For now, however, I’m ready to announce that I’ll be spending the next two weeks at the clinic while I make my decision. I know that you’ve—” he nodded at Tobias “—accomplished a lot here. And yet, because this mansion is part of my heritage, it may be best to turn it over to the Preservation Society.
“Within two weeks, I should be able to decide the future of the mansion. Meantime…” He chuckled. “I don’t know about the group, but I’m starved, and judging by my watch, it’s lunchtime.”
Smiling around the table, he added, “Dr. Free has arranged for us to dine in the day room. Shall we?”
Everyone nodded assent.
Tobias tried not to let his temper get the best of him. He’d hardly wanted to feed the very people who were about to dismantle his dream clinic, but he didn’t want to appear ungracious. Years ago, he’d needed a science lab, not this drafty mansion, but when he’d landed a grant and found this place, he’d made do, turning it into one of the country’s most prestigious clinics. As much as he’d hoped the University would set him up in a space better suited to his work, competition for funding was fierce. Between the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Melon and Dusquene University, Tobias Free was hardly the only academic in town who needed to house a research facility. If he lost the lease, he—not to mention all the people who’d worked for him for the past ten years—might be out of a job.
As he stood and lifted a briefcase, his eyes strayed to the old photographs on the wall. Taken when Pittsburgh was a boomtown, they were all yellow-toned, depicting crowded streets and skies made dark by smoke pouring from Cornelius Sloane’s steel mills. Some showed barges marked with the Sloane name that had once traveled choked rivers, transporting steel. Others showed the tenements Cornelius Sloane had built to house the immigrants who’d worked for him, many of whom had been Italian.
Tobias’s eyes settled on Carla’s block in Bloomfield, and he visualized the Italian neighborhood as it was today, complete with the West Penn Hospital, the Paddy Cake Bakery and Tessaro’s restaurant. Unfortunately, his mind zeroed in on the Church of the Immaculate Conception—and everything else came in a flash: the white aisle runner, the crowded pews, his four buddies leading her four girlfriends down an aisle strewn with red and white rose petals.
For a second, Tobias’s heart welled with the love he’d felt when he’d seen Carla in the strapless wedding dress. Wild black curly hair had spilled like corkscrewed ribbons over her bare shoulders, and white satin showed off a gorgeous figure made full by the endless Italian feasts her mama served. From under the veil had been only hints of her face, the dark eyes and wine-red lips that Tobias still dreamed about. She’d been only five steps away, almost in his arms, when she’d suddenly gasped, turned on the heel of a slender, white-beaded slipper, and run back down the aisle.
Pulling himself back to reality, Tobias began leading toward the day room, only to have one of the elderly women—he wasn’t sure, but he thought her name was Agnes—politely curl a hand around his upper arm and ask, “What made you decide to work in the field of dreams, anyway, Dr. Free?”
For the same reason he’d done many things in his life: Carla. Tobias managed a shrug as he guided the woman through the doorway. “Oh. I don’t know. I started out in biochemical research. One thing led to another.”
It was only the partial truth. Really, he’d wanted to cure Carla’s insomnia. She was so hot, so passionate, so full of life. But she sometimes couldn’t sleep through a night. After their lovemaking, he’d witnessed the torture she endured in her sleep. Not only were her dreams so real that she’d become convinced they’d happened, but she’d also had a bizarre recurring dream about golden underwear.
Over and over, from as far back as Carla could remember, she’d dreamed of seeing a man seated at a shadowy desk in a dark, dank room she couldn’t identify. Each time, the dream was the same. The man would slowly lift a pair of sparkling underwear made of gold.
It might have been funny, except that Carla would awaken feeling terrorized. He’d held her, too. Even now, he could remember the heat of her soft, well-loved body. She was nothing like Sandy Craig, the woman he’d married. While Sandy was angles and points, Carla was curves and cushions. So feminine, too. With her trembling in his arms, not wanting to let go, he’d never felt like more of a man. Everything about her had made him feel…strong. Protective. Necessary.
Briefly shutting his eyes as he guided the woman toward the day room, Tobias envisioned Carla’s repeating dream, conjuring the dark dank room, the man lifting the gold underwear. And then, very close to Carla’s ear, the man’s voice would sound, saying, “If you marry, you will die.”
As far as Tobias knew, that was the real reason Carla DiDolche had run from the altar on their wedding day.
THE BELT!
His palms broke out in a sweat as his eyes drifted nervously over the drawings left on the table. The picture of the belt was nearly buried under the others. His fingers itched to touch it. Somehow, he had to get it.
“Aren’t you going to the day room with the others?” asked Margaret Craig.
Surveying her buxom, matronly form, the blue-rinsed hair and bright blue eyes, he forced a smile. “Just enjoying the art,” he said, shaking his head, glad to hear that his voice sounded steady. “It’s such an incredible find.”
“If we get the lease,” Margaret agreed, “these pictures, not to mention the mansion itself, will be available to the public.” She smiled. “And then I’ll feel I’ve done my duty to the community.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he watched her begin gently lifting the pictures from the table. Arranging them between pieces of parchment paper, she placed them into a portfolio.
He swallowed hard, hating how tight his chest felt. All the air seemed to have been sucked from the room. He could scarcely breathe. “Are the pictures catalogued?” he managed, hoping he sounded only casually curious.
She frowned. “You know, it’s funny you ask. I believe so, though, now that you mention it, I don’t know who took care of the matter. It would have been someone in the Society.”
Was it possible she was wrong?
Warding off an excited shudder, he eyed the picture he wanted…the picture he had to have. Of course, the picture of the golden chastity belt was nothing compared to the genuine article, a priceless relic that belonged to him.
Yes, it was his. His alone. Believed to date from the earliest of the Crusades, the gold chastity belt carried a power all its own. The glint of its metal reflected the darker times when it was forged, and bespoke unholy alliances, sieges and slaughters. Those wars and skirmishes were rivaled only by the jealousy of the men who left their women behind, and who’d ensured by any means necessary that they’d never be touched by another man….
The belt was beautiful, the name of its owner lost to time and history. His heart hammered. Sweat beaded on his lip. He’d loved to have seen a woman wear it, he thought, imagining someone young and dark-haired. He could see how the heavy gold would tightly encircle her waist, locking in back.
Only when he heard a chuckle did he remember Margaret Craig was still beside him. Realizing he’d been staring at the picture of the belt, he quickly glanced away, cursing himself. He needed to steal the picture, but he couldn’t even contain his interest, so that Margaret wouldn’t notice.
“Quite something, isn’t it?” she said. “Golden underwear.”
