DREAM LOVER (16 page)

“
Lei è mancante?
” 

Nic whirled around to find Celia standing in the open doorway.  “Yes, she’s missing.  And you can stop pretending you don’t speak English,” he said irritably.  “Grandfather warned me you’d revert to Italian until you were comfortable around us, but I’m far too worried about Rachel right now to concern myself with making you feel at ease.”

Celia ventured a little further into the room.  “Maybe she got scared… she run off and hide.  I…I help look for her,
si
?”

“She’s not hiding,” he replied firmly.  “If Rachel was scared she would have come straight to me.”

“No scared then.  Your Rachel go to kitchen for food?”

Your Rachel. 
Nic liked that a lot.  “You check the kitchen and the rooms downstairs while I search the rooms up here and the servant’s quarters.”

It took him awhile to get through all the rooms, not just because there were so many of them but because he felt compelled to check the closets in case she’d somehow gotten locked in.  He was just heading up the stairs to the servant’s quarters when Celia caught up with him and confirmed what he already knew; she hadn’t located Rachel either.  It didn’t take them long to figure out she wasn’t in the servant’s quarters, though Nic couldn’t cast aside the feeling she was near.  Was it just his imagination or was that really her soft scent he was breathing in?

“I don’t understand where she could have gone.”

“A walk maybe?” Celia suggested.  “The gardens very beautiful.”

Nic raked his fingers through his hair.  “No.  Her shoes are still in the bedroom.  She has to be here somewhere.  Are you sure you…”

He cut himself off, certain he’d heard a noise coming from the far end of the room.  Celia must have heard it too because she was gazing past him and looked decidedly spooked.  Nic crossed the room and pressed his ear to the door leading up to Rochelle Beaumont’s bedroom.  It was muffled and sounded as if it came from far away, but there was no doubt in his mind that what he was hearing was a woman, a very unhappy woman who was sobbing her heart out.

“Celia…”

“I go get the key,” she said, and was gone before he could ask if she knew the combination to the safe.

Obviously she did, but why hadn’t she divulged that little tidbit earlier, and why hadn’t his grandfather mentioned anything when Nic had called and asked for it?  Celia provided the answer when she returned and produced a skeleton key.  It was a duplicate of the one kept in the safe, she explained to him.  Apparently it had been handed down through the generations along with the task of maintaining Rochelle’s room just as she’d left it.  In some small measure it was her family’s way of atoning for having kept silent about who had murdered the poor woman.

The door opened easily, but instead of finding a light switch as he expected, Nic’s fingers curled around a flashlight that had been placed on a hook.  They’d been afraid electricians would disturb Rochelle's things, Celia told as they climbed the stairs, so they hadn’t allowed them to update the electrical work in the attic when the rest of the house was modernized.  Once they were inside the room, she bustled around lighting oil lamps while Nic tried to figure out where the crying sounds were coming from.

“Rachel?” He tilted his head and listened, calling out her name again.  The crying stopped.  “Rachel…honey, if you can hear me say something.” 

Her voice sounded as if it was coming from a million miles away, and even more disconcerting was that it seemed to be coming from behind the wall.  Nic took a few tentative steps in the direction he thought he’d heard her voice, even more alarmed than before when it became obvious she was crying hysterically and scared to death.  How had she gotten inside Rochelle’s room to begin with, and once she was inside, how had she ended up behind the wall?  More importantly, how did he get her out?

Nic panned the flashlight along the wall.  There had to be a door here, it was the only possible explanation.  Somehow Rachel had figured out how to open it and let it close behind her.  He ran his hands over the wood, searching for evidence of a door, but there simply wasn’t anything to indicate there was one.  He’d get an ax and chop right through it if he had to, though he was afraid Rachel would get hurt if she was standing too close to the wall when he did it. 

Nic could still hear the gut wrenching sobs and had decided he really had no choice but to try and break through when it suddenly occurred to him that the wooden carving of an eagle was identical to the one in his great grandfather’s room.  It couldn’t be coincidence.  He handed the flashlight to Celia and instructed her to shine it on the carving, then reached out and gave one of the wings an experimental tug. 

Nothing happened. 

He tried the other wing and got the same result, but when he pulled on the eagle’s head, he felt it shift ever so slightly.  Encouraged, he gave it another try and was nearly knocked to the floor when Rachel came flying through the door and launched herself at him.  Nic caught her up in his arms, showering her tear stained face with kisses. 

“I’ve got you,” he soothed.  “You’re safe now, I’ve got you.”

Rachel buried her face in his neck, her throat so raw she doubted she could have spoken without sounding like a frog.  He carried her to the bed and sat down on the edge, cradling her on his lap while he continued to try and calm her down.  Vaguely, it registered that Celia had hurried out of the room, but she understood why when the housekeeper returned a few minutes later with a glass of water.  Rachel clutched the glass with shaky hands and gulped it down before handing it back with a grateful smile.

Nic cupped her chin in his hand, gently tilting her head back.  “Better now?”

“I think so,” she replied, her voice as hoarse as she’d feared it would be.

“How long were you in there?  For that matter, how did you get in here in the first place and how did you figure out the carving opened a hidden door?”

“I…I’m not sure how long I was in there.  Oh, Nic, it was horrible!  I thought I’d be locked in there forever and d-die the same way Rochelle did.”

Nic wiped away the fresh tears with his thumb.  “I would have found you long before that happened, even if I had to tear the entire house down to do it.”

“I guess the walls aren’t sound proof after all,” she managed a thin smile. 

“What made you come up here by yourself?”

“I didn’t.  I found the door in Nicolo’s room and when it closed on its own I took the stairs up to this room hoping I’d be able to figure out how to open this door.”

A thousand questions swirled around in his mind.  “How could the door close by itself, and how did you know the stairs led to this room?”

“I didn’t just close, Nic.  It was slammed shut, as if someone was on the other side and gave it hard push.  As for knowing about the stairs… I had a dream about them, and about the eagle’s head and the secret passageway.”  A violent shudder shook her body.  “Do you think she wanted me to get locked behind the wall, to suffer the same death she did?”

Nic’s arms tightened around her.  “I don’t think so.  If that was the passageway she used to get back and forth between my great grandfather’s room and hers, it must have been as familiar to her as the rest of the house.  I doubt she wanted you to die or even to be frightened.”

“But if she only wanted me to find it and use it to get to her room, why wasn’t I shown…” Rachel’s voice trailed off as pieces of the dream trickled back to her.  “She reached up.  I remember now.  When Rochelle was standing in front of the doorway, she reached up and pulled on a chord or a rope of some sort.  If I hadn’t gotten myself so worked up I would have figured it out.”

“You see?  She wasn’t trying to cause you any harm, she only wanted you to go to her room.”

Rachel glanced around for the first time, curiosity slowly taking the place of fear.  “Why do you think it was so important that I come here?  It couldn’t be to find clues about her killers because she’s already shown me that through the nightmares.”

“I wish I had an answer for you, sweetheart.  Do you think you’re up to having a look around?”

Celia spoke up before Rachel had a chance to reply.  “I think I know what she want you to find.”  She turned around and walked over to the dresser and opened the drawer, returning with a small jewelry box.  “Gifts from Nicolo,” she held the box out for Rachel.

Rachel gasped when she opened the lid, but it wasn’t the sparkling diamond necklaces and bracelets or even the ruby and emerald encrusted broach that caught her eye.  She reached inside and pulled out the gold locket, absently handing the box back to Celia.  She held it in her hand for a moment, a lump forming in her throat when she recalled how excited Rochelle had been when Nicolo had given it to her.

“There’s a picture inside,” she said in a subdued tone.  “Nicolo took her to a fair and they had a picture taken together.  He gave it to her the night she was murdered… but how did it end up in her jewelry box?”

“The chain is broken,” Nic observed.  “It must have been broken in the struggle and someone found it and put it in the box.”

Celia solved that part of the mystery.  “My great grandmother, Estela, she find it and hide it until they no look for Rochelle any more, then she put in box.”

“Celia’s great grandmother witnessed the attack and assumed Rochelle died from the gunshot wound,” Nic told Rachel.  “She didn’t know they’d entombed Rochelle and left her to die, and she never came forward because she was afraid they’d kill her too.”

Rachel’s heart felt like a lead weight in her chest.  “If only Estela had given Nicolo the locket, he would have torn the place apart looking for her and might have saved her.”  She climbed off of Nic’s lap and went to the portrait of Rochelle that was hanging above a small writing desk.  “She does look a bit like me, but only because of the dark hair and green eyes.  No wonder she caught Nicolo’s attention, she has such an air of refinement I doubt anyone would ever have suspected she was a maid.  Although…” she turned back to Nic and Celia, “in the last few dreams I’ve had, I got the distinct impression she wasn’t really a maid at all.”

“She wasn’t.”  Nic rose to his feet and studied the portrait.  “Her real name was Adalina Rochelle DiCarlo and she was of royal descent.  Beaumont was her mother’s maiden name.”

“But if she was descended from royalty then Nicolo’s parents would have considered her an acceptable wife for him.  Why pretend she was maid?”

“According to what Celia told me, Rochelle confided in Estela that Nicolo’s parents and her parents had been conducting business with each other and had decided amongst themselves that an arranged marriage between Nicolo and Rochelle would eliminate any reservations partners on either side had about the deal.  But Rochelle was opposed to the idea of marrying a man she’d never met and wanted to find out for herself if he was someone she could love, and if he could love her regardless of her social status.”

“And she proved it,” Rachel said, “but she didn’t tell his parents because she wanted to put Nicolo’s mother in her place for looking down her nose at Rochelle.”

Nic turned his attention back to Rachel.  “Is that what you dreamed about while I was talking to Celia?”

She told him about Nicolo giving Rochelle the locket and how his cousin had come to inform him they had an important dinner guest.  She recounted the dream in as much detail as she could, including the fact that Rochelle was pregnant at the time but hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Nicolo.  A somber hush fell over the room when she finished, the sadness enveloping them all as they absorbed everything they’d learned.

As if they’d spoken aloud and come to an agreement, they blew out the oil lamps, and then filed out of the room. While Celia went down to the kitchen to prepare them something to eat, she and Nic returned to Nicolo’s bedroom.  Rachel was appalled to discover she was covered in dust and cobwebs and that her tears and left her face streaked with trails of dirt.  Nic had teased her and said she looked like a street urchin, but she knew he wasn’t the least bit put off by it because he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her senseless before allowing her to hop into the shower.

After she’d put on a clean pair of jeans and a casual summer top, they traipsed downstairs to the informal dining room where dinner was already waiting.  Celia looked a little shocked when Rachel invited her to join them, but the softening of her expression when she accepted said she was pleased she’d been asked.  A few minutes into the meal, Nic filled her in on his earlier conversation with Celia.

“Rochelle made a bargain with her parents.  If she was going to agree to marry Nicolo and live in America then she wanted to spend the summer touring it first to see if she could tolerate living here.  They reluctantly agreed, but only on the condition that she be chaperoned at all times by a trusted man servant and his wife who had been employed by the family for years.  As the daughter of a French princess and an Italian prince who was a descendent of the House of Bourbon, she’d been pampered and sheltered all her life. She considered hiring on as a maid at the Covelli mansion a great adventure.”

“Some adventure,” Rachel shook her head ruefully, “though I can hardly blame her for wanting to see what Nicolo was really like before she committed to marriage.”