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      For Birgit,

       for her saintly patience with this deadline, and for so deserving all the good things that are coming her way!

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Epilogue

      1

      THIS WAS HARDLY THE FIRST time Dr. Tobias Free wished he hadn’t discovered steel baron Cornelius Sloane’s nineteenth-century pornography collection. In fact, the only other thing in life that had caused Tobias more sleepless nights was Carla DiDolche, the Italian spitfire who’d left him at the altar seven years ago. Now he surveyed the “artwork” spread across the boardroom table, his eyes trailing over a few pieces before settling on an ink drawing of a whip-wielding woman in a bustier and frilly pantaloons, a pencil sketch of three topless chorus girls, and a watercolor of a man in cross-tied breeches having his crotch fondled.

      Then Tobias looked around the crowded board table.

      “Well,” Margaret Craig was saying to J. J. Sloane the seventh, sole heir to Cornelius Sloane’s fortune, “we all know how much this ancestral mansion has meant to you, since you used to live here, Mr. Sloane, and we also know how much it means now—” She shot a piercing, significant look at Tobias “—to the University of Pittsburgh, which has been using it to house its sleep clinic research facility for the past ten years.” Margaret paused for a deep breath. “However—and I’m speaking for every member of the Pittsburgh Preservation Society, not to mention the community at large—we feel it’s our duty to open this mansion to the public, especially since Dr. Free has discovered such a vast vault of art….”

      J. J. Sloane, whom Tobias secretly referred to as Sloane Junior, was a tall, thin, overly pretty, silver-haired playboy who’d just hit forty and begun to realize that he was an only child with no heirs. He leaned forward, looking interested. “Does the Society really think it could do something with the mansion? Something for posterity that we’d be remembered by?”

      “Of course!” Margaret assured him, squaring her matronly shoulders. “We’re prepared to make this your legacy, Mr. Sloane. Stone mansions of this magnitude are rarely found intact, as you can imagine! Most of the places along this part of Fifth Avenue, which we Pittsburghers so fondly refer to as mansion row, have been turned into apartments or businesses. And yet this remained a private home until you left in the nineties, sir, which makes it very special. Its architecture is gorgeous. The extensive grounds are divine. Even the astonishing stone fountain just off the veranda is in working order. With the exception of the Frick mansion in the Point Breeze neighborhood, few buildings in Pittsburgh are this impressive….”

      Sloane leaned further forward. “You really think it compares to the Frick museum?”

      “Absolutely!”

      “And the Preservation Society would…?”

      “The plans—and let me tell you, we have many, Mr. Sloane—are all included in the prospectus in front of you. We’d like to offer tours of the mansion, as well as lectures about the many contributions the Sloanes have made to our city. Maybe open a gift shop. Possibly even lend books from the extensive library. And of course, we’ll be opening a gallery, not only for the photographs displayed in this room, but also for the new art found by Dr. Free….”

      Tobias’s eyes shifted to the pornographic pictures again, landing on a charcoal drawing of a woman removing veils as she danced. Most of the stuff wasn’t that racy, at least not by comparison to today’s Guess ads, but in the late 1800s, it must have been as hot as tamales.

      Tobias shook his head. Under any other circumstances, he would have laughed. Yes, watching the members of the Preservation Society—mostly prim elderly ladies like Margaret with blue-rinsed hair and American flag pins proudly affixed to the lapels of their linen suits—sit around trying to elevate a porn collection to the level of high art would have brought a chuckle.

      Except that Tobias’s ten-year lease on this building was over in a month, and these sweet little ladies were truly going to snap his dream clinic out from under him. Having finally

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