The Theft (Thornton 2)

André's warm chuckle filled the air. "Your beauty is gift enough. It's up to others, such as I, to capture it."

"Five or six styles—is there anything here you didn't paint?" Noelle asked, half in jest.

A fierce expression crossed André's face, and his dark gaze swept the periphery of the room with restless intensity. "If given the chance, I could out-paint the masters. Someday I'll have that chance."

"I'm sure you will." Noelle wondered at his odd reaction. Was it professional jealousy he was grappling with, or was there something more?

Striving to find out, she pivoted about, her stare following the same path his had taken, flitting over the gallery's entire inventory. Tread carefully, Noelle, she warned herself. Don't offend or alienate him.

She drew a slow, cautious breath. "This room contains the great works of the future. But with regard to the present, I know the Franco Gallery holds auctions, and that several valuable paintings have been sold here. Have you ever seen any of those masterpieces? The ones done by the brilliant artists whose ranks you'll soon be joining—if not exceeding?"

An offhanded shrug. "Occasionally. I prefer to study and learn from my own creations rather than to survey those of others. My belief is that a true artist thinks with originality rather than with an eye toward replication."

"That sounds daunting," Noelle murmured, wishing there were some way she could get him to elaborate on his "occasionally." She needed to know precisely what valuable works had passed through these walls. But André was so taken with himself that all he ever focused on were his accomplishments, his creations. Lord, if Michelangelo's David danced through the room and struck him on the head, André wouldn't even notice

it because it didn't come equipped with his signature.

A tremor ran through Noelle, her own image conjuring up a memory of the way poor Lady Mannering had died.

Had it been at Baricci's hand?

She had to find out, to expose Baricci for the criminal he was. But it was beginning to look like pumping André wasn't going to yield a shred of information.

She was getting nowhere fast. And time was running out. "I have a unique gift, Noelle," André was informing her, reaching out to capture a strand of her hair. "A passion that is unmatched—in any capacity."

Grace made a loud harumph! and, reluctantly, André released Noelle's hair, dropping his arm to his side.

"Let me show you something." He walked Noelle over to a heart-stopping landscape: the Yorkshire cliffs as they dropped off to the North Sea, at the very top of which stood a young woman, her face angled toward them, her dark hair blown back, her blue eyes sad, wistful. At the bottom of the painting, scrawled among the waves, was André's signature.

"What do you see here?" he asked.

Noelle wrapped her mantle more tightly around her, the painting's remote isolation heightening the harsh chill that already permeated the room. "I see an extraordinary depiction of the cliffs at Yorkshire jutting out over the waves of the North Sea—and a woman who looks filled with despair."

"Precisely. You not only see it, you feel it." André tapped the edge of the painting alongside his signature. "What you don't see is a cumbersome frame that obstructs the scene from view. That's no accident. I use the narrowest, simplest frame possible. It's a technique I adopted years ago, realizing that a viewer's eye should be drawn to the work itself, not to what amounts to a piece of garish furniture encasing it. This landscape is my first contribution to the Franco Gallery."

He ran his fingertip over the subtle walnut frame. "My frame just brushes the periphery of my paintings. It's scarcely noticeable and does nothing to detract from the creation itself. Do you see what I mean?"

"Indeed I do." Noelle nodded, André's explanation prompted a new avenue to try. How many paintings had he claimed having done for Baricci? About a dozen. Perhaps by the process of elimination, she could determine which of these works had been created by others.

Glancing briefly around, Noelle's brows drew together in puzzlement. Everywhere she looked, she saw André's telltale frame. In fact, she only spied three, no four, paintings that didn't feature it—including the new abstract, which she knew to be André's despite its heftier frame.

How intriguing.

Wetting her lips, Noelle addressed the issue, being sure to keep her voice casual, off-the-cuff. "With regard to the gallery's newest addition, that exquisite abstract of yours, I assume you couldn't use your customary frame because of its size."

For an instant, André didn't reply, his gaze shifting to the painting in question. "Exactly," he confirmed, seized by a fine, underlying tension. "My standard frame would never have been sturdy enough for a painting that size." Abruptly, he shrugged, the tension vanishing as quickly as it had come. "It's a pity, too. I hated watching that unwieldy block of wood being framed around my work, concealing my colors from view. But it couldn't be helped."

"I assumed as much." Noelle studied his reaction thoughtfully. She hadn't imagined the thread of uneasiness, the wariness, that had gripped him for that brief instant. Then again, given André's artistic temperament, she wasn't sure how much of that uneasiness to attribute to her questions, and how much to attribute to his own moodiness.

Noelle shifted restlessly. She needed time to assimilate the tidbits of information she'd gleaned today, to piece together the few additional facts André had revealed through his attempts to impress her. Most of all, she needed to talk to Ashford, to hear his interpretation of these facts.

Of its own accord, her gaze flickered toward the rear of the gallery. What was occurring in Baricci's office right now? Was it pivotal? Staunchly, she reminded herself that she'd have to wait, to exercise some patience. Still, she wanted to scream with frustration at the thought of doing so, to subjecting herself to yet another bout of André's boasting when her every instinct told her she'd learned all she was going to from him.

What she really wanted was to be a fly on Baricci's wall, to hear what the scoundrel had to say.

* * *

What he was saying was what he'd said from the outset—and Ashford was getting bloody tired of hearing it.