Overlooked Bride Ch. 02

If Marty was disappointed by her jaded appearance he kept it to himself – instead saying 'This looks more like a working office,' looking at the reception workstation partly cut off from Bianca's desk side-on to the big landscape window with its great view.

Applying perfume Bianca explained she'd had a bitch of a afternoon and Marty took the cue and asked to be told about it, adding she was less than ten minutes away from having a drink placed in her hand.

"Etchings, I know very little about etchings," Bianca said as they walked to the gallery, saying the only one she could remember seeing was of a French nude of the 1880s with enormous buttocks, head turned with the suggested facial expression of extreme depravity.

"Suggested facial expression of extreme depravity – oh my, do you have her addressed?" Marty joked and was rewarded by something that passed for a faint smile, accomplished with a curled top lip.

Asked exactly what was an etching, apart from scratchings on copper, Marty looked triumphant and stopped outside a lit shop windows. Pulling a piece of paper from his jacket pocket he read with authority: 'Etching is an intaglio printing process in which an etching needle is used to draw into a wax ground applied over a metal plate, usually copper but can be other material such as zinc or iron. The plate is then submerged in a series of acid baths, each biting into the metal surface only where unprotected by the ground. The ground is removed, ink is forced into the etched depressions, the un-etched surfaces wiped, and an impression is printed, usually on to paper. The word etching applies both the design etched on a plate and an impression made from an etched plate. Too often it's confused with engraving. Etching is considered to be one of the most versatile of all the graphic media due to the endless effects a skilled artist can achieve.' Phew – I need a drink."

"Come on," Bianca laughed as a shower hit them. "Let's run.'

* * *

Marty looked at the pretty blonde who'd taken his hand and suggested they run. Good, this presented the opportunity to show a little male superiority.

"Okay," he responded, breaking into a bit of a lumbering gallop, only to find his hand was held by a gazelle half-floating through the evening air.

Well babe, let's see if you can keep up with this! He caught Bianca by surprise and she lagged until he was almost pulling her along. But then she seemed to drop down a gear and powered past him, jerking at his arm and calling "Come on, Mr Ox."

Marty knew then she must be some sort of sprint champion from university days so covered his embarrassment by calling, "You go on, all my loose change is bogging me down." She tinkled a laugh and suggested he join her gym.

"Nah," he puffed. "They are only for gays."

"Excuse me, I go to the gym every evening."

"Gays and you." There went that tinkle again; she seemed bent on making him sound if he had an appealing humor. Well, she could do worse – like running ahead the whole block and waiting ten minutes for him to arrive. But whoa, they were here – the Mayor's limo doubled park right outside.

"You won't know anyone so it shall be my pleasure to make introductions," Marty said genially. But they struck trouble at the door – the two security guards said sorry, only one ticket, only one admission.

"I protest," Marty fumed.

"Protest all you like buddy, but do it across the street; I'd prefer you do that now."

"Miss Bianca White is with my party, Kevin. Please allow her to proceed."

"Yes Lady Alice," said the thickset 6ft 6in or so security man, giving Lady Alice Ashton-Jones, one of Bianca's mother's friends a half salute.

The guard said to Marty quietly, "You're lucky buddy Lady Alice came to your rescue – please proceed."

When Marty grabbed his red wine from the smiling babes hosting at the drinks station and he reached the women, they were hugging, Lady Whatshername was saying, "We shared an apartment with your parents in Nimes in September – the men wanted to go to the bullfights but that was too wretched for your mother and me. We spent most of the five days drinking cocktails and listening to jazz, waiting to be picked up. But there was too much competition from tourist women from around the world. Just joking dear but we did hear a lot of jazz and consume enough cocktails to last us three months."

Bianca turned to him."Marty, this is Alice who attended boarding school in the UK at Pembury, Kent, with my mother Nicole. They went on to university together where they both did languages and married friends – my father from Auckland and Alice' husband was from Gloucestershire."

"With a title it would seem."

Alice smiled."Yes, but way out here Alice is fine."

"Greetings, Alice; it's very nice to meet you."

"Are you two together?"

"We came here together."

"Oh my, how discreet Marty; I take it that you are married to someone else?"

Marty felt his giveaway flush and thought what a rude woman, scarcely an aristocrat. Alice apparently noticed that reaction and said he must forgive her but she wasn't a lady; she was a retired concert pianist of no particular note but had never lost her naughtiness learned reluctantly from Bianca's mother.

"Believe what you want, Marty. Alice blames everything on my mother, always has, even her two pregnancies so I'm told and my father stoutly denies any involvement in that."

"Wicked mothers bear wicked children," Alice sniffed. "May I fetch you another red, Marty."

"No please, allow me."

"I'm not yet fifty, Marty, so can still walk without a stick and manage to carry three drinks without spilling them. Besides, I'd like you two to look at my ass as I walk away and expect an assessment when I return – I suspect it may look a little too wide."

As she tottered away on very high heels, Marty said, "What a character – and how did that doorman know her?"

"Alice co-owns this gallery with my mother. Alice hates the cold so spends from mid-spring to mid-autumn in New Zealand. This time she arrived a week after my mother left to spend a year in Provence after reading the book of that name to revive memories of living cold winters, in the main horrible memories I'm sure."

"Someone must be in the money."

"Both husbands are wealthy. Dad and his partner sold their national truck freight line and national airfreight line to an English investment company for nineteen million pounds, dad getting half less debt, taxes and disbursements and Sir Archer Ashton-Jones inherited all the Ashton-Jones estates including two market towns, a brewery, a forest and two golf courses."

"But Alice doesn't speak with a strong west English accent."

"Like mum, she speaks five languages fluently so I guess she only injects accent for authenticity."

"She has nice breasts for an older woman."

"Marty!"

"Hello, commenting about my boobs, was he?" Alice asked, handing over the drinks.

"Yes, I admired both them and your butt and believe they are excellent for a woman of your age."

Alice patted his cheek and purred, "A very nice compliment and you appear to be an honest man. Preserve that rarity will you, and just go easy with the phrase 'for a woman of your age'. Be a charmer and you'll have Bianca in your bed before you know it. I must go and chat to my party before I toddle up to make my speech."

She kissed them both, the kiss with Marty lasting noticeably longer – at least Marty thought Bianca would have noticed that. However she appeared unperturbed.

"God, that woman is a menace," he whispered.

"One gets used to it; when she teams up with my mother it can be very uncomfortable for people, including their own families. She'll be expecting we are together so please just allow me to walk viewing the exhibition holding your hand; if she suspects we're not together she'll become insufferable."

"Okay, I have my reputation to consider but just this once."

"Oh God, she's set you off, hasn't she? Please, Marty spare me the jokes tonight; I have told you I had a trying day."

Hand-in-hand they went from the ante room into the gallery proper.

Marty was caught by surprise. "Gosh, they'll small."

Bianca whispered, "This is not a Gainsborough landscape exhibition," receiving a sharp look from her hand-holder.

Still caught in awe he said, "Look – there's a rhinoceros. I expected the topics of the exhibition would be domestic and farm animals."

"Why?"

"Because I just did."

"That answer is not exercising your obvious intelligence Marty."

"Okay – that was a lazy answer. The truth is I just didn't think expansively."

"An excellent answer and I was being encouraging, not critical. You know engraving in caves started it all. Etching followed the development of woodcuts. The earliest dated printed engraving is a German print dated 1446,"

"That's brilliant, Bianca. Obviously you've done a bit of swot."

Smiling wickedly and thanking him for such generous praise, Bianca pointed to a notice on an easel just to his right. It read: 'Engraving in caves started it all. Etching followed the development of woodcuts. The earliest dated printed engraving is a German print dated 1446. The etchings here are off plates dating back to 1883. Some prints have been hand water colored.'

"I think my problem is my vision is too narrow."

That comment earned Marty a tinkled laugh that made him feel far more comfortable in the world of etchings.

To Be Continued...