Chapter 45

Dana squeezed Beau's hands. "Good heavens, I'm sorry. Your family must have been terrified."
He nodded and swallowed hard. "Especially since..." He choked around the words, then managed to get them out. "Since we lost my daughter, Giselle, that way, twenty-two years ago."
"Oh, Beau." She raised up on her knees to wrap her arms about his shoulders. "I'm so, so sorry."
"My wife, she was never able to cope. It was my fault, she said, for not being home that night - I was away on clan business. By the time I got home, Giselle was gone."
"You have to know it wasn't your fault. There's no way you'd have never left if you'd realized your daughter was about to change." Her confidence in him was sweet and unexpected. If only Camille had been as strong.
"I know, in my head. But Camille was never a strong woman. Two months later, she said she could no longer bear to live with me. While I was working, one evening, she killed herself." And her parents had placed the blame directly onto Beau.
"Dear goddess." She stood, enveloping him in a warm, fierce hug. "What a selfish, thoughtless, bitch!"
He'd wondered if sometimes he was the only one who thought Camille selfish for taking that route. Knowing Dana thought so too, was more soothing than he would have believed. He was over Camille. Theirs had been an impetuous, youthful match that never should have happened. There was guilt, he supposed but the pain of loss was gone. The raw pain of losing Giselle, though - that had become a familiar companion over time. It never dulled, never went away but he'd learned to live with it, to keep going for his mother's sake, for his sister and her family and most of all for the clan. His family and friends had been there for him and it had been enough to keep him going but never quite enough to let him heal. Now, though, he felt the wash of Dana's compassion like a balm on his soul.
"So the crown can somehow help your young people survive their first change?" she asked long moments later, after she'd somehow ended up sitting in his lap, his head tucked beneath her chin.
He straightened his spine, kissing her cheek as he pulled his face far enough away to speak. "Each of the objects has a different property. Your friend Katie had the belt, which is the fertility talisman for our people. There have been more pregnancies announced since she returned it to the clan than in the last ten years altogether. Remy and his bride found the cup, which has the power of healing and curing disease. The crown was to maintain the magical powers of the race and the authority of our ruler. The ring is the artifact that is supposed to be for strength. According to Lady Helene, the oldest of our people, the ruler used to come whenever a child began to change. He or she would lay hands on a child and the ring would give them the strength to shift successfully."
"Okay. So the ones we're still looking for are the ring and the crown. Damien sent me a copy of a painting that shows them pretty clearly, so I have an idea of what to watch for. I have to do some actual work today but I have an idea I want to run past you about getting into John's top-secret warehouse."
He sensed she was changing the subject for his sake and he was unspeakably grateful. He didn't want to talk of his past but just having shared that little bit made him feel somehow lighter, cleaner. Dana Logan, it seemed, had some healing magic of her own. "Tell me about this plan of yours. To start with, what's an antique dealer from Pennsylvania doing in London?"
Later, Dana rinsed her hair and stepped out of her shower just as the hot water turned cold. She'd stayed in there longer than usual, because she didn't want to cry in front of Beau. But seeing his heartbreak, hearing him talk about his daughter, had simply been more than her own heart could stand. She'd stood under the hot stream and wept. No wonder the man was a little standoffish. He was still carrying around a boatload of guilt, as well as grief. Dana knew it was bad form to think poorly of the dead but she'd have loved to find his wife's ghost and slap the bitch silly. She understood that sometimes a person needed to blame someone after a loss but blaming a father for the death of his child...that was just cruel. Following that up by blaming him for her own suicide was un-freaking-believable. Dana hoped Camille Dumont had come back in her next life as a cockroach.
Okay. Now she really had to focus on business for at least part of the day. As a cover for her investigations here, she'd taken on the job of antiques buyer for a couple of high-profile New York interior designers. She had several real commissions she had to fill while she was nosing around looking for stolen objects. There was an estate auction today she couldn't afford to miss.
She dressed quickly, acutely conscious of Beau in the next room. Things between them were far from sorted out but just knowing he was nearby kept a steady hum of arousal zinging through her system.
"Will I need a tie?" Beau ducked his head around the open bedroom door. Then he let out a low whistle. "Or just a bullwhip, to keep your admirers at bay?"
"You're the rich, eccentric client, remember?" She eyed his gray silk trousers, pale blue shirt and heathery gray blazer appreciatively. "You can wear whatever you like."
She straightened, loving the way his approving gaze followed her body from head to toe, taking in the neutral linen pantsuit and chocolate brown tank. She slid her feet into a pair of low-heeled brown slingbacks, letting her bright coral pedicure peek out the open toes, and picked up her matching leather tote bag.
"Every time I see you, you're projecting a different image," he said softly, flicking the long braid that hung down her back. "Which one is the real Dana?"
"All of them, I imagine," she told him as he followed her out of the flat. "We all adapt as the situation demands. An auction calls for professional but willing to get dirty."
"Much like security," he agreed with a grin. "So how did I make my eccentric millions?"
"Oh, you're old money all the way," she teased. The train station was just a few blocks away and they fell into step side by side as he followed her lead. "All I intend to say, if asked, is that they have to ask you."
"And where is this auction?" He kept his hand at the small of her back as they waited in line at the ticket booth.
"At a Georgian country house, about half an hour out of town." Dana sighed. "I really wish I'd had time to do the touristy thing a bit more while I'm here. Seems a shame to live in England for two months and never even see Stonehenge, especially for a witch." She was a half-dragon by birth but a witch by religious preference.
"Surely you've had weekends?"
She shrugged. "Not enough. And it's no fun doing everything by yourself. I've toured Kew Gardens, the Tower of London and taken in a play at the Globe. Mostly I've been haunting antique shops."
"Well, if we have any time tomorrow, Stonehenge it is," he said. "I've a fondness for ancient rocks myself."