Page 74 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
She tiptoed toward him. “Did your father often descend into tirades?”
Zander deflated, curving in on himself with slumped shoulders. “No. Before we discovered the state of the coffers, I… I loved him very much.” His words ripped from a raw throat. “He was kind and… and he’s the one who taught me to spot a fake. Said it was a good thing to know for everyone but the forger.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth. “He would not have liked me.” And… what if… Zander liked her only because his father would not have? She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt to do something with her mind other than cry out, other than demand from him the truth.
He decimated the distance between them and tilted her chin up, kissed her softly. His lips offered more than a caress. They offered a silent answer to her unknowns. She believed the truth of that kiss more than she’d ever believe any speech. When he pulled away, he took her hand in his and pulled her toward a door.
“First, we will find the missing art. Then, we will return to London. And if there are letters… I suppose Raph and Maggie should read theirs. He clearly meant only the inheritor of the painting to find them.” His steps slowed. “I’ll never be able to read mine.”
She stopped, yanking on his arm to stop him too. “Whyever not?”
“I’ve told you. I’ll never be able to create a work of art valuable enough for my mother to grant me my inheritance.” He snorted. “She offered to just… give them to us after Raph almost refused to marry his wife. But I can’t. It seems… wrong, even though I know I shouldn’t have to do anything. It was my father’s final wish, and in the end, I must respect it.”
She cupped his cheek. So much pride in this man who called himself a scoundrel.
“Found ’em!” Lord Theodore yelled.
They ran, hand in hand, Zander’s longer stride forcing Fiona to fist her skirts in her free hand and pull them high so she didn’t trip as she rushed to keep up. They ran toward a room near the front of the house, the direction Zander’s brothers had set off in.
The door was open, and Lord Theodore’s head and shoulders popped out. “In here. I don’t know what we’re looking for exactly. Something like this one, I suppose.” He nodded to a painting leaned against the doorframe at his feet. “It’s the one you told me about from the gallery.”
The room was piled high, every wall with paintings of every size leaned against them. Statues picnicking together on drop cloths, the frames of some smaller works digging into the paint-covered canvases of other larger ones.
“Hell,” Zander hissed.
“Double hell,” Fiona agreed. “He’s no idea how to care for any of it. Who knows what damage has been done.”
“She knows art, too, then?” Lord Theodore said. “Good. I’ve no idea what’s what. You an artist yourself?”
Her gaze swept the room as she bounced on her toes and fisted her hands in her skirts. Where? So much to look for, and—oh! She covered her mouth on a gasp.There—familiar colors and brush strokes. She ran for a stack of paintings and gingerly peeled them away from one another to release a small one partially hidden.
Zander appeared beside her. “Is that one of…?”
He left the wordyoursunsaid, but she heard it anyway.
“Yes.”
“This will take hours,” he said, “to properly sort everything.”
Lord Theodore grunted, pointed toward a corner. “That looks familiar.”
Zander strode toward the direction the finger pointed in. “By Jove, it does look familiar.” He picked it up and laughed. “It is. It’sours.”
And it hadn’t taken hours. The cartoonist who claimed to not know art had set out a roaming eye and landed on it immediately.
Fiona laughed, too. If one of his paintings was here, the others might be, too. And all of hers as well. The baron had not known what to do, after all. Hope and joy threaded together in her like the silver and gold wires Zander had stolen from her shop floor—discarded once, but full of beauty—and she hugged it to her as she did Zander’s promises for a bed and a life. The missing could be found, and mistakes could be erased, an old painting covered with a new one.
Zander carefully flipped the painting he held over, his gaze and fingers roving over the brown backing. Looking for the outline of a letter? If mistakes could be erased, perhaps misunderstanding could be, too. Perhaps forgiveness could be found in dusty corners as well as masterpieces.
Twenty-Three
Zander had never experienced a more torturous carriage ride than the one that came after his rescue. They had two coaches at their disposal, yet they’d had to all pile into one so that they could store Herbert’s pilfered artwork in the other. Still, it did not all fit, and they had to prioritize which to bring back to Lady Balantine’s house and which to leave for later.
Six paintings (and six hidden letters), however, were nestled between their legs, wrapped carefully in dusty drop cloths, and with each bump of a frame against Zander’s shin, he felt his shame. And his relief. They’d found them all. So he took each bump that bruised his leg as penance, a necessary part of this difficult ride.
The other difficulty came not just from being squished between three full-grown men to a single bench but from being squished next to the odious Herbert. Theo sat on the thief’s other side, looking steadily with a cold eye at the baron, making him squirm. A squirming thief covered in paint offered no good companionship.
So Zander lightened his discomfort by seeking out more delightful views. Fiona sat across from him. So close but so very far away. What the hell was he going to do with her? They’d found the paintings. All bloody six of them. But he could not earn his inheritance. His father had known that when he’d set his children this task. He’d known Zander had no talent. He’d also known Zander had replaced the paintings with fakes. A rather poetic situation for the old man.
