The Bride's Secret

by Adrianne Lee

  After several minutes she decided she was still alone and crept on. Her heart felt as heavy as her steps, weighed with apprehension and weariness. The farther she walked, the more she felt like a mouse in a maze.

  Finally she slogged to a stop. This was getting her nowhere near an exit. In exasperation, she called, “Help! Someone help me!”

  Her voice echoed down the corridor and resounded back to her. How well was this house insulated? Would anyone hear her? Or would she be stuck in this dark tunnel wandering in circles forever? Fear and frustration gathered into a hard knot in her chest. She hollered louder, “Help!”

  Again her voice, a sad lonely wail, bounced off the walls, taunting her, punctuating her dire situation. Tears sprang to her eyes. No. She would not dissolve into a pool of self-pity. “Help!”

  A noise. No. Footsteps. For a second she felt utter relief. But what if it were “the bride” coming back to act on her threat? In the distance a light bobbed dimly. Coming toward her. She cringed back.

  “Nikki?” It was Chris’s voice.

  She blinked against the sudden light spilling through the corridor from his lantern and shuddered out a tautly held breath. “Here. I’m here, Chris.”

  He rushed to her. She stepped into his arms and collapsed.

  CHRIS HAULED NIKKI from the passageway, using the access to the library, which he’d entered after hearing her cry for help. Fear licked through him as he hurried her to her room and laid her gently on the bed. Had she fainted? Or passed out from an injury he couldn’t see? He stood back, taking stock. Her clothes were dirty, her lovely face smudged, her glorious hair laced with cobwebs, but she looked great to him.

  “Nikki?” He sank to the bed beside her prone body. “Nikki?”

  She sighed and opened her eyes. She seemed disoriented. Then her gaze focused on him, and her features softened. She reached up and touched his face as though seeing it for the first time, as though wanting confirmation that he was really there, as though she beheld a miracle. Her fingers were cool on his fevered skin, cool and calming. “The passageway.”

  “Yes, I know. I discovered earlier tonight that all the passageways I’d boarded up have been broached. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I intend to get to the bottom of it tomorrow.”

  Her eyes widened. She told him about waking suddenly, then finding the chisel near her bed and the open passageway in her closet. “I stepped inside to investigate, then was confronted by someone dressed like the portrait of Theresa—in a formal bridal gown.”

  Chris frowned. “The ghost?”

  “This ‘ghost’ was purely human, and I can prove it. I found a scrap of lace snagged on a nail just inside the passageway. It’s in my pocket.” She reached for the cloth, digging deep. It wasn’t there. It had to be. She tried the other side, then the back pockets. The only thing she found was her penlight. “It’s gone. She must have taken it after she knocked me out.”

  “She knocked you out?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what she hit me with.” Nikki flinched, a pained look crinkling the tiny lines at her eyes, as she brought his hand to a spot near her right temple. The lump was sizable. “But you can see her aim was good.”

  Fury flashed through Chris. “How dare—”

  “I thought she was going to shove me down the stairs.” Her gaze narrowed and she struggled to sit up. “But she didn’t. She only wanted to scare me so I’d leave Wedding House. She said, ‘Leave or die.’”

  Chris’s anger whipped higher. How dare anyone threaten Nikki? He wanted to find the culprit and throttle them. But who? “Do you have any idea who was masquerading as ‘the bride’?”

  “No, her veil was too heavy. That’s not all, Chris. I dropped the chisel down the stairs.”

  “We’ll find it tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Chris.” She reached up to touch his face again. Chris nuzzled her gentle fingers, then, giving into his need for her, he turned her hand and kissed her palm. Nikki pulled his head to her, lifted her lips, offered the sweetness he couldn’t resist. He folded her to him, found her mouth with his, and he was lost, drowning in the passion only this woman roused in him, his control fleeing like seeds in the wind. Even his misgivings about getting involved slipped away, his misgivings about misleading Nikki.

  But he cared about her too much to mislead her.

  “No. No.” Chris pulled back, breathing hard. Guilt and fear gathered his control, returned it to him.

  “It’s okay.” Her lovely features grew stony. She blinked back unshed tears, wrapping pride around her like a cloak of armor. But not before he saw the look of self-loathing dart through her eyes, a look that said she was somehow at fault for his disrupting their kiss, that said she understood why he couldn’t love her.

  It tore his heart in two. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Nikki.”

  “Then why are you?” She pressed her lips together as though she hadn’t meant to ask.

  “Because my uncle’s blood runs through my veins. Because I have his maniacal temperament.” The words rushed from him. The best thing she could do was take “the bride’s” advice and leave. Run away from Wedding House and from him.

  “Maniacal?” She sat up beside him. “Don’t be silly. You’re not mad.”

  “Maybe not. Yet.” He heaved a heavy breath, his head down. “But I’ve been losing my grip the past few years. The last six months have tried my nerves the worst. I can never control my temper. First it cost me a couple of big jobs, then my closest friend and finally my business. I’m not Jack-of-all-trades at this mansion for the love of it—but because investing in Wedding House was the only option left to me.... And because it was Liv’s chance of getting her life back on track.”

  “She has bulimia, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.” He was amazed that Nikki was so observant, and was touched at the sympathy he saw in her eyes. “Liv was getting better. I thought. But I’m wondering now if she’ll survive this week and the grand opening she’s worked so hard on.”

  “I think this week has been extraordinarily difficult on all three of us.” She touched his hand. “Chris, give us a chance. Give yourself a chance. You aren’t like your uncle.”

  “You don’t know that.” His mother’s constant chant—about how like Luis he was—resounded in his head, reinforced year after year, his whole life long. “I don’t know that. I may never know it.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair and seemed to have trouble swallowing. “And I won’t condemn you to a life of waiting to find out which day will be the one when I slip over the edge. I won’t risk your life by being selfish. I can’t promise you a future. And I won’t steal your present without that promise.”

  In that instant Nikki saw raw love in his warm brown eyes, felt the emotion emanating from him like a beam of light that stroked her heart, her soul, felt the answering light within herself, and, to her surprise, realized she loved him, too, with the same rare energy. It was like nothing she’d ever felt for anyone before. All of her life she’d waited for this moment, and now that it was here, instead of filling her, healing her, instead of the cold spot in her heart shrinking, it stretched wider, burned icier.

  THE NEXT MORNING Nikki rose late. She had no desire to dine with the others, no wish to face Chris in front of an audience. Her heart rivaled a dying weed, blackened and shriveling. Within minutes, she’d gained and lost the only man she would ever love. What she felt wasn’t self-pity, but an odd mix of fear and determination. Somehow she had to prove to him that he wasn’t like Luis De Vega. Or was he?

  But that wasn’t her only dilemma. Leave or die. During the fitful night, the warning had haunted her dreams. She had no delusions that to prolong her stay at Wedding House was to risk life and limb. And yet, how could she go, when she’d gotten nowhere in her quest to learn of her ancestry?

  She decided she had to contact Jellybean and Zeus. See if she couldn’t get them to treat this as a priority. On her way to the TV room with her laptop, she
spied Marti snooping around the master suite. Nikki wondered what she was looking for, but didn’t ask. They exchanged good-mornings, then Nikki checked her e-mail. Still nothing on Theresa from her two sources. She sent them urgent messages and signed off-line.

  She trudged back up the stairs. Her muscles were tired from last night’s ordeal. She could use a long swim, but doubted she’d risk another one here. As she gained the landing, a “swishing” sound in the library caught her attention. One of the bookshelves was swinging open. Marti emerged from behind it, and Nikki realized it must be the same access Chris had used to rescue her. “What are you doing?”

  “Holy Joe.” Marti jumped. Her cheeks flamed. Guilt oozed from her. She made a face and tapped her huge flashlight on the palm of her hand. “Well, since you’ve caught me in the act, I might as well confess. Chris told everyone at breakfast that someone had unblocked all the accesses to the secret passageways. He wanted to know which of us had done it. Laughable, actually—since no one would admit to it if they had.”

  “And you were exploring them now because...?”

  “Well, obviously for the book. I suspected they were here all along. That’s what I was really doing in the library the night we met. I took a quick walk through to make certain my descriptions are believable.”

  “You found your way from the master suite to the library without any trouble?”

  “That’s right. Helps to have a good flashlight”

  Nikki hugged the laptop to her thudding heart Was that a crack about how her own penlight had failed when she’d needed it most? Had Marti been the one posing as “the bride”? She seemed entirely too familiar with the passageways to be on a first exploration, awfully familiar with how to get from one room to the other, while Nikki had felt completely lost in the maze of corridors.

  Nikki returned her laptop to her room. The maid had straightened it. The smoothed bed reminded her of how Chris said he’d found it last night, stressed how vulnerable she was in this room. Shivers raced over Nikki. She checked the closet, but to her relief she found the passageway hadn’t been broached after Chris nailed it shut last night. It should have put her mind at ease.

  It didn’t.

  What if there was another way into this room? What if Marti or “the bride” had been in there today?

  She gave the room a quick search, but couldn’t tell if anything was disturbed. The uneasy sensation grew, and she decided she didn’t want to stay there waiting for something or someone to pounce on her. Maybe Chris had discovered something new.

  She set out to find him and encountered Olivia in the foyer carrying a tray of sandwiches. “We’re lunching poolside—in deference to this lovely day. I’m glad to see you’re joining us.”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Chris. Have you seen him?”

  “He and Jorge spent the morning moving the fireworks from the cabana into the boathouse, but by now I suspect Chris is at the pool with the others.” Olivia grinned at her, then shoved the platter into Nikki’s hands. “Would you take these down? Then I can get the pitchers of lemonade and iced tea.”

  She held the door open for Nikki. Chagrined, Nikki stepped outside, balancing the tray in both hands. The temperature hovered on the high side of eighty. She moved carefully across the brick cobblestones, then onto the pathway, heading toward the laughter and conversation that floated on the sultry breeze.

  As she neared the wrought-iron fence, Jorge leaped from the bushes. She reared back, nearly dropping the platter. Her heart throttled into high gear at the gleaming pair of hedge clippers, the tips wickedly sharp, he held pointed at her. She gulped, fear rushing over her in tiny shivers.

  His eyes narrowed. “Theresa...?”

  Nikki’s mouth dried. “No. I’m not Theresa.”

  “You look like Theresa. Why do you look like Theresa?”

  She, also, wanted an answer to that question. And maybe he could clear up a few things for her, but she’d rather he weren’t armed when they talked.

  He took a step toward her, raising the clippers.

  Nikki retreated.

  “Rameriz, don’t you have work to do?” Chris held open the gate for Nikki, gesturing for her to enter. But her feet refused to budge.

  “Sí, Señor Conrad.” Jorge shook himself, tipped his hat to her, and moved to the shrubs surrounding the fence. “I mean no harm.”

  “If you stand in the sun much longer,” Chris said, his head tilted to one side, “those sandwiches won’t be edible.”

  Nikki shifted her attention to him, and the quivering inside her intensified. He wore cutoffs and a tank top, his golden skin kissed by the sun, his ebony hair mussed, his brown eyes as warm as hot chocolate, yet guarded. She saw the reserve in their depths, the determination that he would not harm her in any way. Would not act on the love they shared, as though that would harm her worst of all.

  The crack in her heart deepened. Somehow she managed to speak through the sorrow clogging her throat. “We need to talk.”

  Before she could suggest somewhere private, Olivia swept up to them. “Christopher, please take one of these before I drop them both.” She thrust a crystal pitcher of iced tea at him.

  They deposited the food and drinks on the bar beside an array of other dishes. Feeling more alone than she had her whole life, Nikki stood to one side, surveying the group. Everyone seemed to be present. Marti, in a purple one-piece, was floating on an air mattress, while Diego swam laps dipping his bronzed arms in long strokes. Nikki yearned to do the same.

  Dorothea, stretched out on a lounge chair, wore a pea-green jumpsuit with rainbow epaulets at her shoulders and waist. Her red hair glinted golden in the sunlight. She was conversing with the two actors Nikki had rehearsed with the last couple of days and two newcomers, who she assumed were the actors scheduled to play Luis and Theresa. Thank goodness.

  Glass-topped tables had been set up at the pool’s edge, and Olivia, in an oddly joyous manner, seemed determined to convey a party atmosphere. “Come, come, everyone. Food’s ready.”

  The squeal of tires on the brick cobblestones caught Nikki’s ear. A car lurched to a stop in the parking area, and a woman emerged. She started toward the house, then apparently spotting the party at the pool, changed direction.

  Janice Jacoby.

  Nikki tensed. Lorah Halliard’s daughter looked upset enough to spit nails as she charged through the gate. The charm bracelet wreathed her wrist and jangled as she moved, an ominous serenade. “One of you killed my mother!”

  Everyone spun toward Janice. Her clothes were disheveled as though she’d slept in them. Her hair seemed uncombed, her makeup smudged. She glared at the group with eyes as cold as frosted jade.

  Nikki saw Marti slip off the air mattress and duck behind it, as though hiding from Janice, and wondered if the woman might be dangerous.

  Janice moved closer, spoke louder. “Traces of an opiate were found in Mother’s system. She had no prescription for a narcotic.”

  Dorothea gasped.

  Olivia reached for a sandwich and took a huge bite, chewing as though her life depended on it.

  “Did she die from a narcotic overdose?” Chris asked, stress tight at his mouth.

  Janice glowered at him, then at everyone again.

  Dorothea seemed to shrink as the chilling gaze momentarily settled on her. Janice said, “I couldn’t interest the police without solid evidence, but we’ll have that_ soon enough. Dr. Wiggins is doing the autopsy personally. He’s going to test for chemicals. And anything else he deems necessary. When we have our answers, one of you will be arrested and charged.”

  With that she left.

  Marti popped up from behind the air mattress and shook her head. Her complexion rivaled the white of her hair. “Holy Joe, that woman is seriously delusional—suggesting one of us murdered Lorah. Can you imagine?” She gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, but if one of you has, what a great twist that would add for my book.”

  Nikki wanted to ask why Marti had been hidin
g from Janice, but her attention was riveted to Dorothea.

  The pert redhead had gone as green as her jumpsuit. Nikki stepped to her side and said quietly, “Your painkillers are opiates.”

  Dorothea lurched to her feet and strode to the bar. “A double vodka rocks, please, Chris.”

  She tossed the drink back like soda pop.

  Nikki sidled up to her. “I’m sure you needn’t worry. I can’t imagine one pill would have killed her.”

  “Really, my dear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She set her glass on the bar, seeming as terrified as someone about to be eaten by a bear. “Hit me again, Chris.”

  Chris frowned at Nikki, and she shrugged in answer, her fishing expedition netting her nothing more than a handful of new questions. None of which Dorothea would likely answer. Why was she lying? What had her so frightened? Had she given Lorah an overdose of painkillers?

  “As soon as you’ve eaten, come up to the ballroom,” Dorothea told the actors. “Costume fittings are going to take most of the day.”

  She left without eating. No one except Olivia had much appetite.

  Nikki was the worst. Her emotions filled her stomach, keeping her edgy and heartsore. Twice she started to ask Chris to go for a walk along the beach, but both times she was interrupted by Olivia. Finally, she gave up and returned to her room to work on her book.

  Evening had arrived by the time she heard Chris’s familiar footsteps in the hall outside her room. Had he been avoiding her all day? Much as she’d avoided him? Two broken-hearted cowards. She’d decided to leave in the morning. There was no sense staying on. She had all the information she needed for her book and, it seemed, all she could discover here about her ancestry. If that changed in future, she could always return to Wedding House.

  His rap on the door was gentle. She hesitated, then pulled it open. She’d have preferred a walk on the beach, or in the gardens, anywhere but a meeting in her room at bedtime. It seemed suddenly too small and intimate. And they were too sad. The air between them shimmered with repressed want.