Draycott Abbey
Sussex, England
May 1622
THE BOOK WAS THE KEY.
All its dangerous secrets lay inside fragile yellow pages. He had to hide these secrets now, while twelve guests slumbered over their spilled port, with wigs askew. Their sleep would not hold forever, and he must act before their greed and suspicion returned.
In the shadows across the elegant room, the Earl of Wetherton mumbled in drunken dreams, his heavy goblet cracking as his wrist sent the glass flying to the floor.
Motionless, Viscount Draycott studied the ornate walls of the house he knew and loved beyond all logic. As the last candle guttered out, the cynical aristocrat stood in a bar of moonlight, cradling a fine leather book. The weight of history pressed down, filling him with excitement.
And finally with dread.
Such a treasure, a notebook from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, carried too many secrets. According to the man who had lost the notebook, it was cursed. Equally cursed was the exquisite piece of art now hidden upstairs in his suite. But the memory of the luminous beauty of the art made the viscount forget the danger.
A sudden movement at the drifting curtains made him slip back into the shadows. Who came in stealth through the darkness?
But the figure was only a great gray cat, slipping up the stairs with black-tipped paws, as quiet as the night. Behind the cat the viscount saw a new maidservant, her eyes wide as she crossed the hall, a basket of freshly folded linens in her arms. A cat and the new maid.
But his worry would not be gone. Men would kill to hold the art of Leonardo da Vinci even if the art was cursed by its creator.
The abbey’s lord was a careful man, a generous man, and the weight of duty drove him hard from the moon-touched Long Gallery to the library and to the shadows of a stone staircase above his wine cellars.
The cat was somehow before him as he took the stairs in hurried steps, a lantern held high to mark his way. The worn notebook did not move, cradled at his chest for safety.
Maledetto con gesti e’ parole.
The words burned like poison in his head.
Cursed by hand and tongue.
Cursed to dream and want, all who hold this book.
Up the stairs a chair fell with a clatter. Drunken voices echoed through the sleeping house, calling his name. No more time.
Quickly he pressed at the wall, opening a niche between stone and mortar. In the small, snug opening he shelved the notebook.
For now, the sketch that had come from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci would hide in his own chamber inside a similar wall recess. He would make a safer hiding spot for it later.
The abbey’s lord could do no more. A prize won in a turn of cards, the sketch caught at his heart. Da Vinci’s hand was clear in every stroke and curve of the Mona Lisa’s face, all distant grace and soft seduction.
According to the notebook, the sketch was the artist’s final study before he began his painting. As was his custom, the Italian master often chose chalk to sketch the details of all he would later attempt in oil, and the notebook recorded his process of creation.
Both were priceless. Together they provided an unmatched look into the mind of a genius.
But there was no time for the viscount to linger. Upstairs boots rang out and petulant voices shouted for more port. Draycott felt a sudden disgust for his dissolute guests.
They were not real friends. He knew that any one of them would kill for the notebook and the art it described. The worn leather cover taunted him. His hands shook as he sealed the niche.
Here the notebook and its secrets would rest. With luck his descendants would have the strength to preserve this treasure, keeping it safe along with the priceless sketch it described in such intricate detail, capturing all da Vinci’s agony of creation.
Frowning, Draycott raised the lantern for one last look. All was sealed. No signs of cracked stone or shifting mortar gave away the notebook’s hiding place. By all appearance the wine cellar wall lay untouched, ancient as the house.
It was done.
But the weight of the curse remained.
Maledetto.
Draycott Abbey
Summer 1785
THE WALL WAS EMPTY.
Plaster spilled from a gaping hole, wood beams broken crudely. Blood stained the silk wallpaper where the thief—or thieves—had worked in painful haste. Boot tracks crossed the white snow of fallen plaster, vanishing at the far window, where the curtains fanned out like searching hands.
Adrian Draycott scowled at the hole in the wall. He cursed as he saw the broken recess, the hiding place of his family’s da Vinci masterpiece. Now only a carved and gilt frame remained, its pieces discarded on the marble floor.
The thief had come by night, moving straight to this room while Adrian was in London on estate matters. No one had heard the furtive steps. No one had seen the knife that slit the wall and dug to find the hiding place of Leonardo’s chalk study.
Now the elegant smiling face, accursed in its glory, had vanished. The eighth Viscount Draycott closed his eyes, breathing hard in the shock of the theft. Yet even then he felt something close to relief.
Maledetto con gesti e’ parole.
The words drifted, twisting like smoke.
Cursed by hand and tongue. Cursed to dream and want.
The still-hidden notebook had recorded Leonardo’s curse long centuries before. Both sketch and notebook had been stolen from Leonardo’s studio by a charming servant ever alert to the chance for profit. For his crime the servant had earned the artist’s curse. So had all others who came in contact with the stolen possessions.
Adrian Draycott ran a hand across his eyes. Well did he know the bitter pains of great loss, of trust betrayed. That pain he kept well hidden beneath a cold, languid facade. He cared for no one and nothing—only his beloved home.
The great gray cat pressed at his boots, tail raised, eyes alert. The viscount bent low, smoothing the warm fur. “So here ends both the tale and the curse, my friend. The art is gone, and though I should feel fury, I do not. I am…relieved. Let another poor fool carry the curse’s weight. The Mona Lisa’s smile is too cold and enigmatic for my taste.”
The cat meowed, brushing against the viscount’s boot. “I almost wish they had taken the notebook, too. In truth, I care not for this curse it carries.”
The cat’s eyes moved, keen in the spring night. Slowly Adrian turned, facing the open window that marked the thief’s retreat.
Drops of blood stained the broken sill.
Maledetto.
