Gladly Beyond (35 page)

“Exactly. Which means even if it
is
a later copy, it is still extremely significant. It implies that, at one point, there was another version of the
Battle of Cascina
that might be original to Michelangelo.”

He studied me in silence, reaching again for his wineglass.

“You have a theory, I’m betting.” Eyes canny. “I want to hear it.”

Talk about putting me on the spot.

“If I were to give you an opinion right now”—deep breath—“I would say it is a later copy of a Michelangelo original.”

“How much later?”

I pretended to think about it for a moment. “Perhaps early nineteenth century.”

“That late?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What makes you think that?” He gazed over the rim of his wine glass. Expectant.

I cleared my throat. Folded my hands in my lap as primly as possible.

“Too many things don’t add up. The fact that the charring on the edge occurred then. Additionally, something about the way the chalk skims onto the vellum implies a later time period.”

That last part was all bluff, bluff, bluff. But I needed something to go on until I could build a stronger case.

“I stand to lose a lot of money here.”

“I am well aware of that.”

“Are you sure you’re not just being contrary to get back at Pierce?” the Colonel asked. “I know you’ve been running around with Dante D’Angelo behind my back. You guys concocting some plan?”

My blood pressure spiked. Suddenly, I needed a much stiffer drink than just wine.

How to reply to that?

“Things aren’t like that, Colonel—”

“I only hire complete professionals to work for me, gal.”

“Dante and I have not been trying to undermine Pierce or collude in any assessment. We’re just being . . . friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “You bring up valid concerns, Colonel, but I have to be honest to my training and instincts too. I firmly think the drawing you have is a later copy.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Even more, I believe it was done by a woman. Which, when I gather enough proof, will not be any small thing. A two hundred-year-old copy of a much earlier Michelangelo done in a woman’s hand . . . collectors will eat it up.”

The Colonel studied me for a long moment.

Pensive. A little threatening even.

I held my ground, matching him look for look.

Somehow, I would prove the history of the sketch. The world needed to hear about Caro.

The Colonel blinked.

And then . . .
smiled
.

Wide, sunny, utterly delighted.

“Brava.” He slow-clapped. “
Bravissima!
I knew you would do me proud.”

He saluted me with his wine glass.

It was my turn to look surprised, eyebrows disappearing into my hairline.

“I reckoned those D’Angelo boys would figure it out because they always seem to land on their feet,” he continued. “But you . . . I wasn’t so sure.”

I smiled weakly. Without the assistance of Dante’s talents, I wasn’t sure I would have arrived at the correct conclusion.

But wait—

“You’re
pleased
the drawing isn’t the real deal?”

The Colonel chuckled.

“Would you care to explain what’s going on here, Colonel?”

He sat back in his chair, expression still pleased-as-Punch.

“For years, I’ve been wanting to find the right person to curate my collection. I need someone brutally honest. A person who won’t simply parrot what I
want
to hear, but what is truth. Hence this little ‘audition’ I arranged. You, m’dear, just passed with flying colors.”

“Wait. You’ve known the provenance of the sketch all along?”

He nodded. “Of course. What good is an audition if I don’t know what I have?”

A pause.

“True.” I hadn’t thought of that.

“I’ve always known the drawing is a later copy. There’s plenty of documentation. I just neglected to show it to you.” The Colonel winked and motioned with his wine glass, sloshing the liquid around. “It came into my family around two hundred years ago. Done by a British noblewoman who lived here in Florence . . .”

Caro!

My heart raced. Could I possibly be close to finding out more about her?

“Family lore has it the artist was a ward of Louise, the Countess of Albany,” the Colonel continued. “It’s the reason I chose to put you in Palazzo Alfieri. Considered it a helpful little hint . . . and damned if you didn’t figure it out.” He drained the rest of his wine glass in one long gulp. “It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been wanting to get to know you better for quite some time now.”

His comment wrenched me back to reality.

I met his gaze. Appraising me.

Almost like I was something he wished to . . . collect.

I paused, wanting to ignore the weird undercurrent. Brush it under the rug, pretend it would go away—

No. Wait. New, fierce, not-afraid Claire didn’t let things go.

Why do you have to be so old-man creepy?!
she shouted.

“May I ask why you’ve been interested in knowing me better?” I asked.

Uber-polite. But direct nonetheless.

The Colonel set down his now empty wine glass. Studied me for a moment longer.

His gaze much more
seeing
than I would have expected.

The silence stretched into awkward.

“It’s like looking at Adelaide reborn,” he finally said. “You could be her—what is the word they use? Doppelganger?”

“You’ve mentioned more than once that you knew my grandmother.”

“Knew her?” He gave a soft laugh, gaze going unfocused. “I breathed her. Lived her. Loved her with every piece of my young, wild heart. I wager she never mentioned me.”

Damn.

This conversation had train-wreck written all over it.

What to say?

No, Grammy never did mention you.

I understand she dumped you for my grandpa . . .

I went with, “I can’t say that she did. But she did talk to my mother about you, I think.”

“Lisabet?”

“Yes.”

“Mmmm.”

Another one of those long, awkward silences.

“You’ve been in love, I take it?” he asked.

“Yes.” Stupidly so.

“People do crazy things in the name of love.”

I didn’t understand where this conversation was headed. I just hoped it wasn’t the headlights of oncoming traffic.

“I keep her picture, you know. Right here.” He tapped the inside pocket on his suit coat. “It helps me remember . . . things. Priorities, I suppose.”

Yep. Definitely headlights blaring straight at me.

I needed to get off the highway, as it were. But I asked anyway.

“May I see it?”

He beamed at me. Clearly that was the correct question. He pulled out a photo which, judging by its battered appearance, had been much-cherished. Handed it to me.

It was one of those old, nearly square black-and-white photographs with a white border around it. The kind of thing you pay someone on Etsy to recreate in Photoshop.

This was the real deal.

And there they were. Standing on a beach . . . probably Horseneck, south of Boston. Grammy took me there a lot as a kid.

Grammy in a vintage bathing suit—classic early 1960s style—smiling wildly at the camera. Her arm around a taller man.

My throat tightened. How I missed her!

I traced her face with my eyes. I tried to remember if I had ever seen a photo of Grammy from this period in her life. After her early years but before she married my grandpa.

I didn’t think I had.

Her hair whipped out behind her in a long, pale sheet. New England beaches as windy then as they are now.

She did look like me . . . a lot.

Even in black-and-white, I could tell her hair was light blond. The same face shape, the same body. Aside from our eye-color—I remember her eyes being more green than blue—we could have been twin sisters.

No wonder the Colonel fixated on me.

“She was so beautiful,” he said. Low and quiet. “Lovely in every way imaginable. I never felt so alive as I did when I was with her.”

The Colonel stared at me. Eyes full of some emotion I couldn’t quite understand.

“Yes.” I swallowed. “That’s how it always was with her.”

I had always adored the person I was around Grammy. She
made
me into that person. Loved me into it.

I studied the photo.

Grammy seemed so . . . happy. The joy on her face almost contagious. I moved my gaze to the young Colonel. Tall, smiling as well, holding Grammy tight against his side.

His hair had been dark back then. Thick and wavy above his pale eyes.

But something about him . . .

I shifted the photo to get a better look.

The chill started at the base of my neck. Every hair on my body coming rapidly to attention until my lungs felt constricted in a vise.

No!
Just . . . no!!

I swallowed, terrified to ask even though my brain had already scrambled ahead to the answer.

“So, the Michelangelo drawing . . . how did it come into your family’s possession?”

“An ancestor in my mother’s line acquired it. My mother was the last of the Clines, you know.”

“The Earls of Arlington? The sketch came from them?”

“Yes. But before they became earls in the English peerage.”

I shot him a puzzled look.

“I know, it’s confusing to us Americans.” He waved a hand. “But the peerage of England is separate from the peerage of Scotland.”

“Scotland?” I echoed.

“Precisely, m’dear. My mother’s family were dukes in the Scottish peerage before becoming earls in England.”

“Dukes?” My voice faint. “Dukes of what?”

“Blackford.” He beamed at me. “My mother’s family were the Dukes of Blackford.”

Twenty-Eight

Dante

I
still can’t believe the Colonel is a direct descendant of Blackford.”

I held Claire’s hand, drawing her up the gazillion stairs leading to San Miniato al Monte. They didn’t call it Saint Minias on the Mountain for nothing.

“You and me both. The resemblance is startling.” She chuckled. She had been doing that a lot around me the last couple of days. “I turned so white, it freaked him out. He broke out in a sweat and ordered us both a healthy shot of bourbon.”

“Kentucky gentleman-ing at its best.”

“Truth.”

We had been talking over her strange dinner the previous night as we climbed the wide stairs. The sun was sinking over the city, peeking through the cloud cover and bathing the Duomo in light. Though given the clouds on the horizon, the sun wouldn’t last long. We were in for more rain.

I pulled Claire in front of me to let a group of rowdy Australians pass. The stairs and threatening weather did not deter tourists, that’s for sure.

She pressed back into me from thigh to shoulder, curved and warm. The sudden shock of her body against mine momentarily knocked the air out of me.

Madonna Mia.
This woman—

I had given myself a stern lecture before seeing her today. The same lecture I’d been having with myself all week:

Don’t push her. Let her set the pace.

Don’t initiate physical contact. (Well . . . not too much.)

And whatever you do . . . do not
kiss
her.

No matter how natural the impulse feels.

No matter how many times she bites that lush lower lip of hers.

Do.
Not.
Kiss. Her.

Being with Claire had become a delicious sort of torture.

So instead of holding her against me and drowning in her plump mouth, I let her peel herself off and continue up the stairs.

Though I did keep a tight grasp on her hand.

Did Claire even
notice
the electricity thrumming between us?

“Why did Caro’s sketch stay in Blackford’s possession?” Claire asked. “That’s been bugging me all day.”

Focus, man. “Right. I thought they planned on taking it with them to Boston.”

“Exactly. So did they sell it in Florence instead and then Blackford bought it back as a memento of Caro? And, if so, where did the original Michelangelo end up?” She shifted her hand and threaded her fingers through mine, almost unconsciously, it seemed. Progress.

“Or did Blackford interrupt their plans, send Ethan off and marry Caro himself?”

“Which, for one, would be sad and, two, still doesn’t answer where the original Michelangelo
modello
Caro got from Henry Stuart ended up.”

“Or how and when the charred damage to Caro’s sketch happened.”

“Or who said those words Branwell heard about taking something back.” Claire nodded in agreement, puffing as we climbed the steep stairs. “Which is why we’re here, I guess.”

All of me had wanted to spend the day with Claire exploring San Miniato, despite the unintentional physical torture. But business had called for both of us, delaying our meeting until this evening.

I had insisted on picking her up on my bike, driving up and out of the city, parking with the tour buses in the giant Piazzale Michelangelo. It was the last destination for most people visiting the city. An amazing panorama of the Duomo, the Arno with its distinctive Ponte Vecchio . . . a sea of red tiled roofs.