“Good morning, Tulip. You’ll have to send a tray up to Papa, he won’t budge out of the tower.” She drew a linen napkin from its ring. “Just toast and coffee for me, and don’t lecture. I’m not getting any taller.”
After a grumbling disapproval, Tulip turned to Adam. His order of bacon and eggs received the same grumble before she clumped back out again.
“Tulip?” Adam cocked a brow as he turned to Kirby.
“Fits beautifully, doesn’t it?” Lips sober, eyes amused, she propped her elbows on the table and dropped her face in her hands. “She’s really a marvel as far as organizing. We’ve had a running battle over food for fifteen years. Tulip insists that if I eat, I’ll grow. After I hit twenty, I figured I’d proved her wrong. I wonder why adults insist on making such absurd statements to children.”
The robust young maid who’d served dinner the night before brought in coffee. She showered sunbeam smiles over Adam.
“Thank you, Polly.” Kirby’s voice was gentle, but Adam caught the warning glance and the maid’s quick blush.
“Yes, ma’am.” Without a backward glance, Polly scurried from the room. Kirby poured the coffee herself.
“Our Polly is very sweet,” she began. “But she has a habit of becoming, ah, a bit too matey with two-thirds of the male population.” Setting down the silver coffee urn, Kirby smiled across the table. “If you’ve a taste for slap and tickle, Polly’s your girl. Otherwise, I wouldn’t encourage her. I’ve even had to warn her off Papa.”
The picture of the lusty young Polly with the Pucklike Fairchild zipped into Adam’s mind. It lingered there a moment with perfect clarity until he roared with laughter.
Well, well, well, Kirby mused, watching him. A man who could laugh like that had tremendous potential. She wondered what other surprises he had tucked away. Hopefully she’d discover quite a few during his stay.
Picking up the cream pitcher, he added a stream to his coffee. “You have my word, I’ll resist temptation.”
“She’s built stupendously,” Kirby observed as she sipped her coffee black.
“Really?” It was the first time she’d seen his grin—quick, crooked and wicked. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Kirby studied him while the grin did odd things to her nervous system. Surprise again, she told herself, then reached for her coffee. “I’ve misjudged you, Adam,” she murmured. “A definite miscalculation. You’re not precisely what you seem.”
He thought of the small transmitter locked in his dignified briefcase. “Is anyone?”
“Yes.” She gave him a long and completely guileless look. “Yes, some people are precisely what they seem, for better or worse.”
“You?” He asked because he suddenly wanted to know badly who and what she was. Not for McIntyre, not for the job, but for himself.
She was silent a moment as a quick, ironic smile moved over her face. He guessed, correctly, that she was laughing at herself. “What I seem to be today is what I am—today.” With one of her lightning changes, she threw off the mood. “Here’s breakfast.”
They talked a little as they ate, inconsequential things, polite things that two relative strangers speak about over a meal. They’d both been raised to handle such situations—small talk, intelligent give-and-take that skimmed over the surface and meant absolutely nothing.
But Kirby found herself aware of him, more aware than she should have been. More aware than she wanted to be.
Just what kind of man was he, she wondered as he sprinkled salt on his eggs. She’d already concluded he wasn’t nearly as conventional as he appeared to be—or perhaps as he thought himself to be. There was an adventurer in there, she was certain. Her only annoyance stemmed from the fact that it had taken her so long to see it.
She remembered the strength and turbulence of the kiss they’d shared. He’d be a demanding lover. And a fascinating one. Which meant she’d have to be a great deal more careful. She no longer believed he’d be easily managed. Something in his eyes…
Quickly she backed off from that line of thought. The point was, she had to manage him. Finishing off her coffee, she sent up a quick prayer that her father had the Van Gogh well concealed.
“The tour begins from bottom to top,” she said brightly. Rising, she held out her hand. “The dungeons are marvelously morbid and damp, but I think we’ll postpone that in respect of your cashmere sweater.”
“Dungeons?” He accepted her offered arm and walked from the room with her.
“We don’t use them now, I’m afraid, but if the vibrations are right, you can still hear a few moans and rattles.” She said it so casually, he nearly believed her. That, he realized, was one of her biggest talents. Making the ridiculous sound plausible. “Lord Wickerton, the original owner, was quite dastardly.”
“You approve?”
“Approve?” She weighed this as they walked. “Perhaps not, but it’s easy to be intrigued by things that happened nearly a hundred years ago. Evil can become romantic after a certain period of time, don’t you think?”
“I’ve never looked at it quite that way.”
“That’s because you have a very firm grip on what’s right and what’s wrong.”
He stopped and, because their arms were linked, Kirby stopped beside him. He looked down at her with an intensity that put her on guard. “And you?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again before she could say something foolish. “Let’s just say I’m flexible. You’ll enjoy this room,” she said, pushing open a door. “It’s rather sturdy and staid.”
Taking the insult in stride, Adam walked through with her. For nearly an hour they wandered from room to room. It occurred to him that he’d underestimated the sheer size of the place. Halls snaked and angled, rooms popped up where they were least expected, some tiny, some enormous. Unless he got very, very lucky, Adam concluded, the job would take him a great deal of time.
Pushing open two heavy, carved doors, Kirby led him into the library. It had two levels and was the size of an average two-bedroom apartment. Faded Persian rugs were scattered over the floor. The far wall was glassed in the small diamond panes that graced most of the windows in the house. The rest of the walls were lined floor to ceiling with books. A glance showed Chaucer standing beside D. H. Lawrence. Stephen King leaned against Milton. There 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.