ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Angelo met Mariana at the university. She was leaning against the wall, reading a book, as he arrived; today she was back to wearing jeans, canvas shoes and a T-shirt, with her hair caught back in a scarf. She looked much more relaxed than she had the previous day, he thought, and he felt slightly out of place in his suit. But a dull corporate lawyer was exactly what he’d been ever since his divorce, working to fill his life and not let himself feel anything.
Oh, honestly. His life was fine just as it was. He didn’t need anything else.
‘Good morning,’ he said as he reached her. And her smile was so sweet that it actually made his heart miss a beat.
‘Hi.’ She slipped the book into her bag. ‘Come and meet Jeremy.’
He reined himself in and followed her to her tutor’s office. The room was almost as untidy as his grandfather’s office, with books in chaotic piles everywhere and pictures and articles torn from magazines pinned haphazardly to a cork board. Had it not been for what he’d seen of Mariana’s neat working habits, Angelo would’ve thought that the old cliché about being artistic and disorganised was actually true.
‘Very pleased to meet you, Mr Beresford.’ Jeremy Hartley shook his hand warmly.
‘Angelo, please. And you, Dr Hartley,’ Angelo replied politely.
‘Jeremy. Mariana’s shown me photographs of your grandfather’s collection—and it’s incredible.’
‘I did have a bit of a moment when I walked into the palazzo and saw the paintings—just like Carter must’ve felt when he realised he’d found Tutankhamun’s tomb,’ Mariana confessed with a smile. ‘And it’s a real privilege to help catalogue them.’
‘Knowing about all these new paintings is going to change things we thought we knew about Carulli,’ Jeremy said. ‘I know it’s a bit forward of me to ask, Angelo, but if there’s any chance I could visit your grandfather and see the paintings, I would be so grateful.’
‘He’s not in the best of health,’ Angelo said. ‘But knowing that you’re interested in his collection and that you believe his unsigned painting is a Carulli—that might help to brighten him a little, so I’m happy to arrange a visit.’
‘Thank you. Obviously I wouldn’t stay long or do anything to tire him out,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ll be guided totally by you.’
‘I’ve been going through Carulli’s biography,’ Mariana said, taking the book she’d been reading earlier out of her bag. ‘He stayed in England in 1862 and 1863 in a little Norfolk village called Barrington—which is where Leo found the painting, a century later. Leo’s journal mentions buying sketches, and I found a preliminary sketch the other day for his painting Tuscan Harvest—it’s signed and dated and he made a note about the location on the back. I’m hoping that he’s done something similar with our painting so we can prove it stayed where he painted it.’ She grimaced. ‘Sorry, Angelo. I mean your grandfather’s painting.’
‘You love it as much as he does. I don’t think he’d mind you calling it “ours”,’ he said, smiling at her. Did she have any idea how cute she was when she was all fired up and enthusiastic? She glowed with happiness, and it made him feel warm inside.
‘So do you have any provenance for the painting yet?’ Jeremy asked.
‘I’m building the case,’ Mariana said. ‘But I want to send it for X-rays to see if there are any underlying sketches, and we need to check if the pigment is the same as that in his other English paintings.’
‘Good idea,’ Jeremy said. ‘Do the composition and brushstrokes match his usual style?’
‘Yes.’ She filled Jeremy in on their work so far.
‘It’s the kind of thing all scholars dream about finding,’ Jeremy said, ‘or at least being part of the discovery. An unknown, unsigned Carulli, and others from the same era we’ve not known about before. How utterly amazing.’
‘I’ll speak to my grandfather and arrange a visit,’ Angelo said. ‘And I assume you need some time to discuss whatever you usually discuss with Mariana.’
‘In the circumstances,’ Jeremy said, ‘that’s your call, Mariana.’
‘I’d rather like to go back to working on our research and seeing what it uncovers, because it’s going to affect my thesis,’ Mariana said. ‘But I’ll keep you updated, Jeremy.’
‘And I’ll be in touch to discuss your visit to my grandfather,’ Angelo said. ‘Actually, I’m going to Florence on Saturday, if you’re free.’
‘Saturday? Let me see if I can move a couple of things around,’ Jeremy said, ‘and I’ll let you know.’
When they left her tutor’s office, Mariana looked at Angelo. ‘We agreed, thirty minutes in the National.’
‘All right,’ he said.
‘Let’s start with something older.’ She led him through the rooms. ‘Botticelli,’ she said. ‘Late fifteenth century. This isn’t quite as famous as his paintings in the Uffizi, but this is Venus and Mars. It shows Venus awake and Mars asleep—in other words, love conquers war.’ She grinned. ‘And then you’ve got the rude bits.’
‘Rude bits? But they’re fully clothed,’ Angelo said, frowning.
‘Take a closer look. The little satyrs have pinched his lance and, even though one of them is blowing a trumpet in his ear, Mars isn’t waking up. He’s...um...unarmed,’ she said.
Angelo suddenly realised what she meant.
‘You mean they’ve just had sex and he’s gone to sleep?’ He felt hot all over. How on earth had he ended up discussing sex with Mariana Thackeray in the middle of a public art gallery?
The warmth must’ve shown in his face, because she gave him the cheekiest grin. One that made his heart skip a beat. One that made him want to kiss her and see if he could rouse corresponding heat in her. Even though he knew it was a bad idea, it was hard to resist. How soft would her mouth be against his? How would it feel to have her arms wrapped round him in passion?
‘There’s always something to spot in a painting,’ she said. ‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s pretty enough,’ he said, trying to be diplomatic.
‘But you wouldn’t want it on your walls.’
‘I wouldn’t spend time gazing at it, no,’ he admitted.
‘So it doesn’t move you.’
‘No.’ She moved him. The fact that right now he could do with a cold shower had nothing to do with the painting and everything to do with her.
‘OK. Renaissance paintings might not be your thing—even though half your family comes from Florence.’ She took him into another room. ‘How about this? Constable’s The Hay Wain.’
‘It’s a pretty landscape,’ he said, again trying to be diplomatic and hoping she wasn’t going to start waxing lyrical over the shape of the clouds. As far as he was concerned, it was just a picture—something he’d glance at but wouldn’t snag his attention.
‘The area still looks like that today,’ she said. ‘But I can see from your face that you’re being polite. Early nineteenth-century landscape isn’t your thing, either. How about a seascape?’ She took him around the corner. ‘Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.’
Now this one he liked a bit more. And he knew she’d press him for details. ‘I like the sky,’ he said.
‘But not the ship?’
He wrinkled his nose.
‘OK. We can work with sky. Let’s try something from a bit later in the century.’ She took him into another room. ‘This is Monet’s Flood Waters.’
He shook his head. ‘Not this one. It’s a bit...’ He paused to find the right word. ‘Wishy-washy.’
She grinned. ‘That’s one way to describe water. Perhaps not French Impressionism, then.’ She led him around the corner. ‘How about this one?’
‘Even I can recognise van Gogh,’ he said. ‘The Sunflowers.’
‘How does it make you feel?’ she asked.
‘It’s like sunshine,’ he said. ‘It’s bright. I like this one.’
‘Happiness,’ she said. ‘Good. So we’ve established that you like happy paintings and sunshine.’
‘Or that I’m just dull and like the popular stuff.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with liking popular stuff,’ she said. ‘And you’re not dull.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I know I said not French Impressionism, but it’s the light and shade that your grandfather really loves in the Macchiaioli paintings. Me, too. I’m going to show you something else.’ She led him round the corner. ‘This one is pastels rather than oil. It’s Degas, After the Bath.’
The seated woman’s naked back and upper thigh were visible, the curve of her waist to the right, and her arms. ‘It’s all about movement, the blurred contours,’ she said.
Angelo thought of Mariana. How she would look, seated in the same pose. The softness and warmth of her skin, the bright gleam of her hair... And his mouth went dry. He could almost smell the floral scent she wore, the dampness of her skin, imagine how she’d drop that towel and turn to look at him over her shoulder, her lips parted.
‘Now you look as if you get it,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘How art can move you. Make you think. Make you feel.’
He almost—almost—wrapped his arms around her and kissed her right there and then, in the middle of the gallery, heedless of the fact that it was a very public place.
But he held himself back. Just.
‘I get it,’ he said, hearing the crack in his own voice.
‘Good. Enough art for now,’ she said. ‘But another time I’m going to take you to see the Degas dancers at the Courtauld. I think you’ll like them. Turner’s skies, Degas’s figures and the brightness of van Gogh. I’ll have a think about what else you might enjoy.’
They spent the rest of the morning working through the boxes, but Angelo couldn’t shake his awareness of Mariana. Several times he glanced up from the papers to see her glancing at him, too, and looking away as if she felt guilty about being caught.
So did she feel the same weird pull of attraction towards him—even though they both knew this wasn’t sensible?
And what were they going to do about it?
He kept himself under strict control for the rest of the morning—until he came across a card envelope. ‘Ferrania Color,’ he said.
Mariana frowned. ‘What’s that?’
‘The Italian version of Kodak,’ he said. ‘Mamma has some envelopes like these. Italian-developed photographs from when she was young.’
Mariana’s eyes widened. ‘Do you think this might be...?’
‘The photographs from Nonno’s visit to Norfolk? Hold your breath and wish.’ Which was exactly what he did as he drew the photographs out of their envelope.
The photographs were square, with a narrow white border, showing that they were older than modern prints; they were glossy, and most importantly they were in colour.
He felt sick with nerves. ‘I really think this might be it.’
The first couple of pictures were of a row of flint cottages, with red tiled roofs and a decorative border of bricks around the white-painted windows and door. The front garden was full of summer flowers.
‘Look on the back,’ she whispered. ‘Just in case he wrote something.’
He turned it over and his grandfather’s handwriting was obvious. ‘“New Road Cottages. 1963. Carulli stayed here,”’ he translated.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘He’s tracked down the actual cottages.’
The next photograph was of another building with a steep red tiled roof and small windows; it looked as if it, too, was made from brick and flint, but the entire building had been painted white. There was a tiny porch over the front door, and on the front of the building was a large black sign with ‘Red Lion’ and a stylised lion painted on it in red.
‘We’re getting closer. This was where Nonno said he stayed in the village,’ Angelo said.
There were two more photographs of the pub, and then one of a large house.
‘Do you think that’s the “big house” he talked about?’ she asked.
‘But it’s not the house that’s actually in his painting,’ Angelo said.
Mariana checked her notes. ‘He went to the farmhouse, and they suggested trying the big house. So maybe this is the farmhouse.’
Angelo turned to the next photograph. ‘No. This one looks like the farmhouse in the painting.’
‘Agreed,’ she said.
When he flipped over to the next photograph, he dropped the lot on the table. ‘It’s Nonno. Outside the big house. With the painting showing the farmhouse. And you can see where the canvas wasn’t framed, where the mice ate the corner,’ he whispered.
‘It all ties in with everything he told us,’ Mariana said, putting her arms around him and hugging him. ‘We’ve found it. And this is bona fide documentary evidence that no expert would ignore or say is just circumstantial.’
The next thing he knew, his mouth was against hers and he was kissing her. Really kissing her. And she was kissing him back, her lips warm and sweet, giving and demanding at the same time.
The world spun on its axis.
He shouldn’t be doing this. She was vulnerable, she’d been hurt, and if her biological clock started ticking then he’d end up letting her down. She was off limits.
And if he let himself fall for her and the whole thing went wrong, the same way it had gone wrong with Stephanie, he’d end up with his heart broken a second time. Better not to risk it in the first place. He needed to stop this. Right now.
With an effort, he tore his mouth from hers. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have... That was unprofessional, and I apologise.’
She took a step back from him. ‘It wasn’t just you. We both got carried away with the excitement of finding the photographs.’
It was an excuse, and he knew it. But he took it gratefully. ‘Yes.’
‘We’ll pretend it didn’t happen,’ she said.
‘Good idea.’ He took a breath. ‘I’ll go and make us coffee.’
‘I’ll keep going with the paperwork,’ she said.
Putting distance between them would definitely help, he thought, and left the room before he said something foolish. Or before he did something reckless like hauling her back into his arms and kissing her until they were both senseless.
Mariana closed her eyes when Angelo had left the room. How could she have been so stupid?
Eric’s voice echoed in her head.
Who on earth do you think would be interested in you?
The contempt. The sneer in his voice.
She shook herself. No. She’d moved on. And she would find someone else to share her life with. Just... Maybe not yet.
By the time Angelo came back with coffee, she’d unearthed a couple more important pieces of paper.
‘I’ve found the receipts for the sketches your grandfather bought in Norwich,’ she said.
He read it out loud. ‘“Study of a farmhouse, pencil on paper, signed and inscribed, Domenico Carulli. Nine inches by twelve inches.” Hopefully that’s our farmhouse.’ He blinked. ‘And he paid twenty-five pounds for a sketch, back in 1963? That’s a lot of money.’
‘Your grandfather had a good eye,’ she said.
He looked at the second receipt. ‘“Study of a female, pencil on paper, signed. Twelve inches by nine inches. Domenico Carulli. Inscription on reverse: Alice.” Do you think that was the model’s name?’
‘Possibly. Or he might have written it on the back of the paper for another reason. Given the size, they sound as if they came from a sketchbook,’ she said. ‘If the dealer is still around, we can ask to see the records, or they might be in an archive. We can check where the dealer bought the sketches, and trace them back.’
‘That’s good.’
She noticed that he didn’t meet her gaze and he was gripping his mug of coffee. Was he, too, thinking about that kiss? She was trying really hard to put it out of her head and pretend it hadn’t happened, just as they’d agreed, but she couldn’t help thinking about it. How soft and sweet and promising that kiss had been. How much she wanted to do it again. Angelo Beresford was one of the good guys as well as being the most gorgeous man she’d ever met. And yet there was a reserve in him. She knew he was divorced and he’d sidestepped any attempt to discuss his private life.
This whole thing was so new and so unexpected. She needed time to get used to the idea. To work out if she could trust her judgement this time, or if she was heading for trouble again. So it would be best to keep everything on a strictly work footing for now.
‘Paperwork,’ she said, and carefully set her mug down on the floor. At his raised eyebrow, she explained, ‘Given my habit of knocking things over, this is safest.’
‘I hope you’re not still worrying about that.’
‘No,’ she fibbed.
‘But I get your point. If we spill anything on these papers, it could be disastrous.’ He put his own mug on the floor. ‘Let’s keep going. I assume we’re looking out for those two sketches as well?’
‘And the watercolours, because they might be studies for the painting.’
They kept going.
‘Here we go,’ she said, a while later. ‘A study of a woman, about the right size, and the word “Alice” is written on the back. And he’s signed it.’
‘Is she the girl in the painting?’ he asked.
She went over to one of the files and took out a print of the photograph. ‘What do you think?’
‘I can’t really tell,’ he said. ‘It’s too small.’
‘Let’s look at the photograph on my computer. We can zoom in,’ she said.
They took the sketch up to Angelo’s office and she opened the photograph on her laptop; Angelo stood next to her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. She still couldn’t get that kiss out of her head. What would happen if she looked up at him and tipped her head back, inviting another kiss? Would he kiss her? Or would he back away?
She just about managed to get a grip on her emotions and zoomed in to the model’s face.
‘It’s her,’ they said at the same time.
‘So if this model is Alice...’
‘It still doesn’t prove she lived in the farmhouse,’ she said. ‘My guess is he’d been thinking about the composition for a while and sketched different elements. And I’m really hoping for a date on that farmhouse sketch so we can say it ties in to the painting.’
‘It needs to be 1862 or 1863,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘And we need other evidence to prove that the model’s name was Alice. Have you heard anything back from the local history society?’
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘OK. Let’s keep going.’
They went back to the papers, and found the farmhouse sketch next.
‘There’s a date on the back. 1862,’ Angelo said.
‘So we have more evidence that fits together: the model and the farmhouse, both signed and one dated,’ she said. ‘I need to call Nigel.’
Nigel was delighted by the news. ‘I need to come and see them for myself.’
She put her phone into speaker mode. ‘Angelo, Nigel wants to come and see what we have. It’s your call. Do you want to take the evidence to the studio or for Nigel to come to us?’
‘I’d prefer Nigel to come to us, if that’s OK with him, because I don’t want to stop looking. I want to see if there’s more about Alice in these boxes,’ he said.
‘I’m in meetings for the rest of today. Can I call in tonight on the way home from the studio?’ Nigel asked.
‘Sure,’ Angelo said, and gave him the address. When Mariana ended the call, he looked at her. ‘Isn’t Wednesday the evening you usually spend with your nephew?’
‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘If I stay for the meeting with Nigel, I’ll have to swap nights. I’ll text my sister to let her know I can’t make it.’
‘Family’s important,’ Angelo said.
‘I know.’ Wasn’t that the whole reason he’d asked her to help? Because his grandfather was important to him? ‘But so is this project.’
‘Then we’ll ask Nigel to make it another evening,’ he suggested.
She sighed. ‘There are days when I really wish I could be in two places at once. I’ll text Sophie to see if she can switch her date night to tomorrow, and I’ll promise Olly a new book. We’ve just discovered this series about Roman children who solve mysteries and I loved reading to him.’
‘Sounds good.’
Though was it her imagination or was there a tiny hint of longing and despair in his expression? She blinked, and it was gone. Then again, he’d said his marriage broke up because he didn’t want children, so it must’ve been her imagination.
She texted Sophie, who replied instantly that it was fine. ‘I’m going tomorrow instead,’ she said with a smile. And she almost, almost asked him if he’d like to come with her. But of course he wouldn’t. He had his own work to catch up on. And, although he had a new niece, he barely talked about her. He obviously wasn’t that keen on children.
Although they managed to sort out a lot of the papers, they found nothing else from the period they both really wanted to know about by the time that Nigel arrived.
‘Good to meet you, Mr Beresford,’ Nigel said.
‘Angelo,’ Angelo said, shaking his hand.
Nigel looked at the evidence they’d found. ‘There’s not quite enough, yet,’ he said. ‘Your main painting could be by another artist.’
‘Someone who studied with him,’ Mariana agreed. ‘Except his biographer didn’t turn up any evidence.’
‘Or maybe his biographer didn’t realise it was important,’ Nigel said. ‘If you’re wading through letters and diaries to tell someone’s life, how do you decide what to use and what to leave out?’
‘The letters are in Florence,’ she said. ‘We could check those.’
‘Find the evidence and we’ll get a camera out there,’ Nigel said. ‘I just want one more link in the chain before I give this the go-ahead.’
‘Whether you film it or not,’ Angelo said, ‘we’re doing the research. Is the archive in Florence open on Saturday?’
Mariana checked on her phone. ‘No. Monday to Friday, by appointment.’
‘Save their number. I’ll call them first thing tomorrow and make an appointment,’ Angelo said.