Antiquing Ch. 01

"This is the one they used to smuggle the future Duke of Edinburgh out of Greece as the monarchy there fell."

She looked up. A microsecond of surprise crossed between her ears but did not register on her face.

She had not noticed the man noticing her interest in the blanket chest. The enveloping character of the cedar, carefully stained two centuries ago with the rich patina to show for it, had swallowed her for a moment. Her radar almost never went down like that -- except when she saw a piece of craftsmanship like this.

"Is that so," she said, in the warm and low part of her natural register. She allowed one corner of her mouth to subtly curl upward, one eyebrow to flick for a second then come back to rest. He might have clocked her desire but she could still tamp down the seller's optimism that was giving his grey-blue eyes a vulpine affect.

"Why of course, young lady. You do know where we are, I trust? None of the swindler's crowd get credentialed to the Puces." His grin had only broadened, the confidence in his eyes only deepened. In fact the stormy half-lidded eyes bordered on cocksure now, as he let them stroll down her frame and back up to meet her gaze, clearly imagining her flattered to be the subject of such baldfaced lechery. Not a good start, she thought.

"Young perhaps, but not foolish. It's a lovely piece and I congratulate you -- Good luck." As she turned her back, knowing her hair blocked his view of her entirely, she allowed herself a grin and thought -- no Puce for you, bud.

"Ah but my luck has already come in!" he said, in a voice that strived for suave but now also exhibited a whiff of need. This might be turning around already, the oaf.

He appeared at her shoulder, quickly enough to suggest he's one of those people whose average stature is comprised disproportionately of legs. Indeed, now he was out from behind his table, she could see his frame. Fit enough, and dressed with the panache his voice suddenly lacked -- your typical Eurobrat, by her estimation, probably inherited his ex-im license from his father, who'd taken it over from his father, and so on back to whatever execrable hovel his definitely-not-aristocratic lineage had once been anchored.

She simply waited. No need to repeat his mistake. Don't jerk the line too soon after the hook sets. Her cousin had taught her that, fishing from the Memorial Bridge, one of those childhood adventures that had started out special but quickly turned dusty-boring.

"You, ah -- You are my luck, I mean. Madame, please, allow me to show you the piece fully -- You do me a favor in this, to practice one's craft is always well." Now even he could hear the suave engine was failing to engage. When their careful english starts to falter, the momentum swing is almost irreversible. Just another nudge and she'd have him.

She blinked slowly at him, once, twice, silently devouring the discomfort and reeking want of him. She loved this part, almost as much as she loved collecting itself.

"A favor?" She smiled, now, not fully but he must have thought so. She knew how to dazzle, and knew she never needed to bring 100 percent to fritz out male circuitry. The women collectors demanded more and different guile -- all the more rewarding when they, too, broke before her -- and as a rule she conserved energy throughout her browsing in case something she truly wanted turned up at the apron of a particularly adroit woman's booth.

"A favor," she repeated, flatly this time, no longer interrogative. "Huh. OK, sure. I don't mind doing you a favor, Mr....?"

"I am Cyril Guillaume, madame, though my frien--"

"Mr. Guillaume." He looked stricken as she cut him off. "I don't mind doing you this favor. But I am nearly late meeting a friend as it is. Be swift in your...rehearsal." She'd killed the lights behind the smile again, as suddenly as she'd flipped them on. He was crestfallen. Careful, now -- Too much and his ego will interfere. Male pride was not her friend, at least not here in the Puces.

"Please do show me, Mr. Guillaume -- unless you feel an abridged rehearsal is not the favor for which you hoped?"

His eyes flicked back to warmth and he grinned, nothing of the slavering fox to it this time. Crisis averted. All over but the crying, now.

She tuned out most of what he said, focusing instead on the way he said it. These seller types really could be a hoot sometimes. And this Guillaume wasn't bad at it. The lilt and sway of his voice as he told her the chest's history -- she already knew the story of the future-Duke's little transoceanic flight, already knew the bun feet were William and Mary and likely turned in Rotterdam based on the toolmarks where the lathe had held it, because she was not the dilettante he'd mistaken her for -- induced a slightly warm sensation behind her sternum, which she snuffed out before it could expand down toward her navel.

The telltale mark of a quality salesman, that. She'd seen smarter people then her -- well, not literally -- make a poor price on an inferior piece many times in the gravity of a seller with this aural gift for entrancement. His wasn't the most spellbinding she'd heard, but it was solid. She might hire him for front-of-house someday, in fact -- worth getting his card at minimum and ensuring he came away grateful to have even spoken with her.

"...and that, madame, is why I am so especially proud to have obtained this particular chest, and so struck by your keen eye for quality."

She let a beat pass, to see if he'd falter and lunge into the silence. He didn't. Business card, for sure. Not bad, and she could train the rough edges off him within a month. (Certainly to never look down a woman's neckline during a sale, for starters.)

"Well done, Mr. Guillaume, quite well done. You know your trade. I commend you." Blinking at him again, even slower. He wants to look away (they always do) but cannot (they never can).

"Would madame perhaps care to--"

She cleared her throat abruptly and he froze. No worry now about him wriggling free. She could drag this out, speed it up -- he might think he was still in the water, but she could hear him flopping pointlessly against the boat bottom.

"Ah, would mada--"

A sharper noise this time -- whoops. She'd meant to clear her throat but almost let a growl out instead. She was enjoying this too much. He didn't try to speak again, though, and looked almost pitiably at her.

"Generally, Mr. Guillaume, when a lady does a gentleman a favor, he..." And here again she cocked her eyebrow and curled just the corner of her mouth.

"Ah! My god. Madame, thank you for entertaining my humble recitation. You are most generous to listen when so pressed for time. Merci beaucoup."

He was done bullshitting. He might not realize how earnestly he meant it, but he did. She felt another warm orb shifting inside her, but this time much lower. Uh oh. Hmm.

"Much better, Mr. Guillaume. And you are quite welcome."

Again here she took a beat, reading him, gauging how he felt about being talked to this way by a woman -- a girl he had surely thought moments prior -- who was 10, maybe 15 years his junior.

By the look of him he didn't mind it at all. If he did, he seemed unable to say so. Or to say anything, as it happened. Lovely, that.

"Perhaps another day we'd have continued this conversation. I have been looking for such a chest for some time, and alas must continue my hunt another day -- surely this one will have sold by the time I'm able to return. Adieu, Mr. Guillaume, et bon chance."

She turned so hard on her heel that a walnut would've cracked beneath it. One step, two, lengthening stride into three-- and there he was. Flushed, now, all seduction gone from his voice. Replaced by something charmingly humble.

"Madame should perhaps take the chest now, in that case. I would be quite happy to--" Here he faltered, swallowing hard, realizing what he was starting to say. "It would be my pleasure to make Madame a gift of this lovely chest, that her bedroom might be complete. Please?"

It was the please that did it. The upturned, almost whispered embarrassment of it. He knew it was a two, three-thousand euro piece. Even if he'd bought very well indeed, he was handing her perhaps a full month's profit. And the offer now made, he could not safely rescind it if he cared to maintain his prized placement in this cathedral of his trade.

"Why, Mr. Guillaume. How grand." Her voice was level, only the ghost of gratitude in it, and even that buried beneath a thick layer of expectation.

She wanted him to know he was doing the right thing.

That this was how things ought to be between them.

Again she felt the warmth spreading down her lower abdomen. She'd really only set out to snag the chest for half its value, but now her appetite had shifted almost without her noticing.

She looked back at him flatly. "Yes. You may have it sent to the Grand Armee." And she began to turn again.

"Ah, but Madame -- your name? For the delivery?"

"The concierge will know to whom it belongs when he sees the piece, Mr. Guillaume. I am quite well known there for my exquisite taste."

He looked wretched, then, and she could see his jaw working. Trying to conjure some saliva. He was devastated at the idea of coming away not only with red ink on his mind but without even an iota of information about the girl -- the woman, now, she was sure in his mind -- who'd bested him.

"But you may call me Dominique, Mr. Guillaume. And I should like to take your card, that I might send you a photograph of the chest in situ as thanks for your gift."

His hands were visibly shaking as he fished, still speechless, into his waistcoat pocket and extended a lovely, heavy paper business card toward her. She took it, pinching the outer millimeter of it neatly between blood-red fingernails, but did not immediately withdraw it from his trembling grasp.

"Mr. Guillaume." He was staring at her hand -- not sneaking a peek down at her cleavage, she could read the focal distance of his gaze, it was her hand so close to his own that captivated him.

"Monsieur Guillaume," she repeated, and he looked up with a quick single shake of his head. His eyes said please and his mouth did not move.

"You said a man was fit into that chest once. How lovely a thought that is -- His arms, his legs, his feelings, his breath, his every hope for his future -- all folded up so neatly as to fit within my lovely new chest. I do enjoy that thought."

He wasn't breathing at all now. Every atom of him tense. The jaw had stopped working, his limbic system overriding the natural instinct to swallow when one's mouth becomes Saharan. After a long moment, he only nodded to her. Like a puppy who doesn't yet know "speak!"

She smiled again, this time giving him every last watt.

"The Grand Armee, Mr. Guillaume. And packed to seafaring spec, thank you. My boat departs at 10 sharp this evening, so I trust your man will not tarry." She lifted the card finally from his fingers, flourishing it once and closing the conversation with a warm but curt nod.

As she walked away, she knew exactly when she would see Cyril Guillaume next. And where. The only mystery was how he would position those tragically long legs to get comfortable against the unvarnished interior of the cedar, and how he would manage to climb in without his porter or her concierge knowing.

At the next corner, she paused. A hairbrush wouldn't be grand enough for the comeuppance he would receive in several hours' time. The leather shop on the left bank would have something more appropriate.