“A pleasure to meet you as well,” he rasped. “Forgive me for not rising.” He stuck out his left leg, a pinned trouser folded over midcalf. “The old peg leg was achy so I didn’t put my robot leg on today.” He gestured to one of the wing-backed chairs beside him. “Please, won’t you be seated?”

“Thank you.” Lia smiled and settled herself in the chair, placing the folder in her lap.

“Would you like a refreshment?” his grandfather asked her, ever the gentleman. “I could see if Abigail might be kind enough to bring in some tea?”

“No thank you,” Lia said easily. “I’m saving myself for lunch.”

“At one o’clock,” William said. “She asked you to remind me, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I’m fairly certain lunch has been served at Millbrook at one o’clock since 1859,” he grumbled. “When I forget that, then I give Gabriel permission to put me out to pasture.”

Gabriel made a face and dragged a footstool from one of the couches over to the window. He sat down in the sunshine.

“Are you an artist by trade, Miss Leclaire?” William asked.

“No. An engineer. Chemical,” she added when his brows rose again.

“Indeed? What a fascinating field of study.” William sounded delighted with this revelation.

And judging by his expression, his grandfather was already imagining Lia’s portrait in the hall with every other brilliant woman a Seymour male had managed to marry.

“I love my work,” Lia told him.

“As you should.” William looked back and forth between them. “Tell me how you two met.”

“Lia is a client, Grandfather. I am doing some appraisal and restoration work for her.”

“Oh?” William’s attention transferred to Lia. “Then tell me about the art my grandson is working on for you.”

“A fairly large collection of Impressionists,” she said. “Degas, Pissarro, amongst others. Also some landscapes. A few Turners.”

“Impressive, Miss Leclaire. How long have you been collecting?”

“I haven’t. It was my grandmother’s collection,” she started. “We think.”

“You think?”

“I found it hidden in an apartment in Paris. Until recently, I wasn’t aware of the existence of either apartment or art collection.”

“Hmph.” William set his headphones aside on the small table next to his chair. “Sounds intriguing. I’d like to see the collection. Especially the Turners. I’m an artist myself, you know.”

“Yes,” Lia said. “I knew that.”

Gabriel watched his grandfather’s face for any sort of reaction to the revelation of a hidden art hoard in a Paris apartment where his sister may have been. But he saw nothing beyond expected interest.

“Gabriel is an artist too,” William told Lia, sounding for all the world like he had just announced Gabriel’s ascension to the throne of England. “He won’t have shown you his art, but you should see it. This boy here has talent, and I think he should—”

“I’ve seen it.”