Chapter Thirty-Two
It didn’t take long before Jack reached open countryside on his drive to North Carolina. He rolled the windows down to smell the autumn scents of freshly mowed hay from the final cutting of the season. The radio played Garth Brooks, the wind rustled his hair, and the autumn day was perfect.
Too perfect, maybe. It felt like a betrayal of Alice and the summer they’d carved out of borrowed time. Moving forward to his next project didn’t feel like liberation; it felt hollow. Every mile he put between himself and Alice pressed against his chest like a slow, steady weight.
The ache would pass. It always did. He’d left plenty of places before, but Alice and Williamsburg weren’t just another dot on the map.
For a while it felt like home, and she felt like a partner.
She’d gotten under his skin in a way he hadn’t anticipated, even though he wasn’t made for gardens and porches and sleepy weekend mornings.
He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, wondering how long this ache of regret was going to last. He’d just crossed the North Carolina border when his cell phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen.
Sophie.
His heart squeezed and he stared straight ahead, nothing but farmland on either side of him, the yellowing leaves of a late soybean crop looking withered and tired.
He didn’t want to take this call, but a glance in the rearview mirror showed nobody behind him. He slowed the truck and pulled to the side of the road, then parked. He took a sobering breath before answering.
“Yeah, Sophie?” His voice was sad, gentle. So was hers.
“Jack, your dad passed away this morning.”
The prickle of tears shouldn’t have happened, but they did. He turned to gaze out over the shriveled crops, strangely beautiful beneath the vast autumn sky. Sophie continued talking. “It was very peaceful. The whole family was here, and he died in his own bed. It was what he wanted.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said, his gaze scanning the expanse of sky above. A few wispy clouds feathered across the blue horizon, a vast and boundless canvas that seemed to go on forever.
Oh, Dad. The pain in his chest widened and expanded. Frank Latimer hadn’t been the best father, but Jack hadn’t been the best son either. They both should have been better.
At least they made up at the very end.
“The funeral will be on Wednesday, here in Baltimore,” Sophie said. “It’s going to be a celebration of Frank’s life rather than something somber and serious. He wanted to make sure you were invited. He wanted you to meet your sisters. I’d like that too.”
Sophie’s voice choked off, and regrets crashed down on him. If he had answered Sophie’s calls a year ago, he would have had more time. He could have taken Frank to one of his golf courses. Maybe they could have even played a round together.
The funeral was scheduled right in the middle of his meetings with the Camp Lejeune folks. If he didn’t win this contract, he would be staring at six months with no work, no income.
It didn’t matter. If it was what his dad wanted, then Jack did too.
“Thanks, Sophie. I’ll be there.”
Jack’s departure for North Carolina left Alice feeling alone and adrift, but nothing soothed a broken heart better than throwing herself into a thorny research challenge.
The inventory of Reid’s Roost when it was auctioned in 1705 mentioned a portrait, and the odds were good that it was a painting of either Helga or William Reid Denby.
Maybe even both of them. Alice turned to Arlo Whitworth from the Colonial Art Museum for help locating it.
Arlo’s office was nestled beneath the slanted ceiling of the history museum, and she gave him a wide smile in greeting. Something about a man wearing a polka-dotted bow tie made it impossible not to smile.
“I’ll get you a cup of tea,” Arlo said as he turned a chair out for her to sit. The long, narrow office was crowded with his desk and a massive work table. The sloping roof made it feel even more congested, but she’d always liked the cozy feel of the place.
Soon Arlo brought her a cup of Earl Grey tea in a Wedgwood teacup. The citrusy aroma immediately soothed her as she settled in on the opposite side of his desk.
“I’ve got a thorny research question for you,” she began.
He lifted his teacup in a silent salute. “My favorite kind.” Which made her smile all over again.
She showed him the copy from the courthouse records indicating that Samuel Dunstable bought the contents of the Roost, including a portrait, back in 1705.
“What are my odds of being able to find that portrait?”
“You came to the right place,” Arlo said.
“The last Dunstable married into the Hewitt family sometime in the early twentieth century. The decorative art wing of the museum is named after the Hewitts. They donated an art collection worth millions in the 1970s when taxes were high and the law granted huge write-offs to encourage philanthropic donations. All that fancy silver and porcelain in the Hewitt wing came from that collection. They gave us a complete collection of Sevres serving dishes that once belonged to Marie Antionette.”
“Were there any portraits in the collection?”
“There were plenty of oil paintings, but we sold some and put the rest in storage. One of our interns keyed the inventory into an online database a few years ago.” He flashed a toothy smile and wiggled his mouse to wake up his computer. “Let’s have a look.”
Arlo’s fingers flew across the keyboard, the rattling sound tapering off as he scanned some pages.
Then tapped another key. Then another. All she could see was the glow from his monitor reflected in his round spectacles.
If she struck out here, there was almost no chance anyone else would have records of the Dunstable art.
“I’m glad the intern added a searchable field for date,” Arlo said. He turned the monitor so she could see the archive record filled in. “The items purchased at the 1705 estate sale from the Widow Santos are right here. There’s your portrait,” he said. “It’s in our remote storage building.”
A rush of excitement was hard to quell. The portrait might not be of Helga or Reid, but maybe it was! She and her husband came from wealthy families, certainly affluent enough to commission portraits.
It was hard not to get her hopes up as Arlo led her out of the museum, down the oyster-shell path, and toward the climate-controlled warehouse. Keys rattled as he opened a series of locks, then turned on the lights.
“This way,” he said as they walked down aisles of metal shelving and cabinets.
Her heart began to sink as they approached the unappealing leftover paintings of little value.
Her jaw dropped in disillusionment as Arlo brought her to the gaudy marital portrait propped on the back wall.
It was the one she’d seen the last time she was here.
The man wore a peach satin coat and the woman was swathed in pearls and gemstones.
“This is it,” Arlo said. “We tried to sell it a while back, but there were no takers. It’s simply not very appealing.”
She studied the faces. The man’s face was strong, his brows inky black slashes above piercing dark eyes.
The woman stared straight out of the portrait, her flaxen hair parted in the middle and gathered smoothly at the nape of her neck.
There was a quiet loveliness about her, but her hairstyle seemed so plain for her lavish wedding gown.
“I don’t think this is them,” she said. “They were Puritans. I can’t imagine any Puritan man would be caught dead wearing a peach satin coat with gold ribbons on the sleeves.”
“Remember, this may have been the work of a traveling portrait painter,” Arlo said. “The clothing and background would have been stock paintings, and only the head and faces would reflect the sitter.”
Alice crossed her arms as she scrutinized the portrait.
It was still hard to believe a devout Puritan would consent to having his image attached to such an outlandish costume.
The style was in keeping with the opulent court of the Royalists, the sort of people William Reid Denby risked his life to challenge.
“Frankly, it’s badly done,” Arlo said. “The best part of the portrait is their faces. The artistry is masterful, portraying character and pride. The countryside behind them is well done, too. Those clothes aren’t in keeping with the rest of the painting.
They are a mismatch, almost certainly done by a different artist.”
She’d seen enough portraits of Puritans to know how they dressed. Their clothes were well-made, but austere. They favored black, indigo, and other dark colors, a deliberate rejection of the splashy extravagance found among the Royalists.
Maybe she was letting her imagination run away, but if a man was on the run, desperate to hide his identity, carrying a portrait of himself dressed like a Puritan could be a deadly mistake. And yet . . . he wanted to take a portrait of his wife into exile.
“I think the gaudy clothes were painted on later,” she said, meeting the enigmatic gaze of the man in the portrait. It felt like he was staring out at her, reaching forward from three and a half centuries ago and urging her to find the truth.
Arlo whipped out a magnifying glass and leaned in to scrutinize the beribboned satin coat.
“The brushstrokes are different,” he said.
“It appears to have been painted by a different artist, perhaps overlaying an earlier image. The only way we’ll be able to tell if there’s something else underneath these clothes is to use imaging spectroscopy. ”
“Do you know someone who could do that?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“It won’t come cheap, but I know a fellow in Richmond who could do it for you.”
Alice cupped her face in her hands, staring at the somber couple before her, almost certain she was looking at William Reid Denby and his wife, Helga.
Three hundred and sixty years ago he escaped from England, changed his name to Reid Santos, and carved out a home in the dangerous new land. Once it was safe, his wife joined him.
Now all Alice had to do was prove it.