Ben put his arms behind his back and stood at attention. “Are there any outdoor exits?”
“No,” Blythe-Bickman said. “There is a large balcony, but there aren’t any exits from it. The only way in and out is this staircase, okay?” He was patronizing now. “So just… make yourself at home.” He smirked. “Downstairs.”
Ben met Tenzin’s eyes and saw nothing but wolfish excitement in her gaze.
Oh, my adorable, greedy little magpie.
Ben nodded at her and turned to take up a position in the foyer while Tenzin followed the Englishman up the stairs. He heard low, excited whispers and knew that whatever Tenzin had planned for the Englishman, it was not at all what the human was expecting.
9
Human men were so predictable. Trevor was so excited to get Ming alone he nearly assaulted her on the upstairs landing. If Tenzin hadn’t slipped away, she never would have drawn him farther into the house.
“Now Trevor, I really did want to see your art collection.” She pressed a finger to his searching lips. “Don’t worry. Amir knows what his directions are. We have plenty of time.”
The man was flushed and his heartbeat was pounding. “Ming, you’re so beautiful. Smart. Intriguing…”
She allowed her lips to hover over his. “Patience.”
He shook his head. “You are so mysterious, darling.”
And you are so obvious. She took his hand and led him farther along the corridor, turning left into what looked like a long gallery. She could see french doors leading out to the wide covered balcony she’d seen from the front entrance of the house.
She turned to Trevor, allowing her voice to become slightly breathless. “Are we alone up here? Really alone?”
“Yes.” He put a hand on her waist and tried to draw her closer. “The staff doesn’t come up to the second floor except on Tuesdays when they clean. It’s my sanctuary.”
“One must have… privacy.” She allowed him to draw her close. “I envy you, Trevor. Your family doesn’t control you. You are free.”
His eyes were dark and greedy. “Let me make you free.” He tried to kiss her, and she flooded his senses with amnis.
Unfortunately, Tenzin might have overshot the goal, because the man’s eyes rolled back and his head landed with a thud on her shoulder. He slumped against her, pushing her into a wall.
“Oops.” She pulled back some of her power as she guided him toward a chaise under a window in the gallery. “Let’s just set you here for a moment.” She looked at him sleeping soundly and then looked to the right toward the stairwell. “Benjamin is not going to like this.”
She walked back toward the landing and whispered, just loud enough for Ben to hear. “He’s out.”
She heard his light footsteps floating up the stairs.
His eyes were guarded. “The servants—”
“Only come up here on Tuesday.” She waved him into the gallery and stood in front of Trevor, her head cocked as she watched him sleep. “It’s his ‘sanctuary.’”
“Did you find out where his safe is?”
“Ah…” She pursed her lips. “The thing is—”
“You overdid it on the amnis, didn’t you?”
“He was trying to kiss me.” She wrinkled her nose. “I only let you do that, remember?”
“And I’m very glad, Tiny, but did you have to put him quite so far out?” Ben knelt and patted Trevor’s cheek. “He’s barely breathing.”
“You know, I think he was really stressed.” Tenzin put her fists on her hips. “He probably needed this.”
“Well, we need to get his combination.” Ben reached down and hoisted the man over his shoulder. “Are we guessing the safe is in the bedroom?”
“He seems unimaginative, so yes.”
Ben carried the Englishman down the gallery and back toward the hall where several rooms branched off. There were two empty bedrooms, but none of them looked like the main suite. They walked back through the gallery, and Tenzin paused in front of a particularly beautiful silver necklace hanging on the wall.
“I think it’s Hmong,” she said. “And several hundred years old. Can I—?”
“Safe first,” Ben said. “Then you can browse.”
That was definitely not a no. Ben was being surprisingly larcenous, and she planned to take full advantage. “Tell me why you don’t mind stealing from this one,” she said. “Is it because he wanted to have sex with me?”
Ben and Tenzin followed Blythe-Bickman’s scent, which led them to a vast bedroom suite with a sitting area, small office, and shelves and shelves of books. He tossed the sleeping man on the massive four-poster bed in the middle of the room. Tenzin noticed the barely concealed hooks in the posts but didn’t say anything.
Apparently Blythe-Bickman wasn’t quite as predictable as she’d imagined.
“I don’t mind stealing from this one” —Ben scanned the luxurious room hung with art from all over the world— “because do you have any doubt that his family ripped off ninety percent of these things under the aegis of the British Crown?” He walked over to a silk-matted painting. “This watercolor is from Jodhpur, I guarantee you. I’m guessing eighteenth century. He has at least five similar paintings in the house. You think he bought them legitimately or paid a fair price?”
Ben walked to another artifact. “This mask looks West African, and I’d say from the paint condition, it’s at least two or three hundred years old. Why does he even own this? It belongs in a museum.”
He walked to a figure that looked Native American. “This is from the Pacific Northwest, so maybe he bought this on the legitimate market, but where do you think all his family’s fucking money came from? Exploiting poor people.” He curled his lip. “This guy is the walking, talking definition of aristocratic privilege. So yeah, you can rob the shit out of him. He’ll survive.”
Tenzin walked over and patted Ben’s shoulder. “Well, he’s not walking and talking right now. And we have no idea where his safe is.”
Ben turned in circles in the center of the room. “You know what? I don’t think this bastard would keep the manuscript locked up. He likes to show off too much, and according to the information we got, this book is beautiful.”
“I didn’t see it in that gallery.”
“I bet he doesn’t have a safe; I bet he has another gallery.” Ben narrowed his eyes. “A personal one.”
Tenzin took a breath and filtered through the myriad scents in the room. For Ben, whose senses were strong but unstudied, it probably just smelled musty. But for Tenzin…
“It would have to be in a case,” she said. “San Francisco has too much sea air for the book to be unprotected.” She walked out of the bedroom, following her nose through the whole second floor, but she found nothing that indicated a priceless manuscript was being stored anywhere. She wasn’t sniffing for vellum or gum arabic, she was searching for the faint scent of mold.
She walked back to the bedroom, where Ben was staring at a sleeping Trevor Blythe-Bickman. “He’d need a dehumidifying case, and I don’t see one anywhere.”