Tears sprang to her eyes and she tried to blink them away. She looked up at Amarillo, but she couldn’t see him. “What did you say?”
He was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid he would do or say something wrong and send her over the edge. “It's okay, honey,” he said very gently. “Everything’s all right. You said there’s music, and there’s a party somewhere.”
“Yes, downstairs. Mommy and Daddy are having a party. They can’t hear me. I’m calling for them, but they can’t hear me.”
“And the blood, Angelica? Who’s wearing blood around her neck?”
“Who?” She saw her then, as clearly as if she were in front of her. Her face was lined and heavily rouged. Her brown hair had silver running through it, and it was pulled back into a bun. Except strands of it were hanging down onto her face. And she wore a necklace of blood. And her eyes were open, staring blankly back at her.
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she cried, “he killed her!” She began to sob uncontrollably, and Amarillo pulled her into his arms. “He killed her, he killed her!”
Once again he had no enemy to fight, so he did the only other thing he could. He held her tight and directed eveiy bit of his love toward her. Each sob she gave tore directly into him, but still he held her. For his sake he wanted her to stop, and he never again wanted to hear such sad, pitiful, hurt sounds coming from her. But for her sake he knew it was important for her to release the hellish emotions that had been pent up in her for days now . . . perhaps for a lot longer.
She cried on and on. He still held her. He rocked her, he soothed her, he loved her.
He could hear the music from downstairs. Soon the ball would begin, he thought, vastly uninterested. There was only one important thing or person in the whole world and that was Angelica. Finally the crying began to taper off.
“The dreams,” she whispered after a while, “the awful dreams. They kept going after I woke up, and I didn’t know what was happening. I thought I was losing my mind.”
"Why didn’t you tell me? Lord, why did you go through it alone?”
She drew back from him and wiped her hands across her tear-blotched face. He watched her and didn’t tiy to pull her back to him. There couldn't be anything harder, he concluded, than letting her do things on her own.
“Because you deserved so much better than a woman doomed to insanity.”
He groaned. “Angelica. Even if it had been true that you were having a breakdown of some sort, don’t you think I would have wanted to help you? Be there for you? Love you?”
“But it’s not true, wasn’t true, thank heavens! Now I know what’s been happening to me. I’ve been remembering, Amarillo.”
“Remembering what?”
She paused, trying to find a way to put the newly remembered memories into words. “I was kidnapped, Amarillo. When I was very young. I’m not sure how young. Maybe two years old, maybe two and a half.”
He started with surprise, then his brow knitted with puzzlement. “Nico never mentioned a kidnapping to me. Nor did your father, or Elena. I would have thought at least one of them along the way would have made a reference to something as momentous as a kidnapping in the family.”
She shrugged. “They didn’t talk about it with me either. I don’t know why they didn’t. Maybe they were trying to spare me. It was probably very painful for them too. Maybe they thought it would be better if I didn’t remember. You see, I had forgotten all about it.”
His jaw tightened. “More than likely it was so traumatic for you that you developed a kind of selective amnesia about the event, even as young as you were, especially as young as you were. I saw it a time or two when I was with the police department. A person would just completely blank something out. It made things easier to deal with that way.”
"Yes, but I’ve remembered everything now. The man came and took me from my bed in the nursery. I was wearing a nightgown, and my nanny made him wrap me in a blanket, but I think the blanket got lost somewhere after that.”
"Your nanny knew him? She was in on it?”
“She knew him. I guess she was in love with him. I heard them talking a lot. She called him her ‘golden-haired boy.' He was younger than she. Anyway, I don’t know where he took me or how long he kept me there. But wherever we were, I think he must have kept me closed up in a closet.”
Amarillo uttered an oath, but she went on. “There was a mattress on the floor, but it was always dark, I was always cold. And as the days went by—I have no concept of the time involved— I guess I naturally got dirty. I remember how furious he would get with me and how afraid I was. And how much I cried.”
He reached for her hand. “I can’t bear that you went through something like that. It just tears me apart.”
She gazed at him and smiled tremulously. And looking at it, he thought it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.
“But I’m okay now. It’s like I’m waking from a nightmare that’s lasted for days. I can’t tell you how relieved I am."
As beautiful as he thought her smile, he couldn’t return it. She had already relived her hurt. He was only beginning to live it. “So I gather the dreams were you beginning to remember. But what I don’t understand is what triggered the dreams? What made it all come back to you?”
“Breckinridge."
“What? He kidnapped you?"
“No, no. It was the wording he used both when he called me and sent the note. Now I know that he was just trying to get me to stay home, but inadvertently he chose words that triggered my memory. Mind me or I'll make you mind me. Those were the words the man kept saying to me over and over again. Then, Be a good girl. She should stay home. She shouldn’t go out. Those were the words my nanny used to try to keep him from getting angry at me, but it was a feeble attempt. I suppose in her way she loved me, but she loved him more.”
His grip tightened on her hand. “I hope she paid for what happened to you.”
“Oh, she did. He killed her. I guess my dad finally satisfied his demands, because I remember one night the man jerked me out of the closet and then we were at a park or something. It was dark, and my nanny was there. He put me down on the grass. I remember how wet and cold it was and how loud he and nanny were arguing. She wanted to run away with him then and there. He wanted her to go back to the house and wait until a decent time had passed, and then join him. I don’t think she trusted him, much as she loved him. In the end, I think he agreed to take her with him. She leaned down to kiss me good-bye and then she fell beside me. Looking back now, I realize what happened. He slipped a knife around her neck and tried to cut her throat, but she struggled. Apparently he managed to cut her, but not enough to kill her, because in the end he shot her. The explosion was so loud. By then I don’t think I was crying anymore. All I remember is the droplets of blood lying on her neck like a necklace of rubies.” She shivered. “My Lord, the horror she went through.”
“What about the horror she put you through?” he exclaimed. “No child should ever have to go through that.”
She nodded. “The explosions of the bomb brought the gunshot back to me; the red glass stones brought back the blood around her neck.”
"What happened next?”
“I remember the police grabbed the man . . . some other policemen had found me. I remember being in a hospital. I remember my father visiting me there, but Mother never came. She was sick at the time, and now I realize she must have died while I was in the hospital.”
“My Lord, Angelica! I knew your mother had died when you were young, but I didn’t realize—”
“I didn’t either,” she whispered, amazed. “Not until now.”
“No wonder your mind hid all this away from you! You were dealt two major traumas at the same time, and you were little more than a baby."
“I remember leaving the hospital and going to live at Elena’s house. Daddy, Nico, and Elena were there, and they all practically smothered me with love and attention. I was happy, but
I never saw Nanny or Mother again, and I’ve never connected any of this in my mind until now. Isn’t that strange?”
“What’s strange, not to mention remarkable, is that you went through all that and managed to come out of it normal.”
She gave a light laugh, “Well, I wouldn’t say normal exactly.” She paused. “I think tomorrow we should go back to Boston. I want to see my father, and I want to call Nico too.”
“If you’d like, well leave for Boston right now. That way you can see your father tonight.”
She smiled, feeling such relief, love, and joy, she thought she would burst. “We have a ball to go to.”
“To hell with the ball!"
“But this is a very special ball.”
He started to make another objection, but then he stopped. For days now he had been tensed with fear and concern about her, so much so that he had almost missed what was right before his eyes: She was positively glowing with happiness. “A special ball? How could I have forgotten. It’s in SwanSea’s ballroom. The one that’s warm and happy.”
“That’s right. And it will be the first time we’ve ever been in public together. It’s perfect that it will be here in the ballroom.”
He could feel himself relaxing, muscle by muscle. “There is that. And since we're going together, that means I won’t have to watch you flirting with your date.”
“And I won’t have to watch some gorgeous blonde or redhead doing her best to enchant you.”
He shook his head. “None of them ever enchanted me.”
She wiped the last of her tears away, circled her arms around his neck, and used her most beguiling tone. “Then come to the ball with me, Mr. Smith, and let me enchant you.”
“You’ve got yourself a date. Miss DiFrenza. But later.”
A tiny frown touched her brow. “How much later?”
"However long it takes me to undress myself, undress you, make love to you, and then for the both of us to get dressed again.”
“Oh.”
His mouth was just about to claim hers when she stopped him. “There are two things I have to tell you.”
“They had better be important.”
She smiled at his growling tone; she was deliriously happy. “They are.”
“Okay. What’s the first?”
“The first is, I felt very strongly that I had to figure out the demons that were haunting my dreams by myself; I felt I was the only one who could do it. But I was wrong. In the end I remembered everything and I came out of the nightmare all right. But I never at any time did anything by myself. You were with me the whole time, reassuring me, loving me. Amarillo, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He swallowed against the sudden tightness he felt in his throat. “And the second?”
“The second? The second is the most important. The second is this: I love you, Amarillo. I love you more than words can say.”
"Then show me,” he said with a low growl.
SwanSea was celebrating. All within its walls were safe and sound. Lights shone from every window, making the great house a beacon in the darkness. Music swelled and swirled, filling the ballroom, the house, and people’s hearts, making everyone and everything laugh and be happy.
And when the lights on the fourth floor went out for a little while, the night and the house turned even more joyous with the celebration of living and loving.
Jeopardy Page 14
