Widow - Anne Stuart [10]
“Jesus! You scared me! Who the hell are you?” the stranger demanded.
She halted, astonished. “Charlie Thomas,” she said politely. She held out her hand, and the rings glinted in the Tuscan sunlight as she peered at him. “And you are?”
The stranger’s manners left something to be desired. He just looked at her, and at her proffered hand, before he finally reached out and took it in a quick, bone-crushing shake. “Connor Maguire,” he said in a cool voice. “Insurance consultant.”
“I didn’t realize they’d sent someone out already,” she said. Italy must have changed more than she’d realized in the past five years. Business in Tuscany usually moved at a snail’s pace.
“With an estate of this complexity they wanted someone on the scene as soon as possible,” he said. It was reasonable enough, and yet she wasn’t sure she believed him. He had some sort of accent—Australian or New Zealand rather than British. Odd, but she’d assumed the insurance people would be Italian. On top of that, he looked strangely familiar. She’d never met the man before in her life—she knew that with a gut-deep certainty. He wouldn’t be a man who was easy to forget.
“That’s good,” she said vaguely. “I haven’t been to the house yet so I hadn’t realized anyone was here.”
“You’re the widow,” he said.
“We were separated,” she said, determined to be pleasant. She was still having a hard time dealing with the fact that she’d never been divorced at all, but she wasn’t about to share that information with a stranger. “But apparently I’m the executor of his will and as such you’ll be dealing with me.”
He simply raised an eyebrow at that. Connor Maguire was a far cry from anything she’d imagined an insurance adjuster to be, and she wondered how the household had reacted to him. He was young—mid-thirties, Charlie guessed, with shaggy dark hair that was badly in need of a cut, several days’ worth of stubble, and a rumpled suit on a strong-looking body. Just the sort of man she found least attractive. He couldn’t be much more than six feet tall—she liked men who towered over her own substantial height. She liked slender, elegant men with long, narrow fingers and ascetic faces and cool, charming voices. She liked men with experience and patience and charm, men who didn’t demand or paw. The man in front of her didn’t look like he possessed any of those finer qualities. She found him…unsettling.
“Apparently?” he echoed. “I would have thought someone would have figured that out by now.”
Charlie’s smile stiffened. “Pompasse was an artist, not a business man. Apparently he had a lawyer here in Tuscany…”
“There’s that ‘apparently’ again.”
Charlie’s smile vanished. “If this is an inconvenience you could always return once the estate is settled,” she said, her voice cool. She didn’t like men like him, men so bristling with masculinity that they positively reeked of testosterone.
“My schedule doesn’t work that way,” he said. “I’m here now, and I’ll leave when I’m finished.”
He had very dark eyes in a tanned, lined face. He looked like a man who worked for a living, worked hard, and the eyes were those of a much older man. One who had seen too much and wished he hadn’t.
“And exactly what is your job, Mr. Maguire?”
“Cataloging his paintings, his drawings, anything of value. The usual,” he said vaguely.
“And how long do you anticipate it will take you?”
He didn’t even blink. “As long as it needs to. The government doesn’t like to be cheated of inheritance taxes, and the estate needs to be properly valued. Of course, there’s that small complication that you’re no doubt aware of. A number of your husband’s most valuable paintings have vanished, as well as all the records he kept of his work. The government is very interested in finding them as soon as possible.”
“Which government?”
He shrugged. “Take your pick. There are at least three involved in your husband’s estate. Italy, France and the U.S., and probably others besides. What is this, a job interview?”
Charlie blinked. Maguire’s attitude was bordering on rude—surprising for someone