It contained hand-painted botanical drawings, labeled in pen and ink in a spidery hand, as though the writer was unfamiliar with the words. The plants were unlike the common British varieties depicted in Isaac’s books downstairs. These were tropical flowers, little stars of jasmine, voluptuous pink lotus flowers, and red tattered hibiscus petals with stamens lolling out of their centers like giant tongues. Nory turned the pages reverently, careful not to let any natural grease from her fingertips mark the delicate parchment pages.

It was strange. She had never seen these drawings before. How could she have? And yet they were so familiar. No, more than familiar. She recognized the hand that had painted them, as though she had looked at them a thousand times. She frowned as she reached for the next book. And when she unfastened the ribbons and turned to the first page, she knew these pages too. Not the plants themselves, though some were familiar to British gardens, but the brushstrokes, the way the colors had been leaked into one another, the careful and oh-so-delicate ink lines that outlined stems and petals.

“These are original Serena De-Veers,” she almost yelped. “Oh my god! Some of these are from her time in India. I know these, Isaac. These are original sketchbooks. My god, do you have any idea how valuable these are? I mean. I can’t even . . . each one of these would fetch thousands at auctions. Hundreds of thousands, Isaac, sitting in an old trunk in your study.” She laughed then. A pure joyous laugh. This was treasure. “These are original Serena De-Veers!” she almost shouted, jumping up from the desk and skipping around to Isaac, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. Isaac remained unmoved.

“Actually,” he said coldly, “they’re not.”

Nory looked into his dark brown eyes, and they burned back into hers. “What?” Her voice faltered. “They are, I’m sure of it. I’ve studied her work . . .”

“You are half-right. The hand that painted these is the same hand that painted the picture in my sitting room and the books in the glass cabinet in your shop. But none of them were painted by Serena De-Veer.”

Nory chuckled uncertainly, convinced that this must be some sort of joke that Isaac was playing on her. “But I don’t understand, the provenance . . .”

“The provenance is wrong. Serena De-Veer”—he said her name through gritted teeth—“didn’t paint anything; nothing that got published anyway. It was all my great-great-grandmother’s work.”

“W-what? But how?”

Isaac motioned for Nory to sit, and she settled herself down on the chaise longue. He remained standing and began to pace. He seemed both agitated and weary as he spoke.