psychic crystal 03 - killer cruise (11 page)

“Months later, she removed the amethyst talisman on the long silver chain from around her neck and placed it around mine. It had been a gift from the prince, my father. She had never taken it off before. ‘You have the gift of sight. You have powers I could never dream of. And remember, no one can take your powers away from you—unless you let them. Your road will be difficult and sometimes dangerous,’ she cautioned, ‘but one day you will find happiness and true love like I’ve known.’ ”

“How old were you then?” Will asked.

“I was fifteen, still a child, but I looked much older than my age. I was beginning to get second glances, leering looks, from boys and men who would come by to do business with the man in the castle. I could feel the count’s eyes on me from a high window in the castle. My mother gathered up some belongings—clothes, food, and gold coins she had saved. ‘Take this and run,’ she said. ‘Get as far away as you can from this wicked place. Go across the ocean. I love you.’ She kissed me and held me tight. ‘I have heard the women in the castle talk. Tomorrow he will come for me and make me his forever. You must not be here. He has taken an abnormal interest in you and wants to make you his own. That was the price I paid. I offered him my body if he would leave you alone, and soon I will no longer interest him. He is not satisfied with only me. I will not be coming back down to the camp after tonight, so please, I beg you, leave now.’ ”

Will was patient, waiting for Juliette to continue, but when she was quiet, he spoke. “What happened then?”

“The ladies gathered around to bathe and dress my mother in the finest silk gown, a wedding gown, I think, and arranged her hair and placed a sparkling diamond tiara on her head, with jewels fit for a queen. They whispered that she was the chosen one. How lucky that the count had sent for her. She was beautiful, a sacrificial bride. She walked slowly but with no hesitation up to the castle, sometimes slipping, but with her head held high. That was the last time I saw my mother. I screamed her name, but she never look back. I think he had some kind of hold on her. ‘Where’s your power?’ I cried out to her. But I knew she had given it to me.”

Will covered Juliette’s hand protectively with both of his. “That must have been frightening for a child your age to bear. How did you manage all alone? How did you come to be in Casa Spirito, in Florida, such a long way from your home?”

“That’s just it. We never really had a permanent home. I rode out of the property with a man in a wagon who was on his way to Calais. From there I was to buy passage to England and then on to America. But when the man stole most of my gold coins, I was forced to work until I had enough money to pay for my passage. I could have sold my necklace, but it was my only connection to my mother, and I couldn’t bear to part with it. Once I got to America, I was alone and terribly lonely, drifting from city to city, until I met Carter and I thought I was finally home. I thought he was the man my mother spoke of. My true love.”

“The Reverend Carter Coulter, the man who fathered Kate? The man you killed?”

Juliette nodded and retold the story.

“In the beginning, Carter Coulter was like a savior. He took me in, set me up in my own shop. It was the first time in a long time I’d had any kind of stability. I owed him everything. I told him I would repay his kindness, but he didn’t want my money. He said he recognized my talent. He was also very powerful. I…I f-fell in love with him—or I fell under his spell. And by the time I realized he was just using me, I was pregnant, with no place to go, and then when she was born he stole my daughter from me.”

“He was twice your age, married, and he took advantage of you.” Will removed one of his hands from Juliette’s and flexed his fist. “And many other women, from what I’ve read. The bastard got what he deserved. Carter Coulter was evil, just as the count of that castle was evil and the man in the gallery, the man on this ship, is evil.”

Juliette started to shake, and Will held her close.

“You’re not alone anymore, and you’re not that same young, naïve girl.” Will placed a kiss on Juliette’s forehead. “You have Kate and Jack, and now you have me. And you are a strong woman, Juliette. I’m glad you feel like you can confide in me, that you can trust me.”

Juliette looked at Will hopefully, and the wall she’d erected between them began to crumble.

“I’ve been fooled by love before,” Juliette said.
Maybe this time will be different.

Chapter Fourteen

The resemblance was uncanny. Ilona was the picture of her mother, Marika. A picture Gedeon had stared at and salivated over for the past two decades. A picture of the woman he had yearned for ever since Marika’s beautiful soul had deserted him, fled this world and left him miserable and alone in his castle. The castle, massive and rich, was situated on a large, placid lake. There were a hundred castles and ruins in Hungary. His was one of the most magnificent. Built on a rocky hill near the eastern border of Transylvania, the residence was difficult to get to but offered a panoramic view of the region. Inside, the Gothic-Renaissance structure boasted a tower, wine cellars, and an underground prison.

In his opinion, the painting he had commissioned of her mother was more mystifying than the Mona Lisa, more compelling than the
Girl with a Pearl Earring
. Once you saw it, you couldn’t look away. It was entrancing. She was entrancing. The painting didn’t do her justice. And this girl must be her daughter. Had to be. So strange to see Ilona roaming this far from home.

Marika. Dark and beautiful, just like this woman below him on the Lido deck. Marika’s daughter. All grown up. And who was the beauty that she so resembled, asleep in the next lounge chair?

His eyes bored into Ilona’s soul, observing her, studying her face from his dark hiding place behind a post on the deck above. A face he thought he’d never see again. Gedeon’s pulse raced. Although he was out of the sun, sweat glistened on his brow. He throbbed under his pants.

Marika’s daughter had run away. Vanished in the night. He had been furious. He’d wanted her to join in the wedding festivities. He had special plans for her. He had punished Marika mercilessly to find out where she had gone, but Marika wouldn’t talk.

Then he had healed her and brought in a famous Hungarian artist to paint her—a full portrait—that immortalized her but barely captured her magic—her beauty, fire, and power. He would sit for hours pining away before the picture, while the flesh-and-blood subject rotted away in chains in his castle’s dank prison. Every time he’d summoned her, she’d refused him. When she was completely submissive, starving, with no fight left, he would free her, have her brought to his bed, and when he was done with her, have her returned to the dungeon in chains. Until one day, when his slap to awaken her brought no response. She had taken her last traitorous breath. His beloved Marika—his butterfly—was dead. Gone from him forever—until now.

The screams that echoed off the castle walls that night after Marika died bled through the limestone. How dare she escape from him? He had left her body there to rot, in the billowing wedding gown, until she was nothing but bones. Where was her power and glory now?

So it became more important than ever to find her daughter, Ilona, who would be offered up to him in her place, to Gedeon, whose name meant Warrior, Devastater. He had hungered for her that night Marika’s spirit left this earth. He couldn’t wait to taste Ilona and have her in his bed. He had sent out messengers all over Europe to find her. The room at the castle had been carefully prepared. Candles, wine, flowers, everything to please his new bride-to-be. He had watched her from his window for months while he was entertaining Marika. She was young and ripe, only fifteen, but already so beautiful and womanly. And he would be the first to deflower her.

When he’d placed Marika in the dungeon he had sent for Ilona, and when his guards reported that Ilona had disappeared, escaped with a man in a wagon in the middle of the night like a thief, he had raged against fate and destroyed the bedroom. Ripped the gold-threaded white sheets to tatters, smashed the heavy silver candlesticks to the floor, swept the sweetmeats and other delicacies across the table with a broad sweep of his hands. Broke against the wall the bottle of the best sparkling wine, a sweet aphrodisiac he’d ordered to drug her and put her in the mood, and backhanded the messenger.

“There will be other girls,” his chief advisor had assured him. “Even more desirable. She was only a gypsy, like her mother, a plaything to be used, nothing of consequence, not worthy of a man of your position.”

Gedeon rose up to his full height and bellowed, “I will not be denied. She was promised to me. She was mine. I want her back. I want no other man to have her.”

“Too bad you can’t ask your whore where her daughter went. I could bring her to you, but she’s a little ripe.”

Gedeon slapped the arrogant man across his face like an angry bear.

“Don’t touch Marika. She was mine to pleasure and to punish as I wished.”

And, for his insolence, Gedeon gutted him where he stood and took great pleasure in watching him bleed out.

Drunk, angry, and eager for vengeance, Gedeon roamed the hills that night, taking by force what he felt should have been provided as his due. Mothers in the town learned to lock up their daughters for their own protection when Gedeon was on his rampage.

Gedeon suffered a hereditary condition. He was allergic to sunlight. He couldn’t travel during the day. So as he roamed, restless, through the cobblestone streets of the town in darkness, the locals began to fear the dreaded night prowler.

When he returned, inebriated, he would make his way cautiously down to the castle dungeon where the paintings were stored. One evening, in an amorous mood, he selected a large canvas, a particularly sensual depiction of a mythological scene by Titian, commissioned by some corrupt, womanizing cardinal or another back in the 1500s. It was one of the painter’s erotic mythologies of a beautiful maiden reclining in the nude, with the face of the cardinal’s mistress, about to receive one of the gods. Piety was overrated in the sixteenth century.

Enthralled, he propped it up against a stack of similar paintings. Spent from carousing all night, he collapsed onto a huge chair, looked over at Marika’s body, still clothed in her bridal gown, hanging in chains, and fell into a slumberous trance of ecstasy. He imagined the reclining nude was Marika’s body and the striking face of the courtesan was Marika’s face. And that he could still taste and touch her beautiful curves and crevasses. He had confined her. She had resisted. And, in the end, Gedeon had triumphed. Now she was his for all eternity.

But what good does it do to survive multiple lifetimes with no one by your side? All his riches couldn’t compensate for the devastating tsunami of loneliness. Loneliness that could only be eased with Marika, his soulmate. He and Marika were destined to be together. And now that she was gone, Ilona must be his consolation. But even with all his wealth and power he couldn’t find Ilona. Until now.

Gedeon had rubbed his beard thoughtfully and slowly licked his lips. The painting was splendid—extraordinary, really. Female nudity and erotic subject matter were Titian’s specialties, particular themes of his. In the Michelangelos, the nudes were draped with white sheets for propriety’s sake. He much preferred the Titians that had been commissioned by monarchs and hidden in churches or personal collections across Europe but were now his. He was more powerful than any pope or king. Their royal bones were buried in vaults somewhere, while Gedeon was still flourishing.

Selling the paintings in his extensive collection, one canvas at time, provided Gedeon with a steady income. He was already rich when German forces occupied Hungary during World War II and appropriated his castle. When the last of the Fascist Arrow Cross Party vacated the country in 1945, they left in haste, with the vengeful Russians hot on their trail, leaving thousands of framed and unframed artworks, paintings and tapestries stolen from the homes of fleeing or captured Jews, a priceless collection, a treasure trove of masterpieces of incalculable worth that they had crated and stored in the castle’s cellar. His castle was one of many Nazi storage depots scattered throughout Europe.

Masterpieces by Monet, van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, and Chagall, and a collection of forbidden or so-called degenerate art by controversial modern artists, even Impressionists and Old Masters. Treasures thought to be lost forever. Treasures that remained out of sight for decades. Treasures that had increased in value.

For years, the paintings stayed hidden, until the world had forgotten them. Gedeon had hired trusted intermediaries, releasing some works periodically to private collectors, public museums, gallery owners, and dealers, timed to get the maximum profit. The looted Nazi art served as an unlimited source of his wealth for decades, and the fortune offered protection from the Soviets or whatever current force was in power. And he had kept meticulous records in his diary regarding where the paintings were sold, to whom, and for what amount. He also kept the Nazi records of where the paintings and other works of art had come from. It never hurt to have insurance.

Sometimes Gedeon himself traveled the continent and abroad, selling the paintings to the highest bidder, falsifying provenances, enriching his coffers. In all that time, he had never found another woman he could love. Never found another woman like Marika. Never stopped wanting Ilona to take her place.

But now, here she was. Fate had delivered Ilona to him. He could have her, and he would have her. Soon. He and Ilona were kindred spirits. Soulmates. They had a history. Of course, she would have to be punished for running away. But the naughty child had grown to be a desirable woman, very much like her mother in form and feature.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake he’d made with Marika. Leaving her in chains to rot. He would bring Ilona back to the castle. In chains, yes, at first, to break her spirit. But if she behaved, and submitted to him, he would forgive her, and then they could live together forever. But first, there was the matter of the paintings. He would deliver them to the buyer in Bermuda. He would have to delay his plans to deliver the rest of the artwork to the collectors in the States. First, he would deal with Ilona. He was eager to bring her back to the castle, where she belonged. Where
they
belonged. It was her home.