CHAPTER 2
PREVIEW NIGHT
“That did not come out of somebody’s warehouse last month.”
For three seconds, nobody in the Blue Study moved.
Romy watched Sebastian Pryce rather than the panel. The silk had changed him. Sebastian had entered hunting for things to dislike. Now he looked like a man who had unexpectedly found something he knew.
Celeste recovered first.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Sebastian kept his eyes on the painted silk.
“It means Marcus has either become careless or imaginative.”
“Marcus sourced it from a dealer.”
“So you said.”
“And if you have something to accuse me of, I suggest you stop circling it.”
Leo stood near the doorway with his satchel against his side, trying to become part of the wallpaper while missing nothing.
Sebastian finally turned.
“Who gave you the provenance?”
Celeste’s mouth tightened. “It is a decorative textile fragment. I was not acquiring a Turner.”
“That was not my question.”
“The dealer paperwork came through Marcus.”
“Which dealer?”
“I don’t remember.”
Sebastian gave a small nod that somehow made forgetting sound criminal.
Romy stepped in before Celeste climbed him like scaffolding.
“The public preview starts in less than ten minutes.”
Sebastian glanced at her. “And?”
“And if this concerns the textile, you can discuss it after the rooms have been cleared.”
Celeste gave Romy a grateful look that lasted less than a second. Sebastian noticed. He noticed everything.
“You think this is a conservation matter?”
“I think shouting beside two-hundred-year-old plaster rarely improves it.”
Leo looked down quickly.
Sebastian’s mouth almost moved. Not quite a smile, but close enough to prove he was capable of one.
Then voices rose from the entrance hall below.
The first guests had arrived.
Celeste swore.
Romy checked the time.
6:39.
Preview night had started early.
Of course it had.
Asterleigh changed in minutes. The installation site disappeared under perfume, champagne trays, camera flashes, name badges, and voices pitched to carry. Designers emerged transformed. Assistants hid toolboxes. Florists started looking artistic.
A string quartet began in the drawing room.
Someone had found time to light forty battery candles.
Romy did not trust anyone who could locate forty matching battery candles during a crisis.
She and Leo moved downstairs against the incoming tide.
A local councillor was telling a journalist that Asterleigh represented “the perfect conversation between history and modern vision.”
Romy looked at Leo. He looked back.
Neither said anything.
They had been paid to stop the modern vision drilling into the history.
At the entrance, a volunteer offered champagne.
Leo hesitated.
“Working,” Romy said.
He took sparkling water instead.
“You didn’t even let me make the wrong decision.”
“That’s mentorship.”
They moved into the dining room, where Marcus Fenn’s brass plate-warmer now held pride of place on a long polished table.
Someone had set it on a rectangle of burgundy felt. The narrow gold woven edge showed clearly against the dark wood.
Marcus stood nearby with Harriet Vale, the dining-room designer, while two magazine editors admired old silver serving covers he had also supplied.
He saw Romy and lifted his glass.
“Furniture intact.”
“So far.”
“The night is young.”
Harriet touched the plate-warmer.
“It makes the whole table.”
Marcus said, “Three hours ago, you called it heavy.”
“Three hours ago, I hadn’t seen it under candlelight.”
“That is why I charge people after installation.”
Harriet laughed.
Marcus looked entirely at ease. He understood how these evenings worked. Every object was decoration, advertisement, leverage, or currency. Sometimes all four.
A photographer crouched near the table.
Marcus shifted a serving dish half an inch for him.
Leo leaned toward Romy.
“He said he wasn’t a designer.”
“He also said he owned too much felt.”
“Both statements may be unreliable.”
Romy took a glass of sparkling water from a passing tray.
“For your first official day, you’re developing dangerous opinions.”
“I learned from management.”
She nearly answered when the room changed again.
Not physically.
Socially.
People began turning toward the doorway.
Sebastian had come downstairs.
Celeste followed several paces behind him.
That looked bad before either of them spoke.
Sebastian accepted champagne and immediately set it down untouched.
A journalist Romy knew as Frances Wynn intercepted him.
“Sebastian, first impressions?”
“Too many.”
Frances laughed as though he had handed her a gift.
“And a favourite room?”
“I haven’t seen one yet.”
The remark travelled. Romy could practically watch it pass from guest to guest.
Celeste entered the dining room.
Sebastian saw her. Something in his expression sharpened.
Romy thought, Don’t.
He did.
“Although the Blue Study is certainly memorable.”
Frances brightened.
Celeste stopped.
Sebastian continued.
“It is always interesting to see an old idea returned to circulation.”
The nearest conversations thinned.
Frances knew blood when she smelled it.
“An old idea?”
Celeste crossed the room.
“Careful, Sebastian.”
He turned toward her. “Why?”
“You know perfectly well what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything.”
“That would be a first.”
Marcus stopped talking to Harriet and looked from Celeste to Sebastian. The room had become attentive without admitting it.
Frances held her phone at chest height.
Recording.
Romy started toward them.
Sebastian spoke first.
“The panel treatment is very familiar.”
Celeste’s face changed.
Not embarrassment.
Fury.
“You saw my scheme six months ago.”
“I saw several versions of your scheme.”
“I developed that installation.”
“Did you?”
The question landed harder than an accusation.
Celeste stepped closer.
“Say what you mean.”
Sebastian’s gaze flicked over the guests around them, then back to her.
“All right. The use of a mounted textile fragment over a high wall feature, combined with glazed blue walls and lacquer, appeared in Marianne Foss’s Antwerp room three years ago.”
“That is a lie.”
“I have photographs.”
“So do I.”
“Then yours should be interesting.”
Frances Wynn looked delighted.
Romy did not.
Celeste’s hands had gone rigid at her sides.
“You vicious little man.”
“Celeste.”
The new voice belonged to Vivian Cross.
Vivian Cross, counsel to the Merewick Heritage Trust, had approached so quietly Romy had not seen her arrive. In black dress and silver spectacles, she looked incapable of misplacing a document or forgiving anyone who did.
She looked at Frances’s raised phone.
“Please stop recording.”
Frances lowered it by perhaps two centimetres.
“This is a press preview.”
“It is not a boxing match.”
Sebastian said, “That depends who curated the guest list.”
Vivian turned to him.
“Outside.”
“I’m comfortable here.”
“I wasn’t asking whether you were.”
Marcus coughed into his glass.
Celeste heard him.
“This is amusing to you?”
“No.”
“It looked like it.”
Marcus’s expression lost its charm.
“Then you misread me.”
Vivian took Sebastian lightly by the arm.
“Now.”
He allowed himself to be moved only into the corridor.
Romy followed. During the Marchmont case, she had learned people often said the useful thing five seconds after believing they had left the room.
Leo stayed near the dining-room entrance.
Good instincts.
Vivian’s voice was low but clear.
“You are not publishing any accusation about Asterleigh, its designers, the trust, or any object displayed here until I know what you think you have.”
Sebastian looked bored again. It was less convincing now.
“You don’t approve my copy.”
“No. But I can make sure the magazine’s lawyers see every liability problem before breakfast.”
“You always did prefer threats dressed as procedure.”
“And you always mistake recklessness for courage.”
His eyes cooled.
Vivian continued.
“If this is about the panel, you send me the evidence tonight.”
“So you know there is evidence.”
“I know you.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It has been.”
She walked away.
Sebastian watched her go.
Romy stepped fully into the corridor.
“What is the panel?”
He looked at her.
“A textile.”
“You knew that before you arrived.”
“Did I?”
“You recognized something.”
“I recognize many things.”
“Most of them don’t make you stop talking.”
That got his attention.
He studied her.
“Pattern House has made you bolder.”
“Pattern House has made me tired.”
“Similar symptoms.”
“Who made the panel?”
Before he could answer, a volunteer hurried toward Romy.
“Sorry. We need you near the west stair. Somebody says the runner is lifting.”
Romy closed her eyes briefly.
Sebastian smiled properly this time.
“History calls.”
She pointed at him.
“Do not disappear.”
“That sounded almost authoritative.”
“It was meant to.”
By 6:46, the runner was not lifting.
A sponsor’s stiletto heel had caught the edge, and three people had converted that into structural failure.
Romy flattened the binding, checked the stair rods, reassured the volunteer, and resisted banning high heels from Georgian houses.
Leo found her two minutes later.
“Blue Study service door.”
“What about it?”
“Adrian.”
Romy looked across the landing.
Adrian Holt, Asterleigh’s operations manager, stood near the narrow side passage serving the Blue Study and adjoining morning room. He had a ring of keys in one hand. The master key was already in the lock.
Romy checked her phone.
6:48.
Adrian turned the key, opened the service door a few inches, looked inside, then stepped through and shut it behind him.
Leo said, “Are guests supposed to use that?”
“No.”
“What’s through there?”
“Service corridor, small storage cupboard, back access to two rooms.”
“Why would he need it now?”
“Could be a hundred reasons.”
Leo looked at her.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe ninety-eight.”
They were intercepted before Adrian reappeared.
A woman from Merewick Living wanted to know whether the entrance-hall paint was authentic to 1812.