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Authors: Brenda Joyce

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BOOK: House of Dreams
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“These houses are built to be this way,” Cass responded, automatically whispering back. She was stunned by herself. What was wrong with her? She was going to have to readjust her thinking, she decided. Before she got into serious trouble. She had no intention of ever competing with Tracey for a man.
Chilled thoroughly now, but from the inside, not the outside, Cass glanced around.
The house was built around a courtyard. A pair of doors opened onto it, and Cass glimpsed a broken limestone fountain, boasting the headless sculpture of a nude man, who was also missing one arm. It was not running water. A decrepit balcony ran along the entire second story around the interior courtyard. Cass did not think it would be wise to lean against the railing. She saw weeds poking out from the cracked and scarred red slate tiles underfoot outside.
“I don't know if I like it here, Aunt Cass.”
Cass glanced down at her niece, intending to reassure her, but her words died before she could speak them. The house was lovely, even if it was terribly run-down. Her aesthetic eye told her that. She was a historian and she could appreciate the Spanish architecture and furnishings with their slight Moorish accent. But she really wasn't crazy about it either.
“Cassandra?”
Cass realized her host was trying to address her. She had been so immersed in her musings and surroundings, she hadn't heard him at first. She smiled a bit guiltily. “Your home. It's … overwhelming.”
Their eyes met but did not hold. “I agree. At first there is something quite overwhelming about
la
casa.”
He shrugged in a very European manner, but he did not smile. He glanced around. “Actually, I haven't been here in many years—and we only arrived a few days ago. I had forgotten the feeling of this house, just as I had forgotten all the treasures within it.”
“We?” Tracey asked quickly, stepping closer to him.
Cass wondered why he hadn't been to his ancestral home in years. She couldn't help thinking that it has something to do with his missing wife. Perhaps being here without her was just too painful.
Antonio explained that he was here with Eduardo and Alfonso. Cass had no idea who the latter was, and she assumed he had referred to the very historic feeling of the house. Or did he refer to something else, something less tangible?
She was finally putting her finger on what disturbed her, and what was undoubtedly disturbing Alyssa. The house was not inviting, not in any way. It was so cold, so dark.
But before her imagination went wild, she reminded herself that it was not inviting because no one had lived in it or maintained it for years and years.
“When was this place built?” she had to ask, rolling her neck to try to work out some of the tension—which just kept escalating.
“In the early fifteenth century, although the tower, where the chapel is, dates back a century earlier,” he said, smiling slightly at her.
Cass inhaled. And she wondered if her ancestor Isabel de Warenne had lived there. “And the castle?”
His eyes seemed to sparkle. “It was a military fortification that remained in the hands of my family for many years. Most of the existing structure was built in the fourteenth century, but upon earlier foundations. As you probably know, there was a great need for military fortifications here in Spain, right until the end of the reconquest. But even after that, sometimes, nobleman fought nobleman, or more likely, bands of roaming outlaws.” He smiled, as if the idea enthralled him. “However,” he continued, “my family fell rapidly out of favor with the royals, and by the late sixteenth century the castle was run-down with neglect, having been unoccupied for close to a century.” His gaze held hers. “It was an amazingly rapid fall from grace.”
“Why?” Cass asked eagerly, all other thoughts momentarily forgotten. “What happened?”
Tracey stepped between them. “We've been traveling all day and the two of you are going to discuss history?” She turned and looped her arm in Antonio's. “Tonio, I have missed you,” she said softly, leaning forward to kiss his mouth. In her flat sandals, she had to rise up on tiptoe to do so.
Instantly Cass turned away, refusing to watch the intimate moment. She smiled down at Alyssa, but now it was forced. Perhaps to comfort herself, she took Alyssa's hand.
“Let me introduce you to my son and show you to your rooms,” Antonio said. “Eduardo?”
“I'm here, Papá,” a small voice said from the other side of the hall, standing at the corner of one corridor.
Cass turned with a smile of greeting, wondering how long he had been standing there in the shadows of another hallway, when her smile failed her. No one had warned her that Antonio's son was in leg braces and crutches. She gripped Alyssa's hand more tightly, to forestall any exclamation of surprise. She wondered if Eduardo had been the victim of polio.
“Eduardo, we have guests.”
Cass heard the softness and love in his tone and shot him a look. He was smiling at his son, who was very agile on his crutches, and he hobbled quickly forward.
As Antonio made the introductions, it took Cass two seconds to realize that Eduardo did not like her sister—but that was hardly unusual, because he would think her a threat to his own mother. Eduardo called her señora, inquired politely about their trip, and then refused to look at her again.
“Eduardo.” Tracey was overly enthusiastic, rushing to the small boy and pecking him on both cheeks. “It is
soo
wonderful to see you again.”
Cass winced. Her sister was hardly the Pied Piper when it came to children, and her forced efforts were painfully obvious. She wondered if Antonio was fooled. “Hi, Eduardo,” she said, stepping toward him. “I'm Cass. I hope you don't mind sharing your father with all of us.”
He met her eyes, startled. “In my country,” he said in perfect although heavily accented English, “there is no such thing that you have spoken of. My home is your home.”
“Thank you,” Cass returned. “My niece is seven. How old are you?”
He glanced at Alyssa. “Ten.”
“Maybe you can take Alyssa exploring,” Cass suggested.
He met her gaze. “Exploring?”
“Well, this house is certainly worth exploring, don't you think? And then there's the castle—I'd even join you guys, if you'd let me.” She grinned.
He stared at her and then turned to look at Antonio for permission. “We'll see,” Antonio said, unsmiling.
Cass hoped she hadn't overstepped her bounds. But certainly he wasn't overprotective of his son because of his handicap, or was he? She hoped not. From what she had seen, Eduardo could move very well indeed. “Well, I hope to do some exploring tomorrow, jet lag and all. Maybe you and Alyssa can tag along.”
Eduardo bit his lip and glanced at his father again.
“I think that's a great idea,” Tracey cut in.
Cass could guess why she was so approving. “Maybe we could even take a picnic lunch to the castle,” Cass enthused.
Antonio stared at her.
“Papá, por favor,”
Eduardo pleaded.
Cass bit her lip. The gist was clear—Eduardo wanted to come.
“Cassandra, why don't we discuss tomorrow's agenda at some other time?” Antonio said somewhat grimly.
“Am I being too bold?” Cass asked bluntly. For the first time, she had the nerve to look him in the eye.
“You are very bold.” But he seemed to smile.
“It's an American thing,” Cass said lightly, unable to glance away. “If the castle's out, maybe we can picnic somewhere else, or maybe I can even take the kids to lunch in Pedraza.” Not that she really wanted to go back there.
He finally softened. “Perhaps.”
Cass realized that he continued to stare at her, and she finally flushed and tore her gaze away. She looked from Eduardo, who was clearly hopeful, to Alyssa, who hadn't said a word, but whose eyes were shining with expectation. She tried not to look at Tracey, who was going to read her like a book if she wasn't very careful. “How about a siesta?” she asked her niece. “I'm beat from all that driving.”
“I am a bit sleepy,” Alyssa admitted.
“Okay. Let's follow our host. Eduardo, want to mosey along?”
He seemed startled. “Mosey?”
“American slang. It means follow along in a leisurely manner.”
For the first time, he smiled. He looked exactly like his father, Cass thought; he would one day be an extraordinarily attractive man. “I'll mosey along,” he said in his heavy Spanish accent.
A moment later they were walking down a hallway that ran parallel to the opposite corridor, the interior courtyard outside and between both halls. Windows and doors lined the long hall, giving Cass a clear view of both the courtyard and the opposite side of the house. There was no furniture in the courtyard, none beneath the balcony on the other side. The neglect was a shame. Cass wondered how impoverished the de la Barca family was. It wouldn't be unusual for an old titled family, and he certainly couldn't make very much from his profession as a professor.
It crossed her mind that the ruby necklace might belong to his family—and that they could use the income.
At the end of the corridor, they went upstairs, and Antonio opened the door to a dark bedroom with a magnificent if not timeworn canopied bed. “Cassandra, you may use this room. Alfonso and I will bring your bags in shortly.”
Cass stepped past the threshold and her host, acutely aware of him as she did so. She glanced around—the room was lovely, the walls whitewashed but faded, stiff gold floor-length draperies closed over the windows, exquisite but threadbare, once colorful Persian rugs on the stone floors, the bed done up in shades of peach, blue, and gold, a mélange of stripes and paisley patterns. A tawny-hued marble mantel
was over the fireplace. Above that, in an old, gilded frame, was a portrait of a stern-looking man in period dress. Cass rushed over to it.
“An ancestor of mine.”
Cass hadn't heard him come up behind her and she jerked, half turning to meet his gaze. “Late sixteenth century,” she shot. “Look how high that neck ruff is, and look at the shape of the belly—it was called a peascod,” she cried. She heard Tracey sigh with exasperation and ignored it. “Paned trunk hose, fur-lined cape. Oh, God, look at the stones on that cross he's wearing. Wow.”
Antonio laughed. “I am in complete agreement with you,” he said.
Cass felt absurdly pleased that she had impressed him with her knowledge.
“My sister is a bookworm,” Tracey said flatly. “All she does is read, when she is not writing, always about the past. She loves the past.” It wasn't exactly a compliment.
Cass felt somewhat deflated, but hardly wanted to defend herself by getting into a debate about the details of her lifestyle.
“Reading is one of the finer things in life,” Antonio said, unsmiling, his back to Tracey. “And I am enthralled with the past, sometimes more so than with the present.”
Cass looked at his strained countenance. He had just defended her, while setting Tracey down. Cass glanced at Tracey, who appeared taken aback.
“The two of you have something in common then,” Tracey said, going to Antonio and standing so close to him that she touched his side and he had to look at her.
“Indeed we do.” He turned back to Cass. “He is Alvarado de la Barca.”
The change of subject was abrupt, but Cass knew exactly what he meant, and she whirled to stare at the Spaniard in the portrait—the man who had married Isabel de Warenne. “Oh, God,” she whispered, the hairs rising up on the nape of her neck. And she had a distinctly bad feeling.
Antonio smiled slightly at her. “Her portrait is in the opposite hall,” he said.
Cass met his regard. “I can't wait to see it,” she said, undeniably excited.
“I look forward to showing it to you,” he returned.
“Antonio, was she a fanatic? Was that why she was burned at the stake?” Cass had to ask.
“Do we know for certain that she was burned at the stake—and that she did die in 1555?” he returned. “I would prefer to verify your aunt's claims.”
Cass faced him fully. “Before I left home, I grabbed a box of pamphlets and brochures I bought when Alyssa and I toured Romney Castle a few years ago. The de Warennes were the earls of Sussex in the sixteenth century, and that was their seat. I didn't have a chance to go through the material because I was in such a rush. But we may find some mention about Isabel there.”
“What are the two of you talking about?” Tracey asked.
Cass had briefly forgotten that her sister was present; indeed, for a few instants she had forgotten that anyone else was even in the room, other than herself and Antonio.
BOOK: House of Dreams
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