Redeemer of Shadows Page 5

  Coming to the rounded sweep of marble stairs, she skipped down to the main entry hall, built originally to impress, and doing so still. Its bright, marble floors swirled with patterns of white and cream, looking fresh and cheery. Victorian wallpaper, soft and muted, accented some of the walls, but mostly there was the elaborate dark carving of the rose-patterned woodwork.

  Halfway down, Hathor stopped. Regally lifting her head in the air, she placed her fingers lightly on the wooden banister. Stepping agilely on her bare feet, she nodded to pretend gentlemen below, bestowing her most gracious of smiles on the rounded chairs in the middle of the front hall.

  “I used to do that very same thing when I first moved in here.” Georgia watched with a fond smile from the entryway to the dining room. Her smooth voice still carried traces of a gentle American southern accent. Hathor nodded her head regally in her aunt’s direction.

  With a huge smile, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “You can’t enter a room such as this without imagining a grand ball with wide hoopskirts and lavish masks.”

  “That is why I think you should stay. With your help, I could hold such events again. The rich pay dearly to be involved in glamorous affairs. And with your talent for dated costuming, you could be a great asset. I bet we’d even capture more of the foreign market.” Georgia watched Hathor’s buoyant steps as she crossed the hall.

  “You won’t give up, will you?” Hathor inquired lovingly. “I don’t want you to take care of me.”

  “And what else are you going to do, Hat? Go back to the States? What is waiting there for you?” the older woman admonished with a firm set to her graying brows. Her wrinkled face pulled up with a soft smile. “You belong here, with me. So what if I take care of you a bit? I have no children to spoil. It will be good to have you here to run the place, see if you like it. You know, when I’m gone, I plan to leave it to you.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Hathor said, not liking the idea of losing Georgia. She let her aunt lead her to the large dining room, with its majestic oak table large enough to seat two dozen people easily. Again, the woodwork was dark and elegant, and vases lined the top at intervals.

  Running her fingers over the high-backed chairs as she passed, Hathor managed a smile. “I do suppose I would like to see the ball, though it won’t be the same as actually having been there. You know, what we could do is hold a different time period every year and send out carded invitations. I’ll bet if you figured it out right, you could even book grand parties for all those Hollywood movie stars. They would drop enough money on this place in one night to cover the house upkeep for a year.” Hathor’s eyes glittered with excitement. She looked hopefully at her aunt.

  “I should like it if they would. Then we could close the bed and breakfast part. I only keep it open because I love this house too much, and it is the only way to pay for the preservation.” Georgia chuckled. “I warned you that once you got here the house would get into your blood. Never did I dream when I married that British son-of-a-bitch, I would end up in a place like this.”

  Hathor was not shocked by her mild-mannered aunt’s reference to her late husband. Uncle Charles had been quite the bastard. Though charming, he was a philanderer. He gambled and drank himself into the grave. Georgia dropped the Kennington name after he died, changing back to her maiden name of Vinceti. In fact, whenever Charles was mentioned, her aunt deemed it necessary to follow his name with an obscenity.

  “So, where were you last night?” Georgia asked, smoothly changing the subject.

  “I told you. I was in the gardens.” Hathor blushed and couldn’t meet her aunt’s eyes.

  “With who?” Georgia persisted. “I didn’t see a car leave the drive.”

  “Oh.” Hathor’s blush deepened in color. She shrugged delicately. “Just this actor guy I kind of met the other night when I got lost and didn’t meet you at the café. I think he might have been trespassing a bit. I told him to leave.”

  “Not after spending a little time with him, I’ll warrant.” Georgia’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively. She let go of Hathor’s arm and walked in front of her into a small kitchen. “I dated an actor once.”

  “You told me,” Hathor said, stopping her aunt from retelling the wild exploit of being forty, single and in New York.

  The kitchen was also a new renovation to the house, having been constructed as a preparation area for the staff. The original kitchen and servant’s quarters were in the basement. It was too inconvenient for the catering staff to trample up so many stairs every time they needed to reload a tray.

  “Is this the same actor you said entranced you?” Georgia motioned Hathor to sit at the small table they used for personal dining. Then, pouring a cup of coffee for her niece in a fine piece of china, she set it on the table. “So what’s this fella like?”

  “He’s…different.” Hathor hesitated.

  “They all are, honey,” her aunt drawled, helping herself to a cup. She placed a breakfast pastry on a plate of matching china and set it in front of Hathor. Sitting across from her, she smirked knowingly. “This is Europe. There are no other men in the world as you will find right here in London.”

  “He’s French, I think,” she began, taking a sip of coffee. Then, with a slight moan, she confessed in a pained whisper, “and he is so incredibly handsome.”

  “I detect a problem in your tone.” Georgia leaned forward, placing her polyester-covered arms on the table. She studied the girl in front of her, patiently waiting for her to speak.

  Hathor mumbled, “I don’t know if it’s a problem, per se, but he dresses like he is from the turn of the century—and I don’t mean the last one, either. He does this performance…”

  “Performance?” Georgia prompted with an interested smile.

  “He acts like a vampire. There is this whole stage show with dancing vampires and fangs and a naked woman tied to a stone ledge to be punished.” A weakened sound escaped Hathor. “It is all very strange and sexual.”

  Georgia clapped her hands in delight. A grin spread over her face, as she declared, “How avant-garde! I should like to see such a show. Maybe we should go tonight. You can, ah, talk to him after and congratulate him on his performance. You can bring him a bottle of brandy.”

  Hathor thought of her aunt, with her pink polyester pants and white silk blouse under her pink polyester jacket, her cotton ball hairdo and reading glasses, trying to watch the stage.

  And if not the stage, Hathor thought in something akin to amused horror, then definitely the aroused crowd.

  “I don’t know,” Hathor said carefully. She didn’t want to hurt the old woman’s feelings. “I don’t think I’m going to see him again. Last night he told me he was from 1683. I think he might be a bit delusional or in the very least obsessive.”

  “Aren’t we all? So what if he says that. Is he charming?” Georgia paused until she received a reluctant nod. “You say he is handsome, and by the look on your face last night, I can tell that he makes your pulse race. I think you should go see him again. It isn’t like you’re getting married and bearing him children. Go have fun and find out what those sixteen-hundred type men are all about.”

  “He asked, well more like commanded, I meet him at midnight in the gardens. I doubt I’ll go.” Hathor stared at her untouched pastry as she finished her cup of coffee.

  “Coward.” Georgia smiled lovingly to soften the word.

  “So?” Hathor frowned. Ignoring the food, she stood to pour herself another cup. When she offered a coffee refill to her aunt, the old woman shook her head in denial and lifted her hand over her cup.

  “Let me give you some advice, dear. Life is very short—too short not to enjoy. Take whatever this man can give you, one night—two. If it is what you want, do it. I made the mistake of expecting too much. Before I married your Uncle Charles, the foolhardy bastard, I was in love with this wild cowboy who worked for your grandpa on his ranch. One night, I had the chance to be with him. But, being the prude t
hat women were expected to be in those days, I denied us both. I always regretted it.”

  “You never told me about this,” Hathor said in wonder. She slowly came back to her seat, staring at Georgia in awe. “What happened to him?”

  “He died in a stampede the very next day. The following year I married your good-for-nothing first uncle. Every night when I lay in his bed I would think of that cowboy, wishing I had taken the chance and gone with him.” Georgia let loose a wistful sigh. “What I’m saying is follow your heart, and when that fails, you go with your gut—or the place slightly below it.” The last was said with an unapologetic smirk.

  Hathor gasped. “Really, Georgie!”

  “What?” Her eyebrows shot up to mock her niece’s shocked expression. “Just be safe and protected about it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Hathor said, giving Georgia an unabashed grimace. “A year before you married your first husband, Grandpa didn’t have the ranch. He sold it when father was about twelve, making you what? Fourteen?”

  Georgia giggled and shrugged. Standing, she took the untouched plate and put the pastry back in the box. “It could have happened. Anyhow, my message is the same. Get out there, live a bit. Take it from an old woman, life is too short not to live it up.”

  Hathor opened her mouth to deny the advice when the tinkling of bells interrupted her. Looking up into the corner of the kitchen, she saw the bell to the front door being pulled on its old velvet cord in place of a modern doorbell.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Georgia asked in surprise. She absently wiped her hands on her pants, leaving the plate in the sink. Hathor shook her head, standing to rinse out her cup and place it on the counter. The bell rang again, this time more insistently. Georgia sighed. “I wonder who it could be. It’s probably another family of tourists wanting to know if they can picnic on the lawn and take pictures of their rowdy kids by my statues. I swear, someday I’m going to post a sign on the front gate. Maybe I’ll get one of those electric things and shock them when they try to get in.”

  Hathor followed curiously behind her aunt. Georgia slowly unlocked the immense front door, swinging it open. Outside stood a tall gentleman dressed in fine livery. He gave a regal bow, his mouth quirking a bit at the side as he saw the stunned older woman before him.

  “Mademoiselle Hathor Vinceti?” the man questioned of Georgia. His thick English accent was as proper as the young man could force it to be.

  “I’m Hathor,” Hathor said, coming to stand beside her aunt. The women looked at him expectantly.

  “Mademoiselle Vinceti.” The man bowed politely. Without further explanation, he handed her a folded piece of thick parchment. Then, stepping back, he motioned behind him to an awaiting horse-drawn carriage. The driver, an older gentleman with a rounded face and almost square body, lumbered down from the top of the coach. He was also dressed in fine, old-fashioned livery.

  Hathor held her breath, hoping to see Servaes step down from the carriage door. She was disappointed. Instead of Servaes, the man pulled out a long box wrapped with a bright blue ribbon. Carrying it up the front arching stairs, he nodded his head at her.

  “Where’d you like this, mademoiselle?” The second man’s voice was much more gruff and unrefined with a hint of a cockney accent. Hathor recognized him as the bartender at Servaes’ club.

  “Ah,” Hathor began in confusion. She clutched the stiff parchment in her fingers and glanced helplessly at her aunt.

  “Over there, gentlemen.” Georgia waved them toward the formal dining room. “On the table is fine.”

  Behind the driver, the first man emerged from the coach with three more boxes, smaller than the first but tied with the same blue ribbon. Hathor watched in wide-eyed awe, finally managing to ask, as they dropped off their parcels on the table, “What is all this?”

  “A small token, my lady,” the first man answered with a slight bow, “from his lordship, the Marquis de Normant.”

  Georgia smiled and quickly thanked the men as they left. As soon as the door was shut, she spun around excitedly to stare at her niece. Hathor slowly went to the front window to watch the men leave. The sound of hooves on cobblestone faded as the coach turned through the gates to the main roadway.

  “Well, girl?” Georgia inquired. “Are you going to open that thing or what?”

  Hathor glanced down at the card in her hand. Her fingers shook. She remembered a flash of green over brown eyes, followed by a hesitant memory that was not her own. It was a memory of blood on flesh. As soon as it came, it was gone.

  Hathor shivered anew. Her breathing deepened as she fingered the card in her hand. Turning it over as she backed away from the window, she noticed the wax seal stamped on the back. The crest was not one she recognized. Running her finger over it, she glanced in awe at Georgia. “I don’t understand it.”

  “What’s not to understand?” Georgia smiled, excited enough for both of them. Her aunt couldn’t have detected Hathor’s sudden queasiness. “Either you read it or I will.”

  Taking her fingernail under the dot of wax, Hathor pried it gently from the page so as not to break it. Her heart beat with curious excitement. Her fingers continued to shake as she unfolded the missive. The handwriting looked very old, as if done with a quill. The refined scrawl of cursive lettering was very elegant.

  “It’s from him,” Hathor whispered, “the actor.”

  “Well,” Georgia prompted impatiently.

  Clearing her throat, she read, “Mademoiselle Hathor Vinceti. Tonight you shall live in that other world. The Italian conservatory. Midnight. Servaes.”

  Georgia squealed and happily clapped her hands. Grabbing her niece’s stiff arm, she dragged her to the formal dining room and deposited her in front of the boxes. Hathor untied the ribbon on the first package. Again, her vision flashed with the unmistakable image of blood. She jerked back from the package, refusing to open the lid. Warily, she stared at the box.

  “Well?” Georgia asked, mistaking Hathor’s hesitance.

  “Here, help me with this,” Hathor requested as she endeavored to pull off the biggest box lid. She tried to ignore the strange imaginings of her mind. Georgia went to the other side and took the lid up into the air, pulling it from her niece’s trembling fingers.

  Hathor held her breath in wonder, pushing aside the white crepe paper. Inside was a confection of blue and cream, satin and ribbons. Taking the gown by the shoulders, she lifted it with a heavy swoosh. The material was weighty as she held it up for inspection. A tentative smile of pleasure lighted her face as she glanced at her aunt.

  “Would you look at that?” Georgia shook her head in amazement. “That didn’t come from a cheap costume store.”

  Hathor studied the gown. In front, the evening dress had three layers of cream embroidery edging the pale blue satin. The first layer fell to the floor, the second pulled the dress into a more form-fitting curve at the knees, and the last was just a bit higher for decoration. The low, square-cut neckline was fitted with delicate lace, broadly stretching from shoulder to shoulder and across the squared back. The sleeves were short and puffed, with a ribbon tying them down.

  If the front was beautiful, the back was absolutely gorgeous. A stiff sash fitted the waist with a silk bow above an open panel in back. Matching embroidered edges lined the sides of the open panel from bow to floor, with row after row of frilled cream lace sweeping out in a short train.

  “This is hand stitched,” Georgia said, admiring the seams.

  “He must have gotten it from one of his acting sets,” Hathor mused, trying to fathom how he could’ve known her size. The dress looked as if it would fit perfectly.

  “There’s more,” Georgia giggled, holding up a corset, a fine linen chemise and some silk stockings. Her eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

  Hathor blushed. “I’m sure it’s not like that. They probably came with the costume.”

  “Right,” Georgia said slowly. She laid the undergarments back in the box. Sarcastically, s
he muttered, “A man gives a woman undergarments to wear and has no thought of seeing them on her. Sure, Hat, I’ll buy it and whatever else you are trying to sell. Open the others.”

  Hathor laid the gown down gently. Then, leaning over, she took up a small box. Again tugging off the ribbon, she unwrapped the gift. Inside were two square-toed satin slippers to match the dress. Once more she shook her head in amazement. They, too, looked to be her size. She marveled at how he had done it. True, there had been lights in the garden, but it was still shadowed and dark. In the other box, she found a necklace the deep color of sapphires and matching earrings.

  Hathor swallowed visibly. She turned to her aunt and shook her head. Setting the gemstones on the table, she said, “I can’t do this. It’s insane. He thinks I’m someone I’m not.”

  “Isn’t that the point of the fantasy?” Georgia asked, not following the logic.

  “Oh, Georgie, I mean he must think I am brave or bold or into—” Hathor’s voice cracked stiffly in confusion. “There is something terribly wrong. I can feel it.”

  “It’s crazy not to go. When a man puts in effort like this, it means he is truly interested in making you happy. So what if he wants a little fun with you? You should consider it flattering that he is attracted to you,” Georgia put forth sternly. When Hathor frowned, she rushed, “You know what I mean. It’s a compliment. Anyway, you’re going and you’re wearing this beautiful Victorian dress when you do.”

  “Really…” Hathor contemplated weakly. She picked up the card to look for an address. There was none, just the short scripted message. “I’m sure it was no trouble. He is in the acting business. He probably just raided a prop room last night after work and had his friends deliver them to me as a favor. I’d send them back, only I don’t know where he is.”