Mistress of Justice

hundred square feet. There was a separate elevated sleeping area with a brass railing around it, containing an oak armoire and a matching dresser—and a bed, which caught her attention immediately. It was dark mahogany, with a massive headboard that would have dwarfed any smaller space. The headboard was carved in a Gothic style and the characters cut into the wood were cracked and worn. She couldn’t tell exactly what they were—perhaps gargoyles and dragons.
    She thought of the mythical creature in
Through the Looking-Glass
.
    Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
     
    Around the loft were plants, sculpture, antiques, tall bookshelves, tapestries. Pin spots shot focused streams of light onto small statues and paintings, many of which looked ugly enough to be very valuable. The walls were brick and plaster, painted mottled white and gray and pink. The floors were oak, stained white.
    If this boy cooks, she joked to herself, I may just reconsider my baby-by-mail plan and marry him.
    “You did this just to impress me, I know.”
    He laughed. “Let me take your coat.” Reece wore baggy pants and a blousy white shirt. Sockless slippers. His hair was still damp from a shower.
    Taylor had chosen noncommittal vamp. Black stockings but shoes with low, functional heels. A black Carolina Herrera dress, tight but high-necked. (Cleavage? A roommate had once bluntly assessed,
Forget boobs, Taylor: Avoid low-cut. But the rest of your bod—it’s to die for. Wear short and tight. Remember that. Short and tight.
)
    Taylor noted the sweep of Reece’s eyes all along her body. He was subtle, but not subtle enough; she caught him in reflection in one of the mirrors near the Jabberwock bed.
    Okay, Ms. Westchester, she thought to Reece’s mysterious girlfriend, can
you
shoehorn into a dress like this?
    She followed him across an oriental rug. The dinner table had feet, and on the side, carved faces of the sun. They were solemn.
    “Your table looks unhappy.”
    “He gets bored. I don’t have much company. He’ll be happy tonight.”
    As Reece took the wine she’d brought she looked at him carefully and decided he wasn’t very happy either. His eyes were still bloodshot and he seemed to be forcing himself to relax, to push the intruding distractions of the law firm away.
    He walked into the kitchen area and put the chardonnayinto a refrigerator. She looked inside; it contained nothing but wine. “You should try groceries sometime,” she said. “Lettuce, oranges. You can even get chicken, I’m told, ready to cook.”
    “Wine cellar,” Reece said, laughing. He pulled out a bottle of white, a Puligny-Montrachet. Her father’s favorite Burgundy, Taylor recalled. Reece added, “The fridge’s over there.” He pointed to a tall Sub-Zero then took two crystal goblets in one hand and carried the wine and a ceramic cooler out into the living area.
    Man, she thought, he’s really slick at this.
    He poured and they touched glasses. “To winning.”
    Taylor held his eye for a moment and repeated the toast. The wine was rich and sour-sweet, more like a food than a drink. The goblet was heavy in her hand.
    They sat and he told her how he’d found the loft. It was raw space when he’d moved in and he’d had it finished himself. The project had taken nearly a year because he’d had three full-fledged trials that year and had been unable to meet with the contractors. “I slept in sawdust a lot,” he explained. “But I won the cases.”
    “Have you ever lost a trial?” she asked.
    “Of course. Everybody loses trials. I seem to win a few more than most people. But that’s not magic. Or luck. Preparation is the key. And will to win.”
    “Preparation and Will. That could be your motto.”
    “Maybe I should get a crest. I wonder what it’d be in Latin.”
    Taylor rose and walked toward a long wooden shelf. “My mother,” she said, “would call this a knickknack shelf. I used to think ‘knickknack’ was French for ‘small, ugly ceramic poodle.’ ” He laughed.
    She found herself looking at an army of metal soldiers.
    “I collect them,” Reece said. “Winston Churchill probably had the biggest collection in the world and Malcolm Forbes’s wasn’t too shabby either. I’ve only been at it for twenty years or so.”
    “What are they, tin?”
    “Lead.”
    Taylor said, “One year my father got the idea that I should get soldiers, not dolls, for Christmas. I must’ve been