The Art of Deception

wasn’t even the pretense of organization, but there was the rich smell of leather, dust and lemon oil.
    The books dominated the room and left no space for paintings. But there was sculpture.
    Adam crossed the room and lifted a figure of a stallion carved in walnut. Freedom, grace, movement, seemed to vibrate in his hands. He could almost hear the steady heartbeat against his palm.

    There was a bronze bust of Fairchild on a high, round stand. The artist had captured the puckishness, the energy, but more, she’d captured a gentleness and generosity Adam had yet to see.
    In silence, he wandered the room, examining each piece as Kirby looked on. He made her nervous, and she struggled against it. Nerves were something she felt rarely, and never acknowledged. Her work had been looked at before, she reminded herself. What else did an artist want but recognition? She linked her fingers and remained silent. His opinion hardly mattered, she told herself, then moistened her lips.
    He picked up a piece of marble shaped into a roaring mass of flames. Though the marble was white, the fire was real. Like every other piece he’d examined, the mass of marble flames was physical. Kirby had inherited her father’s gift for creating life.
    For a moment, Adam forgot all the reasons he was there and thought only of the woman and the artist. “Where did you study?”
    The flip remark she’d been prepared to make vanished from her mind the moment he turned and looked at her with those calm brown eyes. “École des Beaux-Arts formally. But Papa taught me always.”
    He turned the marble in his hands. Even a pedestrian imagination would’ve felt the heat. Adam could all but smell it. “How long have you been sculpting?”
    “Seriously? About four years.”
    “Why the hell have you only had one exhibition? Why are you burying it here?”
    Anger. She lifted her brow at it. She’d wondered just what sort of a temper he’d have, but she hadn’t expected to see it break through over her work. “I’m having another in the spring,” she said evenly. “Charles Larson’s handling it.” Abruptly uncomfortable, she shrugged. “Actually, I was pressured into having the other. I wasn’t ready.”
    “That’s ridiculous.” He held up the marble as if she hadn’t seen it before. “Absolutely ridiculous.”
    Why should it make her feel vulnerable to have her work in the palm of his hand? Turning away, Kirby ran a finger down her father’s bronze nose. “I wasn’t ready,” she repeated, not sure why, when she never explained herself to anyone, she was explaining such things to him. “I had to be sure, you see. There are those who say—who’ll always say—that I rode on Papa’s coattails. That’s to be expected.” She blew out a breath, but her hand remained on the bust of her father. “I had to know differently. I had to know.”
    He hadn’t expected sensitivity, sweetness, vulnerability. Not from her. But he’d seen it in her work, and he’d heard it in her voice. It moved him, every bit as much as her passion had. “Now you do.”
    She turned again, and her chin tilted. “Now I do.” With an odd smile, she crossed over and took the marble from him. “I’ve never told anyone that before—not even Papa.” When she looked up, her eyes were quiet, soft and curious. “I wonder why it should be you.”
    He touched her hair, something he’d wanted to do since he’d seen the morning sun slant on it. “I wonder why I’m glad it was.”
    She took a step back. There was no ignoring a longing so quick and so strong. There was no forgetting caution. “Well, we’ll have to think about it, I suppose. This concludes the first part of our tour.” She set the marble down and smiled easily. “All comments and questions are welcome.”
    He’d dipped below the surface, Adam realized, and she didn’t care for it. That he understood. “Your home’s…overwhelming,” he decided, and made her smile broaden into a grin. “I’m disappointed there isn’t a moat and dragon.”
    “Just try leaving your vegetables on your plate and you’ll see what a dragon Tulip can be. As to the moat…” She started to shrug an apology, then remembered. “Toadstools, how could I have forgotten?”
    Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his hand and dashed back to the parlor. “No moat,” she told him as she went directly to the fireplace. “But there are secret passageways.”
    “I should’ve known.”
    “It’s been