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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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“Señor.” Catherine took his hand. “I am so sorry we are not meeting under more pleasant circumstances. And I do hope I am not imposing.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Of course you are not imposing. It is a pleasure to have you here.” He hesitated, and Cass could imagine what was on his mind. Then he turned. “Cassandra, there is a room next door to Tracey's. Could you show your aunt to it? I need a moment with the electrician.”
“Is everything under control?” Cass asked, not liking his expression.
Antonio met her gaze. “Lightning must have struck the house. The wires are badly damaged. He says he's never seen such localized destruction before.”
Cass stared, her heart accelerating, the phrase “localized destruction” filling her mind. “But there was no storm.”
“There were storms here a few weeks ago.”
“A few weeks ago?” Cass did not have an optimistic feeling. “He can fix it, right?”
Antonio was grim. “Not today.”
Cass was disbelieving; the electrician was already outside, loading up his truck. “When will we have lights?” she asked, images from last night tumbling through her mind.
“He will return on Monday,” Antonio said. “I'll be back in a moment.” He paused, glancing at Catherine. Then he hurried outside after the electrician.
Cass didn't exactly like that look. She turned, only to find her aunt watching her. She smiled, knew it was miserable. “The lights went out last night. The phones went down, too. This is a very old house and it needs rewiring—”
“I hope so,” Catherine said, glancing at the duo standing by the utility truck.
Cass stared. What the hell did that mean? “What are you implying?”
Catherine gave her a look. “You know what I am implying. She's here, for a reason, and now we are all here. Where are Tracey and Alyssa?”
Instantly Cass picked up the small duffel bag at her aunt's feet. She had no intention of worrying her aunt over Tracey's whereabouts. “Alyssa and Eduardo are playing out back. What reason? I mean, ghosts stay behind, don't they, because they are unhappy? That's her reason.” She did not like the direction the dialogue was heading in.
“Oh, Cassandra,” Catherine said, with pity. “She's here for one reason, and that is to wreak revenge on us all.”
 
 
Cass was left standing in the hall, alone and aghast.
Isabel was here because she wanted revenge? Cass didn't believe it. Not for a New York minute. Ghosts were not capable of thinking or motivation. She had not a doubt.
Then she realized that her aunt had gone upstairs. Up the wrong stairs. To the master wing of the house. To the wing where Isabel's room was.
“Aunt Catherine, not that way,” she called. “Your room is in the south wing!”
But Catherine did not stop, and she disappeared on the next landing.
Oh, great,
Cass thought, and she followed her aunt upstairs.
Cass espied her at Isabel's door. She almost called out. Instead, oddly, her tongue felt glued to the bottom of her mouth. She paused and watched.
Catherine hesitated outside the door to Isabel's room and slowly pushed it open. She shivered, and stepped inside.
Cass followed. Her feet felt leaden; still, they moved of their own volition.
Catherine was staring at the room. She finally faced the portrait.
Cass realized she was breathless. She hugged herself—it was so damn cold in Isabel's room. Cold and gloomy and ugly. Cass was stiff with tension; stiffer than any board. “What is it?” she asked softly.
Catherine did not face her. “This is where I stayed.”
Cass started. “You used this room?”
Catherine nodded, her gaze on the portrait. “When I first arrived here, it was to help Eduardo finish his research. We had both become obsessed with her.” Catherine shivered again. “She had the most tragic of lives.”
“We found her headstone.”
“The one in the cemetery?” Catherine nodded without turning. “I'm surprised he even brought her ashes back here.”
“She didn't die in Spain?”
“Oh, no,” Catherine said softly. “She was burned at the stake on Tower Hill in London.”
Cass trembled. “But she was here?”
“Briefly, we think. There are letters in the library—or there were—letters from Isabel to her cousin, Rob de Warenne.”
Excitement seized Cass. “Letters? Oh, God, what a find that will be!” Then, “Who was Rob de Warenne? Her uncle's son?”
“It was so long ago,” Catherine murmured. “But he was a distant cousin, I think, not the earl's son. He was her lover.”
Cass froze. “What?”
“He was her lover. If you read the letters, it is so obvious.” Catherine swallowed. “She was the last thing I saw before falling asleep every night, and the first thing I saw upon awakening each morning.”
Cass was still trying to absorb the fact—or speculation—that Isabel had had a lover.
“Until we became lovers.”
Cass stared. Dread replaced all of her enthusiasm. “You do not have
to talk about this if you don't want,” she tried, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. Because she sensed what was coming—and she didn't want to know any more. Not now, when she had become close to Antonio. Not now, when she would have to lie to him in order to protect her aunt. And she felt almost certain that she couldn't lie to him anymore, not even by omission.
Catherine turned to face her. “What was truly astounding is that we never even pretended to love one another. It was merely lust.”
Cass didn't know what to say. “That happens. Let's go. This room isn't the friendliest of places—”
“And the lust turned to hatred, and the hatred to violence and death.”
“Please,” Cass whispered, her ears ringing. “I don't want to know.”
“But I have to tell you!” Catherine cried, her eyes filling with tears. “We'd made love violently and we had fought viciously. I remember thinking about how much I hated him, but I could not seem to summon up the will to leave. I can't even recall why we drove into Pedraza, but I remember hoping, desperately, that once there, we would separate, and I might have the opportunity to strand him.”
Cass could only stare. Her aunt was telling her a story about a stranger. Cass found it impossible to believe that they were one and the same woman.
“He was on the other side of the street. The streets in the village are so narrow. And I saw a car turning the corner. I knew Eduardo could not see it. And I called to him, waving him over.”
Cass felt like clapping her hands over her ears.
“He crossed the street without looking. One second later—less—the car made impact,” Catherine said hoarsely.
Cass felt paralyzed. “I don't think you are remembering what happened correctly.”
Catherine hadn't heard her. “But in that short span of time, he realized what was happening, and I saw the shock—and disbelief—the horror on his face, just before the car struck him.”
“Let's get out of here,” Cass said grimly.
Catherine shook her head. “Of course, I was in shock, too. The moment it had happened, all my hatred was gone—I could not understand how it had come to this—and I held him, but he was already dead, and when I looked up, she was there.”
Cass seized her shoulder. “Who? Isabel?”
“Yes. And she looked triumphant.”
Cass stared. Her aunt finally met her gaze, staring back. Tears slid down her face.
Then Catherine said, “But maybe I am wrong. Maybe it was a trick of the light, my imagination, I do not know. I was in shock myself. And I had lived with this portrait for almost an entire week.” She turned to look at it again. “I hate this house,” she said. “I hate her.”
Cass couldn't reply. Her mind was racing at the speed of light. Was it possible that Catherine had really seen Isabel? And if so, did it matter? Of course it mattered! Because if she was correct, Isabel had been elated over the death of Eduardo de la Barca.
But that would mean Isabel was more than some lingering energy; it would mean that she had feelings and thoughts.
But it did not mean that she was capable of summoning everyone together.
For that would give her motivation, an agenda.
“You couldn't have seen her,” Cass said quickly. “It was your imagination.”
“You are probably right.”
“I know I'm right,” Cass said, grabbing her aunt's arm. And she thought,
Eduardo had been Isabel's revenge
. “You look tired,” she began. “Let's get out of here.” The sooner the better.
Eduardo had not been Isabel's revenge. No way.
Catherine looked at her. And suddenly her face became distorted: her lips stretched into a grotesque smile, her skin tightened and sagged and tightened again, her face becoming the face of a very young woman, and her eyes, her eyes turned into Isabel's piercing blue regard. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he was.”
Cass cried out.
Her aunt—who was no longer her aunt—stood there smiling at her, and it was taunting and malevolent and horrific.
Cass dropped the duffel bag. She was a heartbeat away from fleeing, but somehow she stood there, incapable of assessing how many seconds were passing, and she reached out—and touched her aunt's arm.
And she was looking at Catherine again.
Not Isabel.
“What did you say? I'm sorry, I didn't here you,” Catherine said, her color paler than usual now.
Cass could not speak. She had just been faced with an ugly monster,
she was sure of it, a woman who was not her aunt, a woman who had been dead for over four hundred years—or had she been hallucinating? Was she the insane one? Was she losing her mind?
“I wish you hadn't come,” she whispered, perspiration trickling down her brow. And she thought,
Something terrible is going to happen.
Catherine bit her lip and suddenly hugged her, hard. “Something terrible will happen, but we are in this together, Cassandra. And it's too late. Too late to stop it, because we are all here, together, in this house, just the way she wants it.”
Cass felt as if she were losing all of her composure. She could not face another night again, not without lights, and she was suddenly so scared, her temples throbbed painfully. “No one has seen Tracey since last night,” she whispered. “I didn't want to tell you.”
“Oh, God,” Catherine said. “Not Tracey!” She started to cry.
“Tracey will be fine,” Cass said sharply. But she had to face her own doubts—she wasn't convinced, not at all. “In fact, why should we even stay until Monday? As soon as she returns—which will be at any time—we can pack up and leave first thing in the morning.”
Catherine nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “If you say so.”
Cass stared into her eyes and knew that she did not have hope. “There's something else, isn't there? Something else that you haven't told me.”
“Yes. Eduardo's own father died of brutal stab wounds while in his early forties.”
Cass's heart lurched. “Eduardo was forty-two when he himself died, wasn't he?”
Catherine nodded.
“What are you suggesting?” Cass asked uneasily. But the extent of the tragedy that had continually struck the de la Barcas through the centuries was now glaring. Antonio's father and grandfather had died violently as young men. And … Antonio was in his late thirties.
Cass was frozen.
“His wife stabbed him.” Catherine looked at her as Cass stood there, jerked from her horrifying thoughts, appalled. “She was found guilty by insanity—and she spent the rest of her life in a mental institution.”
Cass looked at her aunt as the scent of violets surfaced beside them, growing rapidly in power and strength. “Antonio never said anything,” she whispered. “Aunt Catherine?”
Catherine glanced uneasily around. “Let's leave now,” she said, turning to the door.
Cass wasn't about to argue. She thought she could feel the other woman with a sixth sense, standing there, between them, but it was undoubtedly all in her mind—except for the sickly smell of violets; that was real. And her aunt seemed to be aware of her presence, too—because in spite of her words, she did not move, she just stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide, breathing shallowly. Isabel, if she was present, if she was beside them, was entrapping them now in the scent. It had never been stronger. It was overpowering. Cass coughed.

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