Chapter 25
J.T. was the only man on earth who could talk his seventy-six-year-old estranged aunt into hopping on a plane with him the day they met.
Perhaps Caroline should drop the estranged part. Aunt Clara was on her second gin and tonic, artfully crafted by her butler, Hargreaves, whom she’d insisted on bringing to Dare Valley. Still decked out in his butler’s uniform, he had yet to crack a smile. Caroline had struggled not to laugh at the stares people had given them at the airport. What a picture the four of them must have made.
“Your father isn’t going to like our little reunion,” Clara was telling J.T. as she clinked her ice cubes around in her glass.
“Honestly, I’m not too concerned about it,” J.T. said, touching their glasses together again.
“He didn’t approve of your choice, right?” She patted his hand, her diamond bracelet winking in the sunlight streaming in through the plane’s oval window. “It was the same way with me. I disappointed him, you see. It’s hard to overcome that, but at least you and I understand each other. Let’s have another drink.”
Another? Caroline had stopped at one. After her incident at Hairy’s Bar, she was on a self-imposed one-drink limit.
“You must have Trevor’s gift,” J.T. said as Hargreaves stepped over to the tiny bar area on the plane. “He can drink like a fish too.”
“My dear boy,” she said, “since I’m older, he has my gift.”
“Touché, Aunt,” J.T. said, his lips twitching.
“‘Aunt,’” she drew out. “Now that’s something I never expected to hear again. I’m glad you finally got the balls to come and visit me.”
“Me too, Aunt Clara,” he said, grabbing her hand affectionately. “Well, Caroline, how’s it going over there? Is the authentication report a must-read?”
As the future curator of the museum, she was reviewing the report on the lost Rembrandt.
“It’s thorough,” she said.
“Of course it is!” Clara said. “Do I look dense? I might be old, but I’m not stupid. Good God, do you know how much trouble a person could get into if they told the world they had a lost Rembrandt and it turned out they really didn’t? I might have been egged on the street on my way to Central Park.”
“I would have protected you, madam,” Hargreaves said in his dry British accent.
“Did I mention Hargreaves is my bodyguard too?” she asked.
“I’m proficient in martial arts,” Hargreaves told them.
She found the urge to laugh. Somehow the image of him making a karate chop in his butler’s uniform tickled her. “I can’t fault the people Clara brought in to authenticate the piece. I mean, her lawyers even tracked down the store owner in the remote Dutch town where Joanne Merriam bought it and learned it had been picked up in an estate sale.”
Clara cackled. “Can you imagine? The poor man died without any heirs and didn’t tell anyone about the painting, so it was sold alongside his china and silver. Thank God, we tracked down information in the family journals. I love the bit about how the painting was so scandalous Rembrandt denied he’d painted it.”
“I wonder what possessed him to paint the Mother of God nude,” J.T. said, taking his third gin and tonic from Hargreaves. He shrugged and then lifted his drink. “Whatever the reason, to the Rembrandt. I can’t wait to see it.”
“You want to see it?” Clara asked, clinking her glass with his.
Caroline lowered the report. When J.T. had asked about the collection, Clara had told them most of it was in a secure storage facility. They’d agreed to leave the paintings there for now. It wasn’t like the museum was open for business. Besides, they would need to arrange for packing and shipping and the like. Plus, she’d wanted to read the report…
“What do you mean, ‘see it’?” Caroline asked.
“I brought it with us, of course,” Clara said, taking another healthy swallow of her drink.
J.T. gripped the edge of the small table between them, his knuckles white, and Caroline felt her own hands ball into fists.
“Don’t tease me, Aunt,” J.T. said.
“Boy, I haven’t had this much fun in years. Do you really want to see it?”
“Yes!” they both shouted.
She wiggled in her chair. “Who’s the belle of the ball now? Hargreaves, bring me the painting.”
J.T.’s face went black with shock. “I can’t believe you really brought it.”
“It’s in my carry-on.”
“Your carry-on!” My God, did the woman not know priceless paintings needed to be handled with care?
“Oh, don’t worry, my dear,” she said, chuckling. “It’s well protected.”
“But anyone might have stolen it,” Caroline said.
“Who? It’s not like anyone knew I had it on me. Not even you knew until now.”
Oh, she was having fun with them. At another time, Caroline would have teased back, but her stomach was jumping. This was a lost Rembrandt. This was a miracle. Their miracle.
Hargreaves brought forward a black carry-on and opened it on the adjoining sofa. Sure enough, the painting he drew out was packed to Caroline’s specifications.
“I told you I wasn’t stupid,” Clara said.
Caroline barely heard her. She’d left her seat to get a better view, and it didn’t surprise her one bit when J.T. did the same.
“You know, madam, I’ll just have to re-pack it,” Hargreaves said in a tired voice.
“Oh, what else do you have to do?” Clara said flippantly. “It’s not like it’s a hardship. Come on, man. Open it up.”
“I am, madam,” he said.
The front packaging came off, and the painting was revealed. “Ohhhhh! It’s—”
“Beautiful,” J.T. said, edging closer and putting a hand around her back to draw her nearer. “I know it might be scandalous, but she’s stunning.”
Indeed she was, Caroline thought. Mary was lying on her side on a white mat in front of an open window. Her hand was resting on her rounded belly and—
“Oh my God! I know why he painted her like this. She’s—”
“Pregnant!” J.T. exclaimed.
“Didn’t you know?” Clara said.
J.T. looked over his shoulder at her. “No! I had no idea. The signature is slightly scratched off like I was told.”
“I imagine Rembrandt had enough pride in his work that he couldn’t bring himself to erase his signature completely,” Caroline said. “How horrible that something this beautiful could be considered scandalous.”
Of course, people across the ages had strong opinions about how biblical characters were represented in art. People would still have strong opinions about the piece—that was what made it so priceless.
“She’s happy,” J.T. said, tracing the lines of Mary’s face inches above the actual painting.
“She’s having the Son of God, if you subscribe to The Bible and Christian beliefs,” Clara said. “I’d like to think she’s just happy because she’s having a baby. I always imagined it would be a wondrous thing. Minus the diapers and adolescence.”
“This is going to be huge,” Caroline said, feeling almost in a trance. “We need to—”
“Go out with this fast,” J.T. said. “I can’t be sure when Cynthia or the university will announce her gift for cancer research.”
“Who cares? We need to do this right, J.T. Have a proper unveiling. Invite the right people. Make sure the press is there in force.”
“That stuff can catch up,” J.T. said, finally peeling his eyes away from the painting. “We need to go out with this tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I won’t have everything in place in time. I need to prepare a one-pager for the press on the painting, plus give them a snapshot of the authentication process. Otherwise, this will come off as a stunt.”
He squared his shoulders like he was preparing to argue with her, and she lifted her chin. He was being reckless, and they couldn’t afford any more dust-ups. They couldn’t afford for their find to be treated as a fake.
Glass clinked, and they both looked over to Clara, who was tapping her spoon against her drink. “Sit down. Both of you. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Caroline, finish reading the report. J.T., drink your gin like a good boy.”
His gaze didn’t waver. Neither did hers. When he turned away from her, she knew she’d won this round, but at a steep price. The feeling of joint discovery, of being a team, had faded. She was right, dammit, but that didn’t make her feel any better about the hurt look in his eyes.
Caroline looked back at the Rembrandt. The painter’s use of light to capture the details of the woman’s body was masterful. It had to be revealed to the public and the greater art community with the greatest forethought and preparation. The press would go mad for the one-of-a-kind finding, enough so to wash away the gossip about J.T. Enough so to make her reputation as a curator.
And he wanted to throw all that away with a quick reveal.
Oh, they were so going to have it out.