the sofa, crossing her legs again, and waited while he assembled her drink, then poured himself a bourbon on the rocks. He handed her the martini glass.
She took a sip. “Perfect,” she said. “I missed lunch. Do you have anything to snack on?”
Stone picked up the phone on the coffee table and pressed a button. “Fred,” he said, “you have five minutes to put together some canapés for two.” He hung up.
“Who’s Fred?”
“Frederick Flicker, an English butler who was a gift from a French friend.”
“A gift?”
“A year of his services. After that, we negotiate.”
“Is he concealed behind the paneling?”
“He’s in the kitchen at this time of the day, no doubt canoodling with my cook and housekeeper, Helene.”
She suddenly fixed her gaze on a spot across the room, then rose and approached a painting, examining it closely. “Is this one of the Matilda Stones listed on your policy?”
“It is. There’s another behind you, a couple more in the living and dining rooms, and, best of all, the four she left me, hanging in the master suite.”
“Left you?”
“Matilda Stone was my mother.”
“Ahhhh, I should have deduced that. I’m not usually so slow on the uptake.” She sat down again.
Fred appeared silently at the door, bearing a silver tray, which he set on the coffee table. “Helene’s compliments: some prosciutto, some crumbles of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and a little of her pork rillettes,” he announced, then he vanished.
“I should keep him on, if I were you,” she said.
“I fully intend to.”
“May I see the other paintings?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Including the four in the master suite?”
He smiled. “Of course. But let me fix us another drink first.”
2
Stone put their drinks on a small tray and led the way to the elevator.
“This is a very handsome house,” she said.
“Thank you. How did you come to be named Hart Crane in reverse?”
“My mother had never heard of the poet. Crane was her maiden name, much as your mother’s was Stone. Hart was my father’s name.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Stone said.
“Yes, but it doesn’t make it any easier to live with. First there’s the gender confusion, then the spelling, then the denial of a connection with the author, then, if I’m lucky, people get it right.”
“I’ll make a note of it,” Stone said. The elevator came to a halt, and Stone stepped out and nodded in the direction of the master suite. He followed her in, then set the tray on a bedside table and gave her what was left of her first martini. “Bottoms up,” he said. “So to speak.”
She laughed.
They tossed off the last sip of their first drinks.
She smiled. “And those are the paintings,” she said, traversing the room and standing reverently before the smallish oils. “Ahhhh.”
“I’m glad you appreciate them.”
“I paint a little, and that makes me appreciate them all the more.”
“Your second drink,” he said, offering the tray.
“First, I’ll bet there’s a bathroom in this suite.”
“Mine is to your left, yours is to your right.”
She chose the one to the right and was back in a flash, accepting and sipping her new martini.
“That was fast,” Stone said, sipping his new bourbon.
“It doesn’t take long to take off your underwear,” she said, as if to herself.
He froze for a moment. “I hope you meant what I think you said,” he said.
“I try to speak clearly,” she replied, “even after a martini.”
He reached tentatively under her skirt and encountered a firm, smooth buttock.
“Mmmm,” she said, taking another sip of her martini and facing the paintings again.
He stood behind her and kissed her on an ear. “Perfect hairdo for an available ear,” he breathed, and he noticed that his respiration had gone up about ten points.
She reached into her hair and released something, and it fell around her shoulders in thick, glossy waves. “It works both ways,” she said, and she sounded a little breathless, too.
He reached around her and cupped a breast in his hand. It felt just wonderful. Emboldened, he undid her top button, reached inside, located a nipple and squeezed.
“You’ve found the start button,” she said, reaching behind her and feeling the front of his trousers.
“So have you.”
She found the zipper and pulled it slowly down. “I believe I have,” she said, reaching inside and taking him in her hand. “Isn’t there a bed somewhere in this room?” She turned to face him and began working on his belt buckle.
His trousers fell to the floor, and he stepped out of them. “The bed is this way,” he said, pulling her across the space of