Love Entwined (11 page)

Maddy sighed, patting a brown wisp back into her upswept hairdo.

“We’ve got the frame up,” Dylan said. “That replacement equipment has come in. For now, were holding it in Sector B while the warehouse is re-built.”

“Is Amelie home?” Roman asked when James answered the call.

“Is that the new girlfriend?” Maddy whispered to Dylan.

“She’s French.” Dylan grinned.

He ignored them both and spoke into the phone. “No, I don’t need to speak with her. Very well, then, I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Dylan wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s going on Roman?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

North Yorkshire, England – April 1988

There was something comforting about toiling away in the quiet drafting room while thunder rumbled and lightening flashed on the other side of the casement windows.

While the awe-inspiring elements of spring raged outside, she and Roman had made great progress with the new designs. They had even begun to refurbish the older ones.

Roman was nowhere to be found at the moment. He’d given her some breathing room since his return from the grand opening of the German plant a few days ago. With Emil’s death in the news it was hard to miss a photo of Roman, his rival, in the papers and a story linking him to the incident at Diefritz Plaza. A member of his public relations team had returned to Yorkshire with him. Though his absence relieved some of the sexual tension that she constantly lived with for more than a month here in Yorkshire, she couldn’t help wondering why he had not tried to kiss her since that night in the vault.

Someone was crying.

She glanced up from the drafting board.

No, the old manor had such wide corridors. It was just the wind whipping around corners.

If that was the wind, it was crying even louder now.

She put down her mechanical pencil and walked to the drafting room door.

No one occupied Haddon Hall. The crying was coming from above.

She walked across the hall and caught a glimpse of auburn curls up above on the south wing stairs. “Hello?” She hurried after the woman but could not catch up.

The crying echoed through the hall.

The woman glided in a gown that skimmed the flagstones faster than Amelie could follow in her heels. The palest gold shimmered on the step as the woman reached the top of the second floor landing and lifted the long skirt to continue toward an alcove.

“Wait.” Her heels clicked up the wide flagstones. She reached the landing and stopped to catch her breath. “Please, wait.”

The corridors were dim in this closed-off wing of the manor. Weak, gray light came through velvet hangings in the long hall on either side.

The woman stood far across the hall in front of the ballroom doors. As always, only auburn curls were visible where she stood in the alcove. She turned toward Amelie and the crying stopped.

Amelie took a step closer. “Will you tell me what happened to you?”

“They have deceived you, Amelie.”

“What?”

“You could not have known how you’ve helped them. How they have always sought your help.”

The crying began anew.

“I—I don’t understand.” She looked up and down the corridor. The crying was all around her. It reverberated off the walls. It whispered off the drapes.

She tried to take a step closer to the woman, but could not move her legs. The velvet hangings swirled through the corridor.

“Your lover’s rubies. Such an intricate design.”

“Emil Garamonde? Do you mean Bijou?”

The woman inclined her head. “
D’accord
. The oldest deceivers.”

“My designs.” The wailing was so loud now Amelie covered her ears. “What did they do with my designs?”

The woman’s voice resounded in her head. “Designs crafted especially for their purpose. For Artisan. You will remember, Amelie.”

“But I don’t remember,” she screamed. Holding a hand out in front of her, she leaned into the blowing air to stay on her feet. “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what you’re talking about!”

“
Bon
, you are ready,” was the woman’s confusing response as shadows gathered and the hall darkened.

Amelie pushed. The wind took her breath so that she had to turn her head. “Emil is dead!”

The woman walked slowly toward her, pale gold skirts billowing. “
Non
. He waits.”

She did not speak but saved her strength to take a hard-earned step toward the woman across the hall. She had to see the woman’s face.

Thunder rolled. The glass panes shook throughout the corridor.

When the wind changed direction, Amelie exhaled triumphantly. She pushed forward. She had to see. The woman was still too far away in shadows.

“Understand this.” All the bronze wall sconces in the hall turned on and suddenly the woman’s face was directly in front of her. “They live forever.”

Amelie gasped and backed away.

Auburn hair framed a heart-shaped face. Emerald eyes glinted into hers. One highly arched brow lifted in satisfaction as Amelie stared into the familiar features of her own face.

* * * *

Amelie had a habit of humming the French lullaby
Frère Jacques.
She was damn near seducing him with her husky tone. He watched her walking about as carefree as if she were on holiday and not toiling away in the drafting room on this brilliant April day. Her smile was infectious and confusing at the same time.

What is her game?

“I missed you at dinner last night. Simon and my PR man left yesterday. It would have been the first dinner you and I were able to have together since I returned from Germany. Didn’t you miss me?”

Frère Jacques
stopped. Amelie’s lips quirked in the most serene expression. “Caro brought a tray up for me.”

Annoyed that she had not missed him, he shot out, “Not feeling well?”

Her carefree laughter hit that part of him that wanted to pound into her. “No, silly, I’m feeling fine.”

Silly?

He put his mechanical pencil down. “You spent the entire day and night in your suite. What were you doing?”

“Really? Well, I was…” She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. “I must have been sleeping.” She sighed contentedly and looked down at her sketch. “I love this contour, but I would have something sharper at the end. More…
moderne
.
Oui
?” She turned her mechanical pencil upside down and began erasing. When done, she looked up at him and her large, emerald eyes crinkled at the ends. “I want to tell you something.”

“Do tell.”

“I love this house. St. Clair Manor is a treasure.” She put down her mechanical pencil. “But you don’t feel it?”

Her hands folded on the drafting board waiting for his answer. He stared at those hands. They were always so efficient with some creation or another. But today…with as much as they had accomplished, everything those graceful hands had created was with gentleness, as if savoring every stroke of pencil on paper. There was something different about her today.

He sat back on his stool. “I’m not sure I know what you mean. What am I supposed to be feeling?”

She picked up her pencil and caressed it between thumb and forefinger while examining her sketch. “This restless desire you have to explore the themes of the old masters. You wonder why you’re driven to alter the line with which your father had such success.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off that pencil her peach-lacquered nails slid over so sensually. “Yes…we had taken chances before with designs we were assured would not go over,” he heard himself say. “We reveled in the glory afterward when those same critics followed suit with thinly veiled knock-offs.”

She inclined her head. “
D’accord
, your father was a risk-taker, a master artisan who used his talent for good. But you are even more. You are a warrior, Roman, like Grandfather Ian. You were born to the hunt.”

He was speechless as her mechanical pencil lightened in color…the palest yellow…that transformed to white. The end of her white pencil formed two sets of hooves. They split apart and two miniature Arabians galloped across the white sheet. So small, and yet their hooves resounded in his head…

“Do not let this hunger for more bother you, Roman. Your father Giles did his work, and now it is time for yours. It is time for the hunt. This is your destiny,
ma chérie
.”

He dragged his eyes away from those tiny galloping hooves to look at her face, this woman who looked like Amelie. She was sensual and seductive in the most relaxed way. Amelie was those things but she buried them as if they were dirty little secrets. This woman, who looked him in the eye with sexual confidence—even persuasion—was not trying to be something she was not. She knew her power over him, was amused by it.

The hairs on the back of his hand prickled, looking into those probing emerald eyes. “And how do you know my destiny?” He whispered, almost expecting her to answer.

A clap of thunder echoed outside.

He glanced across the room and was momentarily blinded by white light that electrified the casement windows.

He shook sense into his head. It was a minute before he could speak. “When did it start raining?”

“She is crying,” Amelie murmured, staring out the window. She sighed, and wiping her brow, sat down on the drafting stool. “She has been crying all night.” Gone was the lightness in her tone. Her suit of armor was back, her expression wary. Her pencil was, of course, just a mechanical pencil. He must have been daydreaming.

“Who has been crying?”

“Jacqueline. What do you know of her, Roman?”

He got up from his stool and walked the room. He’d been sitting too long, and stretched. “There is no one here by that name, Amelie.” He rubbed his eyes. He was suddenly so tired he was thinking about going to his room for a nap.

“Tell me what you know.” Amelie was right behind him.

He looked into her eyes. Amelie’s concerned eyes. “Very well, then. There is an old wives’ tale of the Lady of the Manor.”

“Old wives’ tale? Nothing more…recent?”

“No.” He folded his arms. “I imagine Caroline has been spouting this superstitious nonsense to you.”

“Caroline has done no such thing. You leave her alone, Roman. Who is the Lady of the Manor?”

“I don’t know. I have never heard the name Jacqueline in reference to the Lady of the Manor, and I have never seen her.”

“But someone has?”

“My mother claimed to have seen her.”

“The Lady came to Celeste Cardiff,” she murmured in thought.

He held up a hand when she started to speak. “My mother was very ill. It was during that time that she told my father the Lady came to her.”

“What does she want?”

He paced away from her. “Amelie, this is an old shire, with even older inhabitants who should have all gone to their reward at least fifty years ago. These are just ghost stories, at best.”

“She must
want
something. Haven’t you ever tried to find out what that is?”

“I have never had the opportunity because she is not here, Amelie,” he said in exasperation.

“What of your father, or his father?”

He chuckled mirthlessly. “The master artisan and the warrior, as you called them?”

“I did not.”

“A minute ago you were acting as if you knew my father and grandfather. What did you do, read about them somewhere?” He expelled a breath and lowered his voice. “I think I’ve been too hard of a taskmaster on you.”

“What did Jacqueline tell your mother?”

“This is ridiculous, Amelie!”

She stared him down, and he threw up his hands. “Years ago, my mother claims the Lady told her that someone was going to kill my father. As was widely reported in the news, my father suffered a massive stroke after living a long and happy life. Now do you see what foolishness it all is?”

Thunder rolled.

Amelie walked toward the window as wind lashed the panes. She stood before the glass with shoulders hunched, watching the storm build.

He shook his head, sorry now that he’d shouted at her. “We need a break. Let’s have lunch.”

* * * *

The following week, Roman met with his security Chief Bryant. They had not come any closer to finding who tried to kill him in London. Surveillance did not pick up the Mercedes’ plate. According to Bryant, his team reported the car had virtually disappeared in one of the blackest fogs known on London’s streets once it cleared the garage’s exit. Roman ended the meeting on that note, of a mind to replace Bryant’s security company.

Black fog, indeed.

He strode into the drafting room.

Amelie had much to do with his temperament and he wanted to spend the next few quiet hours observing her. She spent more and more time in her suite and seemed quite happy to while away hours roaming the manor doing God-knows-what alone. It was good to know she felt so comfortable in this ancient stone monument to his family, but for some reason it disturbed him. Sometimes he felt that he couldn’t reach her, even across the drafting room.

She had not mentioned her dead lover once in the last two weeks. He watched in vain for any sign of angst.

Was his would-be killer killed by a woman scorned? Or someone Garamonde had swindled out of money? The authorities might never be able to untangle the deceased heir of Bijou’s life of lies.

Even while immersed in the quiet fury of creating designs, he took note there were no more attempts on his life. But he was not satisfied yet.

He put down his pencil and stared across the drafting table at her so long that Amelie looked up with an amused smile. He didn’t even blink.

“I am buying Bijou.”

Her smile was gone in an instant. “I heard. Congratulations.”

“Well now, that’s not a very congratulatory tone, Beauty. But I know how close you and Emil were. I should forgive you.” He watched the tremor in that small, elegant hand.

She stopped drawing and put her charcoal down. “It was not that way.” The silence lengthened until a fat tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto the drafting board.