What Wild Moonlight (14 page)

And possibly, just possibly, the scroll.

Katya moved alone backstage, relieved to see that there were no other performers about. Normally Monsieur Remy was present, or various stagehands and ushers, but today she found the theater absolutely quiet. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Ever since her discussion with Nicholas the night before, one question had been ringing incessantly through her mind: had the scroll that had belonged to her mother been stolen?

Determined to immediately resolve the matter, she opened a musty trunk and began riffling through her parents’ belongings. Rather than wasting time looking for a chair, she sat on the floor, her skirts bunched up around her knees and ankles. Her parents had been chronically averse to throwing things away; the trunk was nearly brimming with outdated materials. Katya, preferring to be neat and orderly, had always scolded them for their sloppy sentimentality. But now she saw that what she had perceived as junk was nearly priceless treasure. Various old playbills, reviews of past performances, rough sketches of their elaborate costumes and stage sets, childhood drawings she had done, and train tickets from their travels spilled out into her hands.

Battling her emotions, she reverently emptied the contents of the trunk, spreading the mementos around her. Once that was accomplished she carefully pulled back the worn lining and felt along the base for the tiny spring that opened the trunk’s false bottom. She found it and touched the lever. The hidden compartment instantly sprang open. Her father had designed the space as a place to store his secrets of the trade. A lifetime of collected works of magic and tricks that had been refined over centuries were contained within.

Katya sorted through the various books and pamphlets until she found what she had been seeking—a small bundle of letters and papers that had belonged to her mother. Even now the pages had about them the same mystical quality they had had when Katya was young.

As she touched the frayed, brittle parchment, she remembered the words her mother had spoken the first time she had shown them to her.
You have been given the kiss of fate, little Katya. Someday the blood of your gypsy ancestors will fire your veins.
Spoken with a gentle wistfulness, as though it were both a blessing and a curse. Katya set the bundle in her lap and pulled free the purple ribbon that bound the pages.

Her hands went first to a tightly rolled, ancient document that was attached at both ends by narrow reeds, like a scribe’s proclamation from a powerful medieval king. Her family’s scroll. So it had not been stolen. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slowly unrolled it and studied the intricate document. Hand-lettered in the flamboyant style of thirteenth-century monks and bordered by ornate drawings on all sides, the scroll was doubtless valuable by itself. When joined with the two scrolls that led to the Stone of Destiny, it was priceless. Katya spent a few moments studying the document, then set it aside, burying it beneath the papers in her lap.

Next she lifted one of the yellowed, brittle pages that had been bound together with the scroll. The collection of letters and notes had been passed down through her family for centuries. The pages were mixed and out of order; many sheets were too badly smeared or worn to be legible. Her curiosity piqued, Katya removed her spectacles from her reticule and propped them on her nose. Then she lifted a page at random and held it up to the light.

It took a few minutes to decipher the ancient Latin. Once she did, she saw that she was holding an inventory of the preparations for a wedding. The page listed the various foods and wines to be served and which tapestries should be hung; it indicated that cloth weaving, rush weaving, candle making, and other household chores must be completed before the ceremony. Interesting, perhaps, but not particularly relevant.

She set the sheet aside and lifted a second page. It took a good bit of scrutiny before she made sense of the tightly scrawled writing. Suddenly she did, and her heart felt as though it had leaped into her throat.

I met my betrothed today. Marco DuValenti arrived at the keep with his clan and warrior knights. He possesses a handsome figure and face, is well spoken, and does not seem at all as ruthless or as cold as I had been told. He brought me a gift of fine blue silk and presented it quite prettily. He is not the barbarous heathen of whom I had been warned. Mother and father remain wary of the man. Secretly, I am both pleased and surprised. I wonder what impression I made upon him?

Katya stared at the ancient journal entry, feeling a pang of grief for the innocent young bride murdered on her wedding day. Then a puzzled frown touched her brow. She had always heard that Sacha had done her duty, marrying against her will for the sake of her clan. But now, after reading the journal entry, she wondered if there was some truth in Nicholas’s version. Had she truly come to care for her family’s ancient enemy?

“I thought I might find you here.”

Katya gasped and dropped the parchment at the sound of the deep male voice. She whirled around to find Nicholas Duvall standing behind her, one broad shoulder propped against the wall. How long had he been standing there watching her? What had he seen? She stifled an almost overpowering urge to frantically dump all of the papers back into the trunk and slam it shut. Fortunately, years of training in dealing with calamities onstage helped her maintain her poise. She schooled her expression into one she hoped gave an impression of relative serenity. Then she folded her hands in her lap and sent him a reserved smile.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said simply.

“I apologize if I startled you.” His gaze moved pointedly to the messy stack of documents in her lap. “It appears as though you’re busy.”

“Not really. Just sorting through a few odds and ends.”

“No rehearsal today?”

“Not today I’ve found that too much rehearsing can be as bad as too little. It turns a performance stale.”

“Very wise.” He moved toward her, crossing the space between them with three long, confident strides.

“Your jaw is bleeding,” she observed.

“Is it?” He lifted his hand to his face, absently brushing it along the side of his jaw. Frowning at the blood he saw smeared across his fingertips, he removed a white linen handkerchief from his jacket pocket and pressed it against the gash.

As she watched him, Katya noted the light coating of dust and dirt that clung to his normally immaculate clothing. “Have you been in some sort of brawl?”

“Not exactly.” Having stopped the blood, he folded his handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “I spent the morning riding.”

“That explains it.” She gave his rumpled, disheveled attire a pointed look. “I believe it’s customary to sit atop one’s mount, rather than allow oneself to be dragged along behind it.”

A small, self-mocking smile touched his lips. “Thank you for that advice. I shall bear it in mind next time.”

“Perhaps you should stay away from horses altogether.”

“The difficulty lay more with my mood than my mount.”

Sensing that the remark was not meant for her to understand, she let it pass.

Nicholas raised one skeptical brow at her position on the floor, a slightly amused expression on his face. To her astonishment, rather than looking for a chair, the Earl of Barrington lowered himself onto the floor beside her. He stretched out his long legs and propped up one elbow, resting his cheek against his fist. Looking perfectly comfortable and at ease, he regarded her with a look of quiet expectation.

Before she could react, he playfully plucked a piece of ancient parchment from her lap. “I’d rather you didn’t—” she began, but it was too late. He already had the page in his grasp.

Katya clamped her jaw and pulled her fists to her side, forcing herself not to snatch the page from his grasp. She watched as he studied it in silence, a slight frown on his face. Her pulse pounded in her veins as her mouth went dry. What did he have? What did it say? Had he selected a piece that had the DuValenti name on it? Short of craning her neck around to see what he was holding, there was nothing she could do but wait.

After a moment, he passed it back to her. Then his eyes locked on hers. “I don’t recognize the language.”

Her gaze flew to the document he had held.
Beware the Maltese
. Those three simple words were all that filled the page. She let out her breath in a rush as hysterical laughter threatened to rise up and choke her. Absurdity mixed with horror—of all the papers for him to pick.

“It’s Magyar,” she managed. “My mother’s tongue.”

“Ah. Gypsy talk. What does it say?”

She frantically wracked her brain for a suitable reply. “It says, ‘Sacha’s diary,’” she improvised.

“Sacha?”

“My grandmother.”

“Grandmother?” he repeated with a frown. “These documents appear far more ancient than that.”

Katya lifted her shoulders in a mild shrug. She casually gathered up the scattered papers and secured them with the purple ribbon in which they had been bound, intent on keeping them firmly out of his grasp. “Well, I suppose technically she wasn’t my grandmother, more like my ancestor. In Magyar, we refer to all our ancestors as grandmother or grandfather, no matter how far reaching. It’s a rather lovely custom, really, if you stop to consider—”

“Am I making you nervous?”

Her head snapped up. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“The way you’re rambling on and fiddling with your spectacles. I’ve noticed that you have a habit of doing so whenever you’re nervous.”

Finding that her hand was indeed on her reading glasses, she lowered it immediately to her side with an embarrassed smile.

After a moment Nicholas continued, “And if you’re not wearing your spectacles, you fiddle with your hair.” Before she could guess his intention, he reached forward and twisted a stray ebony curl gently around his finger. “Like this,” he said.

Katya’s stomach flipped at the unexpected intimacy of his gesture. His dark gaze burned into hers, sending a nervous thrill coursing through her body. It suddenly occurred to her that they were completely alone in the theater. Her limbs suddenly felt hot and trembling; the air seemed to quiver with possibility. The moment seemed to stretch forever between them. Finally Katya pulled back. Slowly, but distinctly.

A shadow seemed to cross his face as the ebony curl he had been holding slipped away and out of his grasp. Was it disappointment she read in his eyes, regret, or merely somber acceptance? Whatever it was, the emotion was quickly replaced by his customary expression of aloof, mocking superiority.

“If you are trying to seduce me,” she said, “you are wasting your time. We have no audience here, therefore the chore of pretending to be intimate is rather unnecessary, is it not?”

“What gives you the impression it’s either a chore or a pretense?”

She primly straightened her spine. “Because that was our agreement. If nothing else, at the very least I expect you to be a man of your word.”

He nodded solemnly. “Far be it from me to fail to meet the least of your expectations.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Curiosity, I suppose.” He gave a light shrug. “I wanted to see what you do when you are away from me. You don’t pass the hours pining away for my company, I gather?”

“Hardly.” She gestured to the scattered papers that surrounded her. “I am far too busy with my work. Now that you see how I spend my time, I would think you’d find me perfectly boring.”

“You would be wrong.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then shifted his attention to the papers she had indicated. “Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing to the stack of old playbills, ticket stubs, and various debris her parents had collected over the years.

As Katya had already sorted through the pile and knew it held nothing incriminating, she shook her head. “Not at all,” she replied, giving him leave to satisfy his curiosity. While his attention was thus absorbed, she deftly tapped the scroll into her reticule, then placed the diary inside as well. This accomplished, she watched him as he sorted through the stack of flyers commenting on her mother’s beauty, her father’s renown, and the reputations of the famous people for whom her family had performed.

Nicholas surprised her by asking, “Do you enjoy your work?”

“My work?”

“This.” He nodded toward the props and costumes that filled the backstage. “Donning the guise of the Goddess of Mystery and performing for a new audience night after night.”

She shrugged. “I take pride in my work and try to put on the best show I’m capable of. There’s satisfaction in that.” She thought for a moment and continued, “I suppose I never thought about it in those terms before. It’s simply something I’ve always done. I’ve performed onstage with my parents since I was a child performing simple feats of prestidigitation.”

“Pre…?”

“Sleight of hand,” she replied, demonstrating as she spoke by deftly plucking the flyer from his hand, closing it tightly in her fist as though to wad it up into a tight ball, then opening her palm with a dramatic nourish to show that the flyer had disappeared completely.

“Very nice,” he acknowledged.

To Katya’s surprise, Nicholas was a relaxed, amusing conversationalist. Their discussion drifted this way and that as she shared her childhood memories of life onstage. She found herself revealing how blessed she had been by her parents’ love and affection, but how she had resented their busy schedules and having to constantly share them with the public. His questions were insightful rather than judgmental and showed a remarkable amount of both understanding and genuine interest.

“We performed before heads of state, queens and kings, children in foundling homes, and the sickly in hospitals,” she finished. “The audience didn’t matter, as long as there was an audience. My parents thrived on it; it was in their blood.”

“You mentioned they died recently. Some sort of accident?”

Katya’s gaze moved automatically to a dark corner where a tall glass-and-wood booth stood by itself. A shudder ran through her as she looked at the ominous underwater contraption. “It happened while performing onstage here in Monaco,” she replied. “They had added a new escape routine to their act but the trick somehow went awry.”