THE EXILED PRINCE SON-IN-LAW STRIKES BACK

Chapter 8: Five Years Old

"Stop the sale."

Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. In the hush of the showroom, it carried to every corner.

The auctioneer froze with his hammer in the air. "Ms. Ashworth?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pell." Victoria walked to the podium and laid her hand gently on his arm. "Please put the hammer down. This painting cannot be sold tonight."

Three hundred people stared at her. A murmur ran through the room, rising fast.

In the front row, Beatrice's face went white. "Victoria," she hissed. "What are you doing?"

Victoria didn't look at her mother. She turned to face the buyers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Ashworth name has stood behind every painting sold in this room for two hundred years. My great-great-grandfather built this house on one promise: that we never sell a lie." She took a deep breath. "Tonight, I have to keep that promise."

She nodded to the technician at the side of the stage. He looked confused, then pressed a button.

The giant screen behind her changed. The snowy city vanished, and a new photograph appeared: the back of the canvas under purple light, glowing a bright, clean blue-white.

"Real canvas from eighty years ago turns brown and dull," Victoria said. "It doesn't glow like this. This is new canvas, made with modern chemicals." Another photo appeared, close up, of the threads at the corner. "The weave is made by a machine that has only existed for about ten years. And here..." A third photo, the pale clean wood under the old-looking tape. "The frame is new wood, stained to look old, and covered with tape that was painted brown."

She turned to the room.

"This painting is not eighty years old. It's five years old, maybe less. Winter Over Kestrograd is a forgery."

For one second, nobody moved.

"How can you be sure?" a gray-haired dealer called out from the second row. "Photographs can be faked too, Ms. Ashworth."

"They can," Victoria said. "Which is why the painting is right here." She lifted her gold magnifying glass from its chain and held it out toward him. "Come and look for yourself, Mr. Holt. You've been buying from this house for thirty years. You know old canvas when you see it."

The old dealer hesitated. Then he climbed the steps to the stage, bent over the back of the frame and looked through her glass for a long time.

When he straightened up, his face was grave. "She's right," he said to the room. "It's new. I'd bet my life on it."

Then the whole room exploded.

Buyers jumped to their feet in shock. Reporters pushed toward the stage, shouting questions. Cameras flashed like lightning. The man in the grey suit in the third row stood up, looked around wildly and began edging toward the exit.

"That's... that's impossible!" Beatrice was on her feet, her gold silk dress shaking. "Victoria, you've made a mistake! Anton, tell her she's made a mistake!"

Anton Rask had not moved from his chair. His big white smile was gone. His face had turned red, then slowly, terribly white, the color of the walls.

"Ms. Ashworth," he said, standing up carefully and straightening his white jacket. His voice was smooth, but it was thin. "I think you're very tired. This painting came from a respected private collection. I have papers..."

"I've seen your papers, Mr. Rask." Victoria lifted a folder from the podium. "The collection on your papers doesn't exist. I called its address yesterday. It's a laundromat." A few people in the crowd laughed in shock. "Whoever sold you this painting, Mr. Rask, sold you a lie. And Ashworth's will not sell it again."

The room went silent. Every head turned from Victoria to Anton.

"You'd sell a fake for ten million dollars," Victoria said quietly, "through my family's auction house, with my name on every page. I won't let that happen."

Anton's jaw tightened. "That's a very serious thing to say in public."

"It is," Victoria agreed. "That's why I'm saying it in public."

Somewhere near the bar, Rupert dropped his champagne glass. It shattered on the marble floor.

I stood by the side door with my back against the wall and my hands behind me, very still, the way I'd learned to stand for three years. Nobody looked at me. Every eye in the room was on my wife, standing alone in the spotlight in her long black dress, with her chin up. Even the waiters had stopped moving.

She had done it herself. Every word, every photo, every call. All I'd done was leave a note.

I'd never been so proud of anyone in my life.

On the other side of the room, I caught Edmund Ashworth watching his granddaughter. His face was calm, almost bored, but his fingers moved slowly on the silver head of his cane, round and round, the way a man taps a table while he does sums in his head.

But the room wasn't finished.

Beatrice rushed to the edge of the stage, her face twisted. "You stupid girl," she whispered, but the microphone on the podium caught it, and the whole room heard. "Do you know what you've done? Without Anton's money, we have nothing! The debt is due tonight! Tonight! They'll take the auction house, the house, everything!"

The room murmured. Reporters scribbled. Somebody's camera turned toward Beatrice, and she realized too late that everyone had heard her.

"Nothing?" a woman in the third row whispered loudly to her husband. "The Ashworths have nothing?"

"I always heard they were selling their paintings," he whispered back. "Now we know why."

Beatrice's face went from white to red. She sat down hard in her chair and stared straight ahead.

Victoria didn't flinch. But I saw her hand tighten on the edge of the podium until her knuckles went pale.

She knew her mother was right. She had just saved the Ashworth name and destroyed it at the same time. Without the deal, the creditors would come at midnight. The auction house her great-great-grandfather built would belong to strangers by morning.

She had chosen the truth anyway.

Beside the podium, Mr. Pell, the auctioneer, cleared his throat. "Ms. Ashworth... the creditors' lawyers are in the building. They're expecting payment at midnight. Shall I tell them..."

"Tell them the truth," Victoria said, without looking away from the crowd. "Tell them the Ashworths don't have it."

Anton saw it too. Slowly, his smile came back, smaller and colder than before.

"Victoria," he said, almost gently, "it isn't too late. Tell these people you made a mistake. Sell the painting. Sign the papers backstage. I'll pay your family's debt tonight, and we'll forget this ever happened."

The whole room waited.

Victoria looked at him for a long moment.

"No," she said simply.

"Well," he said to the room, buttoning his jacket. "It seems the Ashworth family has made its choice." He looked at Victoria. "I hope your honesty keeps you warm when you're living on the street, Ms. Ashworth."

He turned toward the aisle and began to walk.

I took my phone out of my pocket, held it behind my back and typed a single word without looking at the screen.

Now.

Three seconds later, the giant screen behind Victoria flickered. The photograph of the glowing canvas disappeared.

In its place, in plain white letters on a black background, a message began to appear, one line at a time, in front of three hundred people.