Deceptions by Michael Judith

Author:Michael, Judith
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: London : Warner
Published: 1997-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

He reached out and took her hand, holding it tightly. And that was how they fell asleep.

Chapter 14

Stephanie and Max Stuyvesant walked together into the enormous white tent in the grounds of Chilton House. Holding her arm, he guided her through the crowd and they found seats near Nicholas Blackford and Alexandra just as the auctioneer mounted the rostrum. The chairs were closely packed, and Stephanie felt the pressure of his arm against hers as forcefully as she felt his commanding presence and his eyes on her face. She looked away as the auctioneer began a graceful speech of welcome.

The Chilton auction. The first highlight of the new social season. Three hundred bidders from Britain and the continent: wealthy, polite, dressed in country tweeds, seated in the carpeted tent and standing four deep along the sides. Outside, a hundred more watched through a raised flap of the tent, sitting on the smooth lawn or perched on walking sticks that opened at one end into a small seat. Sunlight filtered through high, thin clouds; the mild air smelled of cut grass and trimmed hedges.

The Chilton auction. The kind of high-flying, distant social event Stephanie always read about in newspapers.

And Max Stuyvesant. Whom she had met unexpectedly in the park outside the tent, and whose arm now pressed against hers, a constant reminder, even as she began to concentrate on the auction.

The auctioneer finished his history of Chilton house, built in the reign of Queen Anne, and a brief biography of its late owner, a renowned painter who had died without heirs. The executors were selling the house and its contents, as well as a separate studio, greenhouse, four garages, and ten acres of park. 'I shall open the bidding on the house,' said the auctioneer genially, 'at two hundred thousand pounds.'

A flurry of whispers rose from a group at the side of the

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