by Nora Roberts
It was a matter of math now. Though the accuracy of the method was hardly foolproof, it was one more weight to add to the whole.
Late fifteenth century. She had no doubt of it.
Savonarola had been preaching against luxury and pagan art during that period, Miranda mused. The piece was a glorious kick in the ass to that narrow-minded view. The Medicis were in control of Florence, with the incompetent Piero the Unfortunate taking the helm for a short period before he was expelled from the city by King Charles VIII of France.
The Renaissance was moving from its early glory, when the architect Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello, and the painter Masaccio revolutionized the conception, and the functions, of art.
Coming from that, the next generation and the dawn of the sixteenth century—Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, nonconformists searching for pure originality.
She knew the artist. Knew in her heart, her gut. There was nothing he had created that she hadn’t studied as intensely and completely as a woman studies the face of her lover.
But the lab wasn’t the place for heart, she reminded herself, or gut instinct. She would run all the tests again. And a third time. She would compare the known formula for bronzes of that era and check and recheck every ingredient and alloy in the statue. She would dog Richard Hawthorne for documentation.
And she’d find the answers.
three
S unrise over the rooftops and domes of Florence was a magnificent moment. It was art and glory. The same delicate light had shimmered over the city when men had conceived and constructed the grand domes and great towers, had faced them with marble mined from the hills and decorated them with the images of saints and gods.
The stars winked out as the sky turned from black velvet to pearl gray. The silhouettes of the long, slender pines that dotted the Tuscan hillsides blurred as the light shifted, wavered, then bloomed.
The city was quiet, as it was so rarely, while the sun inched upward, misting the air with hints of gold. The iron gates over the storefront newsstand rattled and clanged while the proprietor yawned and prepared for the day’s business. Only a few lights shone in the many windows of the city. One of them was Miranda’s.
She dressed quickly, facing away from the stunning canvas that was quietly painting itself outside her hotel room. Her mind was on work.
How much progress would she make that day? How much closer would she come to the answers? She dealt in facts, and would stick with facts, no matter how tempting it was to leap to the next level. Instincts couldn’t always be trusted. Science could.
She bundled her hair back in a clip, then slipped on low-heeled pumps to go with her simple navy suit.
Her early arrival would guarantee her a couple of hours of working in solitude. Though she appreciated having experts at her disposal, The Dark Lady had already become hers. She intended for every step of the project to bear her stamp.
She held her ID up to the glass door for the heavy-eyed guard. He left his coffee and breakfast cakes reluctantly, and shuffled over to frown at the card, at her face, then back at the card. He seemed to sigh as he unlocked the door.
“You’re very early, Dottoressa Jones.”
“I have work.”
Americans, as far as the guard was concerned, thought of little else. “You must sign the logbook.”
“Of course.” As she approached the counter, the scent of his coffee reached out and grabbed her by the throat. She did her best not to drool as she scrawled her name and noted the time of arrival in the log.
“Grazie.”
“Prego,” she murmured, then started toward the elevator. So she’d make coffee first, she told herself. She could hardly expect to be sharp before she’d had at least one jolt of caffeine.
She used her key card to access the correct floor, then entered her code once she was at the security post outside the lab. When she hit the switches, banks of fluorescent lights blinked on. A quick glance told her everything was in place, that work in progress had been tidily stored at the end of the workday.
Her mother would expect that, she thought. She would tolerate nothing less than neat efficiency in her employees. And in her children. Miranda shrugged as if to shift the resentment off her shoulders.
Within moments she had coffee brewing, her computer booted, and was transcribing her notes from the evening before onto the hard drive.
If she moaned at the first taste of hot, rich coffee, there was no one to hear. If she leaned back in her chair, eyes closed, smile dreamy, there was no one to see. For five minutes she allowed herself to indulge, to be a woman lost in one of life’s small pleasures. Her feet slipped out of her practical pumps, her sharp-boned face softened. She all but purred.
If the guard had seen her now, he would have approved completely.
Then she rose, poured a second cup, donned her lab coat, and got to work.
She retested the dirt from the site first, measuring the radiation, running figures. Once again she tested the clay that had been carefully extracted. She put a smear of each on a slide, then made a third with the scrapings of bronze and patina, and studied each under the microscope.
She was studying her computer screen when the first of the staff began to trickle in. It was there Giovanni hunted her down with a fresh cup of coffee and a delicately sugared roll.
“Tell me what you see,” she demanded, and continued to study the colors and shapes on the screen.
“I see a woman who doesn’t know how to relax.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed gently. “Miranda, you’ve been here a week now, and haven’t taken an hour to yourself.”
“The imaging, Giovanni.”
“Ah.” Still massaging, he shifted so that their heads were close. “The primary decay process, corrosion. The white line there indicates the original surface of the bronze, no?”
“Yes.”
“The corrosion is thick on the surface, and it grows downward, deep into the metal, which would be typical of a bronze of four hundred years.”
“We need to pinpoint the rate of growth.”
“Never easy,” he said. “And she was in a damp basement. The corrosion would have grown quickly there.”
“I’m taking that into account.” She removed her glasses to pinch out the pressure in the bridge of her nose. “The temperature and the humidity. We can calculate an average there. I’ve never heard of corrosion levels like this being faked. They’re there, Giovanni, inside her.”
“The cloth is no more than a hundred years old. Less, I think by a decade or two.”
“A hundred?” Irritated, Miranda turned to face him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. You’ll run tests of your own, but you’ll find I’m right. Eighty to a hundred years. No more.”
She turned back to the computer. Her eyes saw what they saw, her brain knew what it knew. “All right. Then we’re to believe that the bronze was wrapped in that cloth and in that cellar for eighty to a hundred years. But all tests indicate the bronze itself is a great deal older.”
“Perhaps. Here, eat your breakfast.”
“Um.” She took the roll absently and bit in. “Eighty years ago—the early part of the century. World War One. Valuables are often hidden during wartime.”
“True enough.”
“But where was she before that? Why have we never heard of her? Hidden again,” she murmured. “When Piero Medici was expelled from the city. During the Italian Wars perhaps. Hidden, yes, that could be accepted. But forgotten?” Dissatisfied, she shook her head. “This isn’t the work of an amateur, Giovanni.” She ordered the computer to print out the image. “It’s the work of a master. There has to be some documentation, somewhere. I need to know more about that villa, more about the woman. Who did she leave her possessions to, who lived in the villa immediately after she died? Did she have children?”
“I’m a chemist,” he said with a smile. “Not a historian. For this you want Richard.”
“Is he in y
et?”
“He is ever punctual. Wait.” He laughed a little, taking her arm before she could hurry away. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“Giovanni.” She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze, then drew hers away. “I appreciate the fact that you’re worried about me, but I’m fine. I’m too busy to go out to dinner.”
“You’re working too hard, and not taking care of yourself. I’m your friend, so it’s up to me.”
“I promise, I’ll order an enormous meal from room service while I work at the hotel tonight.”
She touched her lips to his cheek just as the door opened. Elise lifted a brow, mouth tight in disapproval.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. Miranda, the director would like you to come to her office at four-thirty for a discussion of your progress.”
“Of course. Elise, do you know if Richard’s free for a moment?”
“We’re all at your disposal.”
“That’s exactly what I was telling her.” Obviously immune to frost, Giovanni grinned, then slipped out of the room.
“Miranda.” After a brief hesitation, Elise stepped farther into the room and shut the door at her back. “I hope you won’t be offended, but I feel I should warn you that Giovanni . . .”
Darkly amused by Elise’s obvious discomfort, Miranda merely smiled blandly. “Giovanni?”
“He’s brilliant at his work, a valuable asset to Standjo. But on a personal level, he’s a womanizer.”
“I wouldn’t say so.” Head angled, Miranda slipped on her glasses, tipping them down to look over the copper tops. “A womanizer uses. Giovanni gives.”
“That may be true, but the fact is he flirts with every female on staff.”
“Including you?”
Elise’s well-arched brows drew together. “On occasion, and I can tolerate that as part of his personality. Still, the lab isn’t the place for flirtations and stolen kisses.”
“God, you sound like my mother.” And nothing could have irritated Miranda more. “But I’ll keep that in mind, Elise, the next time Giovanni and I toy with having wild sex in the chem lab.”
“I have offended you.” Elise sighed, lifted her hands helplessly. “I only wanted to . . . It’s just that he can be so charming. I nearly fell for it myself when I first transferred here. I was feeling so low, and unhappy.”
“Were you?”
The ice in Miranda’s tone had Elise straightening her slim shoulders. “Divorcing your brother didn’t make me jump for joy, Miranda. It was a painful and difficult decision, and I can only hope it was the right one. I loved Drew, but he. . .” Her voice broke, and she shook her head fiercely. “I can only say it wasn’t enough for either of us.”
The gleam of moisture in Elise’s eyes brought Miranda a hard tug of shame. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It happened so quickly. I didn’t think you gave a damn.”
“I did. I still do.” She sighed, then blinked back the threatening tears. “I wish it had been different, but the fact is that it wasn’t, and isn’t different. I have to live my life.”
“Yes, you do.” Miranda shrugged. “Andrew’s been so miserable, and it was easier for me to blame you. I don’t imagine the breakup of a marriage is ever one person’s fault.”
“I don’t think either of us was very good at marriage. It seemed cleaner and even kinder to end it than to go on pretending.”
“Like my parents?”
Elise’s eyes widened. “Oh, Miranda, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right. I agree with you. My parents haven’t lived under the same roof in more than twenty-five years, but neither of them bothers to end it, cleanly or kindly. Andrew may be hurt, but all in all I prefer your way.”
It was, she admitted, the route she would have taken herself—if she’d ever made the mistake of getting married in the first place. Divorce, she decided, was a more humane alternative to the pale illusion of marriage.
“Shall I apologize for all the nasty thoughts I’ve had about you in the last year or so?”
Elise’s lips curved. “Not necessary. I understand your loyalty to Drew. I admire it and always have. I know how close the two of you are.”
“United we stand, divided we rush to therapy.”
“We never really managed to be friends. We were colleagues, then relatives, but never really made it to friends even with all we have in common. Maybe we can’t, but I’d like to think we could at least be friendly.”
“I don’t have many friends.” Too much of an intimacy risk, Miranda thought with a hint of self-disgust. “It would be foolish of me to refuse the offer of one.”
Elise opened the door again. “I don’t have many friends either,” she said quietly. “It’s nice to have you.”
Touched, Miranda stared after her, then gathered her printouts and samples to lock them in the safe.
She snagged Carter briefly, assigning him to check all sources for bronze formulas of the appropriate era—though she’d already done so herself, and would do so again.
She found Richard nearly buried in computer printouts and books. His nose all but scraped along the pages like a bloodhound’s on the scent.
“Find anything I can use?” Miranda asked him.
“Huh?” He blinked at the page, but didn’t look up. “The villa was completed in 1489. Lorenzo de’ Medici commissioned the architect, but the deed was held by Giulietta Buonadoni.”
“She was a powerful woman.” Miranda pulled up a chair, pushing at papers. “It wouldn’t have been usual for a mistress to own such valuable property. She cut quite a deal.”
“Women of great beauty already hold great power,” he muttered. “The clever ones know how to use it. History indicates she was clever.”
Intrigued, Miranda took a photo of the bronze out of her file. “You can see in her face this was a woman who knew her own worth. What else can you tell me about her?”
“Her name comes up from time to time. But there’s not much detail. Her lineage, for instance, is buried in time. I can’t find anything. The first mentions of her I’ve found so far begin in 1487. Indications are she was a member of the Medici household, potentially a young cousin of Clarice Orsini.”
“So, going with that, Lorenzo took his wife’s cousin for his mistress. Keeping it in the family,” she said with a smile. Richard only nodded soberly.
“It would explain how she caught his eye. Though another source indicates she may have been the illegitimate daughter of one of the members of Lorenzo’s Neoplatonic Academy. That would also have put her into his line of sight. However they met, he moved her into the villa in 1489. By all accounts she was as devoted to the arts as he, and used her power and influence to gather the stars of the era under her roof. She died in 1530, during the siege of Florence.”
“Interesting.” Again, she thought, a time when valuables might have been secreted away. Leaning back, she swung her glasses by the earpiece. “So she died before it was certain the Medicis would remain in power.”
“So it appears.”
“Children?”
“I haven’t found anything on children.”
“Give me a few of those books,” she decided. “I’ll help you look.”
Vincente Morelli was the closest thing to an uncle Miranda could claim. He’d known her parents since before she was born and for several years had handled the publicity and promotions and events for the Institute in Maine.
When his first wife had taken ill, he’d brought her home to Florence, and had buried her there twelve years ago. He’d grieved for three years, then to everyone’s surprise, had abruptly married a marginally successful actress. The fact that Gina was two years younger than his eldest daughter had caused some consternation in his family, and some smirking grins among his associates.
Vincente was round as a barrel with a Pavarotti chest and legs like tree stumps, while his wife resembled a young Sophia Loren, lush and lusty and gorgeous. She was rarely seen without several pounds of Italian gold and w
inking gems clasped around her throat and wrist or at her ears.
They were both boisterous, loud, and occasionally crude. Miranda was fond of both of them, but often wondered how such an extroverted couple managed to remain in close association with her mother.
“I’ve sent copies of the reports upstairs,” Miranda told Vincente as he filled her small office with his bulk and personality. “I thought you’d want to see the progress, and that way when the time comes for an announcement to the media, you’ll have been able to extrapolate data for the statement.”
“Yes, yes. The facts are simple enough to write, but tell me what you think, cara. Give me some color.”
“My thoughts are we’ve still got work to do.”
“Miranda.” He said it slowly, with a persuasive smile, as he leaned back in the chair that creaked alarmingly under his weight. “Your beautiful mother has tied my hands until all—what is it?—t’s are crossed. So, when I’m able to take this story to the press, it must have impact and passion and romance.”
“If the bronze proves to be genuine, you’ll have impact.”
“Yes, yes, but more. The lovely and talented daughter of the direttrice comes across the sea. One lady to another. What do you think of her? What do you feel from her?”
Miranda arched a brow and tapped her pencil against the edge of her desk. “I think the Fiesole bronze is ninety point four centimeters in height, twenty-four point sixty-eight kilograms in weight. It’s a bronze nude, female,” she continued, holding back a smile as Vincente rolled his eyes to the ceiling, “crafted in the Renaissance style. Testing so far indicates it was cast in the last decade of the fifteenth century.”
“You are too like your mama.”
“You won’t get anywhere with me with insults,” Miranda warned, and they grinned at each other.
“You make my job difficult, cara.” When the time was right, he thought, he’d take his own angles on the press release.
• • •
Elizabeth scanned the paperwork with sharp eyes. Miranda had been very careful with the facts, with numbers, with formulas, with every step and stage of every test. But it was still possible to see where she was leaning, and where she believed she would end.
