Once upon a Dream (31 page)

Claire jolted up in her dark bedroom, her blood pounding with despair, with terror. A scream echoed in her ears.

She realized it was her own.

C
LAIRE RAKED HER
wild curls out of her eyes. The window to the balcony in her room was open, cool night air billowing out the curtains, like the wet folds of Bianca's velvet gown.

She was shaking violently. She had lost Val. And Bianca had lost everything, including her brief, star-crossed life. The helpless horror of her final moments clung to Claire like a shroud. If she didn't break free of it…

The pounding wasn't just the pummeling of her heart against her ribs. It was Val, beating on the connecting door between their rooms.

“Claire? Claire, let me in goddamn it, before I break the door down.”

The wood shattered as he hurled himself against it. Throwing back the rumpled sheets, she stumbled across the floor to unbolt it. A moment later he was in her room, and she was in his arms, gasping for breath.

“The dream…” she said through chattering teeth.

“Jesus, you're cold as death!”

He pulled the covers up over her, then shut the windows. When he returned, her face was so pale, her eyes so wide with shock, it frightened him. He'd known what it was to be afraid for his own life. He'd never realized, till now, how much more terrible it was to fear for the life of someone he loved.

Val dried her tears and climbed in beside her, wrapping his arms around her for warmth. Through her thin silk gown, he could feel the pounding of her heart against his bare chest.

“Hush, darling. It's all right. I'm here.”

He was. She leaned her face against his shoulder, inhaling his scent. The dream was gone, but he was strong and warm. And real.

And he was here.

She nestled into his embrace. She was weeping wildly, pouring out all the tears she'd sealed up inside her heart. “I thought you'd gone. I thought I'd lost you forever.”

His arms tightened. “I couldn't leave you.”

“Everyone I've ever loved has left me…”

He heard it in her voice then, the thing she couldn't get past: the fears of a lost child, abandoned with no explanation. It broke his heart with love.

“Even if you didn't want me, I still couldn't leave you. Not when you were in such pain. Not ever, if you need me.” He took her face and held it between his hands. “Don't you understand that?”

She clung to him, weeping and shaking, and the whole story tumbled out. Not Bianca's but hers. A young girl, raised in the middle of loud and angry voices. Whether they were fueled by love or anger or disgust, she couldn't tell.

“After my mother died, I was sent to Idaho to live with my grandfather. That's almost my earliest memory. Standing in the middle of a wide green landscape, with my suitcase beside me, and not so much as another house in
sight. Seeing this stranger I was to live with for the very first time.”

Val's hand smoothed her hair as she went deep into the past, to the root of her pain:

Warm sunlight, cool wind. Land stretching out in the distance to the humped green hills, the purple peaks beyond. A spotted cow with yellowed horns that looked far bigger than the sports car she'd just exited. A low, weathered house with a single rocker on the front porch and not a pot of flowers in sight. She longed for the tall, colorful houses dripping with flowers, and their cool reflections in the green canal.

A man came out onto the porch. He wore faded coveralls and a blue plaid shirt. His hair was threaded with gray, his blue eyes tired, his body worn down by work and poor health.

“So that's the girl.”

“Yes. Here she is.”

“She's the spitting image of Helen.”

“Yes.”

“And that was it.” Her eyes were bleak with memories. “I remember my grandfather beckoning to me, hearing a dog bark, and then the sound of the car as my father drove away. I remember turning and running, screaming for him to come back. Screaming for my mother…”

She buried her face against his shoulder. “I didn't see my father again for six years. And that was only to shunt me off to boarding school. The first of several. I loathed everything about it with every fiber of my being.”

Val wanted to comfort her and didn't know how. How do you repair the damage done to a shy, sensitive girl? It was no wonder that she was afraid to trust love, when it was something that had vanished from her life in the twinkling of an eye. He'd seen that same look in her eyes on the faces of refugees he'd photographed. Val blamed himself for not recognizing it in Claire, for trying to keep her set apart from his work, so that the violent world he photographed would never collide with hers.

He'd been a fool.

For once he had the sense to keep quiet, to not try and rationalize what belonged on a deep emotional level. Christ, he wanted to kill someone.

Instead he kissed her tears and held her tenderly. They lay together a long time, with no movement in the room except for their breathing and the starry patterns of the shifting water lights that covered the walls and ceiling. Claire felt the anger pouring through him as if it were her own. His rage and indignation, his reflection of her pain, were revealed in the tension of his body and the sorrow in his eyes.

He wiped her tears with his fingertips, held her cradled against him as if she were something fragile and infinitely precious. Strength flowed from him to her. The pounding of her heart gradually slowed.

Dawn came at last, sliding bars of gold and rose through the space between the curtains, and the atmosphere grew luminous around them. There was no way in Venice to escape the water, the way it bounced the light from every surface until the air glowed and pulsed with it. But the very element that threatened to destroy the city was what made it so unique, so beautiful.

There was no way to escape the past that had formed
her
, Claire realized. She could only take what she had and transform it. What it became was up to her.

Her chest burned, but her eyes were dry. All the tears of a lonely childhood evaporated in the heat of her adult anger. She would never know why her father had left her. Perhaps he'd blamed himself for her mother's death and couldn't live with the guilt. Or the loss. Now she felt pity for him and for her grandfather, that silent old man on his isolated Idaho ranch, with nothing but memories left of his only child. Perhaps they had been as alone and aching as she had been.

Claire wondered if her grandfather had been an eagle, like Val, before his wings and heart were broken.

Forgiveness came with sudden understanding. With that
forgiveness, something inside her heart opened up. It was as if a band of scar tissue had broken, releasing her from its restrictions. For the first time that she could remember, Claire knew she was free to love. To trust.

Val felt the change in her. He touched her cheek, kissed her softly, and saw the alteration in her face. She glowed from within. “I love you, Claire.”

“I love you, Val.” She trailed her fingers over his wide shoulders and down his chest. “Make love to me now. Then pack your woolly long johns for the trip to the Arctic Circle.”

He nuzzled her throat. “The first part is a given,” he whispered as he cupped her breast in his palm. “The second is on indefinite hold.”

She offered her mouth to him, soft and eager. He tangled his hands in her hair, fisted the curls, and angled her face to meet his. The kiss was as full and heady as sparkling wine. She felt the heat of it like effervescent bubbles in her veins. She was drunk with joy. With need.

Val's hand splayed across her back, pulling her closer, so close that she couldn't tell where he ended and she began. He kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. “I've been such a fool,” she whispered.

“Not you,” he murmured. “Not you.”

He held her face between his bronzed hands and looked down at her solemnly. “I'll do anything to keep you, Claire. I'll take a job at the Washington bureau. Hell, at the car wash if I have to.”

She laughed and pulled him down for a kiss. She couldn't clip his eagle's wings, break his proud heart. “No, you won't. You can't. But we can work it out. We'll negotiate. We'll fight. And somehow, some way, we'll find a solution. Because I'll do anything to keep you.”

Her face was filled with love and faith. “And it will be okay when you go away, Val, because now I know that you'll come back.”

A shudder of mutual passion ran through their bodies. His love was tender, but his lovemaking was fierce. His
hot mouth and skilled hands had her groaning with greedy pleasures. Claire arched against him and lifted her hips boldly to meet him. She yielded up the last of her heldback emotions, and all physical restraint as well. Wrapped in his strong arms, and the warmth of his love, she found the courage to fly free. Two golden eagles, with sunlight on their wings.

C
LAIRE STUFFED A
rolled-up silk camisole into the corner of her suitcase, slipped some lacy panties into the side pocket, and closed the lid with difficulty. “Whew! I was afraid I'd have to leave something behind.”

Val watched with amusement. “I didn't think you'd get the last two pair of new shoes in there.”

“It was either the shoes or the underwear.”

His face brightened. “I'd vote for the underwear.”

“You don't get a vote.”

She twirled the combination locks. Beyond the open windows the Grand Canal was a pale apple green, and the domes of the Salute gleamed in the early-morning sun. “I can't believe it's almost time to leave.”

He ambled over and kissed the nape of her neck, where the golden curls sprang out against her milky skin. Her hair, still damp from the shower, smelled like roses.

“Hmmmm. We do have a couple of hours to kill before the launch picks us up.”

“Greedy! It's only been, oh, about forty-five minutes?”

He turned her around and caught her hands in his. “That long?”

His pulled her into his arms, and his mouth came down warm on hers. She fell into the kiss, let it sweep her away as his hands tugged her blouse out of the band of her apricot slacks and smoothed the silky skin of her back. The heat of his body warmed her; the strength of it made her knees grow deliciously weak.

It was tempting, but this time she didn't give in. “We'll be in Paris in a few hours. Besides, there's something I have to do before we leave.”

Val brushed the hair back from her temple and kissed it. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No.” Her smile took the sting out of the word. “This is something I have to do on my own.”

“Something to do with the dreams.” It wasn't a question. His blue eyes were grave and tender.

Claire touched a finger to his cheek. “Everything to do with them.”

 

“Do you believe in dreams, Count Ludovici? In fate?”

Claire stood on the canal-front level of the palazzo with her host. Beneath her feet the rose-and-white-marble squares stretched across the floor to where the tall shutters were open to the Grand Canal. Water dripped nearby.

For once the view was empty of
vaporetti
. A lone gondola swept by, a black swan against the opaque green water. Except for their modern clothing, Claire thought, they could have fit anywhere in time, in the Ca' Ludovici's six-hundred-year history.

Count Ludovici smiled. “But of course. One cannot live in a fantasy like Venice unless one believes.”

Claire reached inside her purse and drew out a small velvet case banded with brass. “Then this belongs to you.”

He took it, frowning, and snapped the lid open. Bianca's necklace lay against the satin interior. “Ma
donna!” He recovered himself. “Surely this is the necklace that Bianca wears in her portrait!”

His fingers touched the beads, caressed the twist of gold that had once held a heart-shaped ruby in the center of the pendant. “Where did you get this,
signorina?
”

“From Bianca. She wanted you to have it.”

“I do not understand.”

“May we go into the tiny courtyard that opens to the calle? The one with the old stone well? I'll explain it there.”

He looked startled, then shrugged. “But of course.”

Claire led the way as if she'd walked it a hundred times. And she had, at least in dreams.

She hesitated at the top of the stairs leading down to the water level, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. She wasn't Bianca. It didn't matter if anyone saw her.

She realized she might be making a complete fool of herself. Or that things might have changed since Bianca's desperate flight.

Count Ludovici was right behind her. Passing through a small vestibule, she pulled aside the heavy curtain that covered the door, leading out into the little-used courtyard. The hinges groaned from disuse.

It was exactly like her dream.

A shudder passed through her like, like a cloud sweeping over the sea. This, too, was exactly like her dream. Pots of flowers flanked the door, and tendrils of new vines clung to the ancient walls. And there was the locked door that led into the alleyway.

“Bianca was not a suicide, and she was not murdered by her father.” She took a deep breath. “That fateful night, she left through that gate to meet her lover. She'd sent him a note via her nurse that she would defy her father and run off with Domenico Coleone. The note was delivered into the hands of Giovanni Gambello instead.”

“How do you know this?” The count eyed her steadily.

“You might say that Bianca told me.” Claire lifted her chin. “In dreams.”

Count Ludovici was puzzled. “You say that she did not throw herself into the canal.”

“Beyond that door is a narrow calle. If you follow it long enough, it leads to a tiny open square with a statute of Venus on one corner. An ancient bridge spans the small canal, so narrow that two people cannot pass one another.”

The frown lines on his forehead deepened. “You intrigue me. The square is difficult to find, even with a map. The bridge is so old not even a gondola can go beneath it. It was originally meant only to link two parts of a palazzo. Few people know of it except those who live nearby.”

“Bianca knew. She made it as far as the bridge, where she expected to find Domenico Coleone, but her note to him had never been delivered. It was her fiancé, Giovanni Gambello, who was waiting to confront her in his
carnivale
disguise. He didn't know until then that she was carrying her lover's child.”

Ludovici digested this. “You seem very sure,
signorina.
”

A slight shadow passed across Claire's face. “As sure as if I had been there. He threatened her, and she tried to run away. In the struggle she fell into the canal.” Her green eyes grew clouded, like the waters that lapped at the palazzo's steps. “Giovanni Gambello walked away and left her to die.”

Bells rang out on the warm, still air, the voices of the churches and
camponiles
mingling in a chorus of regret. Ludovici's eyes were dark with it.

“I believe that
you
believe this is the truth. But in my heart of hearts, I wish for proof.”

This was the sticky part. “Do you have the key?”

“No.” The count shook his head. “I do not recall there ever being one. There is another door that leads out of the garden court. It is that garden door which is used.”

She went to the old well and eyed the brick coping atop the ancient stone. “This is where Bianca snagged the lace trim of her gown.”

Claire went unerringly to the spot and knelt down. Her fingers scrabbled at the brick, and it came loose in her hand. Bits of crumbled leaf and ancient mortar fell away. She reached in, and her fingers touched cool metal.

Relief whooshed through her. “Here's your proof,” she said simply.

She pulled out the tarnished key. It was green with age, but the intricate design was still apparent. She held it out on her palm to him. Tiny pieces of patinated metal flaked away against her skin.

“But…how did you know it was there?”

“Bianca hid it, in case she was caught and needed it to escape again. She showed me—in a dream.”

She'd had the last one that morning, as she lay content in Val's arms. There had been no fear, no terror in it this time. Just a smiling girl with Botticelli curls in a gown of gold velvet. Bianca's task was complete. She had cleared her family's name.

The count closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were bright. “Thank you,
signorina,
from the bottom of my heart.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I would like you to handle the auction,” he said lightly, as if it were of no importance. “And I would like you to have this.”

He pressed the velvet case into her hand. Claire was startled. “I can't accept. This is an heirloom. It belongs to you.”

“No,” he said with an odd little smile. “It was Bianca's and now it belongs to you. I will have the ruby put back in the setting.” The count smiled at her surprise. “Yes, Bianca's ruby. It was found on the stairs the night she vanished. It is in the vault with the family heirlooms.”

The bright air shimmered around them, and Claire blinked. For just the fraction of a second there had been someone else in the garden with them. No, more of a
presence.

“You feel it, too,” Ludovici said softly. She nodded and took the jewel case, her heart pounding.

“In Venice,” he went on, “the past is very much alive. A dozen years, a hundred…” He made an airy gesture of dismissal. “For centuries the shadow of her tragic story has haunted this house. Thanks to you,
signorina,
she has regained her place of honor here. Her father, Andrea Ludovici, as well. Take the necklace and wear it in remembrance. You can never know what a gift you have bestowed upon me.”

“Nor you upon me.” Claire's smile was warm. If not for Bianca and the count, Val would be halfway around the world by now. And she would be alone.

“You will call me when you make the arrangements,” the count said, leading her back inside the palazzo. “And when you return you will be my guest here. You and your husband.”

It was her turn to be startled. “How did you know?”

The count laughed. “Perhaps Bianca told me. I, too, have dreamed of her signorina. She came to me last night while I slept. She is with her own true love. And you with yours.”