Page 24 of Quinn, By Design

He pointed to the large teapot on the table beside him. “Just drained this.”

“You’ve started work already? Is the furniture here?” Lucy glanced around.

“Due any minute. I was filling in my time while waiting.”

A laptop sat on the table with a sketchpad to one side. She sidled closer, unable to hide her curiosity. “Can I see?”

He turned the laptop around. “I’ll have to swear you to secrecy if I show you these.”

“Stop.” She covered her eyes after he’d scrolled through a few pages of artworks. “I think they’re paintings, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Conceptual art is not my style.”

He laughed. “We call a spade a shovel in my family as well. Comes from growing up on the land, I thought. Then I figured out my parents valued honesty above bullshite.”

“You don’t like these paintings either?” At the gallery opening with Grandpa, Lucy had decided she and the anonymous frame maker lived in wildly different universes.

“Not this particular batch. But the last lot were still lifes, painted with meticulous detail, the shadows worthy of Caravaggio at his best. The painter, a woman, lacked his volatile temperament, which made negotiation easier.”

“What do you negotiate?” Another detail she hadn’t considered when she’d planned to skim his profits.

“The artist has to like the frames. They send me the images. Using a software program, I send some designs, and we go from there.”

“How often do you do this?” Guilt at her glib dismissal of his frames created an itch between her shoulder blades.

“Leopold’s opens a new exhibition about every three weeks. Sometimes the artist has already arranged for frames or thinks frames will distract the viewer from focusing on their work. It’s a balancing act, the frame and the painting. The frame has to be discreet enough not to draw attention away from the work, but to subtly enhance it.” He added a few lines to a doodle on the sketchpad and recreated a section of theMona Lisa’s frame.

“You’ve studied art.” The insight explained a bit more of the Niall Quinn puzzle. Like why Grandpa enjoyed his company. But it left other questions unanswered.

“Part-time at night for a year,” he admitted. “Mostly art history.”

“In preparation for making frames?” Lucy asked, although that made no sense.

“Because I was interested.” His mouth twisted at the implied criticism in her question.

She thought back to the frames at the exhibition she’d seen. “They’re all unique.”

“That’s the brief.”

“I mean unique to every single painting at every single exhibition.” The enormity of the design task struck her. And his skill. She was the antiques expert, and she hadn’t twigged to the tradition he was copying. “In eighteenth-century France, frames stood as works of art in their own right.”

“Uh-huh. Partly furniture and partly sculpture. Although I don’t claim to be as good as the bloke who created the gilded frame to go with Raphael’s portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici.”

“The scrolling vine and foliage of the frieze echoed the leaf pattern on Lorenzo’s torso.” She recalled an art history class. The frame was worth more than the painting.

“That’s the one.”

“Why don’t you make money from your furniture?”And why haven’t I asked this question before?

“The million-dollar question.” His phone buzzed. “That’s your delivery. I’ll open the loading dock.”

“I’d like to know.” Lucy’s interest had become personal, not just an explanation for Grandpa’s actions.

“The economy. A bespoke piece takes more time. You need to consult with the buyer, submit a design, determine a wood, make the piece. The wood’s a major cost.” He shrugged as his steps ate up the distance. “I use only recycled or recovered Australian timbers. Add in labour costs. We’re coming out of an economic downturn. Bespoke furniture is a luxury item, and there’s a sizeable part of the luxury market that likes shiny and new rather than sustainable.”

“The same part of the luxury market who might buy one of these paintings neither you nor I like.” She scoffed.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” He unlocked the door beyond the kitchenette. It opened onto an empty space running down the right side of the building and included a long driver’s bay.

“I know everyone’s tastes are different, but why someone would want one of those paintings when they could have Grandpa’s memorial fruit bowl is a mystery to me.” She caught his arm, halting him.

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