A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) (19 page)

“Yes, come on in.”

“He doesn’t want anyone to see the costume underneath until midnight,” she added. “Wow, your bed is beautiful!”

“It is indeed,” Gabriel said, coming in behind her with a garment bag over his arm. “So you are a Goth at heart!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “It’s probably got too many colors to be Goth.”

“But they’re the right colors. Jewel-tones, and the brocades are rich.” He stroked a curve of the bed’s drapery. “Very elegant. And those candlesticks are magnificent!” He gestured to the two carved wooden candle stands, four feet high, that flanked my bed.

“Thanks. They were a gift.”

“May we have them downstairs? In the dining parlor?”

“Oh—I guess so.”

“You really do shine in this setting,” he added, smiling at me as he hung the garment bag from one of the bed posts. “How shallow of us all to assume you only cared for Victorian. Dee, you can start by washing off the whiskers.”

“Oh!” She put a hand to her cheek, then pulled off the cat’s ears. “Sorry, I forgot!”

“I’d have you wash your face anyway. I need a clean canvas.”

Gabriel set a tackle box on my dresser and opened it to reveal a rather impressive makeup kit. The sight took me back to my theatre days in high school.

I led Dee to the bathroom and returned to find Gabriel poking through the tackle box, taking out brushes. “So you’re going to paint her face?”

“Yes. She’ll wear a veil over it until midnight.”

“Are you planning to photograph your work?”

He flashed me a smile. “Oh, yes. It will be documented.”

Dee came out, rubbing her face with a towel. Gabriel opened the garment bag and removed a length of pale, shimmering fabric, which he handed to her. He turned to me as she headed back into the bathroom.

“Would you mind making sure no one comes in? I don’t want the surprise to be spoiled.”

“Not at all,” I said. 

He moved to the head of the bed and put a hand on one of the carved candle pillars that Tony had given me. “Maybe we could move these while she’s changing.”

“Sure.”

I collected the one from the other side, and we took them down to the dining parlor, where Margo was setting out bottles of wine.

“Hello, Margo, love. Drinks under control?”

Margo started, then nodded, going back to the bottles. Gabriel placed his candle stand beside the fireplace, then frowned.

“On second thought,” Gabriel said, gazing around, “it’s going to be crowded in here. These might be better by the windows.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved that they’d be in a place where they were less likely to be knocked over. I was pretty sure they were indestructible, but the candles were a potential fire hazard. The two windows in the north wall were recessed enough, due to the thick adobe walls, that the candlesticks should be safe. 

As we headed back to the stairs, we found Ramon tuning his guitar, resplendent in a blue velvet tunic with wide sleeves that had zig-zag edges. So much for his escaping the dress-up.

I double-checked that he wasn’t blocking access to the stairs, then followed Gabriel back to my suite. Dee’s voice called from the bathroom.

“Is it safe to come out?” she called.

Gabriel turned to me with a slow smile. “Can you keep a secret, my lady?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’d like you to watch. Yes, come on out,” he called.

I had already decided to stay and chaperone Dee. She was over twenty-one, but just barely, and Gabriel’s charm was so powerful.

She emerged, hair pulled back into a bun, and I gasped. She wore a skin-tight bodysuit, silvery-colored, that was painted with an exquisite rendering of a skeleton. It was not like commercial skeleton suits that I’d seen, white bones on a black background. This was all shadow and shade. The only part of the fabric that had no paint was the bones themselves. Gabriel had used shading to create a background and the details, but left the majority of the “bones” unpainted, which made them look ethereal. He had created the illusion of a heart inside the chest cavity, the only touch of red in the piece. It was eerie and exquisite and disturbing.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It’s marvelous!” I said. “I was expecting a shroud.”

“The story describes a shroud, yes, and we have one.” He reached for the garment bag and took out a cloud of pale pink, lacy gauze, which he draped around Dee. “Like so.”

It suggested a shroud, though the color was odd. The skeleton painting glowed through it, looking even more ghostly.

“Pink?” I asked.

“Yes. You’ll see.”

“Well, the skeleton is amazing!”

“Thank you. Please keep it to yourself. Not even Kris has seen it yet.”

“I will.”

“Good.” He took the shroud off of Dee again and tossed it onto my bed. “And now, the face.”

Never mind chaperonage; I was delighted to watch Gabriel at work. We all crowded into my bathroom, where the light was better. Gabriel gave Dee a wide hairband to put on, then commenced applying a white base for the makeup. With a half-dozen brushes, he added detail in shades of gray and cream and, to my surprise, silver. He matched the painting on the bodysuit perfectly, painting neck bones that continued the skeletal design. He magically hollowed Dee’s cheeks and eye sockets, and made her face look incredibly skull-like. In addition to the gray shadows and sculpting, he added patches of the silver, dappled at random over the “bones” of her face.

Dee sat patiently, perfectly comfortable with Gabriel painting her face. Had she sat, or stood, the same way as he painted the bodysuit?

I glanced at him. So seductive. Had he made a pass at Dee? I hoped not, because if he’d been unfaithful to Kris I’d have to throttle him out of loyalty.

But Dee didn’t show the agitation I would expect if she’d been seduced by this man. She was also pretty level-headed, and she was fond of Kris. She wouldn’t try to steal Gabriel, I thought.

And Gabriel was completely intent on his work, not flirting with her at all. Maybe that was due to my presence, but he seemed all business. Focused. An artist at work, nothing more.

I had no idea how much time passed, but eventually I realized I was getting stiff from standing in the corner out of the way. I eased my weight from foot to foot, reluctant to leave.

Gabriel put down his brush. “That’s good,” he said, and dusted powder over the makeup to fix it.

From a small box, he produced a wig that he carefully placed on Dee’s head, over the hairband. It was white with blood-red tips: a page-boy cut that ended right at her jawline. The effect, on top of the skeletal makeup, was striking.

“Good.” He turned to me, radiating such a glow of delighted accomplishment that I almost gasped. “You like it?”

“It’s magnificent,” I said, nodding.

He beamed at me, then turned to clean his brushes. I now understood why every female who got near him—with the possible puzzling exception of Dee, who was busy admiring herself in the mirror—fell under his spell. He was attractive and sexy under normal circumstances, alluring when he flirted, and devastating when he was happy in his art.

Gabriel carefully cleaned his brushes and packed everything away, even wiping the counter clean. I watched, amazed at how unconscious he seemed of the impact he’d had on me, and equally amazed that Dee didn’t seem affected.

We returned to my bedroom where Gabriel draped the shroud around Dee, pinning it in a few places to keep it from slipping. He took about a dozen photographs from various angles, then brought out a black, hooded cloak which completely concealed the “Red Death” costume. Inside the hood was a black veil with eyeholes, so that Dee’s face was hidden. Because her eye sockets were black, her eyes seemed to float inside the hood. I couldn’t decide if it looked more like a burqa or one of the Nazgûl.

“Comfortable?” Gabriel asked.

Dee nodded.

“Good.” He gathered his makeup box and the garment bag, and we all went downstairs.

Dee slipped into the side hallway, heading for the kitchen. Gabriel, on his way to the back door, was buttonholed by a vision in blue—a naiad, perhaps—the watery gown clinging to her slender form, preposterously high spiked heels of a matching blue and glinting with blue gems, and a mask/headdress with a pair of slender horns curving upward through a forest of peacock feathers.

“Gabriel,” said the vision, “You’d better get dressed.”

I recognized the voice; it was Cherie.

Gabriel paused to bow. “I’m just on my way to do that.”

He continued down the hall and I turned to Cherie, instinctively trying to distract her, though I wasn’t quite sure why. “Do you have everything you need?”

She turned toward the gift shop, and I followed her in. Most of the shop was blocked off by screens, and Poppy had been converted into an entryway for both Hyacinth and Dahlia. Hyacinth, the smallest of the alcoves, was now the blue chamber.

“It’s going to be dark, and my lamps are blue,” Cherie said. “Could we get a little more light in here?”

I peeked into Hyacinth. Even without furniture, it would be cozy for more than three or four people.

“The fire will give some light,” I said, looking at the coals in the grate. “Gabriel wants to keep them going, right?”

“Yes, but that won’t reach people’s faces,” Cherie said. “We should be able to see each other’s masks.”

“I have something that might help.”

I scurried upstairs to my suite and unplugged a small, stained glass lamp in the shape of a peacock’s tail from my dresser. I took it down and installed it on the mantel. When I switched it on, it cast a blue-green light through the alcove.

“Oh, that’s better!” Cherie said. “Thanks!”

“Why do people have to come through my chamber to get to yours?” said a female voice nearby. “He should have switched the order!”

“They would have had to go through anyway, on the way out,” said a voice I recognized as Dale’s. “You’re not the only one, the other room has two crossovers.”

I stepped out into Poppy and turned toward the east alcoves, where I saw draperies forming two arches side by side. The right hand one led to a short drapery passage passing the fireplace on the way toward Violet. The fire there was also down to coals. I’d have to build them all up. The left-hand arch showed a green drapery that angled left; I peeked around this and saw Margo and Dale standing in Dahlia, which was now the green chamber. Margo wore an emerald velour dress with black fur trim edging the low-cut bodice and a high, double-pointed princess hat from which floated a stiff black veil.

Hennin. The word came into my head, a ghost risen from my theatrical past. That was the name of the hat. Except that the points of a hennin were usually straight, and Margo’s coiled like the horns of some African antelope.

As for the dress, I was pretty sure that the women who had worn the style hundreds of years ago did not have tattoos. Margo had several, most noticeably the raven erupting from her cleavage, the effect of which was exaggerated by the tightly-laced bodice.

Dale was trim and dashing in a rich purple brocade tunic over black tights. He smiled as I looked in.

“You look great, Ms. Rosings.”

“Ellen, please,” I said. “Thanks. So do you.”

He made a swooping bow, taking off a beret-like hat with a big, purple ostrich feather. I couldn’t help smiling.

“I’ll get some more firewood,” I said, backing out into the hall, where I almost ran into Kris, who was heading for the stairs. “Off to change?” I asked.

She nodded and slipped past Ramon, who had set his guitar aside on its stand and sat idly rubbing his fingers. His hair was down, and I saw that he was letting it grow out. It already brushed his shoulders.

“Will you be warm enough here?” I asked him.

“Should be, thanks, if the fires are going.”

“I was just going to fetch some more wood.”

“Want a hand?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind.”

We collected the two wood slings from their home in the kitchen. The smell of the food made my stomach growl. Julio was piping salmon mousse into a gazillion tiny profiteroles, so I left him alone. Once the party started I’d come beg for scraps.

At the back door, Ramon turned to me. “Let me bring it in. You don’t want to get your dress dirty.”

He took one of the slings and headed for the firewood stacked along the driveway. I waited, traded him the empty sling for the full one, then carried the wood to the rack in Hyacinth. Ramon was at the back door with the other sling when I got back. It took two more swaps to fill all four of the firewood racks.

“Could you bring in one more load?”

“Sure.”

I put the other sling away, glancing at the kitchen clock. Twenty after eight. The party would begin at nine.

I added wood to both fires on the south side of the house, poking and coaxing them back to life. I eyed the drapery walls critically, decided they wouldn’t be a danger as long as the screens were over the fireplaces, and checked that the fire extinguishers were in place.

The
ofrenda
in Violet was still on the mantel in all its splendor; Gabriel had been delighted with it and insisted it be left as it was. It had accumulated more mementos in the last few days. Someone had clipped Vi’s photo and bio from the summer’s opera program, which brought a lump to my throat. There was also a fresh piece of
pan
on a tiny, blue-and-white plate.

I checked the fires on the north side, finishing with Rose, now the black chamber. The fabrics here were not ornate, unlike those in the other chambers. No brocade, no rich textures, just black velvet. Even the floor had been covered with a black rug. All the furniture had been moved out, leaving Rose looking quite austere with only the candle lamps on their stands and a third stand for food.

Stepping through the draped archway into the dining parlor, I saw that the fire there was already rebuilt. A shadowy form rose up from beside it as the mantel clock began to chime, and my heart gave a heavy thump.

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