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“Here, I’ll lay them out on the carpet and then I’ll go get my computer and see what we can find out about each piece. That one has a signature in the corner which is a great starting point.”
I lifted that painting off the top and placed it on the large expanse of carpet between the dining area and the living area, and then turned as she was lifting off the large piece of felt protecting the next one.
That one was an oil of an old man, sitting behind the wheel of a yacht, gazing out to sea. She picked it up and handed it to me and I looked at it more closely as I set it down next to the pastoral. It had an amateurish quality to it, though admittedly, I didn’t know a lot about art. And who knew—maybe it was an early work of someone who later became famous. Rory was correct, it was the right thing to do to at least look into these pieces that the wealthy families of Calliope had temporarily entrusted to her, even if her “appraisals” were somewhat lacking.
I heard Rory pull in a breath as I stood, turning to see her holding up a smaller, framed piece that she’d pulled from the stack. I stepped up to her, my eyes moving over the watercolor, done mostly in blues and greens. It was a painting of Pelion Lake. I’d know it anywhere. I took it in, attempting to determine by the placement of mountains and trees where the artist had been when he’d painted it. “It’s him,” she whispered.
Him. Her father. The artist who’d created the sketch of her mother on that cocktail napkin from the Metropolitan Club. My eyes moved over the lines, the feel of the piece washing through me in whatever way art sometimes did. There was probably a name for why some art affected a particular person and some did not. Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe the varied reasons for the individual response to art was an unknowable thing. A touch of preference and a trace of magic. In any case, the watercolor creation Rory was holding up in front of me hit me in the same way the first one had and I knew for sure I was looking at a piece done by the same artist. “Yes,” I agreed. “It’s unmistakable actually. The style is very distinct.”
Rory sighed, pulling one of my upholstered dining room chairs back and sinking down into it as she pressed the framed painting against her chest, hugging it to her as though the piece itself were her long-lost father. “I didn’t truly think I’d come across one,” she whispered. “It seemed like the longest of all long shots. After all this time…”
I took a few steps to the table and pulled out another chair and sat down facing her. “Is there a name on it?” I asked. “Or initials?”
As though she hadn’t even thought of that in the shock of finding the painting, her brows shot up and she placed the piece face up on her knees. She leaned down and I leaned forward, our heads just touching as we gazed down at the corner. “M.S.” She brought her head up, our faces mere inches apart as she stared at me, her mouth forming a small O.
“M.S.” I repeated, a cascade of bubbles releasing in my chest. Not my dad’s initials. It wasn’t definitive proof, but it made me breathe easier.
“Not your father’s initials,” she said, verbalizing my thought. I shook my head and her eyes held onto mine for a minute and I saw the tentative hope in her gaze too before she glanced away. “Do any of the five men who founded the club have those initials?”
She bit her lip. “Yes,” she said. “Malcolm Sherrybrook and Maynard Siggins. Neither of them have returned Faith’s calls yet, which might be because neither of them currently have wives. Mr. Sherrybrook is divorced, and I couldn’t find whether or not Mr. Siggins was ever married. Anyway, in all the other cases, wives have returned our calls. So perhaps these men aren’t great about their correspondence, or maybe women find more interest in having art evaluated. Who knows.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” I thought of both those men. I’d known them all my life. Mr. Sherrybrook was a dry, stuffy bastard who didn’t look to have an artistic bone in his body, much less the romantic disposition necessary to view any woman the way the artist had obviously viewed Rory’s mother. But…I supposed looks could sometimes be deceiving. And Mr. Siggins was a nice man, but a bit of a mystery. I’d done some business with him but he tended to keep to himself and didn’t attend many of Calliope’s social gatherings. “The odd thing is that the painting with those initials came from the Ramsbottom Estate,” I noted. Which was confusing all around. “Although maybe the artist used a moniker or a…pen name, if the term applies to art.” Which was why my father was still a possible suspect. I felt a few of those internal bubbles pop.
She paused as she thought about that. “Yes, but they all ran in the same circle and from what I can tell, still do, at least sometimes. If one of those men painted this”—she tapped at the painting in her lap—“then it wouldn’t be surprising that he gave one of his friends a gift, right? Or they purchased it at some point? Either way, it’s a step forward.” The look on her face was filled with so much hopeful excitement that my breath caught in my chest and it suddenly seemed imperative that this woman find the answers she was seeking. Even if M.S. was my own father.
Anything else felt like an injustice of epic proportions.
After all, everyone deserved to know where they came from, didn’t they? My birthright, and the responsibilities it carried, along with the rewards it naturally allowed for, had set a path before me that I’d followed all my life. I knew what it was to benefit from being certain of your place in the world. I knew the confidence it bestowed.
“Let me help,” I said.
Her gaze moved over my face as though she was searching for something. “Gage, I doubt you have time to assist in a hunt for—”
“I’ll make time, Rory. It’s…important to me. These people are part of the community I’ve grown up in. I feel a certain responsibility if one of them committed a wrong against your mother. Plus, I know them, and I have access to places you might not be able to gain entrance into. They consider me one of them. I am one of them.”
She released a long breath, looking away momentarily as if considering it. Finally, she looked back at me and nodded. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”
Relief filtered through me and I wasn’t even sure exactly why. It only complicated things to spend more time with Rory, complications I didn’t need and ones that served no ultimate purpose. I wasn’t one for senseless dalliances. I never had been.
Well, except once with the same woman on a pool table in her hometown bar.
And why the hell couldn’t I get the image of that perfect assprint in green felt from blooming large and in living color in my brain?
And what was it about Rory Casteel that made me act in ways I’d never acted before, engaging in activities that didn’t forward my own goals in any way, shape, or form? And yet I didn’t seem capable of stopping.
She was staring at the painting again, a small crease between her brows. “This is Pelion Lake, right?”
I nodded. I recognized the curve of the shore and the hills rising to the North.
“Are you able to tell exactly where this might have been painted from?”
“You mean where was the artist sitting?”
“Mmhmm.”
I took it from her and turned it toward me. “If I had to guess, and assuming the artist was painting the lake as he was looking at it and not from memory, I’d say it was done from right about where the Metropolitan Club is situated at the top of a hill.”
“That’s what I was thinking, especially since it’s obvious the lake was painted from higher ground.” She paused. “Do you think it’s too late to call Mrs. Ramsbottom?”
