666 Park Avenue (6 page)

Jane thanked Lynne and followed the black-uniformed maid to the hallway. She looked back once and took in the odd collection of people inside—her brand-new family.

Chapter Nine

S
ofia turned out to be a tiny maid with ivory-colored
skin and slightly bulging eyes that gave her a permanently nervous look. She padded silently down the hallway on sensible shoes, giving Jane the impression that she was following a ghost. The girl came briefly to life when she showed Jane her suite: the bathroom with its heated tile floor, the walk-in closets with gentle track lighting, the staff call button—and, of course, the ubiquitous keypad that controlled the privacy lock. Jane worried a little about having so many important things in one place that she could potentially blow up, but the worry was brief: she was too tired to so much as power a lightbulb, and tomorrow would just have to work itself out.

Jane dropped her bag on an overstuffed velvet chair and took in her new pad. The wallpaper was the same rich ivory as the living room had been, and the deep chocolate-brown of the wooden floor glowed darkly in contrast. The effect, however, was spoiled by a multitude of Oriental throw-rugs, most of which favored the red-and-gold theme of the canopy bed. The bed itself was a work of art, although Jane usually preferred her art a little less suffocating. Carved animals, flowers, and mythical creatures adorned each of the four posts, which rose nearly to the molded ceiling. Heavy brocaded curtains hung around the bed, matching the red and gold of the Pratesi duvet. The room felt as though it came from a different era; it reminded her of a medieval birthing room she’d once seen in an illuminated manuscript.

Everything will look better in the morning,
she reassured herself. The sun would stream in through the east-facing windows and make the highlights in the dark wood glow. She might even be able to catch a glimpse of Central Park from here, an almost suitable replacement for her familiar corner of Notre Dame. She would find the kitchen, sip an espresso, and try her first authentic New York bagel. Malcolm would read the paper . . . preferably the real estate section. And, in a perfect world, he would find the perfect apartment listing—a converted loft somewhere downtown with bone-colored hardwood floors and keys that actually turned—and they would spend a delightful afternoon poking their heads into California closets and testing water pressure.

She stuffed her tired limbs awkwardly under the duvet. As soon as her head hit the feather pillows, she felt the last of the day’s tension begin to melt out of her muscles, and then she felt nothing at all.

Jane awoke with a start several hours later, unsure what had jolted her from her sleep. The memory of voices hung heavy in the air, as though she’d just been talking to someone. But she’d been so deeply asleep that she doubted she’d been dreaming. Blinking in the unfamiliar darkness that pressed in on her from all sides, Jane fumbled on the wall for the light switch, but found only heavy, textured wallpaper.
Of course. Nothing so practical as a switch on the wall for people who decorate like it’s 1803.
Sitting up, she reached out and flicked on the Tiffany-glass bedside lamp. Dusky light spread through the room, and Jane groaned.

The first thing she noticed was that Malcolm’s side of the bed was empty and unrumpled. The second thing was the disturbance that had woken her up: a soft babble of voices somewhere in this maze of the house. Was the party still going on? She felt as if she had been sleeping for hours, but it was still dark outside. Her internal clock felt just as uprooted as the rest of her; it could just as easily have been noon as midnight.

She held still, listening intently. It quickly became clear that the voices weren’t normal party chatter. Their rise and fall was clear and rhythmic, one unified chorus rather than the random white noise of separate conversations.
It sort of sounds like . . . chanting?

A chill ran down Jane’s spine, her body wide-awake now. She slipped out of bed, her feet sinking into the thick Oriental rugs scattered between her and the door. The hallway was pitch-black, and she didn’t even know where to begin to look for a light. She left her bedroom door open so the dim lamplight would spill out into the hallway. She tiptoed cautiously, running her fingers along the thick fabric wallpaper to help guide her.
See Jane. See Jane walk. See Jane walk into an $18,000 knickknack from the fifteenth century.

The noise seemed softer now—someone had probably put on a CD too loudly—and she was tempted to grope her way back to her cozy featherbed and lay her head on those wonderfully fluffy pillows. She knew that if she just went back in, closed her door, turned off the light, and burrowed under the covers, her cold toes buried deep in the still-warm sheets, she would fall back asleep instantly . . .

Just as her body was poised to turn back, the chorus of voices swelled again, coming from the right, away from the parlor where the party had been however many hours ago.
Huh.
She felt her limbs shivering nervously, and she carefully spun herself in the direction of the noise, like the pointer on a Ouija board. She started forward purposefully, and promptly crashed into something warm and solid.

“Jane?”

A scream died in her throat. “Malcolm!”

Note to Self No. 2,
she thought wryly, remembering her scare in the bathtub back in Paris.
From now on, that terrifying thing in the dark is pretty much guaranteed to be Malcolm.
As happy as she was to have someone to share her life with, it was apparently going to take some getting used to.

Holding a finger to his lips, Malcolm led her back to their bedroom and shut the door. “Out for a midnight snack?”

“It’s that early?” Jane peered down at her watch on the Louis XII end table, wondering why she hadn’t just thought of that in the first place.

“Well, it’s nearly one now.” Malcolm shrugged off his sweater. He threw it over the chair carelessly and ran a hand through his hair tiredly. “The party just broke up. You were a hit, by the way.”

“I thought I heard . . . chanting or something.” As soon as the word “chanting” left her tongue, Jane blushed. It sounded so foolish. The notion of über-wealthy Upper East Side socialites engaging in a little late-night chanting was even less likely than the idea of Lynne buying a cocktail dress at Wal-Mart.

Malcolm pulled back the covers on his side of the bed, his lovely dark-gold waves of hair gleaming in the lamplight. “Sometimes the wind whistles through the attic. When I was younger, I used to be convinced a ghost lived up there.”

Jane shook her head. “See, this is why I like modern architecture. The houses are too new to have ghosts.”

He sat down on the bed and held out his arms to her. “Come to bed, darling. You’ve had a hard week followed by a very long day. I promise that tomorrow everything will be better.”

Jane fell willingly into his warm arms, and his soft lips began to trace the line of her collarbone. “Things are looking up already,” she whispered, feeling him stir against her. He looked up at her long enough to smile, then disappeared under the red-and-gold duvet, kissing his way down her body until he reached the most advantageous position from which to dissolve her stress with his mouth. Feeling some energy return to her under his attentive tongue, she pushed gently at his shoulder, signaling him to turn so that she could reciprocate.

Lynne would be so disappointed,
she thought idly a little while later, once his slowed breathing indicated that he was asleep beside her.
No chance of grandkids tonight.

Chapter Ten

J
ust as
J
ane had predicted, morning light did wonders
for her new home. With the sun shining in, the cluttered bedroom looked less gloomy, and even a little bit less intimidating. It definitely helped that this time, when she woke up, Malcolm was there, with his long, golden torso bare until where it disappeared invitingly under the thousand-thread-count sheets. His long-lashed eyes opened while she watched him, and his lips curved up into a happy, unguarded smile.

She began to reach for him automatically, but her stomach rumbled angrily, suggesting that her appetite for food was more urgent than her appetite for anything else. “Is there a kitchen in this place?” she asked hopefully. “Or is it true that New Yorkers live exclusively on takeout?”

“A little of both,” he replied cheerfully, swinging his legs out from under the covers and treating her to a delicious view of his muscled derrière. “There is a kitchen, but we mostly use it for eating takeout.” He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. “The staff cooks, but the rest of us burn water, so . . .” he yelled over the hiss and spray of the shower head.

Jane reached for an Egyptian cotton robe hanging from the bathroom door, but then reconsidered: even if kitchens were robe-appropriate in most houses, she vaguely recalled passing a study
and
a library on her way to her room last night. The Dorans probably preferred their guests to wear something a little more formal than sleepwear. She rolled out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom, which was already shrouded in a thick cloud of steam.

A tanned hand snaked out from behind the shower curtain, and she squealed happily as Malcolm tugged her into the shower with him. The water pressure was spa-massage worthy, and Jane’s determination to focus on breakfast wavered briefly when Malcolm began to lather soap gently on her bare skin. But he apparently had eggs and bacon on the brain, since he was tender, but also brisk and efficient as he ran his hands all over her body. When they had finished, he gave her a playful push. “Now get dressed, you temptress, you. I won’t have the tabloids running stories on how I starve you.”

She grinned at him and wrapped a fluffy towel around her body, but a seed of doubt was working its way into her mind.
Tabloids?
Malcolm had mentioned that his family was in the spotlight of Manhattan society, of course. And she had known that he had been photographed for his entire life, that every accomplishment and mistake had been documented for the public. But she had never really considered that the same scrutiny might be extended to Malcolm’s wife.
She
wasn’t an heiress, a party girl, or a household name. She wasn’t anybody; there was no reason for anyone to care what she did.

Except that now she was going to be the wife of a somebody, and that was going to be the end of anonymity for her.
Caesar’s wife must be above reproach,
she reminded herself.
But Caesar’s wife is a witch, so now what?
Being photographed by everyone from
Vanity Fair
to
US Weekly
probably wasn’t what Gran had meant when she had told her to hide. She shivered a little as she remembered Gran’s letter:
“People will be looking for you.”
People who had had much more practice hiding their magic than she did, people who would notice the slightest oddness about her immediately—and who might expose her to the Dorans . . . to Malcolm.

She shut down that train of thought abruptly and shook the tension out of her shoulders. There was nothing she could do about media attention, and anyway, it hadn’t even started yet. Maybe they wouldn’t be all that interested in her, and her magic had been reassuringly quiet since they had left France. She could gloss over her family background if anyone asked, and as long as she kept smiling and didn’t knock out the power, everything would be fine.

That decided, Jane glanced around for her suitcase, but then her mind adjusted to what it had absorbed last night: the hangers, racks, and shelves of the closet were already filled with her clothes . . . as well as some she could swear were brand-new. She clasped her hands together in delight and did an impromptu little twirl before settling down to the very serious business of choosing the day’s outfit.

A floaty white blouse, charcoal-gray pencil skirt, and retro string of pearls later, Jane found herself clicking down the halls after Malcolm.

In spite of his earlier concern for her hunger, he evidently couldn’t resist suggesting that they take the long way to the kitchen so that she could see more of the magnificent house. That included a closer view of the gallery, with paintings dating back to medieval times; the sitting room; the library, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves and handy rolling ladders; but not of the study, since the door was closed. “My dad hangs out in there sometimes,” Malcolm explained in a clipped tone, and Jane, recalling Mr. Doran’s whiskey glass and bleary eyes from the night before, didn’t press for details. Nor did she ask how one family—even a sizable and close-knit one—would manage to use a living room, a den, a family room, a dining room,
and
a parlor. She was glad that she had gone for a more conservative, dressy outfit than she might have normally chosen for a breakfast at home with her fiancé. She might be overwhelmed, but at least she looked like she belonged.

Their tour wound to a merciful close in the kitchen, which Jane immediately identified as her favorite room of the house so far. It was spacious and airy; copper pots and kettles hung everywhere and dark green marble covered the countertops. Unlike the stuffy, tapestry-coated formal dining room next door, it was a room more about substance than style, and, contrary to Malcolm’s claims about only eating takeout, there was certainly plenty of substance. It contained every food Jane could possibly want: fresh fruit, pre-sliced vegetables, organic yogurt, hand-pressed pasta, and even brie flown in from Paris. It also contained a note on Lynne Doran’s monogrammed stationery.

“My dear Jane,”
she read to herself while Malcolm tried valiantly to crack an egg.
“Please join me at 21 Club at one o’clock. I look forward to getting to know all about you!”

“Your mother seems
extremely
pleased that I’m here,” Jane began cautiously.

Malcolm shrugged, tossing the shards of his demolished eggshell into the trash, and pushed the staff call button. “She’s always wanted a daughter,” he explained, and Jane bit her lip, remembering the mysterious name on the wall. The long-dead sister, the only daughter in her generation.
Annette.
“Besides,” he went on, and Jane blinked back into the moment, “she knows that I’m happy. What more could she want?”

Jane nodded. She was so used to Gran’s overbearing overprotectiveness that she probably couldn’t recognize a normal family dynamic when it was right in front of her. No doubt she would soon wonder how she had ever gotten along without such an involved and caring mother-figure.

Sofia shuffled into the kitchen, her wide eyes downcast. “Thank God,” Malcolm declared grandiosely to the tiny maid. “You’re just in time to save me from wrecking the place in an attempt to impress Jane. Would you whip me up one of those wonderful omelets of yours—sausage and peppers, please?”

He nodded encouragingly toward Jane, who found herself tongue-tied. Her usual breakfast was a cup of coffee—maybe with a croissant from her corner bakery if she had extra time. “Um, the same for me, please?”

Malcolm clucked his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly. “You hate peppers, Jane. Relax, you can have anything you want! Even that weird German ham you insist is better than bacon.” He held his palms up, as if the very idea was beyond him.

Jane felt her gray eyes go wide with hope. “Speck? And . . . um, maybe tomatoes?”

“Cherry, grape, plum, beefsteak, or green zebra, miss?” Sofia asked in a neutral tone as she pulled a butcher-paper packet from a pile of similar ones in the refrigerator. Even from where she was standing, Jane could see that it was clearly marked
SPECK
. She felt suddenly warm and comfortable all the way down to her toes.

“Whatever’s on top,” she smiled, and then jumped as her handbag seemed to come to life, rattling across the floor.

Malcolm looked at her oddly, but she quickly placed the bag’s strange behavior, and reached in to draw out her iPhone, which was apparently in the midst of a seizure. The number wasn’t in her contact list, but it was in Manhattan’s 212 area code. “Hello?”

“You’ve landed!” a vaguely familiar bubbly voice squealed. “Jane, this is Pamela! From Conran and Associates. Antoine’s friend?”

Jane tried to reply, but Pamela, in spite of apparently hoping for a response, did not seem to be inclined to pause long enough for one.

“Things are moving
fast
down here, so we need you to come in ASAP. Are you free today, two-ish?” Pamela finally paused, but Jane was so caught off-guard that she didn’t manage to speak in time. A horrified gasp came through the phone’s speaker. “Ohmigod, you’re still available,
right
? We so urgently need to get this international division off the ground. You
have
to at least come in and hear my offer. Jane! Don’t commit to anyone else yet. Are you free at two?”

“Three,” Jane blurted finally, forcing her voice out into the tiny space allotted. “I can come at three.”

“Thank God. Forty-nine West Fourth, three p.m.”

The line clicked dead before Jane could say another word. She stared at the phone in her hand; the screen went dim. “I seem to have a job interview,” she announced thoughtfully. Then she caught up with the rush of Pamela’s words, and smiled happily. She had hoped to hit the ground running, so to speak, but things were moving even faster than she’d expected. And having something that got her out of the house, something that was just hers, would be a great way to keep from obsessing about reporters, witches, and fitting in with her new family-to-be.

“That’s great, honey!” Malcolm kissed the side of her head and set two sunny omelets onto the rough-hewn breakfast table. Jane noticed that Sofia had disappeared discreetly, passing the credit along to the man who couldn’t break an egg, and she marveled at how incredibly useful it must be to have good help for all the little things. No wonder Malcolm had always struck her as so self-assured, so comfortable in his own skin. He had truly led a charmed life.

And now I’ll have one, too,
she thought, cutting into the tender froth.
And a family, and a home, and, it sounds like, a job just waiting for me to come and accept it.

Things were most definitely looking up.