The Jewel of His Collection

by Fae Mallory

  Then he saw that damned reporter sniffing around her and rethought his fantasy. Violet didn’t yet know that she was his and to display her to her best advantage would only be inviting competition. Hallar already looked far too interested, and he didn’t know what she looked like under the swathe of fabric she called a dress. If he did, there’d be no getting him away from her, and Ian wasn’t one for unnecessary complications. There would be plenty of time for revamping Violet’s wardrobe after he got rid of Hallar.

  Logically, Ian knew that the reporter was no real threat to his relationship with Violet. In his brief conversation with the man, Ian had discovered that not only did he know nothing about Hunter Madden, but also he barely recognized the name Pollock. Violet could have no interest in someone who didn’t share her passion for art.

  Still, she’d seen fit to defend him when Ian pointed out Hallar’s ignorance, making him glad he’d gotten rid of the reporter as quickly as possible. If he and Violet were old school friends like she’d implied, there was always the possibility that the warmth of nostalgia would rekindle a romance, and that was not an obstacle he cared to surmount. He needed to make sure that Hallar kept his distance from Violet. Ian had never considered himself the jealous type, but Violet made him feel downright territorial. He’d waited years to find someone who shared his passion, and now that he’d found her, it was all he could do not to simply throw her over his shoulder and drag her back to his house.

  Violet probably wouldn’t appreciate that, so offering Leroy a hundred dollars to make sure the reporter didn’t get back inside was the next best thing. Despite his precautions, Ian still felt better when he saw Violet leave the museum long after the party was over. He watched carefully as she got into her car and drove away, his long vigil rewarded by the sight of her. Violet was safely on her way home, and just as important, she was alone.

  Leaning back against the seat, Ian yawned and closed his eyes, smiling at the image of Violet that formed behind his eyelids. She’d been a nonentity to the partygoers, none of them noticing the jewel in their midst. Like any art collector, Ian had spent hours combing through lackluster amateur work in hopes of discovering a hidden treasure. Now, he’d found one.

  Violet was his secret. In her shapeless dress, she hid in plain sight, and it amused him to think of all the men who’d looked right through her. Once she was on his arm and dressed to display her beauty, she’d be the subject of many a longing gaze, but by then it would be too late. She’d be his. Only he saw her true value. Therefore it was only right that he be the one to claim her.

  Blinking his eyes open, Ian turned the car on and headed for home. Although he’d always enjoyed the peace of Owensport, lately the house had been feeling a bit too quiet. Something was missing, and the source of his unease was more than the half-empty Madden gallery. Although he was loath to share his paintings with others, since meeting Violet, Ian longed to show her the rest of his collection and watch her eyes go wide with wonder as she cooed over brush strokes and color choices. They’d stay up until dawn dissecting each painting and arguing over critical approaches. Would Violet put more stock in her personal response than the artist’s intended meaning like he did?

  He wouldn’t find out tonight. His business in New York was far from concluded, and he hadn’t really been able to spare the time to attend the preview. Ian simply hadn’t been able to stay away. Even if he hadn’t had the chance to talk to Violet as much as he’d hoped, at least he’d seen her.

  Tomorrow morning, he’d be forced to return to the city and finish sorting out the company’s finances, but before he left, he’d send her flowers—something that would let her know how much he was thinking about her and ensure that she didn’t forget about him.

  Chapter 4

  The moment Violet woke up the morning after the preview, she raced for her computer. Three of the six metropolitan papers she’d invited had sent reporters to cover the opening, and if they had good things to say, it would put the Owensport Museum on the map.

  Her stomach knotted as she called up the first paper’s website, but her fears were alleviated the moment she read the headline—”Madden Exhibit a Coup for Owensport Museum.”

  Violet squealed out loud, drumming her feet happily against the floor before she remembered her downstairs neighbors. Tucking her feet under her, she all but pressed her nose to the screen as she read the accompanying article which talked mostly about Madden’s paintings, but also made a point of noting the exhibit’s unconventional layout and “electric atmosphere.”

  “I did it.” Violet laughed breathlessly, leaning back in her chair and throwing her arms wide. The weeks of work and stress and no sleep had all paid off. The Madden exhibit was a bona fide hit.

  The other two papers reached similar conclusions, although the Boston reporter managed to get in a dig at the food. Putting her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle, Violet decided not to let Martha see that one. She’d posted about the exhibit on a few message boards, and a quick search assured her that she’d gotten the general public’s attention. Even if Ian hadn’t offered to pay for the premiere, leaving the museum to foot the bill itself, it would have been money well spent to get this kind of word of mouth.

  By the time she finished reading all of the different responses to the preview, it was time for her to leave for work. Cursing under her breath, she yanked on a dress and twisted her hair up into a bun, opting to skip breakfast so she’d have time to complete her basic makeup routine. She was so pale that going entirely without makeup wasn’t feasible if she didn’t want newcomers to the museum to think she was a ghost.

  Her stomach rumbled over her missed breakfast, but Martha flagged her down as she passed the bed-and-breakfast on her way into town. Violet pulled over, taking the brown paper bag and travel mug the older woman handed her through the car window. “Honey, I could kiss you.”

  “What happened?” Violet asked, taking an appreciative sip of coffee.

  “The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. I’m booked solid for the next four months with people wanting to see your Madder paintings.” Martha beamed at her.

  “Madden,” Violet corrected automatically. “That’s great, Martha. And thanks for breakfast, but I’m late for work.”

  Martha shooed her on her way. “Stop by again tomorrow. I’m going to feed you right for this!”

  Once she got to the museum, Violet discovered that the bag held blueberry scones, and she had just enough time to eat one, moaning lustfully as the pastry melted in her mouth. Between the coffee and the sugar rush, even Leroy got a sunny smile as she unlocked the building and got her cash drawer ready for the day.

  For the first ten minutes, no one so much as walked past the door, leaving Violet nervously drumming her fingers against the front desk. At exactly ten past ten, the floodgates opened.

  “Our hours are ten to eight, Monday through Saturday, and noon to five on Sundays,” Violet recited into the phone as she swiped a credit card, handing it back to the gentleman in front of her with a warm smile and his receipt. “Yes, the Madden exhibit operates according to those same hours.”

  The moment she hung up, the phone rang again, and a new face replaced the man she’d been smiling at. “Owensport Museum, this is Violet. How may I help you?”

  A steady stream of customers came and went until her face ached from smiling and her shoulder felt bruised from bracing the phone receiver against it. Perhaps she should look into getting a headset because otherwise she was going to wind up with a permanent crick in her neck.

  By two o’clock, her stomach was growling, and Violet took advantage of a brief lull in the action to grab the final scone out of Martha’s bag. She’d just taken her first bite when the bell over the door chimed merrily, and she shoved the pastry out of sight beneath the desk, trying not to choke as she swallowed her mouthful without chewing it.

  Instead of a customer, a man clad in a navy jumpsuit walked in, an enormous bouquet of irises in his hand.
“Violet Fabre?” he asked, checking her name off on a clipboard.

  Violet nodded in disbelief. “That’s me.”

  “Sign here.” As she scrawled her name on the clipboard, the deliveryman placed the flowers on her desk, carefully positioning the vase to show them to their best advantage.

  “Thank you,” she said faintly as he reclaimed his clipboard and left, leaving her alone with the irises. Hopping off her stool, she made a slow circuit around the flowers, smiling in spite of herself at the mixture of light and dark purple blossoms. As far as she could remember, no one had ever sent her flowers, and she was as flattered as she was puzzled by the delivery. Eventually, she spotted a small envelope tucked among the stems, and she plucked it out.

  “Congratulations on your first day as curator of the most popular museum in the country,” she read aloud. It was signed with Ian’s name.

  Since his paintings had brought this about, she should probably be the one sending flowers. Violet chuckled at the thought as she tucked his note into her top drawer, her stomach fluttering happily as she admired her irises. Sending Ian flowers, even as a thank-you, was out of the question. If she sent him flowers, he would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d fallen for him, and even though she was sure he would be kind enough to let her down easy, Violet couldn’t bear to expose herself that way. There was no way he could ever desire her, so he didn’t need to know how she felt. It wasn’t as if she were lying. She was just being realistic.

  Even though she couldn’t bring herself to replicate his gesture, the least she could do would be to call and thank him. It would be the height of rudeness to accept his offering without acknowledging it. She reminded herself of that as she dialed his number, knowing that all she really wanted was an excuse to hear his voice again.

  “Carlisle residence,” a crisp voice answered.

  “Hi, Xavier. It’s Violet Fabre. Is Ian there?” The museum’s bell chimed as a young couple entered the lobby and Violet could feel herself blushing even as she put on her most professional smile.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Fabre. Mr. Carlisle is in New York on business. Can I relay a message for you?” It was all she could do not to let her composure slip in front of her customers as Violet’s stomach dropped.

  “Yes. Would you please tell him that the museum received his delivery and thanks him?” Her voice sounded brittle to her own ears as she recited her businesslike message. If Xavier didn’t know about the flowers, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

  Who was she kidding? Xavier was probably the one who’d sent the flowers in the first place. He probably sent flowers to every woman Ian interacted with as part of his standard duties. Violet wasn’t special, and the sooner she got that through her thick skull, the happier she’d be. What had she expected—Ian to wait by the phone with bated breath in hopes that she’d call? He was a busy man with responsibilities all over the country. A small-town museum’s overweight curator was hardly going to pique his interest. He’d already been more generous with his time than she had any right to expect.

  Violet waved the young couple into the exhibit and devoured the rest of her scone, keeping her back deliberately angled toward the irises. They were just flowers, an acknowledgement of successful business arrangement. They didn’t mean anything.

  “Is this where the Madden exhibit is?” The bell chimed to admit a balding man with thick glasses accompanied by a young woman with purple hair.

  “It’s the museum, Gramps,” the girl informed him, giving Violet an apologetic smile.

  He sniffed. “That wasn’t my question.”

  “Yes, sir, the museum is hosting an exhibit of Hunter Madden’s paintings,” Violet spoke up.

  “The paper said it was worth seeing, so I want to see it,” he informed her, bristling as though he expected her to challenge his right to view the paintings.

  “Of course, sir.” Violet agreed, ringing up another sale for the man and his granddaughter and waving them into the exhibit.

  Less than five minutes later, they reappeared, the man shaking his head. “Appalling. That’s not a proper exhibit. It’s a rave.” He waved his finger reprovingly in Violet’s face. “I will be contacting the Gazette about this!”

  His purple-haired companion rolled her eyes as he stormed outside. “Ignore him. If it’s not a picture of a basket of fruit, he thinks it’s trash. I thought it was cool.”

  Acting on impulse, Violet reached down to grab an additional ticket and handed it to the girl. “Here. You’re welcome to come back later for another look.”

  “Thanks.” The girl grinned at her. “I’ll leave Gramps at home next time. I told him he wouldn’t like it, but if he sees it in the Gazette, he has to see it for himself.”

  Her words reminded Violet that she’d been so distracted by reading the art world’s reaction to the premiere, she’d never gotten around to reading Paul’s article about the preview. That was deeply unfair, especially since a glance at her phone told her that he’d texted back to accept her suggestion of a Sunday morning coffee date. “Leroy, are you busy?”

  He was, but giving him ten dollars to go buy the paper and telling him to keep the change sweetened his temper enough to convince him to hand the Gazette over with only a perfunctory grumble. The premiere hadn’t made the front page—that honor was reserved for important town events like a fender bender in front of the bank and the local high school football team’s progress on their quest for the regional championship, but there was a sizable write-up on page two.

  Violet smiled at seeing her words in print, Paul quoting large chunks of her informal lesson on Hunter Madden’s significance to the world of art. For someone with no background in art himself, he did a fine job describing the exhibit, presenting it as a must-see experience that had the potential to revitalize not just the museum, but Owensport itself. Violet felt herself blushing as she read his flattering words about her “creative flair” and “stunning wealth of knowledge.” Ian, on the other hand, barely rated a mention as the paintings’ actual owner, and the article somehow gave the impression that she’d gone ten rounds with a dragon to obtain the paintings for the museum.

  With the unprecedented crowd, she didn’t have time to text Paul to thank him for the write-up until she was done for the day. With her nightgown on and her aching feet curled beneath her, Violet pulled out her phone and typed, “I really enjoyed your article. Thanks for the publicity!”

  His reply came promptly. “You made it easy. It’s an awesome exhibit. I think you’re going to get lots of attention.”

  “We already are. We had more visitors today than we do most months!” She smiled at the thought of it. A number of their visitors had simply checked out the Madden gallery before leaving, but the majority had gone through the entire museum, and she’d made a point of eavesdropping on them as they left to see which displays had made the most impression. It was unlikely that she’d be able to convince Ian to part with more of his collection, but if she could build on the museum’s current strengths, she might not need them.

  “That calls for a celebration! Why don’t we do brunch Sunday, not just coffee?” Paul’s suggestion brought Violet up short.

  “I’d like that,” she texted back, swallowing down her misgivings. Brunch was more of time commitment than coffee, meaning that she’d have to come up with enough interesting things to say to fill at least an hour and a half. Spending all that time on the museum would bore the poor man to tears, but she couldn’t think of anything else in her life worth talking about. She doubted he was interested in hearing about her latest self-help book.

  “Great! We can swap high school horror stories. Did you have Mr. Phipp? The typing teacher?” Violet laughed as long-forgotten memories of a slight man with a collection of hideous ties and even worse jokes swamped her. She’d worried for nothing. She and Paul would have plenty to talk about.

  “I sure did. Do you remember that joke he told about the rabbits?” Chuckling to herself, Violet
tried to remember the joke well enough to tell Paul, the pair of them trading stories about their teachers and classmates until Violet looked up and realized they’d been chatting for the past hour. Yes, brunch would be fine.

  Curled up in her bed that night, she gazed up at the ceiling, marveling at how much her life had changed in just a few weeks. The museum was coming back to life. Instead of worrying about how she was going to pay the bills, now she had the luxury of trying to figure out which improvements she wanted to make first, and her mind raced with the possibilities.

  In addition to the museum, there was Paul, a genuinely nice guy who seemed interested in her. Men had been a nonevent in Violet’s life for the past several years, so the fact that she had a date seemed only slightly less unbelievable than suddenly being able to pay the museum’s bills. Her mother had been making noise about grandchildren for ages—Violet’s two nieces were apparently not enough to satisfy her—and hearing that her younger daughter was actually making an effort with men would put her over the moon. Her parents had never forgiven her for deciding to pursue art instead of a more practical career, but Violet was certainly that the promise of a few more grandchildren would heal the rift between them.

  As Violet snuggled in to sleep, it wasn’t Paul’s face that she saw in the darkness. Instead, she could almost feel the weight of intense green eyes watching her, and she stirred, stretching her arms over her head in reaction to that imagined gaze.

  “Ian,” she murmured. What would have happened if he’d taken her up on her offer to change his mind about lending Geminids to the museum?

  Violet closed her eyes, putting herself back in the gallery. “Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?” she asked aloud in the darkness of her room. In her imagination, Ian raised his eyebrows with interest. “I’ll do anything, Mr. Carlisle.”