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Chapter 35
Giulia climbed the spiral staircase swiftly and paused in the doorway, pushing herself flush against the wall. She watched her mother move along the wall, pulling out books and feeling the shelves in a hectic, thorough manner. Giulia considered her options before stepping into the room.
“It is not there,” she said.
Lily stopped cold. She turned to face Giulia with a crazed smile painted on her face. “How do I know you are not lying to me?”
“Because I was raised to be honest. You would know if I was lying, actually. I’m rather horrid at it.”
Lily stood against the far bookcase, sizing up her daughter before turning back to the last shelf left intact and dismantling it book by book.
A frustrated cry rang out as Lily flung the final book on the floor, pushing and prodding the bookcase to no avail. She spun, shooting Giulia a maniacal look that shook her. “You have it,” Lily snarled, pointing at her daughter. “You must.”
Giulia jumped back as her mother started toward her, but she fell as her foot slipped on a book and she hit the floor hard. Pain shot up Giulia’s back, knocking the breath from her lungs as Lily crouched over her, her face distorted with greed and passion.
Had Giulia actually thought her mother beautiful before? Lily looked absolutely dreadful now.
Lily searched her face. “Patrick would have put it here. This was his favorite place in the world,” Lily said, her accent growing thicker as her mania deepened. “He was forever going on about this wretched room and how positively magical it was. His mother created it for them, you know. It was all her idea. She shared that adventurous gene with her sons.”
“You knew my grandmother?” Giulia could not help but ask.
“Knew her?” Lily sat back on her heels, her face screwing up in derision. “Of course I knew her. I lived here for nearly a year before Patrick and I eloped.”
Giulia’s jaw dropped. She had been told her parents met in Italy and married there.
“But you lived in Italy.”
“Yes, after we married. The earl forced us out and we went to live with my famiglia. He did not like scandal, the earl, so he made us go. Patrick hated Italy, though, so we came back. But we were forced to stay in London.”
“And then you left.”
“Of course I left!” Lily said with feeling, rising and stepping back. She was restless. Obsessed. It was frightening. “Patrick was forever jumping from one adventure to the next, spending all his money and forcing me to wear rags, to cook and to clean! I am not a woman made to cook. Or to clean.”
Giulia refrained from mentioning that Lily was a woman who’d had a child but felt that an unnecessary point in that particular moment.
“And when that old woman sent Patrick the key, well, then I knew that we would be rich again. But the idiot refused to sell it.” Anger flared in Lily’s eyes. “I did not have to remain poor when a wealthy viscount hung on my every word. So I made Patrick choose. He could sell the key and keep me, or he could keep the key and lose me to Lord Gresham—who was both wealthy and willing to leave his wife and return to the continent with me. Patrick chose the jeweled key. So I left.”
Giulia was shocked. Never before had she thought to comprehend that her good luck charm held so much power. She wanted to stroke the chain out of habit but kept her hands by her sides with simple force of will.
“How very impractical,” Giulia said instead.
“Scusami?”
“A key which is covered in jewels does not sound very practical. That is what you are looking for, is it not? A key that is covered in jewels?”
“Si. But it does not open anything, it is merely decoration.”
“Oh, I see.” Giulia nodded slowly. Lily was unaware of the box hiding in the wall directly behind her—a box that was worth ten times its key, most likely.
“But you waited all this time to retrieve it. How do you know it is still here?”
“Gresham died last year and left everything to his wretched wife. When I heard that Patrick died, too—” Lily stopped, turning her gaze on Giulia. She narrowed her eyes and said slowly, “How do I know you aren’t trying to distract me now?”
“Because I don’t have any keys covered in jewels,” Giulia said, rising. She threw her arms out in her frustration, hoping the woman would see reason. “You must believe me. You can tear this castle apart stone by stone, but you will not find a decorative key covered in jewels.”
The room itself seemed to hold its breath as Lily watched her daughter in wide-eyed panic. The woman was mad. Had she not realized after tearing the room apart one book at a time that it was nothing more than a playroom?
Lily deflated, her eyelids drooping as her shoulders slouched, and Giulia let out a slow, silent breath. She needed to figure out a way to get Lily out of the castle for good and sneak back into the ballroom before anyone noticed her absence.
