House of Dreams (31 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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A car door slammed.
Cass imagined the murderer, approaching her, stalking her.
“Cassandra!”
Suddenly Cass was on her feet. “Antonio!” she screamed. His tall form was the happiest apparition she had ever seen.
“Cassandra! Thank God!” He ran toward her.
She flew into his arms. He held her, hard.
“Where have you been? Damn it, you were supposed to be back at the house at eight-thirty!” he cried.
She gripped his shirt. “He's dead! Oh, God, he's dead. Antonio, he's been stabbed to death!”
“What? Who's dead?” Antonio held her still.
“The electrician,” she cried.
His eyes widened. A moment later she was beside him in the Jeep and they were flying down the road to the ruins. He braked next to the truck, grabbed his flashlight, and leapt out. Cass followed him reluctantly to the corpse.
The radio continued to play.
Antonio cried out.
“What?” Cass whispered, glancing from his shocked expression to the shadows surrounding them.
“That knife came from the house,” Antonio said grimly.
 
 
Cass paused on the threshold of her room, uneasy because she was the only one upstairs. Everyone else had gathered in the library for a stiff drink before Antonio drove into Pedraza to alert the police about the murder.
The house was cast in absolute darkness; Cass held a candle. She was trying desperately not to think about the dead electrician. At least the house was firmly locked up for the night.
She entered her room, placing the candle on a table. She was aware of a terrible sense of urgency now.
Cass bent and hefted her aunt's duffel bag, about to go through it when the unmistakable scent of violets began to pervade the room. She froze.
It became stronger.
Cass was paralyzed.
I am imagining this,
she tried hopelessly to tell herself. She was not detecting Isabel's perfume. Ghosts, spirits, entities, whatever you wanted to call them, did not exist. Catherine had had a seizure—surely the autopsy on Monday would show that. The electrician had been the victim of some coincidental crime.
She refused to think about the fact that Antonio's grandfather had also been stabbed to death. She refused to wonder if he had died there at the house. She dumped the duffel upside down, pulling out her aunt's things.
Suddenly Cass slowed and stopped. She was unprepared for the monumental and piercing grief, the absolute anguish, that suddenly overwhelmed her, making her feel dizzy and faint. Cass had to sit down on the bed beside her aunt's things.
How could Catherine be gone? If only this were a terrible dream, if
only she would wake up, home at Belford House, with everything the way it had been before the viewing of the necklace.
Cass closed her eyes, suddenly nauseous. And what about Tracey, who had disappeared—just like Margarita?
And there in her mind she could see Isabel, so damn clearly. And she was smiling. With hatred, with malevolence.
Cass hated her own imagination.
The electrician's dead, astonished gaze filled her mind.
“Damn you, Cass,” she told herself aloud, “cut it out!” No one, she decided, could be better at scaring her than she herself.
The journal was there, amongst her things. Cass stared at the faded notebook bound in tired blue leather.
She picked it up.
Antonio did not know the truth about his father. Was the truth here, in these pages? Should she come clean?
Cass trembled. If there was any chance at all of some kind of friendship or an even deeper relationship developing between them, surely the knowledge that Catherine had lured his father to his death would destroy it. Antonio would never want anything to do with her or anyone in her family if that was the case.
And shouldn't she feel the same way, given all that had happened?
And then, slowly, she looked up.
The lid on her laptop was closed. But the green light blinking on one of the indicators signified that the machine was on.
Cass's heart skipped violently, sickeningly.
She dropped the journal.
She realized that the cloying scent of violets had increased.
Cass could not move. She could not breathe. The scent surrounded her, making it difficult to breathe. She thought she might begin to choke—just the way her aunt had.
Cass finally looked around the room. It was filled with shifting shadows—and it was no longer a place she wanted to be. Then she looked at her laptop, and she looked at the glowing green light. A small voice inside herself told her that she was going to have to get up and open the machine.
She dreaded doing so.
Then she looked cautiously at the door. Had she just heard someone pausing there?
Her heart was pounding with erratic force. “Antonio?” Her voice came out as an unintelligible croak. “Antonio?” she tried again.
There was no answer.
Cass gripped the bed. Someone was out there, she was certain of it—she knew it with all of her being, all of her heart.
The murderer?
Stop it! Cass shouted silently to herself. Abruptly she got up and ran to the laptop, opening it. She cried out.
The DOS prompt was flashing—pointing at three words.
THEY BETRAYED ME.
Cass inhaled, seized with convulsive tremors, stepping back, away.
THEY BETRAYED ME.
No. It was impossible. This was a joke, a terrible joke, and when Cass found out who was the prankster, she would commit murder herself.
Murder. It suddenly flashed through her mind that Tracey might be dead.
“No,” she whispered, backing away from the laptop with its unmistakable yet impossible message, slowly turning around in a 360-degree circle. Shadows seemed to dance all around her, leering. But she was alone.
Cass's gaze swung wildly to the door.
The door.
She had to open it.
Cass closed her eyes for an instant, inhaling hard. Of course she had to open it. Because she had to get the hell out of this room. But what if she was right? What if someone was standing there on the other side of the door?
The murderer could be there.
Was it Gregory?
Cass strained to hear as sweat trickled into her eyes. But all she could hear was her own labored breathing, her own deafening heartbeat.
Damn, damn, damn!
Go to the door.
The words popped vividly, powerfully, into her mind. Cass hesitated. Because she knew that something terrible would happen if she opened that door.
And then she heard it, and there was no mistaking the sound—nails scratching the outside of her door.
It was an invitation and she knew it.
Cass shook.
Go to the door,
she told herself silently. And a voice echoed inside her head. It was not her own.
Go to the door.
Suddenly Cass moved, refusing to think about the consequences, her brain too paralyzed with fear to do so. And she swung the door open.
Isabel stood there, staring at her, unsmiling, and this time, this time she did not disappear.
The summons had come a sennight ago, and it had been so urgent that there had been hardly any time to prepare. Isabel had thought that Sussex would never bring her to court, where he was a member of Queen Mary's council. But she had been wrong.
Surely she would soon see Rob.
His letters had ceased well over a year ago.
“London Bridge, my ladies.” One of Sussex's soldiers rode his mount up to the litter that carried Isabel and Helen, interrupting her thoughts.
Isabel clutched her small black and white spaniel, Zeus, who kept licking her hands. They were actually there, with London just across the bridge. She inhaled. There had been no explanation for her uncle's summons, but she could imagine why he had finally issued it. Somehow he had recalled her very existence, and he must intend to arrange a marriage for her. Isabel dreaded the prospect.
She did not, could not, understand why Rob had ceased writing to her. In the beginning, when they had first been refused by Sussex, Rob's letters had been both frequent and long, filled with the narrative of his adventures in Scotland, France, and Flanders. His letters had made her smile, laugh, and finally cry, especially the one in which he had shared the good tidings of his appointment by Dudley himself to serve the lord chancellor. Of course, with King Edward's death and then Jane Grey's fall, Dudley had been tried for treason and beheaded; now Queen Mary was on the throne. Her uncle had joined the popular uprising in her support at Framlingham last July, just days before her
coronation, as had many other noblemen. Isabel reasoned that if her uncle now served the queen, Rob did, too.
Isabel was trembling, for the excitement of seeing both London and Rob, finally, again, was so overwhelming she could scarcely breathe. “How far are we from Westminster, Sir Thomas?”
“A good hour, my lady, but do not fret. Our journey is all but concluded, and with nary an inconvenience, I might add.” He smiled through his beard at her.
“And I shall happily inform my uncle of that fact,” Isabel said, her mind racing ahead. She could see the Tower of London across the Thames, to her right, as well as the Tower Bridge. Barges and galleys and small dories filled the river. She was wide-eyed. There was no question, Isabel thought, that she was a country mouse. London with its crowded, narrow streets, filled with horsemen, carters, drays, and other litters, with gentlemen and their servants, with noblewomen, churchmen, yeomen from the outskirts of town, apprentices, beggars, and vagabonds, was the most exciting spectacle she had ever seen. Never mind the stench—she had to keep her pomander near her nose—and never mind the roar of wheels, the clatter of hooves, the shouts and cries of beggars and brigands.
Isabel loved London. It had been love at first sight. She never wanted to go home.
Ahead of her, two gentlemen were engaged in an ungentlemanly fight of fisticuffs. The soldiers at the head of her column swore and shouted angrily at the riders, carts, and pedestrians in their way, clearing a path for her, sometimes with the points of their swords.
“'Tis the Tower, Helen, look,” Isabel said, reaching for Helen's hand. Zeus began thumping his tail. His bug eyes were dark and bright.
“I had not thought to see this sight again,” Helen said with a slight smile, following Isabel's gaze.
Isabel knew well enough the role of the Tower in government, and she shuddered and looked away. “And that must be Saint Paul's,” she cried, pointing to her left. The cathedral's spires were glorious, majestic, the grandest sight Isabel had ever beheld. Her heart was flipping over mightily. Would she be allowed to remain in town for some time? Oh, but she would beg her uncle on bent knee to stay in London, never mind that summer would soon approach. Isabel had heard that all the nobles and gentry left London in the summer, but Isabel knew she would wish to remain.
And this summer the queen was to marry Philip, the emperor's son
and heir. Isabel trembled at the thought—how she would love to attend the wedding!
Rob's handsome image came to mind again, and Isabel's heart lurched. She had rehearsed what she would say to him this entire journey. But surely, once they were face-to-face, there would be no need for any rehearsed speech. Surely, once they met again, all would be well, as before. Isabel hugged her year-old dog, nuzzling her cheek to his long fur.
“Indeed, that is Saint Paul's, and the Tower is to our right.” Sir Thomas was smiling at her. “Would you care to go past the Tower, my lady, for a closer look?”
Isabel stared at him. She might be a country mouse, but she was no fool. The Tower was where the country's most powerful political prisoners were interned. More often than not, those imprisoned there ended up without their heads. “Who is in the Tower now?” she breathed, almost afraid to know.
“Sir Thomas Wyatt was executed last week, as you might have heard, but the old bishop of Worcester remains within, John Hooper,” Sir Thomas told her.
Wyatt had led a vast rebellion against the queen, going so far as to enter London with his forces. Of course, in the end he had been defeated and seized. Isabel was filled with tension. “A bishop in the Tower? And what are his crimes, Sir Thomas?” She thought the name sounded vaguely familiar but could not place it.
“Heresy, of course. He refuses to give up his evil and corrupt doctrines and confess himself a faithful son of the pope.”
“I see,” Isabel said slowly. Her mind spun. She was aware that her queen was a devout Catholic, and she was certainly aware that many of the villagers near Stonehill, and even some of her own household, now attended mass. She herself had never thought twice about continuing to worship in the manner in which she had been raised. She was surprised when Helen reached for and took her hand, squeezing it in warning.
Things were not the same in London, Isabel realized then.
“God bless Queen Mary,” Helen spoke up firmly. “For saving this country and all the good people in it from such grievous heresy as we have been forced to endure.” She nodded emphatically.
Isabel blinked at her companion, who was a devout Calvinist.
“Amen,” Sir Thomas said. “Let us make a small detour. Although they cut Wyatt down from Tower Hill to distribute his corpse among
the rebels as a warning, enough sinners swing from the top of the hill, and 'tis quite a sight, I assure you.”
“They do not remove the corpses?” Isabel asked, shocked.
“'Tis a lesson for all about the evils of heresy, my lady. A warning not to stray from God's true path.”
“Sir Thomas, there is no need to go past the hill,” Isabel said, managing a smile. “I am overwhelmed as it is with all that I see as we speak.”
“Very well.” He bowed from the saddle. “Then on to Westminster, my lady.”
Isabel couldn't help thinking about Rob and she bit her lip. “Thank you, Sir Thomas,” she said.
 
 
Sir Thomas and two of his men led them through the throngs of courtiers in one antechamber after another. Sussex was in conference and could not attend them; they would be escorted to Isabel's room. Isabel was dazed. She had never seen so many noblemen and so many noblewomen in one place, at one time. She could hardly absorb the sight of Westminster itself, with its towering stone walls and high-domed ceilings, with its numerous rooms and stained-glass windows, much less the sight of so much velvet, lace, and satin finery. Jewels flashed everywhere. Isabel glimpsed rings and chains and pendants, rubies and emeralds and sapphires, ruffles and bows and embroidery, and fur. Rabbit, squirrel, fox, mink, and sable lined cloaks and coats. Her head felt like it was spinning. The air was overly warm, too stuffy, and body odor filled each room. As her bewildered gaze went from bejeweled throats to moving mouths, from exaggerated codpieces to heaving bosoms, from tapestry to painting to giant columns and pillars, she wondered if she might faint.
She was relieved that she would not meet her uncle directly.
On an upper floor, miles from the crowded halls below, it seemed, a door was thrown open to a small chamber with one window, one four-poster bed, and a small pallet for Helen. There was a fireplace on one wall, but no fire within, and one small writing desk in a corner of the room. There was no other furniture, not even a chair, not even a single rug.
Helen looked around while Zeus, set down by a servant, eagerly began exploring. “We will adjust the furnishings,” she announced. Isabel walked over to the window and smiled. London was sprawled
across the skyline, and directly below, she saw a series of small gardens.
“Thank you, Sir Thomas,” Helen said, closing the door.
Isabel felt like dancing and lifting her skirts; she did just that. Her spaniel came running to her to attack her skipping feet. “Isn't this glorious, Helen?”
Helen did not answer, and Isabel stopped spinning about, realizing that Helen had found a letter on the writing desk.
“'Tis for you, my lady.”
Isabel already recognized her uncle's wax seal on the missive. Her heart sank. Instantly she scooped up her puppy, holding him so tightly that he began to wiggle in protest.
“Why do you tarry?” Helen scolded, removing Zeus from her arms.
Isabel took the missive, and slowly she broke the seal and opened it. She scanned the page, her heart lurching unpleasantly, and finally she carefully refolded it.
“Well? You seem disturbed. What happens?”
Isabel stared. “He has found me a suitor, and I must prepare myself even as we speak in order that I might receive him.”
 
 
Isabel prepared for her guest with desperate care. First she sent Helen on an errand that would take her all day. She then quickly soaked her skirts in urine stolen from several chamber pots in adjoining rooms. She blackened two of her teeth with lead, and bribed another serving maid to bring her egg whites, which she mixed with alum to streak her vivid red-gold hair white. The final touch was to take the pits of cherries, ground up finely, and wash her face with them. The effect was to blotch her unusually clear and porcelain complexion.
Isabel was frantic. Surely this ploy would work. But what if Sussex ever discovered it? The mere notion terrified her.
Her uncle's servant escorted her down to an antechamber at precisely four o'clock. Isabel's stomach was in knots, her temples throbbed, and she remained anxious and afraid. The gentleman gave up any attempt at conversation, instead holding a pomander to his nose. He pushed open the door. “Lord Montgomery, my lady,” he said.
Isabel did not glance within. “Will my uncle be joining us?” she asked.
“The earl intends to speak with you tonight after the evening's entertainment,” the man replied. He bowed and left.
Isabel inhaled, for courage. Then she stepped inside the small but pleasantly appointed chamber.
She already knew that Douglas Montgomery was the second and youngest son of a baron, but as his older brother was sickly, her uncle had informed her that there was little question that he would one day, sooner than later, come into his father's lands and title. He was a widower with two children, she had been told, and he was also a personal friend of her uncle's, which meant that they were allies in this land of ever-changing political winds and alliances.
His back was to Isabel as she entered the chamber, and when he turned, Isabel faltered. She was expecting Montgomery to be older, if not deficient in other physical attributes. But he was tall and broad shouldered and he had hardly reached thirty. His hair was raven black and his eyes blue and piercing. For one instant, as their gazes met, Isabel was stunned by his youth and his appearance.
And in that instant, his eyes widened in shock as he looked at her.
A small voice lanced through her head, and it told her to go upstairs, undo her disguise, and be herself with this man.
Immediately Isabel turned off that terrible, disloyal, and wayward thought, for she would soon be reunited with Rob.
Montgomery had recovered. He strode forward, his face a mask she could not read. He bowed. “Lady de Warenne. Your uncle sings your praises, and I am honored that you receive me.”
Even as she clung to her resolve, Isabel found herself torn, and despising what she was doing. She curtsied in return. “My uncle does overly praise me, I think. Good day, my lord.”
He straightened, as did she, and their eyes met. His eyes were a deeper, darker blue than Rob's. “I trust your journey was a safe one?”
“Yes, it was, many thanks, my lord.” He continued to try to hold her gaze and she continued to try to evade it.
He was now holding his handkerchief somewhat discreetly by his nose. “That is a blessing, then.” His smile was brief.
Isabel had to stare. He would stand there, in spite of her odor, which was, she thought, far worse than her appearance, and make pleasant conversation with her. How could this be? Her heart was sinking rapidly. “Have you been at court very long, my lord?”

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