The Art of Deception

years later, he was well established. He’d lived in Paris, then in Switzerland, before settling back in the States.
    Still, during his twenties, he’d traveled often while painting. With Adam, his art had always come first. However, under the poised exterior, under the practicality and sophistication, there was a taste for adventure and a streak of cunning. So there had been McIntyre.
    He’d just have to learn control, Adam told himself as he thought of McIntyre. He’d just have to learn how to say no, absolutely no. The next time Mac had an inspiration, he could go to hell with it.
    When they settled back in the parlor with coffee and brandy, Adam calculated that he could finish the job in a couple of weeks. True, the place was immense, but there were only a handful of people in it. After his tour he’d know his way around well enough. Then it would be routine.
    Satisfied, he concentrated on Kirby. At the moment she was the perfect hostess—charming, personable. All class and sophistication. She was, momentarily, precisely the type of woman who’d always appealed to him—well-groomed, well-mannered, intelligent, lovely. The room smelled of hothouse roses, wood smoke and her own tenuous scent, which seemed to blend the two. Adam began to relax with it.
    “Why don’t you play, Kirby?” Fairchild poured a second brandy for himself and Adam. “It helps clear my mind.”
    “All right.” With a quick smile for Adam, Kirby moved to the far end of the room, running a finger over a wing-shaped instrument he’d taken for a small piano.

    It took only a few notes for him to realize he’d been wrong. A harpsichord, he thought, astonished. The tinny music floated up. Bach. Adam recognized the composer and wondered if he’d fallen down the rabbit hole. No one—no one normal—played Bach on a harpsichord in a castle in the twentieth century.
    Fairchild sat, his eyes half closed, one thin finger tapping, while Kirby continued to play. Her eyes were grave, her mouth was faintly moist and sober. Suddenly, without missing a note or moving another muscle, she sent Adam a slow wink. The notes flowed into Brahms. In that instant, Adam knew he was not only going to take her to bed. He was going to paint her.
    “I’ve got it!” Fairchild leaped up and scrambled around the room. “I’ve got it. Inspiration. The golden light!”
    “Amen,” Kirby murmured.
    “I’ll show you, you wicked child.” Grinning like one of his gargoyles, Fairchild leaned over the harpsichord. “By the end of the week, I’ll have a piece that’ll make anything you’ve ever done look like a doorstop.”
    Kirby raised her brows and kissed him on the mouth. “Goat droppings.”
    “You’ll eat your words,” he warned as he dashed out of the room.
    “I sincerely hope not.” Rising, she picked up her drink. “Papa has a nasty competitive streak.” Which constantly pleased her. “More brandy?”
    “Your father has a…unique personality.” An emerald flashed on her hand as she filled her glass again. He saw her hands were narrow, delicate against the hard glitter of the stone. But there’d be strength in them, he reminded himself as he moved to the bar to join her. Strength was indispensable to an artist.

    “You’re diplomatic.” She turned and looked up at him. There was the faintest hint of rose on her lips. “You’re a very diplomatic person, aren’t you, Adam?”
    He’d already learned not to trust the nunlike expression. “Under some circumstances.”
    “Under most circumstances. Too bad.”
    “Is it?”
    Because she enjoyed personal contact during any kind of confrontation, she kept her eyes on his while she drank. Her irises were the purest gray he’d ever seen, with no hint of other colors. “I think you’d be a very interesting man if you didn’t bind yourself up. I believe you think everything through very carefully.”
    “You see that as a problem?” His voice had cooled. “It’s a remarkable observation after such a short time.”
    No, he wouldn’t be a bore, she decided, pleased with his annoyance. It was lack of emotion Kirby found tedious. “I could’ve come by it easily enough after an hour, but I’d already seen your work. Besides talent, you have self-control, dignity and a strong sense of the conventional.”
    “Why do I feel as though I’ve been insulted?”
    “Perceptive, too.” She smiled, that slow curving of lips that was fascinating to watch. When he answered it, she made up her