Page 181 of The Chase
The elderly monk’s right hand rested on the top of my head and his words flowed, sending peace coursing through me. Time evaporated...
Outside, I blinked against the light of the sun, unsure how long I’d been lost in this meditation.
Soothed by prayer, the truth glared as brightly as this morning light: Tobias used his mastery of technology to right the wrongs of this world. Art and science had a common denominator and it was spirituality.
Icon was fighting back.
33
Madame Rose Récamieremanated the kind of calmness I’d come to appreciate over the last seven days since Tobias Wilder had left my life.
Rose emanated empowerment too. Her Grecian dress not just a fashionable choice of the early 1800s, it also emphasized her self-respect as she reclined on that long sofa, her posture of facing away with her arm relaxed along her body and her hand open revealed she made decisions on her terms.
Perhaps that was why my dad had bought her for me and hung her in my bedroom at such a young age, so I’d wake every day to see this strong woman who embraced her femininity.
Rosewasn’t the only painting to have altered the pathway of my life.
St. Joan’smomentary appearance at Christie’s had sparked controversy for a while. This portrait felt like the tip of the iceberg in an intriguing mystery that was now my life. Perhaps somewhere within those leftover boxes of heirlooms stored in the basement of my dad’s old house were clues.
For now, the storm had settled, and I let out a sigh of gratitude that calm had returned to my life again. It was so easy to become absorbed in a painting and forget the world around me.
After all that had happened I still believedRosewould be safe here.
I wondered how many visitors would ever realize what they were looking at when they viewed her. Perhaps they’d assume she was nothing but a pretty girl in a simple white dress who had been lucky enough to be immortalized on canvas.
If only they knew her like I did.
Rose’s bravery in entertaining free-thinking artists and painters at her private salon apparently caused Napoleon, France’s most famous military and political leader, to banish her from Paris. She’d hosted one too many of his opponents, apparently, and Napoleon had a reputation for exiling those who’d threatened him.
Madame Rose had been no wallflower.
And neither was I.
I’d cracked open a conspiracy within the art world, and I refused to disappear into the fabric of a life that had no meaning. Only when the veil is lifted do we see the world as it really is, a sometimes heartbreaking creation that we can only comprehend through art.
And art was in my blood.
Though it was Tobias Wilder who had found his way into my heart.
I was no longer angry with myself for letting him in. He, like me, had been exposed to the lengths men would go to possess, and centuries had seen too many of them get away with it. Until Wilder had swept in and demanded retribution.
As he’d reassured me,no one gets hurt.He was merely reuniting the paintings with their rightful owners.
Though it was still highly illegal and morally questionable.
I gave a nod of respect to Rose and made my way back to the other end of the gallery. Punching the button to call the lift.
I’d not heard from Tobias since I’d drifted to sleep at his home in Oxford. Afterward, I’d been dropped off at my London home and my adventure had ended abruptly.
Or had it begun?
Stepping into the lift, my thoughts stayed with him.
The moment you see through the veil of truth there is no unseeing it.
I mused it was still interesting how thoughts of Tobias lifted my spirits, his gorgeous smile, the way he laughed at my silly jokes, and how he’d risked so much to hideSt. Joanaway and suppress the evidence of my father’s undiscovered secrets.
My descent took me to the ground level.
