Unbelievable…

I knew it as surely as I knew anything about the artist who was the focus of my graduate thesis. It was unsigned, but this painting had been done by Mallerton’s talented hand. And I’d bet my life Lady Rothvale IX was the lovely subject of the masterpiece I’d stumbled upon while coming into the sitting room to check it out. I’d seen other paintings of her from among Mallerton’s known works. There were a few on display at the Warwickshire estate I’d seen either in person or in photographs. All formal portraits of her in glorious gowns and jewels. There was one special painting of her in a silver gown sitting in a gold chair with her dog resting at her feet. She wore an emerald and pearl choker which could rival anything in the crown jewel collection. It was a well-known work and I’d had a chance to study it closely when it came to the Mallerton Gallery for a cleaning and general inspection a few years ago. I recognized her distinctive dark blonde hair color and the shape of her face. Lady Rothvale IX was a beauty in any century.

I guessed this suite of rooms Mr. Finnegan had assigned to me were none other than the lady’s chamber. When he’d said these rooms connected through to Ivan’s bedroom it made sense. The lord and lady of the house did not share a bedroom in the old days. They might be nearby in the same wing, but the rooms were separate. Whether the lord and his lady chose to share a bed, and whose bed was used for the sharing was up to them, but each had their own private space dedicated to them for their own use.

Ivan had asked Mr. Finnegan to put me in here specifically; Mr. Finnegan said so when he brought me in. Well now, wasn’t this just the bomb.

Certainly wasn’t expecting this—this—kind of a welcome.

In my defense, it was a lot to take in. I’d only been here a day, and already I’d found so much noteworthy art it was mindboggling for someone like me to comprehend. Because I had the knowledge and training to really know what I was looking at. These paintings weren’t merely noteworthy art anyway. Nope. They were unknown Mallerton masterpieces just resting quietly on the precipice of pushing the fine art world over a cliff into a global frenzy of speculation and interest. Should any of these paintings come onto the open market or even their very existence publicized, that’s exactly what would happen.

I sat down on the comfortable sofa and just took it all in for a few minutes. The décor, the view out the large windows, the details of the painting—the colors, the landscape, and the subjects of horse and beautiful rider so finely worked out onto a piece of canvas over two hundred years ago. And to be looking at an image of the same woman who had lived in this house? In these very rooms which had been her personal private sanctuary, gave me shivers. Ivan’s great-great-grandmother. It kind of felt like my destiny to discover all of this. Today Ivan asked me if I believed in fate. Was it fate meeting him the way we met? At an art museum in front of my favorite painting of Mrs. Gravelle on her wedding day?