Free Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron Page B

quickly snatched up his note
     and stepped outside, pulling the door shut just as Rick Evans and Pascal Grant walked into the main kitchen carrying pizza
     and a bottle of Chianti.
    Shambley was startled. Young Evans he’d met and had treated with courtesy because of his relationship to Jacob Munson, but
     he had never really looked at the janitor. The guy usually had his head down or his back turned when Shambley was around and
     he always wore rough green coveralls and mumbled when he spoke.
    Tonight, Grant was dressed in tight Levi’s and a beige suede jacket, his blond curls had been tossed by the icy December wind,
     his fair skin was flushed with cold, and his face, his beautiful face, was so animated with laughter that it was impossible
     to believe that he was the same slow-witted Quasimodo who had ducked in and out of his presence these last two weeks.
    The two youths halted at the sight of him. Pascal Grant’s laughter died and he lowered his head fearfully as they waited for
     the trustee to speak.
    “A party?” Shambley asked. He’d meant to sound friendly, but it came out a sneer and for some reason, Munson’s grandson flushed.
    Instantly, Shambley knew why and was swept with a jealousy that he could hardly conceal. Deliberately, he walked over to Grant,
     put out his small hand, and lifted that soft round chin, but the handyman trembled and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
    “Take your nasty hand off him!” Rick Evans snarled, stepping toward him.
    “Or you’ll what?” asked Shambley. “Give me a proper thrashing?”
    Without waiting for an answer, he released Grant and waved them both aside. “I’ll let myself out this way.
Buona sera.
Enjoy your”—he let his voice turn lewd—“pizza. Or whatever.”
    As he passed through the shadowed passage to the front door, he almost forgot his first discoveries in the contemplation of
     this last: old Jacob Munson’s grandson a
femminella.
Well, well, well.
    Back in the warm security of his nest-like room, Pascal Grant rubbed his chin where Roger Shambley had touched him. “I don’t
     like him, Rick.”
    “I don’t either,” Rick Evans said and his soft Louisiana voice was grim.
    * * *
    On any clear winter night, Søren Thorvaldsen could look upriver from his desk and see the distant George Washington Bridge
     strung across the Hudson like a Victorian dowager’s diamond necklace, but it was not half so beautiful to him as the cruise
     ship docked almost directly below his office window. The
Sea Dancer
was lit from stem to stern by her own glittering lights and she would sail on Saturday with eighteen hundred winter-weary
     customers.
    A soft trill drew him from the window back to his desk where a winking button on his telephone console signaled a call on
     his private line.
    “Thorvaldsen here.” “
Velkommen hjem,
Thorvaldsen.” A gurgle of Irish laughter warmed her golden voice as Lady Francesca Leeds stumbled over the word for home.
    Her attempts at Danish amused him. “I tried to call you from the airport,” he said.
    “I know,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I was tied up with a client tonight.”
    He looked at his watch. Nearly ten. “Is it too late for a nightcap?”
    “I’m afraid so,” she murmured regretfully. “But I have good news for you.”
    “Oscar Nauman’s agreed?” “Not exactly. But he hasn’t said no, either, and this is the closest anyone’s come yet. I’ve arranged
     a small cocktail party tomorrow evening at the Erich Breul House. Jacob Munson’s going to bring Nauman to look at the space.
     You’ll come?”
    “
Helt sikkert!
” he assured her happily.
    Her voice turned teasingly miffed. “I think you’d rather see Oscar Nauman than me.”
    He laughed as she said
godnat
and hung up, but her teasing held a shadow of truth. Francesca Leeds excited him more than any woman in years. It wasn’t
     solely because she so outranked him in birth, although bedding a woman out of his class had always been an