Hot Ice

hurry.”
    “My fault, my dear, truly my fault.” He touched a hand lightly to her shoulder. “I was impatient to meet you. To make amends, I’ll give you all the time you’d like right now.”
    He walked to the shelves along the east wall and drew back a section of books. Whitney saw the safe without surprise. It was a common enough camouflage. She wondered only a moment how he’d happened to learn of its presence from the owners. Then she tipped back her brandy again. She was certain there was no aspect of the house they hadn’t told him of before they’d… given it over to him.
    He made no attempt to hide the combination from her as he spun the knob. Damn sure of himself, Whitney decided as she memorized the sequence. A man that sure of himself deserved a good kick in the ass.
    “Ah.” The sound was like a sigh over the smell of rich food as he drew out the old box. He’d already had it cleaned so that the wood shone. “Quite a collector’s piece.”
    “Yes.” Whitney swirled the brandy. It was as smooth and warm as any she’d ever tasted. She wondered what good it would do to toss it in his face. “I thought the same thing myself.”
    He cradled it in his hands carefully, almost hesitantly, like a new father with an infant. “It’s difficult for me to imagine someone with such delicate hands digging in the ground, even for this.”
    Whitney smiled, thinking what her delicate hands had been through over the last week. “I haven’t much aptitude for manual labor, but it was necessary.” She turned her hand over, studying it critically. “I will admit, I’d planned on a manicure before Remo issued your—invitation. This little venture’s been death on my hands.”
    “We’ll arrange for one tomorrow. In the meantime”— he set the chest down on the wide library table—“enjoy.”
    Taking him at his word, Whitney moved over to the box and tossed back the lid. The gems were no less impressive now than they’d been that morning. Reaching in, she drew out the necklace of diamonds and sapphires Doug had admired. No, gloated over, she recalled with a half smile. She’d take her cue from that.
    “Fabulous,” she breathed. “Utterly fabulous. One can grow so weary of neat little strands of pearls.”
    “You hold approximately a quarter of a million dollars in your hand.”
    Her lips curved. “A pleasant thought.”
    His heart beat a little faster as he watched her holding the jewels close, as the queen might have done, not too long before her humiliation and death. “Such gems belong against a woman’s skin.”
    “Yes.” With a laugh she held them up against her. The sapphires glowed like dark, brilliant eyes. Diamonds shivered excitedly. “It’s lovely and undoubtedly expensive but this…” She dropped the strand back into the box and chose the many-tiered diamond necklace. “This makes a statement. How do you suppose Marie managed to get it from the comtesse?”
    “So, you believe it’s the infamous necklace of the Diamond Affair?” She’d pleased him again.
    “I prefer to.” Whitney let the necklace drip through her fingers and catch the light. It was, as Doug had once said of the Sydney, like holding heat and ice at the same time. “I like to believe she was clever enough to turn the tables on the people who’d tried to use her.” She tried a ruby bracelet on for size, considering it. “Gerald Lebrun lived like a pauper with a queen’s ransom under his floor. Odd, don’t you think?”
    “Loyalty’s odd, unless it’s enhanced by fear.” He took the necklace from her, examining it. For the first time, she saw the greed without the polish. His eyes glowed, very much as Barns’s had when he’d pointed a gun at her kneecap. His tongue came out slowly to run over his lips. When he spoke again, his voice had the resonance, the fervor of an evangelist. “The Revolution itself, a fascinating time of upheaval, death, retribution. Can’t you feel it when you hold these in your hands? Blood, despair, lust, power. Peasants and politicians overthrowing a centuries-old monarchy. How?” He smiled at her with the diamonds gleaming in his hands, and the fever burning in his eyes. “Fear. What more appropriate name than the Reign of Terror? What more suitable spoils than a dead queen’s vanity?”
    He relished it. Whitney could see it in his eyes. It wasn’t simply the jewels, but the blood on them he coveted. She felt her fear die under waves of revulsion. Doug had