Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(80)

She clasped her hands behind her back and gazed at the case with a satisfied smile, head tilted. “I think he’d like that. A tiny sarcophagus might be nice, too. Who knows—perhaps one day we’ll both end up on display. People will study our preserved corpses and call me the Cat Lady.”

“You’re a morbid woman, min kära.”

A mischievous smile hoisted her cheeks. “I do love the way you flirt, Mr. Magnusson.” Gaze locked with his, hands still clasped behind her back, she took a couple of backward steps. Lowe might as well have been mummified himself, for it felt like she could tug on his wrappings and wind him toward her with a single look.

If she wanted her preserved body to be on display, he wanted to be the one lying beside her.

“Over here,” she said, beckoning him with excited eyes. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

TWENTY-SIX

LOWE WATCHED HADLEY AS she turned on a heel and led him to a waist-high glass case that sat against a square pillar in the middle of the hall. Inside was a small collection of personal items found in the Cat Lady’s tomb: perfume jars, a comb, jewelry. And in the middle of the case sat three canopic jars; the fourth one had been lost in the earthquake.

She leaned over the case to peer down into it. “My parents found this tomb at the necropolis near Thebes in 1895. Only three years before I was born. I wondered if my mother used these as inspiration when she decided to hide the crossbars.”

“Different era design than the ones she had made,” he noted.

“Yes. Still, I imagine her walking in here, angry with my father for wanting to kill Noel. Desperate to keep the peace between the two of them so that she could selfishly hang on to both husband and lover. And she sees these.” Hadley tapped on the glass with one nail.

“The solution to her problem,” Lowe agreed, stepping behind her to peer over her shoulder as he gingerly wrapped one arm around her waist, testing. “Hide them in something that people would keep safe and treasure.”

“Exactly.” She snaked a hand around the arm that held her, quietly voicing her approval. “And I thought if we looked at them in the right way, maybe we’d see something that would help us decipher the last two pictograms.”

How he hated those unsolvable pictograms. Both them and her mother be damned. He inhaled the clean scent of her skin, smelling soap and the bright note of her shampoo and beneath it all, Hadley. Intoxicating. He felt powerless to stop himself from nuzzling below the sharp line of her bob to kiss the fine hairs that veed at the nape of her neck.

She shuddered ever so slightly, but continued with her train of thought, albeit in a breathier voice. “You know, I think Father’s decision to gift the Cat Lady to the museum was tied to the caveat that he be appointed director of this department.”

“Mmm.” Lowe trailed two more kisses down her spine, stopping where the top button of her oh-so-serious black dress prevented him from going further. “Maybe that’s why he thought I’d be champing at the bit for a chance to be his successor.”

Two slim fingers slid beneath the cuff of his shirtsleeve, stroking the skin over his wrist. The barest of touches, but the shiver it coaxed jumped straight to his cock.

“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” she murmured. “Because you should be warned, if you break our agreement, I will bury you under ten chandeliers.”

“I love it when you’re romantic,” he said, holding her tighter as he nudged himself into the cleft of her ass.

She jumped and made a little noise. “Oh, dear.”

“Oh, yes.” He opened his mouth to nip the skin below her ear.

“What a big clock you have, Mr. Magnusson.”

He laughed against her hair. “I nearly fell on my face when that slipped out of your mouth in your father’s office that morning. For a Stanford-educated mind, you’re a terrible speller.”

Her snorted chuckle was quickly broken by a hissed intake of air. “My office . . .”

“I thought you wanted me to look at the canopic jars.” He released her waist and urged her forward. “Bend over the case with your hands there,” he instructed.

“Right here? We might be seen.”

“I damn well hope we are,” he said—partly agitated, partly thrilled. “Then maybe we can stop sneaking around like we’re doing something wrong. Nuh-uh, no you don’t,” he scolded, pushing her down on the glass. “Hands right there and don’t move unless I say so.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll yell for the guards and tell them you’ve gone mad and are trying to steal the Cat Lady’s eternal companion. Stay still.” He held her down with one hand on the small of her back while his free hand pulled up the hem of her dress to expose her beautiful backside. “What do we have here?” Bright cobalt blue tap pants strewn with golden stars, and in the center, back to back, two intertwined crescent moons. “Your adventurous taste in lingerie never ceases to amaze me. You look like an erotic Van Gogh painting.”

She chuckled once, twisting to look back at him, then sucked in a breath and wilted atop the display glass when he slid a hand beneath the loose embroidered fabric. Christ, she had the softest skin. He reverently kneaded one plump cheek, then the other, tugging the silk until it wedged between both cheeks and bared the lower half of her pale ass. A beautiful sight. He especially liked the way she was squirming beneath his hand. Like waving a red flag at a bull. His cock was definitely paying attention.