Page 13 of Control's Undoing

“From when he toured and lectured?”Xavier asked.

Colum shook his head.“In 1882, Oscar met with American stage actress Marie Prescott.Marie wanted to produce Wilde’s first play,Vera.Or perhaps you know of it by its other title,The Nihilists,” Colum said, looking at Xavier.

“Of course I know it,” he replied.

“I don’t,” Annie said, unsurprised when Xavier shot her a look.

“His first play,” Xavier said.“A tragedy, set in Russia.A woman falls in love with the tsar’s heir she’s sent to murder.”

Colum nodded enthusiastically.“If you look at this painting, you’ll see…”

Xavier slid off the chair, kneeling at Colum’s feet.Colum’s eyes went wide, and she saw him swallow.

She couldn’t decide if Colum and Xavier would be cute together or a slow-motion car crash.

Xavier leaned in, studying the painting Colum held at waist height.“Behind Wilde, on the table…” Like Colum, Xavier sounded excited.

So much so that Annie popped up, stepping over to lean in above Xavier and look at the details herself.While Wilde himself was carefully, lovingly rendered in oil paint, the background was almost impressionistic, with none of the careful skill and detail evident in the painting of Wilde’s face.

“There’s a Faberge egg and a dagger,” Colum said, grinning.

“Faberge egg to indicate Russia, a dagger to represent the assassin?”she asked slowly, putting together the pieces based on the information given.

“Exactly,” Colum almost shouted.“These representVera.Which was first produced and performed in New York.Marie Prescott played Vera.”

“The rest of the manuscript is with Marie Prescott,” Xavier said, sitting back.He bumped into her legs as he did, and Annie wobbled.Without missing a beat, Xavier reached up and back, grabbing her by the wrist to steady her.

Her skin tingled at the contact, and the feel of his big hand wrapped around her wrist like a cuff had her feeling things she really didn’t need to be distracted by.

Annie looked down to find Xavier twisted to look up at her.She swallowed hard.His gaze was dark, fathomless, and she had an insane urge to kiss his eyelids and feel those soft, thick lashes against her lips.

Colum moved to put the painting down, and that broke the spell.Xavier released her, and Annie stepped back, dropping heavily onto the couch.

“Well, obviously, Marie is dead,” Colum said.“My American friend found her descendants.A great-grandniece, who had inherited some of her things.He got permission to go through all of it.He checked out all the paintings and books, but he didn’t find the rest of the manuscript.”

Annie studied the painting once more.With the exception of those props, there was precious little else in the portrait that might point them in the right direction.“So those clues were a dead end.”

Colum shook his head.“Not exactly.Because, while my friend was able to go through Marie’s personal effects, items from her theater, including props from that first production ofVera, are in a small American theater museum located in Brooklyn.”

“And did this friend of yours check those items?”Annie asked.

“He has other things to be getting on with,” Colum replied.“When we told your Grand Master, our fleet admiral, and…some other people…what was going on, they decided the three of us were the right people to go looking for it.”Colum looked down, grimacing as if he remembered something.“I don’t have long before I have to meet with some other people.”

“I can fly home and check out this museum on my own,” Annie offered.

Xavier snorted.“No.I will be there when we find it.”His gaze jumped to the manuscript on the table.“And I want to read that.”

“So we should each make travel arrangements to New York.When?Tomorrow?”she asked.

“I want a day to read it, first,” Xavier said.“There may be something else in his words.”

Annie expected Colum to object, but he nodded.Colum must have noticed her surprised expression, because he said, “He’s here to think like Wilde.Apparently, he’s a modern-day French Oscar Wilde.”

Annie tipped her head as she looked at Xavier.If he was being compared to Wilde, he was a writer, which was in line with her dark academia assessment.Xavier glanced at her, their gazes locking, and a shiver made the skin on her arms prickle.

Xavier broke the contact first, pulling his phone out of his pocket and sending off a text.

Shaking off her reaction to Xavier, Annie asked, “Okay, then we check in with each other tomorrow, and unless Xavier finds something else, we head to New York together?”

---