Hidden Riches

thoughts of Jed behind her.
    For the next few hours, she was alone.
    Armed with a glass of champagne and a toast point of caviar, she enjoyed the ride up into the hills. Though under other circumstances she might have struck up a conversation with the driver, she hugged the silence to her and prepared for Act Two.
    After her impressions of his office, she’d expected Finley’s house to be lavish. She wasn’t disappointed. The sweeping drive up, the quick, teasing peeks of the building through screening trees. Then the full impact of stone and brick and glass simmering in the last fiery lights of the dying sun.
    A well-set stage.
    She took the rose with her.
    There was only a moment to appreciate the Adam door knocker in the shape of a dolphin before the door was opened by a uniformed maid.
    “Miss Conroy. Mr. Finley would like you to wait in the drawing room.”
    Dora didn’t bother to disguise her open-mouthed admiration for the magnificence of the entrance hall. In the parlor she gave the maid a murmured assent at the offer of wine, and was grateful when she had the glass in hand and was alone to worship.
    She felt as though she had entered some personal museum, one structured for her alone. Everything she saw was spectacular, and every piece her eyes feasted on seemed more glorious. So glorious it was impossible not to gorge.
    She saw herself reflected in the George III mirror, ran her fingers delicately over a mahogany armchair of the same period, crooned over a Japanese Kakiemon tiger.
    When Finley joined her she was mentally devouring a collection of netsukes.
    “I see you’re enjoying my toys.”
    “Oh yes.” Eyes dark and brilliant with appreciation, she turned from the curios. “I feel like Alice, and I’ve just stumbled into the best corner of Wonderland.”
    He laughed and poured himself a glass of wine. He’d known he would enjoy her. “I was certain I’d find it pleasant to share my things with you. I’m afraid I spend too much time alone with them.”
    “You’ve made my trip very worthwhile, Mr. Finley.”
    “Then I’m content.” He walked over, placed a light hand at the small of her back. It wasn’t a suggestive move. She had no explanation as to why her skin crawled under the friendly pressure. “You were looking at the netsukes.” He opened the curio and deliberately chose one of the pieces of erotica that had been smuggled in the mermaid bookends. “Not everyone can appreciate the humor and the sexuality, as well as the artistry of these pieces.”
    Chuckling, she took the figure of the man and woman into her palm. “But they look so pleased with themselves, trapped forever in that moment of anticipation. It’s hard to imagine some stoic samurai with something like this dangling from his obi.”
    Finley merely smiled. “And yet that’s precisely how I like to imagine it. Worn by a warlord, into bed and into battle. One of the Tokugawa family, perhaps. I enjoy giving a history to each of my possessions.” He replaced the figure. “Shall I give you the tour before dinner?”
    “Yes, please.” Agreeably, she slipped a hand through his arm.
    He was knowledgeable, erudite and entertaining, Dora thought. Why, before an hour was up, she was violently uncomfortable she couldn’t have said.
    He took a greedy delight in all that he’d acquired, yet she understood greed. He was unfailingly correct in his manner toward her, yet she felt increasingly as though she were being subtly violated. It took all of her skill and control to play out her prescribed role as they moved from room to room. By the time they were nearly finished, she’d begunto understand that one could have too much of even the beautiful and precious.
    “This is the pin I mentioned earlier.” Excited by the fact that he was showing her each and every one of the smuggled items, Finley offered her the sapphire brooch. “The stone is, of course, magnificent, but the workmanship of the setting, and again, the history, add intrigue.”
    “It’s beautiful.” It was, the gleaming blue eye winking up at her from its bed of delicate gold filigree and fiery diamonds, both beautiful and tragic. Tragic, she realized, because it would be forever behind glass, never again to grace a woman’s silks or make her smile when she adorned herself with it.
    Perhaps that was the difference between them. She passed her treasures on, gave them a new life. Finley locked his away.
    “It was said to belong to a queen,” Finley