The Playboy Assignment

Susannah opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again. She felt like a balloon with a slow leak. Now she knew that tightened grip of Pierce’s hand hadn’t been due to surprise after all; it had been more in the nature of a warning. He’d had this planned all along.

She could feel Marc’s gaze drifting over her face, appraising every feature, every expression. “And Susannah is...qualified?” he asked.

She couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Pierce, I hardly think that I—”

“Nonsense,” Pierce said firmly. “Of course she’s qualified. Don’t underestimate your talent, Susannah.”

“Or your resources,” Marc added, very gently. “You know, Joe, I believe I just might take more of an interest in Cyrus’s collection myself—under the circumstances.”

His hand still on her elbow, Pierce guided Susannah across the foyer and into the broad hallway that led toward the dining room at the back of the house. Most of the crowd had moved on toward the buffet tables, and for a few moments, in the shadow of the staircase, the two of them were completely alone.

“I think that went very well,” Pierce said.

The note of self-satisfaction in his voice grated on Susannah’s nerves. “Then all I can say is that I’d like to see your definition of a disaster. The only thing that could have made it worse was if you’d offered to buy everything outright at some bargain-basement price.”

Pierce tipped his head to one side and considered. “It’s an idea. Herrington might actually have gone for it.”

Susannah went on ruthlessly. “But Mr. Brewster would know you were trying to scam his client, and then you’d be in the soup and the museum would lose all credibility.”

“That’s an interesting point,” Pierce mused. “Why he knew me, I mean—I didn’t mention the museum when I called about the will. Cyrus must have told him about me along the way. Susannah, do you really believe I’m so shortsighted I’d try to pass myself off as an amateur?”

“It looked to me as if you were making a pretty good. stab at it.”

“I did nothing of the sort. I simply didn’t boast of my position, my education, or my background. If the man wanted to draw conclusions—”

Susannah stood her ground. “You deliberately tried to convince him that the Evans Jackson canvas is worthless.”

“I was being diplomatic. Feeling out his tastes. Trying to establish a bond. All good gallery owners do that sort of thing, or they’d never sell a single piece. It’s no thanks to you, by the way, that I read him so clearly. Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”

“Because I didn’t know it myself till it was too late to run,” Susannah admitted.

“You did look a little stunned,” Pierce admitted. “What was all that stuff about weddings, anyway? You didn’t marry the man, did you?”

“No.” Susannah’s throat was dry, her voice taut.

“That’s good. If you had, I’d really wonder about your judgment. I grant you, for a couple of minutes I was a bit unsure about him, myself. His clothes weren’t bad, not bad at all. And the name... I wonder how somebody like that ended up with such an aristocratic name.”

“Funny,” Susannah muttered. “My mother asked almost the same thing once.”

“But I knew as soon as he looked blankly at that magnificent Evans Jackson canvas that my first instinct was right.” Pierce shuddered. “The very idea of threatening to wipe his feet on it! I only hope Evans doesn’t hear what I said about his work.”

“I doubt the two of them hang around in the same circles.”

Pierce laughed. “That’s certainly true.”

“And all good gallery owners talk that way, don’t they, to gain the customer’s confidence?” Susannah didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Pierce, about this assignment you’ve saddled me with... Surely you don’t expect me to pass myself off as a staff member, because I won’t do it.”

“Oh, no. We’ll refer to you as—let’s see...”

She cut in ruthlessly. “We’ll call me exactly what I am—the museum’s public relations representative.”

“Actually,” Pierce mused, “that’s ideal. Because of your inexperience—”

“I thought you told Marc I was qualified.”

Pierce shrugged. “I didn’t say expert. So any errors can easily be passed off—”

“Are you saying you want me to make errors?”

“Susannah, my dear, you’ll have all of the museum’s resources to draw on. And I expect you to use all the expertise the Dearborn can provide. Including me.”

“I suppose that means you’ll make the errors? Never mind.”

“I’m still determined to end up with this collection, Susannah. So just remember—if you value things high, you’ll have to raise the money to pay for them and explain to the board why they’re worth so much.”

“And if I value them low, I’ll end up looking like a fool.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Pierce said easily. “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you—sort of like a hungry wolf? I imagine, if you play your cards right, you’ll be able to keep Marcus Herrington from asking any questions at all.”

Tryad’s office, a converted brownstone not far from the green expanse of Lincoln Park, was quiet when Pierce dropped Susannah off early that evening. The same couldn’t be said of the rest of the neighborhood; since it was still mostly residential, the streets really came alive after work and school were over. And with the newly warmer weather to celebrate, kids were out in force.

Susannah dodged two roller skaters, paused to observe a cutthroat marbles tournament, finished teaching the two little girls next door a rope-skipping rhyme from her childhood, and stopped to study a hopscotch layout drawn in chalk on Tryad’s own front walk.

“You know,” she told the hopscotch artists, “this doesn’t make us look very professional, having big white-numbered squares drawn on the concrete leading straight to our offices.”

The girls looked stricken. “But we drew it as neatly as we could, Susannah,” one of them said.

Another chimed in, “And it’s only chalk, you know. It’ll wash off when it rains.”

The third added, “Maybe we could use colored chalk next time. It’d be prettier. Would that help?”

Susannah laughed, shook her head, and skirted the carefully drawn hopscotch field. The hopscotch craze would last only a few weeks; good neighbors—of any age—went on forever.

Almost automatically, she waved at the bay window of the house on the other side, the twin half of Tryad’s brownstone. She wasn’t surprised to see the white lace curtain flutter as if the corner had been hastily dropped. Mrs. Holcomb might be a recluse, but there wasn’t a move made in the neighborhood which escaped her.

What did startle Susannah was a glimpse of a hand behind the curtain, half raised in what might have been a hesitant wave. It was the first time Mrs. Holcomb had ever responded directly to any approach Susannah had made, and she was surprised at the surge of pleasure which swept over her.

Such a little thing a wave was, to cause such a reaction. And yet, for Mrs. Holcomb—who, so far as Susannah knew, had left her house only once in the three years since Tryad had moved in next door—it was a major overture of friendship.

Inside, the office was dim and quiet. A few rays of late sunshine found their way in through the stained-glass panel at the top of the main stairway, and security lights glowed here and there, lighting the way to the exits. The usual hum of copy machines and computers, and the muted chime of the telephones, had stilled into silence.

In the receptionist’s office, once the brownstone’s living room, Rita’s desk was neat, the blotter empty except for tomorrow’s to-do list. The in-basket marked with Susannah’s name was empty.

That was one minor miracle, Susannah thought. At least she was no farther behind than she’d been early this afternoon—it felt like a million years ago—when she’d left the office to attend Cyrus’s funeral...

Except, of course, for the job Pierce had dumped on her. Putting a value on an art collection was hardly a public relations job, but Susannah liked both art and research, and under other circumstances she might have found it an enjoyable challenge. If she had plenty of time, if she didn’t have a dozen pressing projects...

“Be honest,” she told herself. “If it didn’t involve Marc Herrington, you’d like the job a whole lot better.”