“Not that I’m doubting your…awesomeness, but is there a particular reason it should be celebrated at the moment?” he asked with a reluctant smile.
She continued to dance, and he had an increasingly difficult time not staring at her lithe form as it moved closer to him. His eyes were drawn to her swaying hips and graceful waist, and he felt his blood begin to stir. She danced and hummed a wordless tune, a smile lighting her face and her dark eyes reflecting the gold lamp light as she leaned down toward him at the table.
“Guess who found the Lincoln speech?” she asked with a playful grin, her elbows leaning on the table and her hands cupping her chin.
He allowed a slow smile to spread across his face when he saw her delight. She had found it more quickly than he thought she would. In the midst of his current predicament, the successful completion of her task was a pleasant surprise.
“Well done, Beatrice,” he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes at his decidedly muted response, but softened them after a moment and sat down across from him at the table. He could almost see the energy vibrating off her.
“It’s such a rush! Do you get this way after you find something?”
He nodded. “Though my dance skills obviously need work after seeing yours.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he had the almost irresistible urge to lean across the table and bite it. He shoved down the impulse and tried to focus on what she was saying.
“—surprised you haven’t asked me yet.”
“Hmm?”
She looked shocked. “Were you actually not listening? As in distracted? As in—”
“I was reading the letters, Beatrice. How did you find the speech? Please enlighten me, oh awesome assistant.”
She smiled and settled in her chair to relate her brilliance to him. As she recounted the steps she had taken to find, first, the auction house where it had been sold, and then the collector who had made the winning bid, he watched her, pleased to hear her methodical approach that so closely matched his own.
Despite her success, a small frown settled between her eyebrows.
“Gio?”
“What’s bothering you?”
“Why did he spend so much money? Our client? The final bid for the speech notes wasn’t nearly as much as what it must have cost him to find the documents. Why was he willing to spend so much?”
Giovanni shrugged a little and looked down at the pictures of the five hundred-year-old letter in front of him.
“What do you pay for sentiment, Beatrice? What do you pay for the memory of what an object or a book or a document evokes?”
She looked down at the pictures he held. “Is that why the letters are so important to you? Is that why you’ve looked for your books for so long?”
He paused for a moment, deliberating how much he would tell her. “The collection I seek was extensive and contained valuable texts, many of them original or unique. It has existed far longer than me—far longer. When I thought it was lost…many of the books and manuscripts contain valuable ancient knowledge, Beatrice. There is far more than my own sentiment involved.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“But,” he continued, “they hold some sentimental value as well.” He shuffled the papers in front of him. “That, of course, is secondary.”
He glanced at her, noting the thoughtful expression that had clouded her earlier glee.
“Grab your jacket,” he said as he stood and put the photographs and notes in his locked cabinet.
“What?”
“It’s your first big find. I am like your boss—”
“You are my boss, unless you’ve decided to stop paying me.”
He smirked. “Fine, then I’m taking you out for a drink. Something other than Coke.”
Giovanni saw a faint flush stain her cheeks. “Gio, you don’t have to—”
“Get your coat, Beatrice.”
She paused for a moment then stood and went to turn off the computers. She joined him at the door of the library and they walked downstairs together.
“Where’s Carwyn tonight?”
“Out hunting. It’s one of the reasons he likes visiting Texas. He’s very fond of deer.”
“He may have mentioned that once or twice. So, how does he…”
“Take down a deer?”
She frowned, but shrugged, obviously curious about his friend. Giovanni chuckled.
“I don’t think he’d mind me saying. He has a friend he hunts with, Carwyn is social like that, and…have you ever seen a group of wolves stalk an animal?”
“You mean he—”
“Mmmhmm. It is a group activity.”
“Have you ever gone with him?” She paused on the stairs, her eyes lit with interest.
He only smiled. “I’m not as fond of deer as he is.”
She nodded silently and began walking again. “So now that I’ve found the speech notes, what do you do? What’s the next step?”
They waved at Caspar, who was working on his laptop in the kitchen. Giovanni wondered whether he was reading the daily surveillance report on Beatrice and her grandmother he’d commissioned.
He had been having both of them watched since he realized the girl was Lorenzo’s target. She wasn’t the end game for his old enemy, but she was undoubtedly a step to get what he wanted.