Page 21 of Artfully Yours

“I’m not a prima donna,” she said. “I don’t sing at all. I’m Nina Finch.”

“And he?” He pointed to Fritz, who was flopped on Nina’s shoulder like a roll of hair, an element of coiffure inattentive eyes might slide right over. She’d hoped to delay this moment.

She tried to smile.

“Fritz,” she said, and the marmoset gave a lazy chirp. Coiffure never chirped. Wishful thinking, that Fritz made for a subtle companion. It was hardly sensible—porting a monkey to a lord’s abode, particularly when you planned to petition said lord to renew an offer of employment. But Jack was too distracted to mind him properly, and Ruby was always in and out, on errands for Laddie. It was all too easy to guess what Laddie would do if Fritz stayed behind without a champion.

She’d made a rash decision.

“Fyodor!” The man smiled. “I call him Fyodor. He has big soul.”

He slid the book inside his voluminous coat and pulled out an orange, like a gleeful magician. He began to peel it, holding out a bit of rind. Fritz leapt to him and seized it. The man tucked Fritz into his waistcoat, beaming.

“Are you . . . the butler?” Nina felt her eyebrows knit together. Who else but a butler opened a mansion door? But the man wore no livery, and what he did wear was impossibly rumpled. He had ink on his fingers.

“I am Nikolai Anatolyevich Kuznetsov,” he said. “The novelist. I work as butler. You speak French?”

Nina shook her head, embarrassed. A well-bred woman—and any real amanuensis—would no doubt be fluent in foreign tongues. At the Knack, Laddie sold French novels, French postcards, and French letters. Whenever she got the chance, she pored over the novels and the postcards. She’d examined the French letters too, which she’d found particularly confounding until Ruby demonstrated their function by sliding a carrot into the rubber sheath.

“It is good.” Kuznetsov looked up from Fritz, his expression fond. “We speak English.” He fed Fritz another piece of rind with his blackened fingertips and led Nina down the hall. Pictures lined the walls. Regular in size, they showed no continuity in style or subject. Medieval and romantic subjects. Scenes from modern life. Views of Venice. She wanted to study each in turn, but Kuznetsov walked briskly. They passed under an arch and turned left down another hallway. At the hall’s end, a spiral stair with an iron balustrade wound steeply to the upper stories.

Nina paused at the threshold of an open door. A lovely parlor, Pompeiian red and gold, but disordered, with wooden packing crates levered open, straw strewn about. One young man, thin and dark, sat on a closed crate, long legs stretched out. He was peeling an orange. Another young man sat at the piano, pressing an odd melody from the keys, stopping and starting, his head cocked. His sandy brown hair fell past his shoulders.

“They are Kessler and McAdams.” Kuznetsov came to stand beside her. “Poet and composer. Also, footmen. You like orange?”

Nina spied the trove of oranges glowing in an opened crate.

“Oh, I’m quite all right. Don’t trouble yourself,” she began, but Kuznetsov was already crossing into the room.

“Not trouble,” he said, and then to Kessler and McAdams, “Gentlemen, meet Miss Finch and Mr. Fyodor.”

The music broke off. Both young men looked at Nina with abstracted smiles before turning their attention to Fritz.

“Brilliant little fellow!” cried Kessler, springing to his feet. “He deserves a sonnet.”

“A ballad,” called McAdams, pressing his fingers again to the keys, banging out a sprightlier tune.

“What is he, though?” asked Kessler. “I must seek the rhyme.”

“He’s a marmoset.” Nina stepped into the room. “Nothing rhymes with it.”

“Omelet,” mused Kessler. “Bilboquet. Or—has he a taste for fine cheese? How’s this for a beginning? He set out at dawn, the marmoset. But he hadn’t arrived in Parma—yet! It continues, interweaving the marmoset’s progress with that of the cheese itself. Cow to cauldron. Yes?”

“No!” called McAdams, banging an emphatic, negatory chord.

“Watch the nail,” added Kessler, an afterthought.

Nina narrowly avoided it, skipping awkwardly to the side. The floor was littered with nails, discharged by the lids of the packing crates.

“What is all of this?” she asked as Kuznetsov handed her an orange.

“Homage to the great De’Ath,” said Kuznetsov, waggling his eyebrows. Nina’s eyes roved. One crate contained a bronze Medici lion. Another, bottles of wine. And there, a cured ham.

“These are just from today,” said Kessler, nudging a crate with his boot. “They flood the house whenever an opera opens, or a ballet. Or an exhibition. Last week, a tenor from Parma brought a wheel of cheese so heavy he had to roll it down the hall. De’Ath made him roll it back.” He sighed his regret. Clearly, he had a taste for fine cheese. “De’Ath won’t accept any gifts. Except if there’s no card. As with these oranges.”

“It’s obvious who sent the oranges.” McAdams spoke over his shoulder, still playing. “Signorina Bonaccorso, who stood in the garden and warbled that song about the orange groves of Sicily.”

“Pure speculation.” Kessler wore a mischievous grin. “We can’t return the oranges on a hunch. If we’re wrong, the signorina will suppose De’Ath sent a gift to her. No, we must eat them, my friend. We have no choice.”