After Innocence (54 page)

A mad discussion ensued. Sofie wanted details, wanted to know how her father had escaped death and how he had eluded capture by the British authorities these past
fifteen years, how long he had been in New York and what his plans were now. She also wanted him to participate in her wedding. Suzanne was speechless, but Victoria, Regina, Rachelle, and Edward immediately voted down that last idea.

“Darling,” Edward said to Sofie, “we cannot risk his being recognized even if close to fifteen years has gone by since he fled the country.”

Sofie held Jake’s hand, squeezed it once, saw that he was in complete agreement with Edward just as she sensed how much he wished he could lead her down the aisle. She nodded slowly, unfortunately just beginning to understand what Jake’s presence really meant—and what it might portend. She turned to Edward, wringing her hands. “After the ceremony—Edward—please. Can we delay our honeymoon for a few days?”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Of course we can.”

Suddenly Sofie’s eyes filled with tears. “This is the greatest gift I could ever be given, Edward. To return my father to me—alive. Thank you.”

Edward took her shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her on the mouth.

A brisk rapping sounded on the door and Slade slipped into the room. “Edward! You’d better get down the aisle, fast, before Reverend Harper comes in here looking for you and sees this little circus and starts asking questions. I’ve held up Ralston the best I can, but he’s getting impatient and he’s going to be heading this way himself in another minute, if I don’t miss my guess!”

The brothers’ gazes held and Edward nodded. “One more minute,” he said. Slade nodded and slipped out of the room. Edward looked at Sofie, smiled briefly, then glanced at Suzanne. “Are you all right?”

Suzanne nodded, but she was shaking.

Sofie realized then that Suzanne was seeing Jake for the very first time too. “Mother,” she whispered. But then she saw the way that Suzanne stared at Jake, and she wondered if it was their first reunion in fifteen years. But it had to be. The idea that Suzanne had known of Jake’s existence
for all these years was just too horrible to contemplate.

And Suzanne met her gaze, but only barely. “I’m fine.” She lifted her chin, refused to look at Jake. Did not say a single word to him. “Perhaps he had better leave.”

Sofie was unmoving, her heart lurching. It occurred to her that many problems lay ahead for her family now, with Jake’s sudden reappearance in their lives, but come what may, his being alive and with them was more important than any dilemma they might have to face. Sofie resolved to stand by both Jake and Suzanne, no matter the differences that might arise between them, no matter what scandal might occur.

Jake hugged Sofie again. “This is the greatest day of my life,” he told her quietly, “not just to be at your wedding, but to have held you in my arms, to have talked to you as a father does to a daughter. I love you, Sofie. You’re the force that’s kept me alive these many years when another man might have given up.”

Sofie embraced him, too. “I love you too, Father. I always have. I’ve missed you terribly. We will speak tomorrow at leisure. I am so excited—thinking of all the time we can spend together now.”

Jake flashed a grin. “After all these years, I can wait a half day for our reunion.” Giving her another kiss, he shook Edward’s hand with real respect. “I owe you thanks, Edward.”

“They’re accepted,” Edward said. Then, softly, “Welcome home, Jake.”

And humor sparked in Jake’s amber eyes. “Welcome to the O’Neil family, Edward,” he said, and then he strode from the room.

“My turn to go, before Harper or your stepfather comes searching for you,” Edward said. Then his eyes lit up with admiration. “God, Sofie, you are beautiful.”

Sofie beamed, her eyes still wet with tears. “I thought you’d never notice.”

Sofie listened to the organs rendering Wagner’s classic and stately bridal march. Benjamin smiled at her, extending his arm. Sofie took it, tears misting her vision.

Benjamin guided her down the lily-strewn, red-carpeted aisle. Sofie smiled through her tears, and Edward turned to face her from where he stood beside the reverend, as resplendent as she’d always imagined him being on this day. Beside him stood his brother and father, and on the other side of the altar stood Suzanne, Rachelle, his mother, and his sister-in-law. Her glance found Jake, sitting halfway down the church, smiling at her. Sofie looked at Edward again, her heart bursting with joy. As she floated towards him in her cloud of white lace and chiffon, their gazes met and held. Unquestionably this was the finest moment of her life. Fate had blessed her with the greatest gift of all—the gift of love.

New York City, 1993

H
er strides were long and brisk as she hurried down Park Avenue, weaving through the throng of noonday pedestrians. She was six feet tall in her two-inch platforms and she wore sleek black leather jeans, a classic white shirt with a black cardigan draped over her shoulders, and a big Donna Karan belt with a triple tier of gold chains. Her hair was thick, black, and cut very short. Everyone she passed, man and woman alike, did a double take, wondering who she was. She was extraordinarily beautiful, and it was said that she took after her grandfather.

Mara Delanza passed under the cream-colored canopy of Delmonico’s and paused to allow the doorman of Christie’s to open the door and stand back as she entered. Her heart was beating from more than the exertion engendered by her rapid walk downtown. By her careful estimation, Lot number 1502 would come up around twelve forty-five. But if the bidding on the prior lots was very swift, it could come up as early as noon. It was eleven forty-five now.

Mara ignored the several discreetly garbed gentlemen who were security guards and hurried into the auctioning room. Most of the seats were taken. Her heart rate accelerated when she realized that
After Innocence
was to come up for auction next.

Mara slid into an aisle seat in the back row, tall enough that she had no trouble seeing the Vlaminck now being auctioned. The bidding was already up to a hundred thousand dollars. Her mouth had become cotton-dry. She opened
her catalog and quickly found the entry for her grandmother’s work—the one she had talked about so much—the one she had regretted ever selling.

Lot if 1502.
After Innocence,
by Sofie O’Neil. 1902-1903, oil on canvas. Provenance—Anonymous. Estimated purchase price. $500,000.

Mara shut her book, wishing her grandparents were still alive. How pleased they would be that
After innocence
was finally reappearing in the public eye after disappearing for ninety-one years. But they had both died in 1972 within six months of each other, welt into their nineties but spry and mentally alert and still enamored of each other. Mara had often heard her grandmother lament the fact that
After Innocence
had been sold immediately after her first exhibition in New York City in 1902. The work had been bought by a Russian aristocrat and had been taken out of the country to hang in seclusion with the rest of his extensive collection in one of his palaces near St. Petersburg. That palace had been destroyed in the First World War, or during the revolutions, and everyone had thought the work to have been destroyed as well.

But it had not been destroyed. Somehow it had traveled from a palace in Russia to Argentina, but no one knew how long the work had been in South America, only that it had come to Christie’s from Buenos Aires. Gossip had been running rampant in the New York art world ever since Christie’s had made its acquisition of the work public. Rumor held that the owner, who insisted upon anonymity, was one of Hitler’s last living Nazis, and that he had fled Germany after the fall of the Third Reich with
Innocence
and several other fabulous works of art that he had also looted. As the work had not been seen since its acquisition by the Russian nobleman in 1902, not even in textbook representations, most of New York’s art world had been to Christie’s all week to view the painting.

Mara had come as well. She had been astounded and overwhelmed by her grandfather’s portrait—and never had she been more proud of her grandmother, for her talent, yes, but even more, for her courage and her love.

And the critics were saying that it was the most important work of her grandmother’s “early period” and one of the most important in her entire career as well, not as much for its beauty and power as for the subject matter. Mara had often wondered about her grandmother’s daring. She had admired her so. How hard it must have been to be a woman artist at the time—and how brave it had been to break taboos long held to by female artists and to risk scandal and censure by portraying a male nude in such an intimate manner.

“Lot number 1502,” the auctioneer boomed as the circular stage turned. The Vlaminck disappeared and
After Innocence
rotated into view. Mara made a small cry, tears filling her eyes, as the auctioneer said, “We have an offer of one hundred thousand dollars. Do I hear two?”

It felt as if her heart had stopped beating. Mara gazed at her grandmother’s portrait of her grandfather as a young man and was overwhelmed yet again. He was so rakish and so handsome, and she felt as if he might walk out of the canvas and into the room at any moment. Tingles swept up and then down her spine. How beautiful it was. How powerful, how strong. And this was how her grandfather had looked at—and felt about—her grandmother once upon a time.

The bidding had become fast and furious. Mara realized that there were three serious bidders, two men and a woman. One of the men was a young Saudi prince renowned ever since he had paid two million for a Monet four years past. The other man was an agent for a very avid and ferocious Japanese collector. Mara wondered who the woman was. She was in her thirties and looked to be wearing a dark Armani pantsuit, a pair of oversize tortoiseshell glasses hardly concealing a lovely and classic face. Dark blond hair was pulled back into an elegant chignon.

The woman raised her hand, five fingers spread.

Mara sat up straighter, shooting the woman a glance, instantly recognizing her determination.

“Five hundred thousand dollars!” the auctioneer cried. “I have five—do I have six?”

The prince raised his hand. The auctioneer rattled, “Six!”

The Japanese agent nodded. The auctioneer cried, “Seven,” and looked at the woman.

She smiled. The auctioneer shouted, “Eight! Do I have nine?”

The prince nodded. The auctioneer looked at the agent. He nodded. The woman raised her finger; her nail was red. The auctioneer was sweating as he turned back to the prince. “I have one million dollars. Do I have one five?”

A sharp nod—but the prince was drawn and tense now, looking worried. The agent had been listening to a cordless phone, undoubtedly receiving his instructions from the Tokyo collector, and his arm shot into the air.

“Two!” the auctioneer cried, turning to the blond woman.

She was cool, unruffled. “Three million dollars,” she said in a precise and silken English accent.

The auctioneer’s face lit up as he turned to the Saudi prince. Mara tore her gaze away from the woman with an effort, and saw the prince shake his head negatively. She looked at the agent of the Tokyo tycoon. He had gone pale beneath his natural coloring and he was speaking frantically now into the wireless receiver. He looked up and nodded.

“Four million dollars!” the auctioneer cried.

“Five,” the woman said.

The agent was on his cordless phone again. The auctioneer stared at him. “Five? I have five!” he cried. The agent was now listening, sweat dripping from his temples. “I have five once, five twice …” His gaze was inquisitive. Mara held her breath. The agent removed the phone from his ear and shook his head. No. The Japanese tycoon would not make another bid.

“Sold!”
the auctioneer boomed.
“After Innocence
is sold for five million dollars!” His gavel banged down hard on the wood podium where he stood.

Mara sank back in her seat, trembling with sheer disbelief. God—
After Innocence
had sold for five million dollars—beyond the gallery’s estimates, beyond anyone’s estimates—in a recession year. Sudden elation—euphoria—rose up in Mara, swelled in her veins. How thrilled Sofie and Edward would be if only they knew! If only they knew!

And then she caught a fluid movement of black wool crepe out of the corner of her eye. Mara swiveled to see the woman leaving the room, her strides long and sure. Mara tapped the man in front of her on the shoulder. She knew him vaguely—he had an elitist gallery uptown on Madison Avenue. “Who bought the Sofie O’Neil?” she cried. “Who was that woman?”

The man turned to face her. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen her before this week—but she was here every day to view the canvas, Mara. Clearly she is an agent.”

Mara was frozen. She had to know who had bought
After Innocence.
She had to know—because the oil could not possibly disappear again after so brief an appearance into the art world. It could not. It must not. It was so unfair.

Mara leapt up and dashed down the aisle and through the two swinging doors of the auditorium. She rushed down the green marble stairs. In the lobby she saw the woman exiting through the front door. Mara cried out. “Wait! Wait!”

The woman looked over her shoulder. Their gazes met. Then the woman lengthened her stride, crossing the sidewalk and stepping out into the street, raising her hand for a cab.

Mara ran across the lobby and through the front door. “Wait … please!”

But it was too late. The woman slid into a yellow cab and the taxi peeled away before Mara could reach the door to bang on it and stop her. She stood on Park Avenue staring after the disappearing taxi, dismayed.

“It doesn’t matter, Mara.”

Mara stiffened at the sound of her grandfather’s voice, knew she was hallucinating at the very least, but turned anyway, almost expecting him to be standing behind her, smiling in his warm, inimitable way. But no one was there except Christie’s doorman, and he raised a brow at her.