I looked at the card. “Thank you so much, Mr. Goldring.” I held out my hand. “I'm excited to see the pieces.”
“And I'm excited to make a new friend. That's rare for me.” He kissed the back of my hand.
“Well, I think I'm going to put these away for now.” I gathered my papers and waved at the chair across from mine. “Would you care to finish your coffee with some company?”
“I'd adore that!” Goldring picked up his coffee and sat down across from me.
We spent the next hour talking about art. It was exhausting, but I got what I wanted from it. Like most of my interactions with men.
Chapter Twelve
An art auction was not the time to showcase my Salma curves. As much as I knew the ladies of leisure wouldn't respond as well to me as their male counterparts, I still wanted to be accepted by them. Barging in full-boobie was not the way to go. So, I dressed modestly in a silk sheath with a velvet jacket over that.
No one stopped my car when I pulled into the private drive. An attendant took my keys after I parked before the front doors. As they drove off, I went up some steps to the guarded doors. That's when I was stopped, but I presented Goldring's business card. It didn't just get me in, it also got me the royal treatment. One of the guards left his post to escort me down a corridor where an attendant offered me a glass of champagne before ushering me into the auction room. Only when he saw that someone was taking care of me did the guard leave my side.
It didn't stop there. Just inside the auction room, a woman waited to hand me a leather notebook with a silver pen tucked into an attached sleeve—a pen engraved with my name. Considering how I'd just met Goldring a few hours earlier, that detail was damn impressive.
The auction had your typical set-up with chairs set in lines facing a podium and side tables holding photographs of the art up for auction set against the walls. Even with the tables lining two sides of the room, there was significant spacearound the chairs. It helped that there were only around thirty chairs. Goldring had been super selective when handing out the invitations. Getting included suddenly became an even greater achievement than I'd initially thought.
Sure enough, when I wandered up to the nearest table, I passed some faces I recognized. Not personally. From my research. These were the elite of New Orleans society. They glanced at me, some glancing longer than others, but mostly, they were interested in looking over the art. There were trays of drinks and appetizers being passed around, but I kept to my champagne and myself as I did the same. A large photo on a stand represented every piece while leather folders sat before the photographs with all the information on the pieces. I was perusing a painting that most of the people there were ignoring when I felt a hand on my elbow.
“Ms. Haven, I'm so glad you made it!”
I turned and found Goldring standing behind me with an older woman on his arm. “Mr. Goldring, thank you again for inviting me. You've got some incredible pieces up for auction.”
“We're delighted to have you. This is my wife, Jane. Sugah, this is the lady I told you about. The one I met earlier today.”
“It's a pleasure.” Jane Goldring held out a hand.
I shook it as I would a man's hand. “So nice to meet you. Thank you for being gracious enough to accept a stranger into your home.”
“Don't mention it, darlin'.” She smacked my shoulder. “You made my husband feel young again, and I'm all for that.”
“Oh my!” I held a hand to my chest. “That makes me sound like a lady of the night.”
She giggled. “My husband goes to bed too early for a lady of the night. Perhaps a lady of the late afternoon.”
I burst out laughing, then clamped a hand over my mouth. “Oh, I'm so sorry.” I looked around. “There I go, making a great impression on people.” I rolled my eyes. “It's a good thing I don't care.” I laughed again.
“That's the best way to be,” Goldring said. He looked over at the painting I was inspecting. “I'm not surprised to find that you're interested in the Moulrain. It's my favorite too.”
The best part? I didn't have to fake my interest. Goldring and I really did have similar tastes in art. Probably because my tastes were older than his. You could call them ancient.
“Bill told me you like the more classical pieces,” Jane said.
“I do. I don't care for the bright swaths of splattered paint that the kids love these days.” I grimaced. “Probably because it looks like something kids could do.”
Jane laughed brightly, earning a lot of shocked looks. “I never understood that whole movement either. I don't see the talent in it. I mean, Impressionism, sure. But don't glob some paint on a canvas and tell me it's a landscape. Or that it's the combination of colors that evoke a certain feeling.” She rolled her eyes.
“I tried my hand at art once. When I asked my teacher about that, she said you have to learn the rules of art so you can surpass them. Abstract art is supposedly beyond the rules.”
“What did you say to her?” Goldring asked.
“I didn't say anything. I left the class immediately.” I rolled my eyes. “Art is one of the few joys in life that doesn't have rules. If it did, abstract art wouldn't exist. Those artists aren't rebels, breaking rules because there aren't any rules to break. It's when you impose rules on creativity that it dies. That teacher obviously didn't know crap about what she was teaching.”
Both Goldrings laughed at that.
“You see?” William said to his wife. “Wonderful, isn't she?”
