Chương 7
The countess’s answer took time.
“I want the child who was lost,” she said. “That is not the same as knowing the woman she became. I am trying not to confuse them.”
It was the first thing she had said that Mara fully believed.
The DNA samples were collected three days later at a clinic in Saratoga Springs. Mara chose the laboratory after speaking with an attorney recommended by Jo’s union representative, not by Bellavere. Vivienne provided her sample separately.
The technician swabbed the inside of Mara’s cheek and sealed the tube in front of her.
“That’s it?” Mara asked.
“That’s it.”
She had expected identity to require more pain.
Outside the clinic, reporters waited behind parked cars. Someone had learned the appointment time. Mara pulled her hood over her head, but the pendant chain showed above the zipper.
“Miss Voss, are you claiming to be the Bellavere heir?”
“Did the countess offer you money?”
“Were you aware your father was suspected in the kidnapping?”
That last question stopped her.
Jo gripped her arm. “Keep walking.”
A reporter moved backward in front of them. “Do you believe Emil Voss abducted you from the estate?”
Mara turned.
“He raised me,” she said. “You can call him my father.”
The clip appeared online before she reached the car.
By evening, strangers had divided into camps. Some called her a fraud wearing a stolen necklace. Others treated her as a hidden princess in need of rescue. Amateur detectives posted photographs of Mara beside old images of Lucien and circled similarities in their eyebrows. One woman claimed the shape of Mara’s left ear proved aristocratic ancestry.
Jo read that comment aloud and laughed until Mara threw a dish towel at her.
The laughter helped for thirty seconds.
Then an anonymous account posted Emil’s old accusation notice from 2004.
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN CONNECTION WITH CHILD ABDUCTION, THEFT, AND ARSON.
The photograph showed him at thirty-two, unsmiling and thinner than Mara remembered. The comments changed.
Mara shut off her phone.
The following morning, the motel where she worked part-time removed her from the schedule. The manager apologized and said guests had complained about television vans.
“I haven’t done anything,” Mara said.
“I know.”
“Then let me work.”
“I have two families staying for a hockey tournament. One reporter tried to interview a twelve-year-old in the lobby.”
“That isn’t my fault.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do know.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Give me a week.”
Rent was due in nine days.
Mara drove to Bellavere.
Security guards stopped her at the iron gates until Adrien came down himself. He wore no coat despite the cold.
“You should have called,” he said.
“I need to see the painting.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Now.”
He glanced at the reporters parked across the road. “Get in.”
She followed his car along the curving drive.
Without auction guests, Bellavere felt less like a palace and more like an exhausted institution. Delivery vans stood near the kitchen wing. Groundskeepers collected temporary lighting from the lawn. A woman in office clothes hurried across the courtyard carrying a box of extension cords. The marble façade remained imposing, but one shutter hung slightly crooked above the third floor.
Inside, workers dismantled the auction platform. The gallery smelled of wax, dust, and wilting flowers.
Mara paused where Vivienne had knelt.
A faint scuff marked the marble.
Adrien noticed. “We had the floor checked. She was not injured.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“No. I suppose you weren’t.”
The Painted Lake had been moved to a conservation room on the lower level. Two security officers stood outside. Adrien entered a code, signed a log, and required Mara to leave her bag in a locker.
The painting was larger than she expected, nearly six feet wide. It showed Bellavere before the modern additions, pale stone rising above dark water beneath a low summer sky. Small figures stood on the terrace. A narrow boat crossed the foreground.
“It looks ordinary,” Mara said.
“That is why my family likes it. We have always preferred evidence of ourselves looking peaceful.”
The back was covered by an old protective board fixed with screws and wax seals. A conservator named Helen Park waited beside it wearing nitrile gloves.
“I can inspect the frame and backing,” she said, “but I will not open anything until ownership and legal authorization are documented.”
Adrien frowned. “The foundation owns it.”
“Your suspended auction catalogue says the de Marceau Family Trust owns it.”
“My aunt chairs both.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Mara liked Helen immediately.
Adrien made two calls. The foundation attorney made another. Vivienne arrived twenty minutes later with her ivory gloves tucked into one hand.
“I authorize the examination,” she said.
Helen did not move. “In which capacity?”
Vivienne stared at her.
“As trustee,” Adrien supplied.
“Then I need the trust’s written consent form.”
Vivienne turned to her nephew. “Do we employ her?”
“No.”
“We should.”
It took an hour to produce the correct documentation.
While they waited, Mara studied the painting. One of the tiny terrace figures wore a yellow dress. The boatman had been painted with only three dark strokes. Near the lower corner, almost hidden in reeds, the artist had added a small golden sun.
The same sixteen rays.
Mara leaned closer.
“Family mark?” she asked.
Vivienne nodded. “My husband’s grandmother used it instead of a signature in private works.”
“Lucien knew that?”
“He grew up with it.”
Helen photographed every seal before cutting them. Dust lifted when she removed the protective board.
Behind it lay the original canvas, wooden stretcher bars, several old repair patches, and nothing else.
Adrien released a breath that sounded almost like relief.
Mara read Lucien’s line again on her phone.
The painted lake keeps what the house denied.
“There’s no room for a book,” she said.
May you like
“A catalogue could be thin,” Vivienne replied.
Helen examined the frame with a light. “This outer frame is not original. It was added in the nineteen-eighties.”
