Without waiting for her answer, Geoffrey left the dining room and went to the kitchen. As soon as the door shut behind him, he leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. He felt ridiculous keeping the identity of G from her when he’d just told her about his father. Why could he trust her with that information, but not the fact that he was G?
He knew the answer. The information about his father may not have been public knowledge in America, but Lord Ashburn had made the tabloids in the UK plenty of times. The general public may not have been aware of how dire their financial situation was, but they certainly knew of Lord Ashburn’s exploits. Geoffrey had been teased about them more than once at school, and they were a constant embarrassment to his mother.
Her husband had failed in every venture he’d ever tried, and it was up to Geoffrey to restore not just the Chatsworth family’s reputation, but also the Grey’s. He couldn’t do that as a struggling artist whose work would only be ridiculed more if the world knew it was produced by a privileged white man from England.
The criticism his work had received hurt, but at least very few people knew he was the one being criticized. It would destroy his mother to have her son ridiculed by name in the tabloids the way her husband had been. It was best if he kept that secret to himself.
After checking to see that dinner would be served soon, Geoffrey rejoined Alice in the dining room ready to talk about anything but G’s art. Every time she approached the subject, he steered her toward telling him about herself. She talked about her childhood in Bakersfield, how she’d found a book of famous paintings at Goodwill that inspired her to try her own hand at painting, and that it was on the merits of that talent that she was able to get a full-ride scholarship to Brown University.
“But you didn’t stick with painting?” he asked after she’d described some of her favorite projects she’d worked on.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t practical. I had a professor who was impressed with my research skills, and when she saw me struggling with my art classes, she encouraged me to pursue researching and curating as a career.”
“Do you regret giving it up?” He asked out of more than mere curiosity. If giving up art full time was the path ahead of him, he wanted to know what to expect.
She tilted her head and looked at the ceiling, just like she’d done during their conversation in the car. It was very endearing. “I suppose I do to some degree, but I really love what I do. And I haven’t given up my art completely, it’s just more of a hobby than a career.”
“I’d love to see some of your paintings sometime.” He admired her attitude. The thought of not spending most of his time in his studio left a gaping hole in his chest, and he had no idea how he’d fill it. With a desk job or networking? That’s what managing the Grey family museum and estate would entail.
Geoffrey didn’t like to think about that, and so he changed the subject. “Speaking of painting, let me show you what I wanted you to see. My father bought Mum a Monet as a gift about ten years ago; actually, it was more of an apology than a gift.” He stood and picked up both their plates to carry to the kitchen, while Alice picked up their glasses and followed.
“You just have a Monet hanging in the house here?”
“Yes.” Geoffrey dragged out the word.
“You know your father could have offset the taxes on it by letting a museum show it?” Alice went through the kitchen door he held open for her, and he caught the scent of her perfume again.
“Yes, and so does Mum.” He set the dishes in the kitchen sink, smiling at the look of surprise on her face. “She isn’t a fan of Impressionism. Father thought it was the opposite, so his gesture wasn’t much of an apology. She refused to loan it to any museums so that he’d have to pay the taxes on it and also pay a hefty sum to make this residence—which he’s ‘loaned’ to more than one of his many, many girlfriends over the years, before I moved in—secure enough for the Monet.”
“Okay. You officially win the prize for most dysfunctional family.” She handed him the glasses then leaned her back against the counter.
Geoffrey laughed as he ran water over the dishes. “That’s not even the worst of it. Now that they’ve decided to divorce, Father wants the Monet back, but Mum wants to keep it so she can sell it. And I want her to keep it so we can use it as a bargaining chip to borrow more modern works for the Grey Museum.”
Lois came bustling into the kitchen just as Geoffrey began washing the dishes. When he’d told Alice he had staff, he’d meant it in the singular. Lois was too old to find a new job, so he kept her on even after letting everyone else go.
“I’ll take care of that, my lord.” Before he could protest, Lois had taken the plates out of his hands and shooed both him and Alice out of the kitchen.
“I think your plan makes the most sense,” Alice said as the door shut behind them.
“So do I, but Mum could really use the money selling it would bring.” Geoffrey led Alice down a hallway as he spoke. “Father says it belongs to him, but he’s willing to part with it in exchange for a few works from the Grey collection.”
“Any in particular?” Alice stiffened and moved closer to him, as though she needed to protect him. Or the collection. Or both.
“The Hildegard page is the only one he’s named.”
Alice’s breath caught and she stopped. “You can’t let that out of the collection.”
“I agree, but the Monet is potentially worth more than the page, which we can’t verify was illustrated by Hildegard.” He motioned toward the end of the hall, and they walked again. “The Monet would be easier to sell, and probably bring in more money. Don’t you think?” They stopped and Geoffrey raised his hand to the gold-framed painting of lilies on the wall in front of them.
He expected Alice to have a much bigger reaction to it than she did. It was, after all, a Monet, hanging in a private residence with no museum guard to prevent her from looking at it for as long as she wanted, or even from touching it, as long as she wore gloves. Instead she examined it closely, her brows knitting together and her eyes squinting. She moved to within an inch of it, then moved a few feet back, all without saying a word.
“What’s the history behind it?” she asked a few minutes later.
“What? I just told you . . .”
“I mean, before your father bought it. Who owned it? Has it had any provenance checks? Was it given a certificate of authenticity?” Alice continued her examination of the painting while firing questions at him.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never asked, but I assume Father did all of that. I know he paid a very good price for it, but it wasn’t cheap, and he took on more debt than he already had to purchase it. At least that’s what he’s said. To be honest, I’ve always suspected he won it gambling.” Geoffrey tried to see the painting through Alice’s eyes, but it didn’t look any different to him than it always had.
“Will you ask your mother about its authenticity? Let me dig into its history before she agrees to anything.” Alice’s intensity gave him every reason to overlook the fact that she’d given him an order, which was something he wasn’t used to.
“Of course.” He looked at the painting again, searching for anything that would give him a clue as to why Alice was asking all her questions, but he saw nothing. “May I ask why?”
Alice stared at the painting, but not with the amazement he’d expected. Her expression held an unasked question that made him nervous, but her answer didn’t reveal what she seemed to be thinking. “We’ll need all of that before we can offer to loan or trade it,” she said softly without the confidence her voice usually held when she spoke about art. “And we’ll need it quickly.”
Geoffrey turned back to the painting, wondering what Alice saw that he didn’t, and why she was keeping it from him.
Chapter Eight
Alice couldn’t quite put her finger on what wasn’t right about the Monet, but there was something. As she and Geoffrey talked and walked further down the hall, she cou
ldn’t get the Monet out of her mind. The painting itself was beautiful, as lovely as any of his other paintings, but the canvas itself didn’t look as old as it should have. The nails around its edges weren’t the type used during Monet’s day. They looked old, but not quite old enough. There was cracking in the painting, but it almost looked too perfect to have happened naturally over a century.
She couldn’t prove her suspicions just by looking at the painting, and it was very possible her suspicions were wrong. But she’d spent a lot of years researching and dating much older works of art, so she had a pretty good sense of what was old and what wasn’t.
Geoffrey didn’t say much else about the Monet as he pointed out other paintings from lesser-known artists that had been moved from Binchley Hall after the security system had been installed here. He seemed slightly distracted, and Alice guessed he was thinking about his parents. His family was so dysfunctional, they made her dad seem almost normal.
Almost.
The difference between his family and hers was his actually had something to fight over. Her dad just fought to fight. Maybe she should have opened up to Geoff about her own family, but she couldn’t. Whatever problems his family had, they still had money. Maybe not as much as they used to have, but they were never going to be poor. It was one thing to have lost a fortune, but it was another thing altogether to be the kind of people who had never had, and would never have, any kind of fortune.
There was a door open at the end of the hallway, and Alice suspected it was a bedroom. Maybe even Geoffrey’s bedroom. She glanced nervously at him, but he continued talking about the art on the walls. He didn’t seem to have anything else on his mind. As they approached, she glanced through the open door just as Geoffrey grabbed the door handle to pull it closed.
“Wait.” Alice put her hand on the door and stopped Geoffrey from closing it. She’d seen a painting on the wall that looked more interesting than anything else they’d looked at, including the Monet. “What is that?” She pointed at the painting on the opposite wall.
“The painting?” Geoffrey opened the door again and side-eyed her before leading her into the room. They walked by an open suitcase with clothes spilling out of it. Geoffrey picked up clothes from the floor that she’d seen him in the day before and tossed them on a wingback chair. “Sorry for the mess. I spent last night and most of the day today at Binchley and didn’t have time to unpack before I picked you up.”
Alice barely heard him, and any discomfort she’d had about going into his room had disappeared. The painting had her entire focus. “Who’s this by? Where did it come from?” She’d studied something very similar for a private collector in New York before he’d purchased it. Alice’s research had proved the piece was a triptych missing it’s third part and was likely painted by the medieval artist Giotto.
“It was in the staff kitchen for as long as I could remember,” he said. “Gertrude said she moved it from her room where the previous cook had lived before she unexpectedly passed away. We suspect it was something she picked up at a flea market or on Portobello Road. I’ve always loved its kitschiness, so I had it moved here.”
There were three things that stood out to Alice as she examined the painting of a unicorn with its head bowed and people in medieval dress lined up behind it as though they were following and admiring it. First, the figures in the painting weren’t interested in the unicorn, they were interested in what the unicorn bowed to. Second, the thing that the unicorn bowed to, if Alice’s suspicions were correct, was the Christ child in the triptych panels she had researched in New York, and the people in the picture were waiting their turns to do the same.
And third, G’s work was, in fact, as derivative as the critics accused him of being. But the work his sculpture derived from had only been seen by the Grey family, their staff, and now Alice, who was looking right at it.
The position of the unicorn, the colors in the clothing of the other figures, the unusual positioning of the people and the objects in this painting—she could see its influence in all of G’s work, including the piece that happened to be in the hallway of Geoffrey’s flat.
Then there was his weird reaction when she suggested they use G as their contemporary artist for the Grey museum. And he’d never answered her question about where he’d gotten the sculpture in his foyer.
With all those pieces put together, Alice was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure she’d solved the mystery of G’s identity. All signs pointed to Geoffrey himself.
“How long will you be staying in London?” Geoffrey’s question interrupted her thoughts. “I assume you’ll need some time to go back to LA and pack. Is three weeks enough? Or should we push back your start date?”
Alice shook her head but kept her eyes glued to the painting. “I’ve already given my boss notice, and I’d only planned on staying three days anyway. I’ll have plenty of time to pack once I’m back in LA.” Her eyes darted from Geoffrey to the painting as she tried to hide her amazement over not only the painting but also what she’d discovered about him.
“I was supposed to be here to find pieces for the Fairfax Gallery, but I guess now I can spend that time sightseeing. Or looking for works for the Grey Museum.” Her words tumbled out in a jumbled rush, and his fidgeting back and forth reminded her that she’d been looking at a painting for a really long time that he thought was a flea market buy.
A “flea market” painting that was hanging in his bedroom.
Alice’s face caught fire, and she walked quickly toward the door.
“What sights were you planning to see?” Geoffrey followed her into the hallway where she almost felt like she could breathe normally again.
“The Tower of London, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace . . .” She blushed at that one. He’d probably been there as a guest. “St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey. Pretty much the most touristy places I could find. I’m sure you’ve been to all of them a million times.”
“I’ve never actually been to the Tower of London.”
She stopped and looked at him, wondering which she should tell him first—that his painting was no flea market find or that she knew he was G. But neither of those things came out of her mouth.
“You’ve never been to the Tower? How is that possible?”
“Have you ever been to the Hollywood sign?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and began walking, eyeing her across his shoulder.
“No, but I haven’t lived in LA my entire life.” She had no idea how she was carrying on a conversation that didn’t involve the three major discoveries she’d just made and that her brain couldn’t stop yelling about.
“I’ve only lived in London off and on for the past five years. Before that, I was at Binchley or Eton.” He nudged her arm playfully which caused some tingling that it shouldn’t have. And she knew she shouldn’t walk as close to him as she was, but she kept doing it anyway. “If you haven’t seen the tourist sites in your city, you can’t criticize me for not visiting the sites in my city.”
“Fine. You go to the Tower with me, and next time you’re in LA, I’ll go to the Hollywood sign with you.”
Alice had lost her mind. The words had come out of her mouth so fast she couldn’t stop them. Sure, she’d been thinking what an actual date with Geoffrey would be like, but how had her tongue jumped ahead of her brain and actually asked him out?
He glanced at her with obvious surprise, but then a smile spread over his face. “That is an excellent idea. I’m not sure when I’ll be in LA, but shall we plan on the Tower tomorrow?”
Was she mistaken or did he seem excited about their “date”?
“That works for me.” She swallowed, trying to play cool, but there was no way Geoffrey could miss the rush of color in her cheeks.
“I could possibly pull some strings and get us an after-hours tour.”
"Yes” was on the tip of Alice’s tongue, but then she pictured what getting the VIP treatment would mean. Cameras, probably, and more attention than she would be
comfortable with. “Hmm, tempting, but I don’t have the same connections in LA that you have here. I’d never be able to give you the same kind of tour. So, how about you wear your hat and sunglasses and we go as regular old tourists?”
“Really?” His eyebrows went up. “Okay.”
She didn’t think the smile on his face could get any bigger, but it did. It reached all the way to his eyes. He tipped his head slightly to the side and the light reflecting in his blue eyes made them look like they were twinkling. Maybe they were. Who knew anymore? She’d just asked out an actual earl, and he’d accepted without hesitation, so maybe she was living in a dream. Or a Hallmark movie.
Geoffrey clasped his hands behind his back and continued walking down the hall, but before he’d taken more than two steps, he looked over his shoulder at her. “I think I’m going to like working with you, Alice. Very much so.”
Yep. She was definitely in a Hallmark movie.
“I think you are too. Especially if I’m able to prove what I’m thinking about the ‘kitschy’ painting in your bedroom.” She’d start with that one. Then she’d tell him her suspicions about the Monet.
Her other discovery, however, was trickier. Geoffrey obviously didn’t want people to know he was G, so she’d have to wait until he was ready to tell her.
He kept walking, but his steps slowed as he led her into a sitting room adjacent to where they’d eaten dinner. “What are you talking about?”
She sat on the sofa he directed her to and waited for him to take a seat next to her. “I don’t think your unicorn is a flea market find, and if I’m right, it may be worth more than your Monet. Much more.”
His breath hitched, and he pushed his head forward like he hadn’t heard her right. “Are you having a laugh at me?”
Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8) Page 41