Kate frowned. “It’s not your room so you don’t have to look at it. Let’s go.”
Jack didn’t move, just stared. It was like a child’s fantasy of a princess room. The bed had a canopy shaped like the top quarter of an egg. It was decorated with carvings of fleur-de-lis with feathers on top, all covered in gold leaf. Yards of cream-colored silk flowed down and was tied back with bows at the four corners of the bed. And what a bed! Upholstered in silk and trimmed in gold.
The walls of the room were covered with dark yellow brocade. The carpet was off-white. Over the marble fireplace was an Edwardian painting of a pretty young woman in a soft, flowery dress.
Kate was still frowning, waiting for his put-down.
Instead, he stretched out crosswise at the foot of the bed. He wouldn’t dare let his shoes touch the cover. “This is what a woman’s bedroom should look like.”
With a smile, Kate lay down at the head, hugging an embroidered pillow to her. “You really think so? It’s not too much?”
“It is way too much.” He was smiling.
She turned onto her back and looked up at the underside of the canopy. It had been gathered like a fan, with a silk rose in the center. “I wouldn’t want a bed like this at home. It’s too much to take care of and I’d be scared of damaging it, but it’s like a fairy tale. When I was a kid, I dreamed of a room like this. It’s where the princess lives after she finds her prince. It’s...” She stopped talking.
Jack kept looking up, but he reached out and took her hand. Kate’s childhood had been far from that of royalty. She had a mother who was given to frequent bouts of deep depression, and uncles who were religious zealots, and... Jack squeezed her hand. “It’s beautiful. Not as pretty as you but it shows you off well.”
Smiling, Kate turned to look at him. “What did you and your invisible person talk about?”
He didn’t let go of her hand. “She said—”
“There you two are,” Sara said from the doorway, then gasped at the room. “Yeow! This is gorgeous. I’m in the Queen Anne room, one flight down. Beautiful but huge. Take the roof off and a helicopter could land in it.”
She flopped down on the bed between them and they pulled their arms from under her. Sara took their hands in hers and looked from one to the other. “Nice place, huh?”
Jack sat up. “Cut the crap and spill all.”
Sara and Kate were still lying down and holding hands. They were smiling at each other.
“Stop with the silent conspiracy,” Jack said.
“He met Puck,” Kate said. “He wants to save her.”
“Bella and I saw her from a window. She makes wreaths and little potpourri bags. Sells them to the hotel and to shops in Bath and London. I was told they do quite well. Bella also said that her mother is awful. She—”
“We met her,” Kate and Jack said in unison, their voices full of disgust.
“That bad, huh?”
Kate slipped off her shoes and sat up against the headboard. Sara did the same and sat beside her.
At the other end, Jack looked at both of them. He had never before realized that when Kate was Sara’s age, she’d look just like her aunt. “Are you two ganging up on me?”
“We’re preparing for the famous Wyatt temper.” Sara looked at Kate, who nodded.
“You mean because I’ve been tricked and lied to? Manipulated, conned, played for a sucker?” he asked.
“I never lied,” Sara said.
A tiny quirk of a smile appeared at the side of his mouth. “So tell the whole story.”
“I saw an opportunity and I took it,” Sara said. “Bella emailed me about the work they were doing during the March closing. I was on my laptop and I brought up Oxley Manor and found a little site that told of unsolved mysteries at great houses, then...” She shrugged.
“You read about the disappearance,” Kate said.
“Exactly,” Sara said. “Sent my curiosity through the roof.”
“Mrs. Aiken told us of some guests who are coming,” Kate said. “She’s not happy about it.”
“Is she really as nasty as Bella said?”
“Worse,” Jack said. “Her poor daughter hides in trees.”
Sara and Kate stared at him, waiting for more.
“I’m not telling anything.” He was looking at Sara. “Who are the ‘parasites’ she has to cook for?”
“Parasites? Interesting choice of word,” Sara said. “I think I’ll go—”
She started to get off the bed, but Jack clasped her ankle. “No you don’t.”
Sara looked innocent. “You two are going to the Highlands, remember? I’m staying here to meet some people and ask questions. I want to find out what really happened to that couple. They just plain vanished. I dug through websites that do deep searching but there is no record of either of them.”
“Maybe they changed their names,” Kate said.
“Then that asks the question of why they had to do that,” Sara said.
“The real question,” Jack said, “is why you want to know.”
“Maybe I’ll write a mystery novel. What with the hotel being empty, I thought it might be fun to find out the truth.”
“I’m still waiting to hear what you did,” Jack said. “Something about a party.”
Sara looked at Kate. “Bella’s not too happy about it, but I invited the people who were there that night to come for a free weekend here at Oxley Manor. There are only four of them left.”
“Left? As in still alive?” Jack asked.
Sara waved her hand in dismissal. “Will you stop being Mr. Grump? Yes, one of them died.”
“Nicky, the earl-to-be, in a car crash,” Jack said.
“I’m impressed. What else have you found out?”
“Puck the wood sprite tell you that?” Kate asked.
Sara and Jack looked at her. She sounded jealous.
“Sorry,” Kate said. “Go on. Who are they?”
“All I know is that a group of friends had a party here way back in the ancient days of 1994.” Her sarcasm was dripping. “Two of them walked out and were never seen again. Years later one was killed in a car wreck.”
“And?” Jack asked.
“I told you. I did some digging—with Bella’s help, that is. She put me in touch with a man who used to work here and I called him. What an accent! Very difficult to understand. He said that weekend wasn’t just a onetime event but that the same young people were always here. The staff called them Nicky’s Pack.”