Follow My Lead (25 page)

She broke away mere seconds later, her eyes searching out his, confused and more than a little embarrassed. Somehow, his arms had come around her back and he was actively holding her to him. Keeping her there, keeping the cold air from filling that space. Then, he let her go.

She backed herself all the way to the other side of the room. Unfortunately, Jason thought, the room was too small to put any worthwhile distance between them. All he could do was stare at her, and all she could do was look at the space of floor between them.

It must be the air, Jason thought. The heavy air that in the last few seconds had burned up like fire.

“I, ah . . . I need some air,” Jason said finally, filling the void that had been previously occupied by only the sounds of their breathing. “So I’m going to . . . go take a walk.”

He didn’t check to see her reaction. He didn’t even spare her a glance as he wrenched open the door and passed through to the other side. And as he stepped downstairs and out onto the street, his mind kept going over and over the last few minutes on a never-ending loop. And one coherent thought managed to make it through his wreckage of a brain:

What the hell had just happened?

She could have kissed Jason. Again. If he’d been in the room.

It was barely an hour later that Winn located the letters she was looking for. There they were, having been moved into different piles because one spoke mainly about Dürer’s engraving education in Basel, Switzerland, and the other has the barest mention of an Adam and Eve painting. Her eyes were burning, and her mind beyond tasked, but it was there. She knew it.

Since Jason was not in attendance, instead she contented herself with running downstairs, the two letters in hand, and accosting Frau Heider with her delightful find.

“Frau Heider!” she called out, finding her in the kitchen, taking a trowel and plaster to a crumbling corner of the room. “I found them! I found them!” she cried, entering the room.

“Ah, wunderbar,” Frau Heider replied. “May I see?” She held out a hand, covered in plaster, and Winn’s eyes went wide with horror. “Ah, no—you are right. Best not touch.”

“Where is Jason?” Winn asked, her heart beating in her throat. “I must show him!”

“He went out, child,” Frau Heider replied, waving her trowel in the direction of the door. “Said he needed air.”

Winn blushed and then ran for the door, the letter, her precious careful letters, still in her hands.

“He went in the direction of the Hauptmarkt, my dear!” Frau Heider called out and then, as the girl burst through the door, could only chuckle to herself. Discovery, whether a letter or a feeling, was ever an inspiration.

Winn had never had much luck at finding people in crowds. Being on the shorter side of the human spectrum, she could only hop on her toes and pray for a glimpse of red hair and beard. It was just past noon, and the market was bustling with women purchasing meat for that night’s supper, men bartering and trading for feed and seed for the farms just outside the city walls. Others strolled the craft stalls, small dolls and clockwork toys, carved wooden buttons and small treasure chests that had no purpose other than to look pretty and remind people that they had once been to the market on a warm summer day.

And in the middle of it all was Jason.

She found him after some minutes, exiting a small shop on the northeast side of the square. He had a package wrapped in paper in his hand, that Winn could only assume was a sandwich of some kind. She ran up to him, into him, with such force that it set Jason back on his heels.

“Oof!” The air came rushing out of his chest as he backed away from the door frame that had caught his weight. “For such a small person you really pack an enormous wallop,” Jason grumbled as he discreetly hid the package behind his back. “Is it in your plans to cause me as much bodily injury as possible?”

“I’m sorry!” Winn cried, giggling. “Well, not really. I found them!”

“You found them,” Jason repeated dumbly. Then, understanding, “You found them? The letters?”

She nodded, and produced the letters from her skirt pocket. “It’s very small, the section that I need, but it’s right here.” She indicated the lines she sought on the page, her hands still gloved in plain white cotton. Jason came to stand behind her and peered over her shoulder.

“It’s nearly illegible,” he said finally, his breath in her ear. “Can you make it out at all?” At her nod, he responded, “Read the passage to me.”

And as she met his eye, his face alarmingly close to hers, Winn forgot for a moment that they were in the crowded Hauptmarkt. “I think . . . at least, I am sure I am right, but I think it says this.” She cleared her throat and read.
“I wish to honor the master and my friend for his sympathies. Once you said you admired my work, so I send to you my last work, a First of Man and Woman. My mother, who is my superior in all things, has proclaimed pride my sin, and that I must rid myself of the paints, that I honor myself more than God. When we met in Basel, you suggested I study
—
”
Winn paused here and squinted. “I think this next word means ‘horticulture,’ but I honestly have no idea.” Then she cleared her throat and continued.
“And my practicing I hope has met with your agreement.”

Winn looked up then, carefully refolding and pocketing the letter as she did so. “And then they discuss Lutheranism in veiled terms for a while, and that’s it.”

“That’s it?” Jason asked, a little too skeptical for Winn’s liking. “There are no other letters in this handwriting?”

“Yes, there is one,” she replied, carefully fishing it out of her pocket, “but it mainly discussed etching techniques Dürer studied in Switzerland and some other commonplace things. Not the Adam and Eve painting.”

“That’s not enough,” Jason replied, taking her hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house, see if there are any other letters in any of Frau Heider’s other trunks.”

“What do you mean, that’s not enough?” she asked as he pulled her through the crowds of the Hauptmarkt.

“That’s not enough to prove that your Adam and Eve painting is the one being discussed.”

“Of course it is!” she countered. “It is exactly what Herr Heider described to me. It says that they met in Basel, that this painter sent an Adam and Eve—a First of Man and Woman—to Dürer.”

“It’s exactly what Herr Heider described? Are you telling me you crossed the Continent on a whim and the belief that that much was proof of a painting’s . . . authorship?” Jason asked, his face complete astonishment. “Are there any dates on that letter? Any discussion of form and technique beyond studying horticulture? Any proof of receipt of the painting? Is the author of the letters recognized as an artist otherwise?”

“I don’t think so,” Winn replied. “But then again, there are not a lot of female painters recognized from this era, period.”

That brought Jason up short, stopping in the dead center of one of Nuremberg’s famous stone bridges. “The painter is a woman?”

Winn nodded. “They are signed by a Maria F. I can’t make out the last name beyond the first letter.”

Jason threw back his head and laughed. “Oh for God’s sake! That’s even worse!”

“How is that worse?” Winn asked, her brown brows coming down.

“Because the Historical Society is going to write those letters off as coming from a young girl overly impressed by a master artist, one who sent him a sketch she did in her adoration. Not this painting, not a serious work, nor someone to be taken seriously.”

As Winn felt her blood rise, she wrenched her hand free of Jason’s. “It will be enough to cast doubt.”

“No it won’t,” Jason intoned seriously. “So you had better hope there is more conversation between Dürer and this Maria F., and that it is a detailed account of Maria’s talents as an artist and their relationship, because otherwise . . .”

Winn could only narrow her eyes and harrumphed. And then, of course, turned and walked briskly in the direction of the Dürer House, Jason close at her heels.

They rounded the corner, coming onto the view of the Dürer House just as they had a few short days ago, when they had met with the crowd of students paying homage. Only this time there were no students.

There was instead an instructor.

George. Next to him stood Totty, looking, if possible, both concerned
and
bored. They had been met at the half door by Frau Heider, her banked caution apparent to Winn and Jason, if no one else.

Winn froze solid upon seeing George, unable to move forward or backward. Luckily, Jason had the sense to pull her back beside the next building—hidden from view in the alley but within earshot.

“My affianced bride, you see, is terribly admiring of Master Dürer,” George was saying with a smile, his practiced charm diffusing any fear Frau Heider might have from his size. “But she is somewhat scatterbrained. We became separated recently, and I wondered if perhaps she had come here.” He placed a concerned hand over the older woman’s, eliciting a blush.

“Scatterbrained?” Winn whispered indignantly, forcing Jason to shush her.

“What is it with you English and your fascination with Dürer?” Frau Heider was saying kindly, her stern visage warming to George’s affecting countenance. “But I am sorry, there has been no single ladies here.”

“Are you certain?” George replied earnestly. “She’s small in stature, brown haired, somewhat plain?”

“Somewhat plain?” Winn couldn’t help but repeat, incredulous. At this point, Jason rolled his eyes and gave up on shushing her, and instead simply placed a hand over her mouth.

“Small in stature?” Frau Heider replied, the wheels visibly turning in her brain.

“Yes!” George cried. “Her name is Winnifred Crane. I’m sorry, I never introduced myself. I am George Bambridge, professor at Oxford. Winnifred’s father was my mentor . . .”

As George explained, the understanding on Frau Heider’s face turned to surprised understanding, then anger. Jason and Winn watched as the older woman sputtered indignantly, then opened the door fully, admitting George and Totty.

“We have to go. Now,” Winn said quietly after removing Jason’s warm hand from her mouth.

“Right. We’ll come back after they leave,” Jason agreed.

“No, you don’t understand, we have to leave Nuremberg,” Winn replied, hedging out into the street. Then seeing that there was no one spying on them from the Dürer House windows, shot out at a breakneck pace, running as fast as her feet could carry her.

“Winn, where are you going?” Jason cried, trying to catch up. “Winn!”

Arabella Arbuthnot Tottendale, affectionately known as Totty, was not a woman to be unseated, literally (she sat remarkably well upon a horse, and always had, despite her lack of practice in recent years) or metaphorically.

She had been utterly and completely shocked by Winn’s plans to travel to the Continent alone, but not unseated by them. She had followed along and helped as best she could. Besides, Totty surmised, she had always been horrid at stopping mischief, so why not facilitate it instead, and make certain it was the least outrageous version possible?