Death in Castle Dark, page 17
“True.” She was right, of course, but I couldn’t help but think that Derek had been blinded by love, and that his choices, while irrational, were genuinely made with Connie’s welfare in mind. “I need to check on my little fuzz girls before we leave. They need some playtime.”
We climbed up to our rooms, huffing slightly with the effort. Connie said, “Let me know when you’re going down for lunch.” She looked at her hand and said, “Oh, wow. I’ve been clutching my ‘treasure’ this whole time. I’m going to run and post the beagle on Elspeth’s photo board. I think I’ll name him Charlie. Do you want me to post your cartoon?”
“I’d better not,” I said, “in case the police need to see it. I wouldn’t want it to go missing. I’ll put it in my room somewhere.”
“Okay, cool! See you in a few for lunch and antiques!”
She ran down the hall, and I watched her, smiling. It was barely past noon, but it seemed a century since I had ridden my bicycle into the sinister woods, and a man with a gun had lunged toward me with a menacing expression. I needed to tell my brothers that they might actually have saved my life.
I turned to the Green Crown Room, prepared to face whatever tiny mischief the Brontës had been up to.
13
Relics
Paul ended up being just the companion that Connie and I needed; he was calm and cheerful, and the change of scenery he promised seemed to be the antidote for all of our troubles. Connie climbed into the front, I tucked into the plush backseat of his black Lexus (just how much money did Paul and Derek have?), and we pulled away from the castle. The day was bright and sparkling now, with no more traces of the previous night’s rain. We glided through the twists and turns of a forested pathway, and once again the scent of gardenias filled my senses. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the seat, enjoying the fresh summer air through my open window.
“You two look like you needed a break,” Paul said.
“We did!” Connie cried. “I think Nora and I should both live in a spa somewhere for a while, until we recover from the—events—of the past couple of days.”
“Yes,” Paul said, his face troubled. “I don’t even know what to say about that. I hope the police get to the bottom of things soon. I feel bad for Derek. He’s trying to be everything to everyone and still hold the business together.”
“Do you think the business is in danger?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It shouldn’t be. Time passes, people forget. But we’ve been in the papers now and on the news. Who knows what effect that will have?”
“So it has been on the news?” I asked. Oh, God. I hadn’t told my parents; they had enough going on with Luke’s hospitalization. Only Gen knew about the murder. But I certainly didn’t want my family to find out about it on the TV News. . . .
“Are you okay, Nora?” Paul’s intense blue eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah. I guess I hoped it would just be in the paper and not on television. But of course it would be televised. It’s a big story.”
“Let’s not think about that right now,” Paul said. “This is our escape.”
I wondered if Paul needed to retreat, as well. What stresses did he face with two jobs and constantly traveling back and forth?
Connie turned to Paul, her face bright and curious. “Do you have to go back to Indianapolis again?”
“In about a week,” Paul said. We had reached the end of the curving driveway, and now he pulled onto Apprehension Road.
“Is there someone special waiting for you there?” Connie asked, ever the romantic.
Paul grinned. He really was handsome; I wondered what the parents of Derek and Paul looked like. “There was someone. We ended things a few months ago.”
“Oh!” Connie’s face fell. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“I think we knew for a while that it wasn’t right. We just sort of stayed with each other out of habit.” He shrugged. “But she was perpetually disappointed with me. Either I was too neglectful or I was too attentive. I think she just liked being upset with me.”
Connie wrinkled her nose. “Oh, she sounds horrible.”
“She was okay. We just weren’t a good match. I’m taking a break from that scene right now, just focusing on the business.”
Connie drooped slightly. “You’re a great catch. I’ll bet Nora and I could find the perfect woman for you.”
He laughed. “Let’s hold off on that for now. I’m in dormant mode at the moment.”
“I can relate to that,” I said. “I’ve had my fair share of relationships that didn’t quite fit.”
“Yeah?” His eyes shone again, glowing blue in the mirror. “Lots of actors, I bet.”
“Yeah, most of them. Actors shouldn’t date actors—that’s what I’ve learned.”
Connie grew quiet in her seat, turning her head to look at the passing scenery.
Paul smacked his hands on the steering wheel and said, “We need to liven up this car! We are three adventurers going into town!” Suddenly he began to sing in a silly falsetto “Three Little Maids from School.”
Connie and I burst into laughter, but soon we were singing with him, inserting La La La when we didn’t know the words.
We finished, and I wiped some tears of laughter out of my eyes, but Paul had started up with “Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day,” which I had sung with my high school choir and apparently Connie had once sung, too. We did a creditable version of it, Paul revealing his lovely true baritone and Connie taking alto as I soared above with the high notes.
“That was fantastic,” Paul said at the end. “We really should start some sort of castle choir. Wouldn’t that be fun? Audition some locals, as well, maybe. I’ll have to ask Derek what he thinks. . . . Meanwhile, here we are!”
He pulled into a public parking lot at the end of Barnaby Street, the main drag of Wood Glen. We climbed out and surveyed the vista before us. I had been here only once, with Connie, when she had taken me to a pub to celebrate my arrival. The downtown area was a nice blend of elegance and old-fashioned charm, with little shops nestled together on red cobblestone sidewalks adorned with potted pines and tubs of summer flowers. I could see the antiques shop at the very end of the road, its red roof rising above the rest in a distinctive square shape.
“I see our destination,” I said, pointing at it.
“Yes, eventually,” said Paul. “But first, Connie, I think we need to introduce Nora to Dorian’s. Don’t you?”
“Oh, yes!” Connie said, brightening. “Come on, Nora, you will love this. I hope you haven’t had too much sugar.”
“I am absolutely positive that I have,” I said. “We decimated Paul’s M&M’s bowl!”
“You’re young. You’ll recover,” Paul said, and he and Connie led me to a maroon doorway with a placard above it reading: Dorian’s Delightful Ice Creams.
“Ahhh, ice cream,” I said.
And then they bundled me inside, where we went to the front to order our cones (Blue Moon for Connie, Raspberry Ripple for Paul, Chocolate Chunk for me). Then we sat in a cozy booth and Paul challenged us to share one interesting little-known fact about ourselves.
“I’ll start,” he said. “When I was younger, I loved tennis. I was quite good for a while, even played in some professional tournaments. I had a trainer and everything.”
“Why did you stop?” Connie asked, catching some drips on the side of her cone with her tongue.
“My father died,” he said. “Then my priorities shifted.”
We were both about to say something to him, but he held up a hand. “No serious stuff. Connie’s turn.”
“Oh.” Connie licked her cone for a moment, thinking. Then she said, “I can speak two languages. My mother is French.”
“I didn’t know that!” I said. “That’s really cool. How do you say ‘I love ice cream’ in French?”
“J’adore la glace,” she said with a lovely French accent.
“Very good,” Paul said. “Nora’s turn.”
“Oh, well, I don’t have any cool secret talents like you two. But I was in a viral video once.”
“Oh?” Connie looked particularly intrigued; she leaned in and dripped some Blue Moon on my shoulder.
“When I was a toddler, my sister, Genevieve, who was four, loved to teach me things. Eventually she decided she would teach me how to sing. She sang ‘My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean’ line by line, and I sang it back to her. My mom recorded it because she recorded everything back then, but it turned out so cute that she and my dad showed it to his college roommate who works in advertising. They ended up using it in a TV commercial for cereal.”
Paul nodded. “I remember that. It was adorable.”
Connie thrust the cone into Paul’s free hand. “Hold that a minute.” She tapped furiously on her phone to bring the commercial up on YouTube. Then she looked at me, her eyes enormous. “You’re one of the Singing Babies? Oh, my gosh, you’re as famous as the ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ kid!”
I shrugged. “Luckily no one knows it’s me. Gen and I prefer our privacy these days.” I grinned at them, but Connie was watching the video again.
“Nora, even then you had practically perfect pitch. It’s amazing. And you and your sister were such cute babies.”
“Yeah, well, clearly my mom thought so.”
Paul handed back Connie’s cone and shoved the rest of his into his mouth, smiling while he savored the last bites. Then he said, “That was wonderful. I feel like I know both of you better already. We should do this with the whole castle staff sometime, right?”
We agreed and thanked Paul for the ice cream, which had been his treat. As we left in high spirits, a part of my brain was wondering what secrets the castle staff had and if we would really want to hear them.
* * *
* * *
Before we reached the antiques shop, Paul said he needed to stop in at Balfour Bakery. “I promised Zana I’d get her a couple loaves of bread and a coffee cake,” he said. “Won’t take more than a minute.”
We followed him inside a room fragrant with baking and bright with summer sun. Jade herself was behind the glass counter, beneath which I glimpsed a wondrous array of pies, cakes, and donuts. Her hair was tied back and she wore a crisp white apron, but her dark glasses were still perched on her nose. “Hey,” she said, “I know you guys.”
“Hi, Jade,” Paul said. “I need two loaves of your country white and a raspberry coffee cake.”
“Sure,” she said. “Hey, Mom!” she called over her shoulder.
A woman came out from a back room; she was auburn-haired, like Jade, and wore a similar apron. Her face was attractive but serious, and she seemed a bit nervous. “Have you been waited on?” she asked Connie.
“We’re all together, Mara,” Connie said. “This is Nora, our new member of the Castle Troupe.”
“Oh, nice to meet you,” she said. “Is Jade taking care of you all?”
“You can get the coffee cake,” Jade said. She had climbed on a stool to get loaves of bread from a high shelf and now came down to wrap them. “He wants raspberry.”
“Of course,” Jade’s mother said.
“How are the kittens?” Jade asked.
“Fine,” I said, stealing a glance at Paul. His eyes stayed on Mara, but his brows rose at the mention of the cats. “They’re wonderful.”
“Yeah, they were really cute. I might come by this week to say hi.”
“Text first to make sure we’re not busy,” Connie said.
“Yeah, okay,” Jade said, shrugging a casual teenage shrug. She handed over the bread bag, and Connie took it. Paul went to the register to pay Mara Balfour, and Jade squinted at us. “Are you guys okay and everything? Eriza’s mom told me about the guy who got killed. And I saw it on the news, too.”
Connie and I nodded. “We really can’t talk about it,” Connie said.
Jade was undeterred. “He used to come in here a lot with his girlfriend. They both liked the Balfour Bites.” She gestured to some delicious-looking cookies that seemed to contain both chocolate and butterscotch. “He was always nervous, though. I always thought he must have been a soldier.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It was almost like he had PTSD. He was always looking over his shoulder and stuff, like the mob was after him.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want to be seen with his girlfriend,” Connie said.
Jade bristled. “That’s silly. Sora is awesome. She’s a highly respected businesswoman here in town.”
I edged a bit closer to her. “Oh? What does she do?”
“She has a little café on Porter Street, a couple blocks over. High school kids love hanging out there during the school year, and she’s really nice and motherly to everyone.”
Sora actually sounded like a great match for quiet Garrett. “Did you tell the police this, Jade? That Garrett seemed nervous?”
“What police?” she asked with a blank expression.
Paul had been chatting with Mrs. Balfour, but now he held up his bag and said, “All set, ladies!”
We waved to Jade and her mother and left the bakery.
Connie offered to put the baked goods in the car; Paul gave her his key, and she ran back to the lot.
As we waited for her, Paul looked pointedly at me and said, “Kittens, huh?”
I looked up at him, stricken with guilt. “They needed a home. And they’re behaving like little angels.”
He laughed. “I have no problem with it. Does Derek know?”
I bowed my head. “No. And he’s probably the only person in the castle who doesn’t, thanks to the grapevine.”
“How many kittens are we talking about?” he asked.
“Three. They’re all gray; I named them after the Brontë sisters.”
He nodded. “How fitting.”
“I’ll tell Derek,” I said. “I’m just working up the courage.”
His smile was slightly mocking. “Haven’t you learned yet that my brother is a pushover? Especially when he’s talking to an attractive woman.”
Connie ran back to us, bursting with enthusiasm. “And now we can look at some truly beautiful junk,” she said. “I love this store so much.” She and Paul rapid-walked down the sidewalk and I did my best to keep up; finally we reached the building with the red roof, called Relics Antiques. A gold placard on the wall beside the door read: There is value in age, and truth in the relics of our past.
We walked in, past a gorgeous green velvet throne chair of an unknown era; a sign on the chair read: I’ve been marked down!
“I want that chair,” Connie said, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder.
I laughed, and we moved deeper into the dark, wood-paneled room; it was cool in here, with a slight lavender scent. I suspected there was a bowl of potpourri somewhere on the premises. I soon saw why everyone at the castle loved Relics Antiques: every surface looked like a delightful prop table.
One table near the door held every imaginable piece of costume jewelry; we lost Connie there immediately. The next table was a hodgepodge of old clocks, ornate pipes, vintage toys, a Victrola, and some carved wooden Santas. After this came several tables of china and glassware, from Wedgwood to Spode to Royal Doulton.
Paul and I turned a corner to see rack upon rack of vintage clothing. “Oh—I see why Derek loves it here,” I said, touching the delicate lace on an old wedding dress.
“The best is yet to come,” he said. He led me to some tables along the back wall of the store. “Look,” he said.
It was an actor’s paradise: vintage swords and scabbards, enough hats to fill a millinery shop, helmets and armor, antique boots and shoes, pageant sashes, military regalia, and a basket full of watches.
“Heaven,” I said.
Paul had found an elaborate beard somewhere and he held it up to his face. “Nora, look!”
I laughed. “Truly villainous.”
“Ladies like villains, don’t they?” he said lightly. “Or so they say.”
“I don’t think you need a beard to attract ladies,” I said, trying on an arm-length black glove.
“Good to know.” He put the beard down, grinning. “Anyway, have fun. Derek wants a couple of crowns for the costume room, so I’m going to see what they have on that other table.”
He drifted away, and I began taking a tour of the hats, some of which were beautiful and laced with delicate scarves. I tried on a sunbonnet and looked in a mirror above the table, then laughed at my reflection. Perfect if I was going to play Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
I put the hat down and wandered over toward the swords; any one of them would have been perfect as one of “Uncle Harold’s” collection, but I supposed we wouldn’t be returning to that story line (assuming that Connie and I stayed at the castle).
Farther down the table were some inlaid wooden boxes, intricately carved and brightly painted. I opened one of them and admired the red velvet interior. To my right glinted some lovely Shakespearean-looking daggers and Jocasta-style brooches. That reminded me of the pin Renata had given me; I had set it on my dresser for safekeeping, but I realized I should wear it soon to show her that I appreciated the gift. Perhaps I would wear it to dinner.
I wondered if I should get Derek a little gift. He truly did seem to be under a great deal of strain, especially now that Connie was angry with him, but he had been nothing but gracious and generous to me. Even if I ended up leaving, I wanted to show my gratitude to Derek Corby.
The daggers seemed a likely possibility; they would all look good in his apartment full of treasures or somewhere in the castle as an objet d’art. One of them was especially appealing, glinting gold and sporting a lovely emerald-like stone. It would have made a perfect replacement for the missing dagger, in fact. I wondered if Derek would even want one or if it would simply remind him too much of Garrett.
