Chapter 2 - The East Wing Is Not a Home
Three months later, Janevra and Elio had perfected the art of being strangers who shared a last name. He lived in the west wing. She lived in the east. They ate separately and appeared together only when business or social obligations demanded it. Their conversations carried the distant courtesy of acquaintances rather than spouses.
The wedding night had been exactly what Elio promised. Duty fulfilled. Nothing more. He had not touched her since. Janevra told herself she preferred it. She built her days around charity work and art collecting and tried to believe those things were enough. They were not. Somewhere during those three months, she had begun noticing him: his rare smiles, the controlled grace of his hands, the occasional vulnerability in his eyes when he believed nobody was watching. Janevra was falling for a man who did not want her.
November brought bitter wind and increasingly frequent visits from Bruno. “Mrs. Vieira, the boss wants to know if you'll attend the charity gala tonight.” “The boss says you're free to redecorate the solarium.” “The boss noticed you walking in the gardens alone. He's assigned additional security.” Always the boss. Never Elio. Never her husband.
That morning, Bruno arrived while Janevra was making an inventory of the estate's paintings. He stopped in the doorway, reluctant to cross the threshold without permission. His nose had been broken at least twice, but he handled the delicate invitation in his hand as if it were a butterfly.
“The Saint Agnes restoration benefit,” he said. “Seven o'clock. Elio hopes you'll attend.”
“Does he hope, or does he require it?”
Bruno shifted his weight. “I think he hopes.”
Janevra took the invitation. She had spent the previous week corresponding with the people repairing Saint Agnes, a neighborhood chapel whose roof had leaked onto a century-old painted altarpiece. The chapel was not wealthy. It served dockworkers, immigrants, and families who had nowhere else to hold a funeral. The gala was supposed to pay for conservation work and a new roof.
“Tell him I'll go,” she said. “And please tell him I'm considering my own application to a conservation program in Florence. It won't be submitted by asking his permission.”
Bruno surprised her with a small, approving nod.
At the benefit that evening, Janevra watched Elio greet the mayor's deputy, two museum trustees, and her father. Victoriao Moretti wore a tuxedo that strained across his stomach and carried himself as if the foundation's work were another asset to acquire. Daario drifted behind him, smiling too broadly at a young curator named Sofia Reyes.
Janevra stopped beside Sofia's display. Three painted wooden panels stood beneath soft lamps. In the center, a woman in a blue mantle held a lantern above a harbor. The work, called Saint Brigid of the Harbor, had once hung over the chapel's entrance. Janevra had studied photographs of it in a university archive long before she married.
“Is this the original?” she asked.
“According to the donors,” Sofia said. “It arrived last night. We're displaying it before treatment begins.”
Janevra leaned toward the label. The colors were strangely bright for a panel that had endured decades of soot and water. More troubling, the tiny painted fish beside the saint's left foot had three scales. In the archive photograph it had four, including a misshapen one shaped like a comma. She knew reproductions could differ, and conservation photographs could mislead, so she asked for a closer image rather than announcing an accusation.
Sofia raised her camera. “You see something?”
“Possibly a later reconstruction. Would you mind documenting the back before anyone touches it?”
Daario appeared with two champagne flutes. “Janevra, you must be bored to death. Come meet the donors.”
“I'm having a conversation.”
“You can have one with me.” He pressed a flute toward her.
She didn't take it. “Sofia, email me that photograph, please.”
Daario's grin narrowed. “My cousin married a woman with more curiosity than sense.”
“And no patience for men who mistake them for the same thing,” Janevra replied.
Across the hall, Elio heard the exchange. He approached, his expression unreadable. “A problem?”
“No,” Janevra said. “I have a question about an artwork.”
Daario laughed. “She thinks she's discovered a conspiracy in a painting.”
Elio didn't laugh. “Then let her ask it.”
For one brief, dangerous second, Janevra felt grateful. She resented the feeling. She shouldn't need her husband's permission to be heard.
Later, while the trustees gave speeches, Sofia took Janevra into the service gallery. There they examined the back of the central panel. A shipping label clung to a fresh plywood support. Sofia photographed it, then noticed the crate stamp: VIEIRA CULTURAL LOGISTICS, SOUTH PIER 6.
“Our transport company,” Janevra said, careful not to jump to conclusions.
“It's not the company that delivered our invoice,” Sofia replied. “I expected a local art carrier.”
The conservator pointed to a thin strip of bare wood near a nail. It looked freshly cut. “I need to compare the original condition report. Something's wrong with the paperwork.”
Janevra returned to the ballroom and found Elio near the open terrace doors. For once he was alone. He watched her approach as though she were a puzzle he'd stopped trying to solve.
“I'll need access to the foundation's shipping records,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because a donated painting may not be the one the chapel sent for treatment.”
“Daario manages cultural shipments.”
“Yes. That's one reason I want independent records.”
He studied her. “You're accusing my cousin?”
“I'm asking for documents. Those are different things.”
Elio looked toward Daario, who was laughing with Victoriao beneath a painting of a merchant ship. “Send Bruno a list of what you need.”
“No. I'll request them directly from the foundation. I don't need an intermediary between my name and my questions.”
His gaze returned to hers. Then he inclined his head. “All right.”
She was halfway back to Sofia when her phone vibrated. The conservator had sent two photographs side by side: the panel displayed tonight and the one photographed before it left Saint Agnes. The fish was different. So was a chipped edge beneath the lantern. The images alone couldn't prove a theft, but they justified an urgent inspection.
May you like
Underneath, Sofia had written: THE CHAPEL'S ORIGINAL CONDITION FILE IS MISSING FROM OUR SHARED DRIVE.
Janevra looked up. Daario was standing beside the service door, watching her phone instead of the stage. For the first time since the wedding, she had found something in the Vieira household she genuinely wanted to fight for. And someone already seemed to want her to stop.
