As Ally watched Winston Bartlett sweep from the room, she was still trying to take measure of the man. What troubled her was why Grant and Bartlett were both so anxious to get her and her mother out to the clinic. But give Bartlett his due. He could charm the birds off the trees.
She looked around the room, wondering what the old kitchen and staff quarters would be like. Certainly not like this. The library/bedroom had a rich, overthetop feeling, with a beautifully molded plaster ceiling, a virtual basrelief of fruits and birds and clouds all meticulously painted. It wasn't the Sistine Chapel but had some of that feeling. The paneling and wainscot were burnished mahogany, and the floor was a mix of hardwoods worked into an isometric design. She decided it was probably the most luxurious private residence she had ever seen.
CitiSpace was mainly known for its creative handling of lofts in the abandoned commercial buildings of SoHo and TriBeCa. These old mansions of the nineteenthcentury moguls were an entirely different world. It was intimidating, but she was sure she could do something below stairs that would retain the period flavor of the building while creating the kind of semiprofessional space he said he wanted. Still, it was different from anything else CitiSpace had ever done, so he had no way of knowing whether or not she could pull it off. Again that question: why on earth would he hand her this plum job?
And where was his wife? Although he liked to be photographed with blond starlets, the tabloids always reminded you that he had a wife someplace. The two doorbells were a tipoff that that someplace was here. Best guess: she probably had the top floors.
My God was Madame Bartlett going to get involved in the renovation? A lot of women with superrich husbands and too much time on their hands come to assume that that happenstance creates in them a natural gift for interior design. Big problem.
But whatever happened, this could be a sweetheart job. And maybe she'd get a crack at that museum he'd talked about. That was the kind of thing an architectturnedinterior designer dreamed about.
She looked up to see the Japanese man-Bartlett had called him Ken-stepping into the room. He was all business. Monday, April 6