The Price of Inheritance Read Online Free

day, a sideboard built in Newport by the school of Thomas Howard Jr., went on the auction block and Nicole and I listened as the lower-dollar bids rose past the reserve and then finally neared an end. We always packed the front of an auction with some of the more valuable pieces, then moved to lower-priced objects before the high-dollar pieces. The prices rose and fell like a heart monitor, but you had to warm people up and get them ready to empty their wallets with a little help from the civilized thrill of the chase.
    One more sideboard, an end table, three desks, and two sets of priceless side chairs, which suddenly had prices, were sold. Eight lots down, twenty-one left, but suddenly no one cared about anything except the Super Bowl of American decorative arts, Lot 30.
    The esteemed Olivier Burnell was calling the auction, something he’d been doing for Christie’s for the last twenty-three years. I half listened to him as he finished Lot 29, and then I sucked in my breath and held on to Nicole’s wrist for support as he announced either the apex or downfall of my career, lot number 30.
    â€œLot number thirty is the Nicholas Brown Chippendale. The Mahogany Block-and-Shell Carved Desk-and-Bookcase,” he said calmly, his perfect British accent pronouncing each word as precisely as a translator. “Showing on your far right and as described and illustrated in your catalogues. Lot thirty,” he repeated. Without pausing for breath, he started the bidding.
    â€œNow five million dollars to start. Five million. Five million dollars.” I crossed my legs so tight that my right ankle started to seize and I accidentally kicked a bald man in front of me so hard that he jumped up like he’d been launched out of a cannon. Olivier almost mistook him for a bidder. “So sorry,” I muttered quietly just as the auctioneer’s voice rose and sped up like a posh version of a man selling a pig at a county fair.
    â€œFive million five hundred thousand . . . six million now. Six million dollars . . . six million five hundred thousand. Against you here at six million five hundred thousand . . . now seven million dollars. In a new place with Michael now.”
    Olivier pointed to one of the Christie’s employees taking phone bids on the far right-hand side of the room.
    â€œThe gentleman in the center. Now on this telephone here. Now in the room, this side,” said Olivier, pointing. “New bidder now in the room at eight million five hundred thousand, against the telephones now, gentleman’s bid here,” he said, moving his eyes expertly across the crowd.
    â€œAgainst you Agnes now,” he said, looking toward the phones at one of our Russian speakers, who was covering her mouth with paper to make her conversation totally anonymous.
    â€œIn the saleroom, and against you here,” said Olivier as Agnes’s bidder kept going against the room. “Now yours here up front at eight million five hundred thousand,” said Olivier as the bids sailed past $9 million.
    Olivier swept his arm across the space where two different men in the center left of the room were bidding. Another phone bidder went up with a colleague who spoke Mandarin, and then the bids moved quickly back to the crowd. While some governments had strict laws about keeping their country’s heirlooms at home, the United States didn’t care. If you had money, you could buy our stuff and take it out of the country, even if you lived in Sichuan Province.
    â€œIn the room now at nine million five hundred thousand dollars,” Olivier declared quickly, scanning for new hands. I needed just three million more. A tiny, paltry little three million. I closed my eyes, praying that when I opened them a passionate billionaire with five black AmEx cards and tears of joy in his eyes would appear and announce his love for eighteenth-century American furniture. Instead, I opened my eyes