queen Victoria’s yet, would choose to live in Fort Worth in 1870. Talk about culture shock!”

  “She was in love,” Hilary suggested.

  “With Walter Mortensen or his money?”

  “I think relationships were a lot more cut and dried back then—fewer options, whether for better or for worse.” Hilary set a bottle of Guerlain perfume so smartly on the dressing table that it snicked. She did have a headache, and she probably hadn’t packed her aspirin.

  “Amelia and Walter begat Victoria, named after the Queen, but always called Vicky. In 1892 Vicky married another English expatriate, a man named Edward Coburg. With letters of recommendation from Buckingham Palace, no less, though no one really knows what his background was.”

  “Birth and baptismal certificates? Passports? Letters? Photos?”

  “Supposedly Arthur burned everything of his father’s back in the twenties, and he never kept pictures of his parents at Osborne.”

  “Strange.” Hilary shook out her skirts and blouses and hung them in the closet. One of her satin underwear cases was spilling lacy unmentionables across the spread. She glanced at Mark, but he was staring into space. She whisked the suggestive items into the dresser drawer.

  “Vicky and Edward,” Mark went on, “named the house her parents built for them ‘Osborne’ after the Queen’s villa on the Isle of Wight. A respectful bow toward Amelia’s former employer? Or something else?”