The Art of Deception

Chapter 1
    I t was more like a castle than a house. The stone was gray, but beveled at the edges, Herodian-style, so that it shimmered with underlying colors. Towers and turrets jutted toward the sky, joined together by a crenellated roof. Windows were mullioned, long and narrow with diamond-shaped panes.
    The structure—Adam would never think of it as anything so ordinary as a house—loomed over the Hudson, audacious and eccentric and, if such things were possible, pleased with itself. If the stories were true, it suited its owner perfectly.
    All it required, Adam decided as he crossed the flagstone courtyard, was a dragon and a moat.
    Two grinning gargoyles sat on either side of the wide stone steps. He passed by them with a reservation natural to a practical man. Gargoyles and turrets could be accepted in their proper place—but not in rural New York, a few hours’ drive out of Manhattan.
    Deciding to reserve judgment, he lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it fall against a door of thick Honduras mahogany. After a third pounding, the door creaked open. With strained patience, Adam looked down at a small woman with huge gray eyes, black braids and a soot-streaked face. She wore a rumpled sweatshirt and jeans that had seen better days. Lazily, she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and stared back.
    “Hullo.”
    He bit back a sigh, thinking that if the staff ran to half-witted maids, the next few weeks were going to be very tedious. “I’m Adam Haines. Mr. Fairchild is expecting me,” he enunciated.
    Her eyes narrowed with curiosity or suspicion, he couldn’t be sure. “Expecting you?” Her accent was broad New England. After another moment of staring, she frowned, shrugged, then moved aside to let him in.
    The hall was wide and seemingly endless. The paneling gleamed a dull deep brown in the diffused light. Streaks of sun poured out of a high angled window and fell over the small woman, but he barely noticed. Paintings. For the moment, Adam forgot the fatigue of the journey and his annoyance. He forgot everything else but the paintings.
    Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet. A museum could claim no finer exhibition. The power pulled at him. The hues, the tints, the brush strokes, and the overall magnificence they combined to create, tugged at his senses. Perhaps, in some strange way, Fairchild had been right to house them in something like a fortress. Turning, Adam saw the maid with her hands loosely folded, her huge gray eyes on his face. Impatience sprang back.

    “Run along, will you? Tell Mr. Fairchild I’m here.”
    “And who might you be?” Obviously impatience didn’t affect her.
    “Adam Haines,” he repeated. He was a man accustomed to servants—and one who expected efficiency.
    “Ayah, so you said.”
    How could her eyes be smoky and clear at the same time? he wondered fleetingly. He gave a moment’s thought to the fact that they reflected a maturity and intelligence at odds with her braids and smeared face. “Young lady…” He paced the words, slowly and distinctly. “Mr. Fairchild is expecting me. Just tell him I’m here. Can you handle that?”
    A sudden dazzling smile lit her face. “Ayah.”
    The smile threw him off. He noticed for the first time that she had an exquisite mouth, full and sculpted. And there was something…something under the soot. Without thinking, he lifted a hand, intending to brush some off. The tempest hit.
    “I can’t do it! I tell you it’s impossible. A travesty!” A man barreled down the long, curved stairs at an alarming rate. His face was shrouded in tragedy, his voice croaked with doom. “This is all your fault.” Coming to a breathless stop, he pointed a long, thin finger at the little maid. “It’s on your head, make no mistake.”
    Robin Goodfellow, Adam thought instantly. The man was the picture of Puck, short with a spritely build, a face molded on cherubic lines. The spare thatch of light hair nearly stood on end. He seemed to dance. His thin legs lifted and fell on the landing as he waved the long finger at the dark-haired woman. She remained serenely undisturbed.
    “Your blood pressure’s rising every second, Mr. Fairchild. You’d better take a deep breath or two before you have a spell.”
    “Spell!” Insulted, he danced faster. His face glowed pink with the effort. “I don’t have spells, girl. I’ve never had a spell in my life.”
    “There’s always a first time.” She nodded, keeping her fingers lightly linked.