‘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.’