Instead of one drop-crystal chandelier overhead, there are three. Naked cherubs frolic with hairy satyrs and woodland nymphs in colorful frescoes on the walls. Inside the main foyer, the décor becomes even more ostentatious. The main house looms over us, three sprawling stories of beige limestone with elaborate balustrades and scrolled iron balconies, topped by a line of Roman centurion statues gazing down at us from a ledge on the red-tiled roof. We’re led through the lushly landscaped courtyard to a set of enormous carved oak doors, flanked on either side by towering marble columns.
Dismissing the thought of the mystery woman, I button my suit jacket and follow behind the guard as he leads Kieran and me away from the car. He nods toward an arched opening in the brick wall that leads from the circular driveway into an interior courtyard. “This way,” says the guard nearest to me. She looked more like a warlord about to lead an army of soldiers into battle.
There wasn’t a hint of servitude in those flashing eyes. From the size of the bloody place, probably a thousand people.” She’s not a servant, that much I know. Mindful of the armed guards, I say in Gaelic to Kieran, “I thought the lass’s mother died?” Standing beside me, he follows my gaze and looks up at the blank window. The woman in the window looks like she’d only smile if she were slitting your throat.
She can’t be Liliana, the lass I’m here to meet. And eyes that glittered silver in the afternoon sun like the flash of coins at the bottom of a wishing well. This is need, not want…and I don’t like it at all.Įxcerpt 2 Spider I get only a glimpse of the woman in the window before the curtains fall back into place and she disappears, but the image of her is seared onto my retinas. This is the strike of the match that lit the raging forest fire.
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