"Oh boy. I figured you were going to ask me at some point and it's just not as easy as appraising a single work and then tabulating a total. Fine art sales are the last big money investments which are unregulated by government. Paintings may have no ceiling at all, particularly when works come onto the market previously unknown—as is pretty much your entire collection from what I can tell."
"Really? That much of the collection is unknown?"
"I'm afraid so, but there's more, Ivan. I've spotted several possible Dutch Masters like Bruegel, Vermeer, and what looks clearly to be a Van Gogh with the usual ‘Vincent’ painted on the vase of white camellias maybe? Not to mention at least six, but possibly more unknown Mallertons, just scattered here and there around your house. I haven't even been in all the rooms yet, but now that I understand his relationship with your family, I'm betting there will be more."
"Why am I getting the feeling you're about to drop a bomb on me, Gabrielle?" I had to ask because I could see she was starting to get stressed the more she talked about the art. Her skin was flushed, and she began wringing her hands the longer she spoke.
"Because there is a bomb drop, and it could be a very big bomb, and it makes me nervous just speaking his name out loud!" she wailed.
"Come here, kitten, let me hold you while you tell me." I drew her against me and leaned up against a tree and waited. "You just start talking when you're ready, and I will listen to every word, okay?"
She nodded against my chest and took a deep breath and just let me hold her for a minute. I could feel her relaxing a little as I rubbed circles on her back and waited for her to begin.
"You have—there is a Leda and the Swan painting in the gallery that looks frighteningly authentic—like a… Michelangelo. It scared the crap out of me when I first spotted it. There are other Italian works in the collection, so it's not unreasonable to believe Graham was actively collecting Italian pieces from the period. I've been afraid to even speak the name Michelangelo out loud, and you have to understand it could have been collected at any time, and unless I can find some purchase documentation or written records of such an acquisition in Imogene's diaries, I won't be able to tell you if it was done by him. Michelangelo is way above my expertise and knowledge, on a good day. What I do know is that many artists painted Leda and the Swan, but a large portion of the Leda paintings were destroyed later by puritanicals who saw them as obscene. Well, some of them are, quite frankly. A woman being fucked by a swan and not all of them show mere suggestions of the sex. Some are very graphic, like really filthy five-hundred-year-old bestiality porn. Michelangelo is known to have painted a Leda, but it's never turned up anywhere and believed to have been destroyed sometime in the eighteenth century. So, if your Leda is an authentic Michelangelo, not only is it valuable for being his work, but valuable by attrition because it survived the calculated destruction of all Leda paintings over the centuries. Your value is in the high hundreds of millions by my best guess. If you have Michelangelo's Leda, then you have a billion plus pounds of art on your hands. There's no knowing how high those paintings will go on the auction block."
I rubbed up and down her back and soaked it all in. It was far more than I'd believed the collection to be worth before she came here, but then that couldn't be such a surprise. I'd been in denial, putting off dealing with the art for the last four years. I'd needed Gabrielle for a very long time before she ever got here. "Thank you for telling me, kitten. I know it's a huge responsibility dropped onto your shoulders, but you're going to do magnificently, and we'll just take it one step at a time, cliché or not, until we know what the best course of action is."
"I understand why you needed the NDA from me. Nobody can know this art is here, Ivan. It's far too valuable for disclosing its existence until it can be moved, or the security way upgraded. After the drone incident I think you need to be worried. I'm worried and I just work here."
I couldn't help chuckling at her last comment. "You're far more than someone who just works here, Gabrielle. I hope you understand me well on that point."
"I feel…I am important to you. I do feel that from you. I hope you feel it from me too, Ivan, how important you are to me."
I pulled her lips up to mine and I kissed her…and I kissed her…and I kissed her.
I wasn't sure I could ever stop kissing her.
GABRIELLE
I loved it when he kissed me unexpectedly. I could be speaking and telling him something important and he'd just lay one on me and that would be the end of whatever I was saying. Lord Rothvale was a bit of a romantic it seemed. I wondered if he would be this way after we spent more time together. Would he still be romantic with me?
When Ivan finally ended the kiss, the sun had slipped behind some ominous clouds looking quite ready to pour down on us. He quickly led me toward the horses, impatient to get going. "Wind has shifted. We need to start back before the rain comes. I won't have you ill again from being trapped in the cold and wet."
"Good idea, because I do not want to be ill again." As he boosted me up onto Athena and then mounted up onto Pontus, the most powerful force came over me when I sent my silent goodbyes and my love to Graham and Imogene, resting together in their crypt, under peaceful willows swaying quietly in the breeze.
As we rode off with the dogs racing madly alongside the horses, I really did feel as if I had met them in person. That I now knew them, as they now knew me. We'd been formally introduced, and now we could communicate together about what to do with their priceless paintings. I could go to them and ask for advice and maybe somehow, through the ether and the magic of being together in the same space on this small spot on the earth, they might be able to show me what I needed to do. I felt they somehow knew I was here to protect and keep their legacy safe for the world to enjoy for generations to come.
We nearly made it before the rain descended. Nearly being the operative word.
The truth? We got good and caught in a summer rainstorm.
As we neared the horse barns, it was drenching down so furiously Ivan shouted over at me, "Just ride her in through the door!"
I didn't have to be told twice. I steered Athena through the open doors and rode her right inside the barn with no problem. As soon as we were under the shelter of the roof, the sound of the pounding rain on the tiles roared like a freight train up over our heads.
Ivan helped me down from Athena and handed her off quickly to Owen along with Pontus. Both horses would have to be rubbed down and then tucked in their stalls with a blanket. “Owen, can you please make sure they both get an extra scoop of oats?” I asked as he started to lead them away.
"Yep. I'll make sure of it, miss," he replied with a nod of his head, his cheeks flushing red.
"Thank you, Owen.”
"You've got our young master Owen wrapped around your little finger I see, Miss Hargreave. Don't you think you should let him know you're taken already? Spare the boy his poor heart from unrequited love?"
"Oh? But…am I taken?"
"You most certainly are." He raised a stern eyebrow at me.