Summer's Awakening (36 page)

Sometimes she had the feeling that, some day, she and James might have a difference of opinion which even their mutual concern for Emily's feelings wouldn't restrain from becoming a volcanic row.

While they were taking off their outer garments, the manservant appeared from the staff quarters and took charge of the two men's coats.

'My room is this way, Mr Santerre.' With her cloak folded over her arm, she led him along the hall, leaving James speaking to José.

However, a few moments later, he followed them. Evidently it was all right for him to visit her bedroom, but not for another man—however innocuous his purpose—to spend any time there alone with her.

Rather amused by James's sudden regard for the proprieties, she laid her cloak on the bed and removed the muslin dust-cover from the frame.

'This is an evening bag I'm making, and I've one or two other things in a drawer. A spectacle case... two small trinket boxes...'

He looked carefully at all her work, making no comments and showing no reaction.

'Where were you trained?' he asked her.

'I've never had any training... well, apart from an embroidery seminar in Nantucket given by Erica Wilson. But it's not very difficult to learn embroidery techniques from books.'

'You've never been to art school?'

She shook her head.

'Summer is the daughter of a professional artist, Thomas Roberts,' said James who, b
y
this time, knew that the
trompe-l'oeil
paintings at
Baile del Sol
had been done by her father.

'Ah, and he taught you about line and colour?' said the other man, looking at her.

'No, he died when I was a child. But although I can't draw at all well, I think I've inherited something from him.'

'A great deal, Miss Roberts. This isn't the work of an enthusiastic amateur. I can't pretend to be an expert on embroidery, but I take an interest in all the applied arts including the world of fashion. I think you're a natural innovator like the English dress designer, Zandra Rhodes or, here in New York, Norma Kamali. I'd like to find out if you can be equally innovative with diamonds and sapphires.'

Emily was hovering in the doorway. James said, 'Let's go and have a drink, shall we?'

Before he left it, the other man glanced round the bedroom and his eye was caught by the spray of white lilac.

'That looks like a flower from Trousselier.'

'It is,' said Summer.

'I thought so. The silk flowers imported from Hong Kong are attractive, but they aren't minor works of art. Have you spent much time in Paris, Miss Roberts?'

'Only a few days, but I loved it. Do you spend much time there?'

'I was born there and lived in Paris until I was twenty. Now I'm a New Yorker and only go back for vacations. I like the American way of life, and I find Manhattan a very stimulating place to live. Like Mr Gardiner I have an apartment not far from here, although my
pied-au-ciel
is smaller than this,' he added, as they reached the large living room with its spectacular views of the city by night.

'You say
pied-au-ciel...
does that mean you commute to the country at weekends?' James asked him.

'Not often at this time of year, but in summer—yes, most weekends. I've
a
house at Old Lyme near the mouth of the Connecticut River. For a hundred miles upstream, the river valley is one of the most beautiful and historic parts of New England. Perhaps you know it.'

'I do, but Emily and Summer have only been in America for just over two years and most of their time has been spent in Florida and Nantucket. They're only here at the moment because my niece needed some urgent dental treatment. Normally they stay in Florida until the weather in the north is warmer. But now that they're here, they'll probably stay until they can go to Nantucket.'

While James was speaking, José had been uncorking a bottle of champagne and filling three glasses. There was a fourth glass on the tray but before he filled it he murmured something in Spanish to which James replied in the same language.

Summer guessed what José had been asking when he poured champagne into the fourth glass, although not to the level in the other glasses.

He presented the tray to her first. She smiled and thanked him, taking the smallest glass, and waited for the others to take theirs. It didn't surprise her that James had asked for champagne because he often drank it.

But she was surprised when he raised his glass to her, and said, 'It's a memorable occasion when a creative artist receives his or her first recognition. I think tonight is that occasion in your life, Summer. We'll drink to your success as a designer. But I must make it plain to you, Santerre, that for some time to come she is committed to her present career as Emily's tutor.' His keen gaze swung back to her. 'Success!'

The other two echoed the toast and drank to it.

'Thank you.' She sipped her champagne.

'I seem to remember reading that your family have some connection with Carl Fabergé, the goldsmith to the Imperial Court of Russia until the Revolution,' James said to the Frenchman.

'Yes, my maternal grandfather was one of Fabergé's workmasters. When the firm was closed down by the Bolsheviks in 1918, Fabergé escaped as a courier attached to the British Embassy. He was already an old man, and he died two years later in Switzerland. My grandfather was younger. His first wife had died, and after he settled in Paris, he married the daughter of a French jeweller whose fortunes he greatly enhanced. My father was their youngest son.'

Raoul paused to drink some champagne before he continued, 'Having escaped being shot by the Bolsheviks, my grandfather didn't intend to be victimised by the Nazis, so a few years before the Second World War, he came to America. But my father felt himself to be a Frenchman and he joined the Free French forces, and after the war he married a French girl. He was a man of action, never a craftsman. But I took after my grandfather.'

'I have a Fabergé elephant,' said Emily. 'He's red with tiny little diamond eyes. Daddy gave him to me for Christmas, a long time ago, but he isn't here. He's in Florida.'

'You must come and see the collection of Fabergé animals which we have at our shop on Fifth Avenue,' Raoul said to her. 'Why don't you both come... tomorrow. You, too, Mr Gardiner, if it would interest you.'

'Unfortunately I'm busy tomorrow, but I'm sure Summer and Emily would enjoy it,' said James.

'Come at half past eleven. After I've shown you round, we'll have lunch,' Raoul suggested.

A week later, when Summer was having dinner with him at Le Cirque, Raoul said, 'You know, it's crazy that you should have to waste time playing governess to Gardiner's niece. Every moment of your life should be devoted to developing your talent.

'In that case, I shouldn't really be dining with you, Raoul. I should be at home, studying those books on jewellery you lent me,' she told him teasingly.

It was strange how comfortable she felt with him. He was an attractive, sophisticated, worldly man; but he didn't unnerve her as James did. Raoul was an open, outgoing personality. She felt that, behind a suave façade, her employer was a private person who never fully revealed himself to anyone. Not to Emily. Probably not to Loretta Fox.

The day they had visited Santerre et Cie, Raoul had insisted she must take off her rose quartz ring and let him re-set it for her.

'It offends my eye, that cheap setting. I'll make something more appropriate. I'm a qualified goldsmith, you know,' he had told her. 'Not that I have as much time for practical work as I should like.'

Now, having ordered the wine to accompany the dishes they had chosen, he produced from an inside pocket a small chamois bag.

'I hope you'll like what I've done to your ring.' He tipped it on to the damask cloth.

The new gold shank gleamed in the lamplight. Yet somehow it didn't look new. When she picked up the ring she saw that the bezel surrounding the stone was delicately engraved.

'It's perfect, Raoul. Is this an old setting which happened to be the right size for the stone?'

'No, no—I made it for the stone. Nowadays most gold alloys are produced by large refining companies. But a few manufacturing jewellers still alloy and melt their own gold. Santerre are among them. For your ring, I used the slightly redder gold which is popular in Europe; although not in England where they like a yellower gold. I've tried to make the setting look the same age as the intaglio, but it's difficult to be sure how old it is.'

He took the ring from her and slid it over her little finger. Then he placed her hand on his palm, fanning her fingers by sliding his own between them.

'You have good hands for rings. I don't care for hands which are too small, with long sharp nails like cats' claws. In fact you have all the features a woman needs to wear jewels well,' he told her. 'A long neck, pretty ears, a fine skin. Unfortunately, most of my designs are destined to be worn by women whose skin has long lost the bloom of youth, or who, if they are young, have no elegance.'

Had James held her hand on his and discussed her physical attributes, she would have found it disturbing. Raoul's touch and his compliments pleased her. Her only unease had to do with the setting he had made and how to deal gracefully with the question of payment.

He seemed to read her mind. He said, with a smile, 'Now you're worried that I'm about to present you with an exorbitant bill for my services. But I made the new setting for my own pleasure.'

'It's terribly kind of you, Raoul. I never dreamt of having a ring custom-made by one of the Santerres. But apart from your skill there s the gold...'

He put her hand on the banquette between them and gave it a friendly pat.

'The gold's an investment from which I may reap rich dividends if you become a designer for us. But first you have to learn something about the materials we have at our disposal, and what can and can't be done with them. For example, most rose quartz is full of what we call inclusions, which are particles of foreign matter. For that reason it's usually carved or made into beads. Talking of your ring, when you go to England it would be interesting to find out whose crest you have there. There's a shop in London which specialises in heraldic objects—crested silver and porcelain and so on. They find lost heirlooms for people. They would probably recognise that crest.'

'If it's English. It might be French, or Italian. I'd love to know how it found its way to a thrift shop.'

During dinner he told her about his mother's collection of antique cameos, most of them cut from agates unlike the nineteenth century and modern cameos which were almost all cut from shells.

The evening flew by as, prompted by her eager questions, he talked with knowledge and enthusiasm of the world's finest jewels from their origins in remote mines through the workshops of master craftsmen to vitrines in museums, or bank vaults, or the rich women's jewel-cases from which they were sometimes stolen to be broken down and refashioned.

'I'm afraid I've bored you,' he said, taking her home.

'Not for a second. You're as riveting as Madame Bernier.'

He laughed. 'That's carrying flattery too far.'

'No, I mean it,' she told him seriously. 'I enjoyed her lecture enormously, but I'm more interested in the things you've told me tonight. James and Emily spend hours talking about computers, and I can see that, to them, it's the most fascinating subject in life. But it leaves me cold. Well, no, that's an exaggeration. There are some aspects which interest me. But I could never be a programmer, and Emily is bored by needlework.'

The block where James had his apartment had a high level of security with two porters on duty round the clock so that it was impossible for any unauthorised person to sneak into the building while the porters' desk was unattended.

Raoul accompanied her to the elevators. She wondered if, as it wasn't late, he was hoping to be asked up for a nightcap. But having no sitting room of her own, it was impossible for her to entertain her dates. Up to now, she hadn't wanted to.

'Thank you again for an excellent evening,' she said, holding out her hand.

'Thank you for being such an excellent listener.' He turned her hand palm uppermost and brushed it lightly with his lips. 'Goodnight, Summer.'