if you never intended to use it? What was the point in buying books you were never going to read?
‘The house is out of bounds today.’
He did not comment on the information. He was staring with what seemed to her far too much interest at a painting on the wall.
She went pale as for the first time she realised how vulnerable the house was. If he could just walk in here, how easy it would have been for someone to wander in—still was, and…not just someone! Her blue eyes suspicious, she turned to look at the tall stranger who continued to stare at the painting. God, she had been so sidetracked by physical awareness of him that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that his presence here might not be accidental!
‘There is an excellent security system in place, and security guards.’
He heard the nervousness in her voice, saw the sudden alarmed dilation of her pupils and smiled slowly, without feeling any sympathy. Well might she be worried, he thought grimly. The odds were that some of his valuables were even now in the pockets of light-fingered visitors. His security team would be lucky to come out of this with jobs.
‘So I couldn’t just pick up…’ He made a show of looking around the room, then reached out and picked up a gilt-framed miniature from its stand. It was one of a pair he had outbid a Russian oligarch for six months earlier. He did not begrudge the inflated price, as he liked the sense of continuity—the miniatures were coming back to where they had been painted. ‘This?’
The casual action made her tummy muscles flip. When she had first arrived she had literally tiptoed around the place, seriously intimidated by the value of the treasures it housed and scared witless of damaging anything. Though she had relaxed a bit now, seeing this valuable item treated so casually was alarming.
She gave a nervous laugh and thought, Calm down—no genuine thief would be this obvious…would they?
‘No, you couldn’t…’ She sucked in an alarmed breath and fought the impractical urge to rush forward and snatch it from him. She didn’t have a hope in hell of taking anything away from six feet five inches of solid muscle. She looked at his chest and swallowed, her tummy giving a nervous quiver as she pressed a hand to her middle where butterflies continued to flutter wildly.
‘Is it genuine?’ he asked, holding the delicate gilt frame between his thumb and forefinger.
‘A clever copy,’ she lied, nervousness making her voice high pitched. ‘All the valuable stuff is locked away in the bank.’ I wish!
‘So that’s why you’re not concerned about stray visitors putting a souvenir in their pocket and walking out.’
Zoe swallowed as she watched the miniature vanish into the pocket of his well-cut jeans, but was able to maintain an air of amused calm as she returned his wolfish grin with a shaky smile of bravado and shook her head. What did it say about her that even at a moment like this she had noticed how rather incredible his muscular thighs were?
‘We’re not actively encouraging it, but if anyone’s tempted we have a very strong security presence.’ She saw no need to explain that this presence was at the moment helping out with directing people in and out of the parking areas. She felt extra bad about that because she had pretty shamelessly taken advantage of the absence of the head of the security team to persuade his deputy to relax the rules. She had used every weapon, including moral blackmail and some mild but effective eyelash fluttering.
‘So I would be stopped before I left the building…?’
Even though she positioned herself strategically in the doorway, Zoe was well aware that he would find her no obstacle to escape if he wanted. Though she was not sure he wanted to—he seemed just as happy taunting her as making good his escape.
Zoe placed her hands on her hips, lifted her chin to a don’t-mess-with-me angle and resisted the temptation to return an ‘over my dead body’ response. He might decide to take it too literally. Instead she said calmly, ‘Definitely not. I’ll have to ask you to return the miniature. It’s very valuable.’
‘Yes, it was quite a find.’ The blue eyes he held blinked and a small furrow appeared between her dark feathery brows. He experienced a stab of guilt. She was obviously scared stiff and he did not enjoy scaring women even if on this occasion she deserved it.
‘Find?’
He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her bewildered echo. ‘The lady here was considered a great beauty of the day, but she was trade—the daughter of a wealthy mill owner. The marriage caused quite a scandal when Percy there brought her home.’ He glanced at the twin of the portrait he held still sitting in its stand. ‘It turns out that old Percy started a trend in the family, though I’m afraid the other heiresses that subsequent male heirs married were not always so easy on the eye as Henrietta here.’ He studied the painting, taking a moment’s pleasure from the masterful brush strokes and eye for detail shown by the artist. ‘He really caught her…Such a sensual mouth, don’t you think? Personally I think this is better than the Reynolds on the staircase.’
His eyes were trained, not on the portrait in his hand as he spoke, but her own mouth. The effect of the dark-eyed stare was mesmerising. Zoe didn’t respond, mainly because she could barely breathe past the hammering of her heart against her ribcage, let alone speculate on how he knew so much about the history of the house and family.
‘Maybe they were in love?’ Her voice sounded as though it were coming from a long way away.
He laughed. The throaty sound shivered across the surface of her skin, raising a rash of goosebumps. ‘A romantic.’
The amused mockery in his voice made Zoe prickle with antagonism. What was she doing discussing love with a possible art thief? Was he? He certainly seemed to know more than she did about the artwork in the house.
‘Actually, no, I’m not.’ Her chin lifted. ‘But if I was I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. Now, Mr…I have things I need to attend to. If I could ask you to—’
‘Shame is a very personal thing,’ he mused, cutting across her. ‘I wonder if Percy was ashamed of his heiress? You call it love, but I call it symbiosis.’
She compressed her lips. ‘I wasn’t calling it anything. I was simply not discounting the possibility.’
He tilted his dark head in acknowledgement of her interruption. ‘Well, there is no doubt that she had money and he had social position, the ability to guarantee her acceptance into society, though maybe looking at that mouth there might have been other factors involved?’
He levelled his obsidian gaze on Zoe.
‘Do you not think she has a sensual mouth?’
Now there was a case of pot calling kettle, she thought, dragging her gaze from the firm sculpted outline of his own mouth.
‘I’m no expert on sensuality.’
‘I’m sure you are being modest.’ He arched a satiric brow and the speculation in his smoky stare sent a rush of embarrassed heat over her body. ‘Well, I shall continue to think that our Henrietta was a woman of passions…and that perhaps Percy was a lucky man? We will, I suppose, never know. What we do know is that when there were no more rich social-climbing heiresses, the family sold off treasures and land until finally there was nothing left. There is a certain sense of continuity in seeing this
