Widow - Anne Stuart [21]
The perfumer who’d made the scent had been one of Pompasse’s lovers, she remembered. A thin, secretive woman who’d watched her out of dark, hungry eyes. Pompasse had insisted she accompany him to Rosa’s shop. “How else will she know what will be the right scent for you?” he’d said, and Charlie had already known it was useless to argue. Pompasse had always gotten his own way.
So his former mistress had blended a fragrance for the cherished wife, and Charlie used to dream that Rosa had put poison in it, to eat into her skin and her soul. Not that Rosa would have hesitated, had she had the ability, but she was no medieval poisoner, and the thick scent of her perfume was the only revenge she could take.
Charlie was jet-lagged and worn-out. And she really didn’t want to lie down on that bed. It was a huge, carved affair, brought from some castello in the north. She pushed against it with all her might, but it wouldn’t budge—it might as well have been nailed to the floor.
On impulse she walked through the adjoining bathroom and knocked on the door that had once led to Pompasse’s bedroom. It now housed the unsettling Mr. Maguire, but she hadn’t heard or seen him come upstairs, and she expected the room was abandoned.
She knocked again, then pushed it open, wondering what she’d do if Maguire were standing there.
The room was deserted. But that wasn’t what surprised her. If the studio had been a shock, the bedroom was even more so. It had been stripped of everything—including the paintings that Pompasse had surrounded himself with. His own, of course. Pompasse had firmly believed that no artist even came close to his own talent, and he insisted he found other painters boring.
He’d even done a mural on the far wall, one of delicate charm. It was gone, painted over with a flat white paint, as were all the walls. Pompasse’s bed was gone as well, replaced by a utilitarian double bed with plain sheets and blankets. All the antique furniture had vanished, and in its place were cheap IKEA knock-togethers. Pompasse would never have slept in such a place.
But Charlie would. It looked cool and peaceful and entirely new, and she would have given anything to stretch out on that bed and sleep.
But she was no Goldilocks, and Maguire had more of the makings of a Big Bad Wolf than a displaced bear. She could just imagine his reaction if he walked into the bedroom he was occupying to find her asleep in his bed. It would seem like an invitation.
She started to back away when something caught her eye. The duffel bag under the window was hardly the type of luggage she would have expected an insurance adjuster to use. As a matter of fact, Maguire hadn’t seemed like any kind of insurance official she’d ever met. Maybe things were different in Italy, but she didn’t think so. Bureaucrats and businessmen were the same the world over, and Maguire didn’t strike her as either.
She didn’t hesitate, didn’t think twice. She went straight to the duffel bag and unzipped it, looking for answers.
She only found more questions. Jeans and T-shirts and denim—not the sort of clothing she connected with business consultants. He wore briefs instead of boxers. Typical. There were a couple of books about Pompasse—that was understandable since he was here to catalog his works. If he could ever find them, of course.
She zipped the bag closed again. It wouldn’t do any good to be caught pawing through his belongings. It wasn’t as if she really doubted he was who he said he was.
Except that she did. Something about Maguire didn’t ring true. He was far too brash, too argumentative, too…earthy to be an expert on artworks and dead men’s estates. Henry was much more the type. Maguire should be out doing something physical, not chasing ghosts.
And she was letting her imagination run away with her, seeing