Priceless (7 page)

“It’s perfect,” she said. “We’ve found our London home.”

After her meeting with the estate agent, Carrie decided to take her lunch break in the café at Ludbrook’s. Like Sotheby’s, Ludbrook’s had realized that if they couldn’t sting every person who walked through the door for the price of a Picasso, they could at least get them to part with the price of a panini. The café was nice. Basic. Carrie chose a club sandwich that was delicious, despite being
roughly twice the price and half the size of the same thing in the United States.

As she sipped a cup of mint tea, she tuned in to the conversation of the two men who were settling themselves at the table beside her.

“You won’t believe what’s going on in that place across the road,” said the shorter of the two, a ruddy-faced chap who Carrie recognized as Ludbrook’s wine expert, Harry Brown. She’d seen his picture on their website. “They’re only opening a branch of bloody Ehrenpreis. I heard it from my estate agent cousin at Savills.”

The other guy had his back to Carrie, but his beautiful upper-class voice was oddly familiar as he asked, “Really? Is that worrying you, Harry?”

“Of course it’s worrying me. And I don’t know why you’re taking the news so calmly. They’re more bloody competition.”

The other guy chuckled. “Harry, Nat Wilde doesn’t have any competition.”

Nat Wilde! Carrie started at the name. She turned as subtly as she could to get a look at the man. Could it really be him?

“Besides,” Nat continued. “That’s a terrible location. Too small. The whole thing will go tits up in six weeks. Mark my words. I’m not going to lose any sleep.”

It definitely was him. The arrogant jerk.

Carrie Klein smiled into her fresh mint tea. There was nothing she liked more than a challenge. This was going to be sweet.

Having finished her lunch, Carrie presented herself at the front desk at Ludbrook’s and asked the girl there about the upcoming old masters auction. The fresh-faced young thing was extremely enthusiastic and explained
that there would be a private view that very evening. A couple of calls later and Carrie had an invitation to the exclusive black-tie event. Then it was back to Claridge’s to answer emails and take a very short nap. Carrie didn’t want to miss a moment of the evening’s entertainment.

She took especially great care with her appearance. She had brought with her a couple of dresses. One of them, a black satin number from Lanvin, would do for a cocktail event. Especially when it was accessorized with a pair of enormous diamond clip earrings, borrowed that afternoon from one of Ehrenpreis’s favored London dealers. Carrie piled her hair up in a neat chignon. The effect was perfect. Classy. Nothing to distract from the impressive diamonds that said “high roller.” Or, at the very least, “high roller’s wife.”

Carrie knew this would be her last chance to move around Ludbrook’s incognito. The moment Ehrenpreis opened its doors and the Ludbrook’s staff found out who she was, she knew she could not expect any more cocktail party invitations.

The intention was to see firsthand how Ludbrook’s operated. What kind of care and attention they lavished on their clients and consignors. Carrie was particularly interested in getting close to the legendary Nat Wilde. He was a man who could sell snow to the Eskimos, sand to Saudi Arabia. He was a man who had, only recently, sold a picture of a potato for close to thirty-five million pounds. Admittedly, it was a potato by van Gogh …

Carrie couldn’t wait to see him in action.

CHAPTER 8

L
izzy Duffy had approximately three and a half minutes to dress for that evening’s old masters cocktail reception. She was running late. She had spent far longer than she’d wanted to on the telephone with one of Nat’s old biddies: the elderly gentleladies whose friendships he cultivated in the hope that if they didn’t actually leave him all their worldly goods in their wills, he would at least get to sell the goods on behalf of their rightful heirs. Mrs. Kingly was not one of Nat’s favorites. She was a decidedly acidic old bag who had nothing but complaints to impart whenever she telephoned, which was often. But she lived alone in a vast Queen Anne house filled with immaculate contemporaneous furniture and paintings. And she was on her very last legs. Honestly, this time she
really
was.

Nat rolled his eyes every time Mrs. Kingly talked of having so little time left to go before she met her maker. She had been saying that since 1998. Still, any day now she would be right, so when she called and wanted to gripe, at great length, about the difficulty of finding a good gardener or butler or doctor, someone in the office had to listen. That afternoon it was Lizzy’s turn.

“Tell young Mr. Wilde I want to speak to him as soon as he comes back into the office,” said Mrs. Kingly. “I have some very important paintings that will need to be sold on behalf of the cats’ home the minute I die, and I don’t appreciate being palmed off on a junior.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kingly. I’ll tell him. Just as soon as he comes back from Hamburg.”

Nat was always pretending to be in Hamburg.

Like Carrie, Lizzy chose to wear black that evening. Well, it wasn’t a choice, exactly—it wasn’t as though she had a whole wardrobe of designer gear to pick from. This particular dress was from Karen Millen. Her flatmate, Jools, with whom she had been shopping at the time, had told her it looked a little bit Prada. And Lizzy felt a little bit Prada when she wore it. For the first couple of times in any case, until she found herself standing next to a woman dressed in the real thing and suddenly felt extremely chain store again.

Her diamonds at least were real; though they were mere chips compared to the rocks many of the guests would be sporting that night. She pulled a comb through her hair. There was no time to wash it, and it looked a bit greasy. She did her best to disguise the fact by scraping her hair back into a ponytail and sticking a velvet Alice band over the top.

“Very Christie’s 1984,” joked Sarah Jane as she joined Lizzy at the ladies’ room mirror.

It was important to Lizzy that she look especially good that night, not just because she was on duty but also because she had something big to ask Nat. They had been romantically involved for almost six months now. Lizzy’s sister would be getting married in June, and Lizzy wanted to ask Nat to be her “plus one” at the wedding.

Lizzy was convinced that things were moving forward with her boss. Though he had said that there was no way he could officially announce that they were together without causing problems in the office, Lizzy was spending at least three nights a week at Nat’s apartment.

The sex was greatly improved. Since that first time, it
just got better and better. Lizzy had been enjoying herself so much she was almost regretful that she had waited so long to lose her virginity. But most of the time she was just thrilled that she had lost her virginity to Nat. How wonderful it would be if they did get married and Lizzy was able to avoid the misery of casual sex and its repercussions. Yes. That was what she wanted. To marry Nat Wilde and be faithful to him and him alone for the rest of her life. She was certain she wouldn’t miss out if she never kissed another man.

Sarah Jane caught her daydreaming. “Come on, dozy,” she said. “Doors open in five. Apparently there are people down there already. Anything for a free glass of champagne.”

“Coming,” said Lizzy. She adjusted her headband and followed Sarah Jane down into the gallery.

CHAPTER 9

A
s Carrie walked into the lobby at Ludbrook’s, she was immediately relieved of her coat by a girl in a neat white shirt, black skirt, and black vest. A similarly uniformed waiter offered her the choice of juice, water, or champagne. She took champagne. Not because she intended to get drunk but because she wanted to know how much Ludbrook’s was spending on this do, and the quality of the champagne would be a good indicator. She took a sniff. Not bad, she decided. Later in the evening, she
would get the name of the maker on the pretense of wanting some for her own cellar.

She moved into the main room. It was already thronged with guests who all appeared to be much more interested in one another than in the lots adorning the walls. Carrie was familiar with that scenario. In one corner, in front of a couple of what Carrie correctly judged to be the smaller, cheaper paintings, a string quartet provided perfectly inoffensive and unobtrusive background music. The canapés were plentiful and of pleasingly high quality.

Carrie spotted Nat Wilde holding court, surrounded by a little gaggle of women who seemed to be finding him hilarious. It could have been a disaster, but Wilde was obviously handling the situation well, bringing husbands in whenever he could, perpetuating the myth that while he might be flirtatious, he was perfectly harmless too.

So he was busy, but Carrie knew how to draw him over. She took up a position near a portrait of a young woman in a fabulous blue dress. She opened the catalog to the page that displayed the picture and let the end of her pencil rest on her bottom lip as she gazed at the painting as though trying to imagine it above the fireplace of her enormous apartment on Central Park West. Nat Wilde was by her side within a minute.

“Beautiful portrait, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Carrie, turning to face him. “It is rather lovely.”

As, she thought with a little thrill of surprise, was Nat Wilde. The elegance of her rival was only enhanced upon a closer view. His dark hair was shot through with silver, and his skin was lightly tanned, the perfect foil for mischievous bright blue eyes and the straight white teeth of a movie star. Very good teeth for an Englishman, noted
Carrie. And they did seem to be all his own, even though he had to be nearer fifty than forty by now.

“Nat Wilde.” He offered her his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“I’m just in from the States. I’m Carrie Barclay.”

She used her mother’s maiden name—she’d practiced trotting it out for occasions just like this—and watched with amusement as Nat flicked through his mental Rolodex in an attempt to place her.

“Ah yes,” he said. “That name is familiar. Didn’t we sell your husband a small painting by—”

“No husband,” said Carrie, wiggling her empty left hand. “Divorced.”

Nat’s eyes lit up. Carrie knew exactly what he was thinking. Freshly minted divorcées were often bigger spenders than wives incumbent, filling the new gap in their lives with pretty pictures.

“Well, I’m sorry. He must be kicking himself,” Nat added.

Carrie gave a mock frown. Nat Wilde had all the patter.

“So,” he continued. “Now that you can decorate the house exactly as you want it, which I don’t doubt is with a great deal more taste than your ex-husband ever had, perhaps you’d like to tell me if anything has caught your eye.”

“Well, this one, of course,” said Carrie, gesturing shyly toward the portrait. “The moment I saw her, I was drawn to her.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Nat. “The first time I saw her was like falling in love. It’s something about her eyes. There’s a sadness there, but you can’t help but feel that if she smiled it would be the most beautiful smile in the world, and if she turned it on a guy like me, well, I would be jelly.”

Nat put his hand on his breast pocket. Where his heart should have been.

“You know,” he said, turning to face Carrie. “If I may be so bold, I’d have to say she looks a little like you. Now, if only I could persuade you to smile, I think I might just die and go to heaven.”

“Oh, please.” Carrie flicked her catalog in Nat’s direction as though to swat him away. She hammed up her accent, making it pure South Carolina, and said, “I heard that English men were full of false flattery.”

“You’ll never hear a lie pass these lips, Ms. Barclay.”

Carrie was tempted to disagree, but she remembered just in time that she was supposed to be an ingénue in the world of art who knew nothing more of Nat Wilde than he chose to tell her.

“Well,” she said instead, “in that case, I will allow myself to feel faintly flattered. Now, perhaps you could tell me a little more about the history of this painting. Who was the sitter? What was her relationship with the artist? It’s quite unusual for someone to allow themselves to be painted looking so sad.”