Chapter 6

IVAN

The first thing she did after I led her into the gallery was gasp. Then she got quiet as her eyes carefully swept the room as if she didn’t want to miss a single thing. “Oh-my-God-Ivan,” she covered her mouth with the hand that wasn’t clasped in mine, “you have an absolute treasure trove here. There are so many—paintings—paintings everywhere.” Then she gently let go of me and stepped farther into the room, immediately beginning to take stock of what was displayed on every wall. “Who is this woman with the greyhound?”

“That would be a former Lady Rothvale with her beloved dog. There’s been more Lady Rothvales than Lord Rothvales in the last few generations. Second and even third wives arrived on scene through the years. She’s probably the much younger second wife of Lord Rothvale ten if I had to guess.”

“So elegant with her coat and hat,” Gabrielle said admiringly, scrutinizing the life-sized portrait of a willowy woman in a charcoal silk coat and an enormous hat with lavender flowers, framed by a jeweled-collared black greyhound that matched her clothing as if it’d been planned that way. Probably had been. “I’d place this portrait circa 1910 if I had to guess,” she said with a quick nod, repeating my phrasing.

“That sounds about right. It has a very Titanic feel to it, I agree.”

“I love that the dog was included in this painting.” She sighed as she admired the canvas.

Good. I breathed a small sigh of relief. It didn’t take brilliance to see she was pleased with what she’d found here. I tried to explain as much as I knew, which was sadly not much, but I gave it my best. “Dogs do appear in many of the paintings. Most of them are greyhounds, actually. That one over there,”–-I pointed to a portrait of a fawn greyhound lying down—“was a special pet because they marked her grave with a carved statue and her name—Zulekia. I can show you on our next walk. I think I remember my uncle saying something about the Rothvale estate in Warwickshire breeding racing dogs at one time. But when I was a boy, and came here to stay, I used to count the animals in the paintings. The people were never as interesting to me as the creatures. And I have to say, animals were depicted a lot, and you see them everywhere in the collection. Dogs, horses, birds, cats, fish, and even one of a little girl with her pet rabbit.”

Christ, I was blabbering like a fool, but Gabrielle didn’t seem to mind even a tiny bit. She just listened to me as she studied the walls, smiling when she came to something that caught her eye in particular. It all worked in my favor anyway. I could observe and enjoy the pretty view that was Gabrielle Hargreave to my heart’s content. And think about how good it would be when I had her underneath me again, all submissive and soft. I was determined not to blow it with her again. I wasn’t losing her a third time. “Right. I almost forgot to mention, there are more paintings down in storage beyond what is on display in this room,” I told her.