Page 5 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
Cards still lay scattered about the table before the fire, as if the family had only recently vacated the room, and Mr. Frampton, who sat in one of the chairs, gestured for Zander to join him.
He did, his fingers sliding over the cards and lifting one, studying it as he gathered his thoughts. He should need no time to gather, having gathered them a fortnight ago when he’d discovered the address belonging to the forger. Even before he had that key fact, he’d known what he would say when he discovered the man.
Tell me where the Baroness Balantine is. Give me any information you have on the six rare Rubens paintings you’ve copied over the last five years. Or I’ll call the constable.
An empty threat. How could Zander notify the authorities when he was as guilty in the whole affair as the man sitting before him? He had, after all, rented the original paintings, which had belonged to his father, to the dowager, who had paid for and arranged for the copies to be made. And the copies had been made expressly so Zander could fool his father into thinking the originals safe and in his possession.
If Mr. Frampton was a forger, Zander was a thief.
But he’d gotten a good penny and a good laugh out of it at the time and had been plagued by very little guilt. His father had ruined his family with his ostentatious spending on all things art, had drained their coffers to fill their galleries. If Zander could fill those coffers back up a bit by renting the very art his father so revered and fool the old man in the bargain… an excellent deal indeed.
But his father must not have been fooled after all. He’d left his six children rare works of art as their only inheritance. Rubens. The very paintings, in fact, Zander had replaced with copies in the last half decade. The old man had known. Must have. And now the family needed those paintings, needed to replace the useful income provided by renting them out with the ostentatious profits they would acquire once sold. But they had no idea where they were.
Lady Balantine had disappeared, taking her art collection into the unknown oblivion with her.
Yes, Zander had known well for weeks what he would say when he finally stood before the art forger.
But all the… unexpected… elements of this evening, of the past fortnight, had stolen those organized words away. Where to start? How to go on when casting the accusations he had planned at such a nice-looking man as sat before him?
“Well?” Mr. Frampton said. “You barge into my home, interrupt my dinner, and make demands. You can at least give me your name, sir.”
“I am Mr. Lysander Bromley, art procurer and curator of personal art collections, and you are Mr. Frampton, jeweler.”
“I am.”
Zander licked his lips, waiting for further response. When none came, he said, “I hear you like Rubens.” He tapped the edge of the card on the table.
“The painter?” Mr. Frampton scratched his head. “I suppose. A fine artist, but I prefer jewels to paint.”
Zander flattened his palm over the card on the table and leaned forward. “You suppose? A man who copies Rubens’s genius as if it were his own cannot but feel passionate about him.”
Frampton’s brow furrowed for a moment, then he broke into laughter, falling back into the chair and making it wobble a bit, his hand covering his belly. “Ah. You’re not here for me if you’re after a painter. You’ve come for Fiona.” He cupped his hand and leaned toward the door. “Fiona!”
Zander straightened. Fiona? What had a Fiona to do with the most talented forger Zander had ever seen?
The parlor door flew open, and the tiny green-eyed dragon stood in its frame, her chin high, those eyes wary, her gaze flying over her father’s frame as if she expected Zander had done the man some injury. One of the daughters, the one with dark-blonde hair. That one day the sun had shone in the street outside the jewelry shop, her hair had turned, almost, pure yellow, but now in the firelight and shadows, it seemed burnished bronze. She had full pink lips and a sharp nose. Likely the rest of her sharp as well. Two other women, likely her sister and mother, stood beside her, both with blonde hair of various shades and blue eyes.
“Are you well, Papa?” the green-eyed woman asked.
“Fine. Just fine. Now I’ve solved his riddles.” Mr. Frampton chuckled and tilted his head toward the woman. “There she is. We’re quite proud of our Fiona.”
“I’m afraid I’ve entirely no idea what’s happening,” Zander admitted. “I’m looking for the painter in this house.”
“That is me.” The chit stared at him as if he were the daft one, her mouth a thin line, her head tilted. “If you are looking for a painter, I am who you are looking for.”
“Impossible.” She hardly looked the nefarious or crafty type. She looked as if she wore her every emotion on her skin and in her eyes. This one would have no secrets.
The dragon’s mouth dropped open. “Pardon me? Do you suggest a woman cannot be a master painter?”
He held his arms out wide. “Not at all. I know better than that.” And his mother would wail herself into a fit if she heard him suggest otherwise. The entire ordeal would likely burst his eardrums. “It is merely that you do not seem the type.”
She snapped her mouth shut and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Oh? And what type is that?”
He grinned. He’d been in a foul mood when he’d arrived here, but this little dragon made him want to laugh, lifted his spirits a bit. So determined, so spiky. “Do you wish to be the type who forges paintings?”
Her eyes grew so wide so slowly he would not have noticed it except for the fact that the rest of her had stopped moving entirely. Not even her breast rose and fell to signal breathing. The color drained from her face, and then like a wind shivering the leaves in a tree, her body began to tremble.
Then she fainted.
