Doing it missing Battle, as I had for the last two days.
What could I say?
The guy had gotten to me.
Seriously.
I had to admit, I’d looked forward to seeing him at cocktails and eating dinner at his side, and it sucked he wasn’t around.
God help me.
“Are we ready to rumble, babies?” I asked.
None of the felines answered.
Since none of them was lying on me, I rolled out anyway.
But they followed me.
I was in the studio with Snowball and Gingerface.
Yes, I had Prue’s permission to bring them with me. I had to seek it out because they’d taken to following me, which made it nigh on impossible to get out the door with them trying to escape with me.
But since I didn’t know if they were indoor or outdoor, and I didn’t want to introduce the outdoors if they were in, I had to find Prue.
She was in the attic.
I sensed she sensed I needed to work, so she hadn’t pressed my visit to this space.
But once me and the cats got there, I was thrown.
“Holy crap,” I exclaimed.
Her head popped out from behind a massive, broken chandelier deep within the bowels of a huge mess. “Vivi!”
“Hey,” I called, wending my way through bureaus and boxes and armoires and ancient ice skates. “It’s like the room of requirement in here.”
She giggled. “I know. I’m about to ask Scotty and Harry to help me lug some stuff out into the hall so I have more room to move around.” She frowned. “I found more papers for you, but not anything from Harmony.”
“I’ll take all I can get,” I said, gazing at a pair of large, elaborate gilt torchères balanced on top of something covered with a heavy, quilted mover’s blanket. “Jesus, honey, I think these are Chippendale.”
She picked one up and examined it. “You think?”
“Babe, if they are, those alone might be worth a million pounds.”
Her gaze flew to me. “Really?”
“Totally.”
She looked back at the candlestick. “How do we know?”
“Chippendale didn’t put a maker’s mark on his pieces,” I told her. “They have to be authenticated by an expert. Unless you have some documentation somewhere.”
She glanced through the room. “We probably do, it’s just finding it.”
I glanced through the room too, saying, “Prue, I had no idea, but I don’t think this is a project you can handle on your own. You need to call Christie’s, or Sotheby’s, or Criterion and ask them to send someone out here. Though, they’ll be salivating to get this stuff on the auction block, so maybe contact the National Trust or the British Museum or the Victoria and Albert. I mean,”—I did a full circle—“it appears to be at least three centuries worth of a lot of stuff. They needed a bigger boat in Jaws to take on the great white. You’re gonna need a fleet of coast guard to handle this white whale.”
Prue grinned at me.
