April of Enchantment (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

she had dropped, as well as her camera. Moving to push them into her tote, she said, “I’m ready to go when you are.”
    The tightness was back in his voice as he indicated the door. “I’ve already locked up. Shall we?”

Three
     
    Justin’s classic car purred like a powerful cat. It was impressively luxurious, with seats of buttery-soft leather and whipcord, and fittings of a gold-colored metal. If he was conscious of the uniqueness of the automobile he drove, however, he gave no sign, using neither greater nor lesser care than he might have with any other. He lounged behind the wheel with relaxed control, his strong brown hands firm upon its leather cover, and his eyes on the road ahead.
    “What kind of car is this?” she asked, as much for something to say as from curiosity.
    He sent her a brief glance. “A 1940 Lincoln Zephyr Continental.”
    “I’ve never ridden in one quite like it before.”
    “There were only a little over four hundred of them built.”
    There was nothing in his manner to suggest that he expected her to be impressed by that statistic; still, she was. “It’s fabulous.”
    He did not answer. They rode a short distance in silence, then he sent her a searching glance.
    “I believe I mentioned that we needed to talk. There are one or two things that should be set straight.”
    “Such as?”
    “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but what I suggested is a trial for you, and when I say a trial, I mean just that.”
    “If you are saying that you reserve the right to ask for my dismissal if I don’t prove satisfactory, I understand.”
    She had been expecting something similar. There was no point in arguing with him any longer. He held the whip hand according to Russ, and she might as well recognize it.
    “There is another point. I am also going to ask that if you run into special problems, anything that causes you the least doubt, you will call in qualified experts.”
    “I don’t mind that at all. As a matter of fact, I’ve already arranged for professional analysts to come in and record the layers of paint all over the house.”
    “The paint?” His eyes narrowed as he turned his head to consider what she was saying.
    “That’s right. Samples will be taken and important colors recorded by the Munsell system.”
    “Is that important?”
    “It’s crucial,” she said seriously. “Removing the paint layers before analysis can be a disaster on a restoration. Actually, the more layers that encrust a building, the better. Analyzing them can not only show the original colors, but can determine later additions to a house or verify a puzzling point in its architecture.”
    “How so?”
    “There have been definite vogues in paint colors over the years, and in paint compounds. Before the Industrial Revolution, in the Southern United States that means before the Civil War, there were limited pigments in use, and most of them were in subdued shades. Afterward, there was a much wider and more vivid variety of colors, since they could be compounded from chemicals and prepared with machines.”
    He thought a moment. “Say the rooms in a house were originally painted a soft shade, maybe a gray, then later the house was remodeled and a storage cabinet, for instance, added in a back room and the whole thing painted yellow. Now, eighty or ninety years later, we see that the storage cabinet never had a coat of gray, and we know it wasn’t original, regardless of how many more times the entire room has been painted over.”
    “That’s the idea.”
    “On the question of dating structural changes, I wanted to ask your opinion of the loggia on the back of the house. At present it’s enclosed with window walls and a set of French windows that gives access to the back steps. Do you think it was always like that?”
    “I would doubt it,” Laura answered slowly, “though it’s hard to be certain. The Greek Revival style was an early influence in the South, and elsewhere, of