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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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“Just get out, Cass, before I have you thrown out,” Tracey flashed out dangerously.
Cass did not move. “What gives you the right to come into our lives and wreck them? What gives you the right to decide how Alyssa spends her summer? She doesn't want to go without me, Tracey. She told me just this morning. I've raised her ever since she was two. You should at least ask me my permission before you make plans for her.”
“Ask your permission?!” Tracey was incredulous. “I don't think so!
What gives me every right is the fact that I am her mother, and not just biologically. I don't recall that you've adopted her. Do you?”
Cass felt as if she had been struck. “You know you can't care for her. You don't have any sense of responsibility. This isn't right.”
“Good-bye, Cass. I'll call the house to let you know when my driver is picking
my
daughter up.” Tracey turned and started to leave the room.
And for the life of her, Cass couldn't move. She said, “I don't know how you can look at yourself in the mirror.”
Tracey froze. Then she turned around. “It's really easy, Cass. Really easy—as easy as it is looking at myself on the society pages of all the top magazines.” She smiled. “How do you do it? I mean, are you a size ten now? Let's see, at five foot three, that would make you, what? Ten pounds overweight—or is it fifteen? Or twenty? Have you taken a good look at yourself recently? You look forty, Cass, at least. Oh, but you must already know that. Why else would you lock yourself away at Belford House, writing books nobody gives a shit about, that nobody actually buys, while playing nanny to my daughter?”
Cass slapped her across the face.
Tracey jerked back, crying out.
Cass could not believe what she had done, but never had words hurt more. Never had the truth hurt more. And for a moment, both sisters stared at one another, equally stunned, equally angry.
“Maybe I should adopt her,” Cass heard herself say hoarsely.
“Just you try,” Tracey responded furiously.
Their gazes locked, and Cass's only thought was,
How has this happened?
She had come to make peace, not to threaten Tracey with taking her daughter away from her.
“Thomas!” Tracey shouted. A huge man in black pants and a white polo shirt appeared in the doorway. “Please escort Ms. de Warenne to her car,” She said.
Cass didn't move as the bodyguard came and stood beside her. “Trace,” Cass tried.
But Tracey had left the room.
Cass was escorted out.
 
 
By the time Cass arrived back at Belford House, it was well into the evening. High clouds covered the night sky, and a cool breeze washed up from the beach. Cass parked her BMW by the garage and walked
up to the house, approaching it from behind. There a flagstone terrace looked out over the Sussex countryside, with views of a series of gradually descending hills, crisscrossed with stone walls and interspersed with glades of shady trees. Even at night, there was enough light from the village and the town of Romney to make out the rolling hills; during the day one could espy the occasional wheeling seagull, wandering too far inland from Beachy Head.
Cass was in a state of shock.
And she was furious with herself.
Instead of solving the problem Tracey posed, she had made it worse. Tracey was going to Spain, with Alyssa, and she had firmly rejected Cass's offer to come. But it was far worse than that. The sisters had come to blows and Cass had threatened to fight Tracey for custody of Alyssa.
And she hadn't meant it. Dear God, she hadn't. Or had she?
Cass closed her eyes and thought, unwillingly,
If worse came to worst, I could take Tracey to court and I would win. No matter what it took.
Cass's eyes flew open; she was aghast with herself. How could she be thinking such a thing? She needed a drink. But more than that, she needed a crystal ball with which to predict the future.
“Cassandra? Is that you?”
Cass looked up. The two terrace doors leading into the house were open, and Cass saw her aunt appear between them, backlit by the house's interior lights. “Yes.” She trudged across the terrace, refused to meet her aunt's questioning eyes, and stepped into the small paneled study where a fire danced in the hearth.
“What is it? What has happened? I have been so worried—where have you been?” Catherine asked.
“Where's Alyssa?” Cass asked. Desperation overcame her.
“In her room. She's reading,” Catherine said. “You went to see your sister, didn't you?”
Cass hadn't told anyone where she was going. “That's right.” She went to a dry bar and uncorked the port. Her hands, she saw, were trembling slightly as she poured herself a stiff drink.
“I can see from the look on your face that it did not go well.”
Cass drank, felt tears sting her eyes as the port burned her stomach, and she said, “I blew it.”
Catherine laid her palm comfortingly on Cass's shoulder. Cass shrugged it off.
“What happened?” Catherine asked.
“I hit her.” Cass finally looked her in the eye. “I slapped her right across the face and now she's going to take Alyssa away—and I don't even know if she will come back.” Cass felt herself beginning to lose it then. She had to fight for self-control. But there was no control, not of any kind. Their lives seemed to be unraveling in front of their very eyes.
“Oh God. It's already beginning, isn't it?” Catherine whispered, wringing her hands.
Cass flinched, and when she looked at her aunt, she felt an astounding degree of vehemence toward her. “Don't start with that mumbo jumbo now!” she nearly shouted. “Don't even begin to suggest that this has anything to do with de la Barcas and de Warennes and one of our infamous ancestors!” She could feel herself shaking, and she saw her aunt recoil.
No good has ever come of the families being involved …
“You just don't know,” Catherine said simply.
“I know that you started all of this!”
Catherine turned white. “This isn't about me—and I think you are starting to understand that.”
“I'm sorry!” Cass cried, reaching for her aunt, who slipped away. “I'm sorry—but how could you disown her? How?”
“I intended to protect her,” Catherine said weakly, sinking down into a chair.
“To protect her? There is nothing to protect her from, except herself. If she wants to have a fling with—or even marry—Antonio de la Barca, that's her business! She is an adult—even if she is a screwed-up one!”
“We must protect her, Cassandra,” Catherine said wearily. “We must.”
Cass stared. Her aunt's earlier words continued to replay in her mind, haunting her. There was no way Cass would buy in to what her aunt seemed to believe. “This isn't about two families being involved, with tragic consequences. No. This is about Antonio de la Barca's father. Somehow you were involved in his death. So it's not Tracey you are trying to protect, is it? You're trying to protect yourself.”
Rising, Catherine staggered backward, and Cass felt as if a part of her was outside of herself, watching her do this to the woman who had raised her like a mother, the woman she loved as both her mother and best friend. She wanted to stop her tirade, the accusations, the anger, she did, but she could not. Not when Alyssa was being taken away from them.
Cass stared at the pale, ravaged face of her aunt. “What happened?
And don't you dare tell me that you refuse to talk about it! I have every right to know! Tracey intends to marry Antonio!” Cass was shouting. She was also crying. “He is hardly stupid! And he's a historian. Don't you think he'll figure this out, sooner or later? What if he wants justice? Revenge?”
Catherine crumpled into a chair. She hid her hands behind her face. She muttered, “Hasn't it occurred to you that his father's death was just another part of the whole terrible pattern?”
“There is no pattern!” Cass rushed to her. Her instinct was to grip her small shoulders, shake some sense into her. Instead, she caught herself, horrified with all that was happening, truly horrified with herself. But she could not stop now. She knelt in front of her aunt. “I beg you. I am begging you. I want to save this family from whatever might come. If Antonio de la Barca is a threat, I have to know precisely why he is a threat—and don't tell me it has to do with the centuries-old past. I want my child back, Aunt Catherine.
I
want my child back. But I can't fight for her in the dark like this.
Did you kill him?”
Catherine dropped her hands from her face, her eyes wide, pale, watery. Their gazes met, held, locked.
Cass waited.
“It is complicated,” Catherine finally said.
First disbelief, then anger, engulfed Cass. And she was so stricken that she could not move. She was shaking.
Behind them, the phone rang.
Neither aunt nor niece moved.
Cass fought for composure, realized she was panting. “I am not giving you a choice,” she warned.
Catherine straightened with her innate dignity as the phone ceased ringing. “Do not speak to me in such a manner, Cassandra. I am your elder, your aunt.”
Cass remained kneeling; her aunt remained seated and ramrod-straight. Cass was about to tell her that she was being selfish—words that would wound her to no end. And she knew she should not speak them, she did, but again, she was out of control. And just as the words were about to roll off the tip of her tongue, one of the housemaids appeared in the doorway and said, “Ms. de Warenne. You have a caller.”
Cass barely looked up. “Take a message, please.” She stared at her aunt, who now stared down at her gnarled, veined hands. A huge sapphire ring, set with diamonds, given to her by Robert on one of their
anniversaries—their twenty-fifth, Cass thought—sat on her left ring finger.
The maid hesitated. “It's Ms. Tennant and she says it is urgent.”
Cass leapt up as if struck. She gave her aunt one last look and rushed to the phone on the small, leather-inlaid desk in the corner of the study.
Cass tried to clear her mind. She tried to shove aside the panic and fear and think rationally as she picked up the receiver, but it was impossible. Cass felt faint. “Trace?”
“Yes,” her sister said, her tone as cold as ice.
“Trace, I am so sorry about—”
Tracey cut her off. “My lawyer's name is Mark Hopkins. My driver will pick Alyssa up tomorrow. Please pack most of her things. Mark will be in touch with you and Catherine.” And she hung up.
“Tracey!” Cass cried. She hit the talk button frantically, but the only response was a dial tone. And as she gripped the phone, redialing desperately, for one moment she almost thought she saw the walls beginning to come down around her, in slow, slow motion. Of course, it was her imagination—the walls were not undulating before her very eyes, they were rock-solid. It was her life that was caving in on her.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Until Tracey's answering machine came on.
“Tracey!” Cass cried. “I know you are there. Please, please, pick up! Please!” But her sister did not answer the phone.
Cass tried her cell phone, with the same results. Then she tried her house again, and again, and then the cell, and finally she sat down in the chair beside the desk, the receiver slipping from her hands, and she began to cry.
“This is only the beginning,” Aunt Catherine said slowly, standing next to her now.
Cass looked up through her tears and said, bitterly, “Yes. This is only the beginning.” Even though she knew that they were not speaking about the same thing. “How can you cling to your selfish self-serving explanations, knowing that tomorrow Alyssa is leaving, maybe forever, and that Tracey's lawyer will be contacting us?”
Catherine looked as if she would collapse at any moment. She said, “He was hit by a car, in a tiny village in Spain, one you have never heard of. Pedraza.”
Cass blinked. Her aunt had spoken in the tone of a robot. She had been wounded terribly. Cass flinched but said, “So it was an accident after all.” It was too late for relief.
Catherine wasn't even looking at her. She was staring past her, or through her, into the wall—or into the very far reaches of the past. “Hardly.”
Her temples pounded so hard she could hear the beat of blood inside her own head. Cass somehow shook her head. “What you have described is an accident.”
Catherine just smiled at her, sadly. “I deliberately lured him in front of the car. I wanted to destroy him.”
Cass walked into Belford House, numb and exhausted. Alyssa had been picked up that morning by Tracey's driver. Cass hadn't told her niece what was happening—because she was hoping desperately that all of this would blow over. Alyssa thought she was off for a week or two with her mother; still, Cass was never going to forget her little face as she settled in the back of the Mercedes sedan. She had been ready to cry, but bravely fighting her tears.
It was raining heavily outside—it had been raining all day long—and the gloom felt like a shroud on Cass's shoulders. She hadn't worn a slicker, and she was soaked. Slowly she walked through the foyer and wandered down the hall.
What am I going to do now?
she kept thinking. It was a litany, there in her mind.
“I already miss you, Aunt Cass,” Alyssa had said, her lip trembling.
Cass's heart had broken then and there. She had somehow controlled her expression, reaching into the car to hug her one more time. Wondering if it would be the last time. “Have a great holiday with your mom,” she had said, trying to keep the choked-up sobs out of her tone.
“But why can't you come? And why am I going now?” Alyssa had cried.
“You know your mom, always changing plans,” Cass had said with false cheer.
Alyssa had nodded and the door had been closed and Cass had stood
there in the mist and rain, watching the car driving away, until she was staring at nothing but an empty stretch of road.
She hadn't wept. She had jumped onto her horse and ridden all over the countryside, sick inside, so sick that she had finally thrown up. And now it was raining, and she was wet and cold and exhausted, while Harry, her hunter, was warm and dry and feasting on mashed bran.
She knew she must focus on her work, that work would be her salvation, but she was filled with panic and grief, and sitting down at her laptop was an impossibility now.
What if this doesn't blow over? What if Alyssa doesn't come back? Ever?
Panic seized her. Cass tried to turn off her thoughts.
No good can come of the families being involved …
She entered the library grimly, going to one oversized window, staring blindly out at the wet, gray Sussex countryside. Night was falling. She should have never let Alyssa go. She could have found a way to outwit Tracey. This had nothing to do with Antonio de la Barca coming into their lives.
She hated her sister. God, she did.
And the sudden hatred shocked her. Cass pulled her shoulders back, stiffened her spine, and trembling with the chill that was within her soul, not just her body, she walked down the corridor until she saw one of the maids. She did not hate her own sister. “Any messages? Any calls?”
“I'm afraid not, Ms. de Warenne.”
She really hadn't been expecting or hoping for a call from Alyssa, but the lawyer hadn't called, either. Cass was relieved. She was so relieved she felt faint, and the world around her began to blur and gray.
“Ms. de Warenne?”
Cass managed to look up at the elderly woman she had known since she was eleven years old—a kind local woman with grown children and teenaged grandchildren who refused to call her Cass or even Cassandra. “Yes, Celia?”
“Lady Catherine has taken to her bed. I'm afraid she isn't well. You've been gone all day, and I tried to call Dr. Stolman, but she would not hear of it. Maybe you should go check on her, as she shoos me out every time I try to enter her room.”
Celia's plump face was creased with both age and worry. Cass felt drained, she had nothing to give, and certainly nothing to give to her aunt. It was still so very hard not to blame her for all of this. But she nodded. “Okay.”
“And, Ms. de Warenne? Maybe you should be getting out of those
wet, muddy clothes. It won't help Miss Alyssa if the both of you come down with pneumonia.”
Cass looked into Celia's concerned brown eyes and started to cry. Soundlessly.
“She'll come back,” Celia said, laying her palm on Cass's back. “I have nary a doubt.”
Cass fought the tears and nodded as she pulled away from Celia, wiping her eyes with her fist. “I'll go check on my aunt,” she said automatically. If only her sister weren't such a loose canon. But she was, she'd always been unpredictable, and wishful thinking wasn't going to change that fact.
Cass paused as she opened the door to her aunt's bedroom. All the lights were off except for one lamp beside her bed, and her aunt lay there, unmoving. Tension heightened within Cass. And with it came worry.
If her aunt was sleeping, she did not want to wake her up. Slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible, she entered the room. And suddenly the temperature seemed to drop drastically inside. Cass froze.
What was going on? Why was the bedroom so cold? There was even a fire roaring in the hearth. Puzzled, Cass approached the canopied bed.
And as she did so, more and more tension seemed to build within her.
This is just the beginning … No good can come over of it …
Cass shook her mind free of her aunt's words. Catherine was not lying still, she was tossing and turning restlessly, probably in the midst of a dream. Suddenly Cass paused and strained to see as she glanced all around her.
But what was she looking for?
She did not know; she only knew that something felt terribly wrong.
“What's wrong,” she muttered aloud, “is that my aunt is ill and this room isn't even warm. She will catch her death.”
Cass readjusted the thermostat, which did not seem to be working properly, then went to her aunt's bedside. As she touched her shoulder gently, Catherine's lashes fluttered and she blinked at her. “Tracey?”
Abruptly Cass froze, because even through her aunt's jersey nightgown, Cass could feel that she was running a high temperature. Very alarmed, she touched her aunt's face—her skin was burning.
“Tracey,” Catherine whispered.
Cass didn't want to worry her now. “Tracey's just fine.” She turned on another bedside light, opening the drawer in the night table. She found her aunt's telephone book and quickly dialed up their local doctor,
who still made house calls when necessary. She left a message with his service, hurried into the bathroom, located aspirin, and returned to her aunt's bedside.
“Where is Tracey?” Catherine moaned.
Cass was at a loss. And then she decided to lie. “She hasn't left for Spain yet, Aunt Catherine,” Cass said, sitting beside her. “You have to sit up and take some aspirin.”
“No,” Catherine said weakly. “Cassandra, I am going to die.”
Cass cried out. Then, “Aunt Catherine, don't talk that way!” Tears suddenly filled her eyes. If her aunt died, she would never recover. A piece of her heart would be gone forever.
“Too late,” Catherine whispered harshly. “She's here.”
Cass stared, wondering if her aunt was delirious. But then Catherine said, “I am so ill, Cassandra, so ill.” Tears slid down her cheeks.
Cass decided she would take her aunt directly to the emergency room. “Aunt Catherine, you have to sit up,” she tried, sliding her arm under her, holding back panic.
“I cannot,” she whispered. “I hoped to win, but I cannot.”
Cass was motionless. Catherine was delirious, she decided. She reached for a glass of water, holding her aunt in a sitting position. “Come on, Aunt Catherine, you can do it.” She was sweating herself, she realized, even though it was ice-cold in the room.
“Cassandra, I haven't told you the truth.”
Cass froze.
“Not entirely,” she added, her eyes closing.
“Now is not the time.” Very determinedly, Cass forced two tablets into her aunt's mouth, then pressed a glass of water to her lips. She was rewarded when Catherine finally swallowed. Cass set her back down against the pillows, briefly immobilized with relief. But her relief was short-lived.
“The truth.” Catherine would not let it go. “Oh, God.” She struggled to sit up again.
Cass had no choice but to help her. “I don't care what the truth is,” she said, meaning it. “I only want you well and this family back together again.”
Catherine shook her head, forcing her eyes open. “Isabel. I am speaking about Isabel.”
“Isabel?” Cass cried, incredulous. Her aunt wanted to talk about their ancestor now? Cass's temples throbbed. It crossed her mind that things had gotten worse and worse ever since the damned black-tie affair. Cass
didn't really want the comprehension, she didn't really want to know any more, but she had to. She had to listen. “What? What about Isabel?”
“She has come back.”
Cass stared. It was a reflexive reaction and she said, “There's no such thing as ghosts, if that is what you mean.”
“Come back, to win.”
Cass was regarding her flushed, feverish aunt, reminding herself that anything she said was undoubtedly insensible, when Catherine looked her right in the eye. “She's here,” she said.
And her eyes changed. The unfocused light vanished, and in its place were blazing intelligence and frightening intensity. Cass jumped off the bed.
And when she looked back down at her aunt an instant later, her eyes were closed, her face was peaceful, and Cass knew there was no way she had seen such a … what? How could she even describe the expression she had thought she had seen?
If she dared to try, she would label it as savage.
Or murderous.
I wanted to destroy him.
Cass stared at her aunt, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully now. Her face had relaxed. The look of hate-filled rage was gone.
If it had ever been present.
Cass felt tears form behind her eyes. She was exhausted herself. She had imagined that indescribable look. She must focus now on getting medical care for her aunt, because if anything happened to her, given the events of the past few days, Cass knew she would never forgive herself or her sister.
Suddenly she felt overwhelmed. She sank back down on the bed beside her aunt, reaching for her hand. Alyssa was gone, Tracey had snagged Antonio de la Barca, her aunt was seventy years old and stricken with pneumonia, if she did not miss her guess, and Cass was supposed to do what? Save her aunt's life and save her from a public embarrassment at the least and criminal prosecution at the most? Fight Tracey tooth and nail for the return of Alyssa? Jettison Antonio de la Barca from their lives? Bury a secret she had never asked for knowledge of in the first place?
Just how the hell could she accomplish all of that? She was one single woman, and a flawed one at that.
The telephone rang. It was Dr. Stolman, and Cass quickly filled him in. He instructed her to take her aunt's temperature, which she did. It
was 102. He told her he would call for an ambulance and that he would meet her at the hospital.
Immediately Cass went to the door and called for Celia. While the maid was gathering up a few things for her aunt, Cass returned to Catherine's side, sitting down and clutching her hand, very frightened now.
The minutes ticked by endlessly. Cass was mindless with fright. She kept telling herself that everything would be all right. It was a mantra, one she chanted silently, again and again—one she did not really believe.
If only they could rewind time the way they could rewind a tape, she thought. If only they could start over …
“Everything is ready, Ms. de Warenne. Why don't you go gather up a few fresh clothes for yourself?”
Cass hardly heard Celia. But she said, “I'm staying here. Where are they?” And then, for lack of anything else to do, she screwed the cap on the bottle of aspirin and replaced the telephone book she had used in the night-table drawer, where it belonged. And as she did so, she noticed the blue leather book within.
Cass hesitated, because the book was old and hand-bound, the leather jacket worn and faded. There was no title on the cover.
She could not help herself. She picked it up, opened it—and was paralyzed.
It was obviously a journal. And the very first entry was dated 1964. Cass could hardly breathe. Because she recognized the handwriting as her aunt's.
Catherine's words haunted her mind.
I lured him in front of the car. Deliberately. I wanted to destroy him.
Cass trembled. She suddenly, without debate, flipped open to the very last entry—July 15, 1966.
And names leapt off the pages at her.
Casa de Suenos.
Pedraza.
Eduardo de la Barca.
Isabel de Warenne.
Cass slammed the journal closed, shoved it back in the drawer, and leapt off the bed. A moment later the paramedics were ringing the front door.

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