That brought a smile to the man’s face. Not the fake or polite kind, but a genuine Duchenne smile, one that lit up his face, invoking laughter lines at his eyes, cheek movement, and of course, an open-mouthed, teeth-displaying genuine expression of enjoyment.
I eased the stiffness of my back and relaxed slightly. Caldwell might be rude and dictatorial, but he had a nice laugh, one that had some residue of warmth in a city of hardness and an abundance of fakery.
Timothy:
My chauffeur, Andrew, who was also my best and only friend, would have made some snide comment about love at first sight. He knew my heritage and my supposed abilities. He’d even seen me exhibit some of them, but concerning the knowing within five minutes (or at the touch of a hand bit,) he’d be as skeptical as a barber whose client said he wasn’t losing any hair. (No, male baldness didn’t run in my family line. Even the aged males, if there were any still alive in some backwoods settlement, would probably have every hair they were born with.)
What hit me first with the lass, was that my forewarning system had failed me. I’d met my future bride with an attack of rudeness. Not a good way to stage a first encounter. She’d been suspicious for a good half hour, until her enthusiasm for art had eased her resistance to the magnetism in my genetics.
My saliva on her palm should have crept into her blood to some extent, but the fated one was always resistant to such things. It would take great skill and perfect wooing to win this woman to my side, but I was up the challenge. Besides, I had no choice. She was the one.
Penelope:
We talked about artists and trips to various museums. He told me about visiting different countries, which galleries were his favorites, and the ones he planned to return to soon. He wanted to know about my job with Ed. Since my boss was a friend of his, I tried to be diplomatic about my lack of enthusiasm. Timothy, never Tim, he’d told me, suggested that I might be happier as an art curator or in the management of a gallery.