Love and Splendor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 5 Page 5

  Once they had their torches, they went to the wooden hatch on the side of the château, and straining and pulling together, they managed to open it with a loud, grating squeak. At once, they were hit full in the face with a blast of sour, stagnant, dusty air.

  “Are you sure you want to go down there?” Kitty asked doubtfully.

  Dani said she was, then added teasingly, “It’s your fault, you know. You’re the one who’s gotten me all enthused about treasure hunting. Though I don’t know what on Earth I’ll ever do with all the things we’re sending back. Maybe I should open an antique shop. My Own little magasin d’antiquites…”

  She had been laughing, but the laughter faded, along with her voice, as she turned slowly to stare at Kitty.

  Kitty was staring back…and she was not laughing. The idea of opening an antique shop was not impractical or frivolous.

  “I can run it for you while you travel all over Europe on buying trips,” Kitty said.

  “And it’s the proper excuse to travel,” Dani chimed in. “Not that I need one, but it will give me something to do, a purpose.”

  They hugged each other happily, then Dani pulled back to urge, “Come on. Maybe we’ll find something truly wonderful down there.”

  When they reached the cellar, they realized quickly that it was empty. Even the hundreds of slots for wine bottles were empty.

  Dani was disappointed. “I guess it was asking too much that vandals not find their way down here. There was no lock on the hatch, and everyone would have known the château certainly had a cellar for storing wine.”

  Kitty held up her torch, the light eerily dancing on the walls carved out of the stone innards of the earth. “Let’s take a look around now that we’re here. We might find an old box of dishes or something stashed in a corner. If there was room for Gavin Mason to store Coltrane gold down here, then there is certainly room for a few old forgotten boxes or barrels.”

  They picked their way among small stones, clods of dirt, a few bits of broken wine bottles. Dani moved toward the deep shadows beneath the stairs, saw, nothing, turned away, then hesitated. Had she seen nothing? She went back, held out her flickering torch, and carefully looked about.

  Then she saw it—the strange-looking iron ring hanging from the rock wall. Slowly, cautiously, she reached out to touch it, felt the chill of the metal against her fingertips and shivered slightly.

  Kitty called hopefully, “See anything?”

  “A ring in the wall.”

  Kitty hurried to join her, quickly examined the ring, then began to run her fingers along the wall. “It could be—” she began excitedly, then cried, “It is! A hidden door. I feel the lines in the stone. Here. Help me pull.”

  They laid aside their torches carefully, propping them so the flames would not go out, then, mustering all their strength, they grasped the rusting ring and pulled.

  There came the scraping sound of ancient stone against stone and then the door slowly opened; once again, they were assailed by the smell of thick, dead air.

  Dani grabbed up her torch eagerly and stepped inside the cavity, without trepidation. At once, her eyes feasted upon the sight of the square wooden box propped against a far wall. It was the size of a small tabletop, perhaps a foot thick. “Oh, it has to be valuable!” she exclaimed. “It wouldn’t be hidden here if it weren’t.”

  Kitty was more cautious. “Let’s get it upstairs where we can open it properly and see exactly what you’ve found.”

  The box was not heavy, and they were able to maneuver it up the stairs with a minimum of strain. Once inside the house, it became obvious that tools would be needed to pry it open. Dani remembered seeing a few implements in the caretaker’s shed, and she quickly ran to get them.

  As she worked at the boards, Kitty warned, “Not too hasty. You don’t want to damage anything inside.”

  Once the outer boards were pried loose, however, they were dismayed to find yet another crate within. Working feverishly, anxiously, Dani soon had that one open as well, and they found much straw and packing inside.

  “Paintings!” Kitty cried jubilantly. “Oh, let me see, Dani, let me see!”

  Dani moved aside, knowing Kitty would be able to make a reasonable judgment should there be anything of value.

  ‘‘Oh, I don’t believe this!”

  Dani was beside herself. “What? What? Kitty, if you don’t tell me—”

  Kitty looked at her with eyes that brimmed with joyful, excited tears. “Rousseau. I’d know his work anywhere. And here!” She held up another. “Daubigny.”

  In all, there were six works inside the crate, and as they spread them out, Kitty explained what she felt they had discovered. “Around 1850 or so, there was sort of a rebellion against studio painting. A group of young landscape painters, most of whom were also printmakers, formed a group that became known as the Barbizon school. Critics felt that the etchings of Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Charles-Francois Daubigny were very close to the spirit of the seventeenth-century Dutch landscapes.”

  She went on to say that while their find might not be truly valuable in terms of money at that point, they would be treasured by some collectors. “And,” she pointed out with a broad smile, “just having these in your shop will give you a start. You’ll make quite a name for yourself from the very beginning with treasures like these!”

  Dani was beside herself with happiness. She knelt before the display to scrutinize their condition more closely. “It’s amazing that they’re so well preserved. I wonder how long they’ve been stored down there?”

  “Didn’t you say the Count was killed just a couple of years ago?” Kitty asked.

  “Yes. In a duel. Some argument over a gambling debt. I never understood exactly what happened. Aunt Alaina wouldn’t discuss it. But what does that have to do with these paintings?”

  Kitty theorized that because of the well-preserved state of the paintings, they could not have been hidden for longer than six or seven years. “The Count had to have been the one to hide them. Otherwise, Alaina would have had them appraised and sold along with the other things she was forced to dispose of.”

  There was one painting smaller than the rest, and Dani lifted it up for closer inspection. “This one seems different.”

  Kitty joined her in scrutiny, shook her head. “It isn’t the work of any artist I’ve ever studied. It isn’t even well done, but I can see that the subject matter must be beautiful—some sort of palace.”

  Dani fingered the wooden frame around the painting. It was crude, unfinished wood, but she found it elegant, somehow, in its simplicity. “I like the frame better than the painting.”

  “Well, the mystery surrounding these will make a wonderful story for the art circles in Paris.”

  Dani gathered up the paintings, headed for the front door, then paused. “This is it. We’ve found everything there is to find here.”

  Kitty put her arm around her and gave her an affectionate hug. “I think you found much more than you came looking for, my dear…and also left a few things behind,” she added pointedly.

  It was true. Dani had at last put to rest the past.

  Chapter Six

  Silver Butte, Nevada

  John Travis Coltrane, called simply Colt by family and friends, sat on top of a grassy knoll overlooking the Coltrane ranch.

  The air was sweet with the smell of fresh-cut hay, overshadowing the tinge of sourish aromas from the herd of cattle grazing toward the western horizon.

  Beneath him lay a thick bed of pink and white clover, dancing in the desert-sired breeze.

  He leaned back against the flaky bark of a huge cottonwood tree on this late summer evening, and contemplated his life.

  The ranch and the silver mine were both doing well. It had been over a year since he had almost lost both.

  A shudder moved through his tall, muscular body. What a fool he had been—but Gavin Mason had worked his scheme well. Briana, with the threat of medical aid for
her sick brother being withdrawn, had performed well in her role as Dani. Once he thought he had bedded his own sister, all he had wanted to do was get the hell out, sign everything over to her as a penance. When he finally woke up and decided maybe the world hadn’t come to an end after all, he had returned to discover that Mason had arranged for the sale of everything to Seth Hollowell, who owned adjacent land to the north. Seth was willing to sell it back once he heard Colt had been duped.

  So he had gone to Europe, to France, to find Briana, the truth…and Coltrane money.

  He had succeeded…but paid a dear price.

  Branch Pope, his foreman, his best friend, had lost his life at the hands of one of Mason’s men.

  Eventually, after following a trail that led all the way to the Greek island of Santorini, the gold had been recovered. Mason and his men were dead.

  He had been able to understand, and forgive, Briana’s part in the scheme. He had even brought her back to America with him, along with her brother. For a time, they had lived happily, never thinking about the future, just enjoying each other and spending long, passionate hours savoring the wonders they discovered together in bed. Then, out of the blue, it seemed, they mutually realized, and decided, that while what they shared was good, it just wasn’t enough to form the basis on which to build a lifetime, a marriage.

  They had parted ways…and parted as friends. She had reluctantly accepted the money he insisted on giving her when she left to head east and find a new life.

  Now and then he heard from her. She had a job as a governess to a wealthy family in Boston who allowed her brother to live with her. She had sent Colt back part of the money, saying she had considered it a loan.

  Colt shook his head and smiled in fond remembrance. Briana was one hell of a woman, and one day she would make some man a fine wife…but not him.

  Sometimes he wondered if he would ever get married and settle down. He liked women. No doubt about that. He enjoyed their company—in bed, and out. He never used them or abused them, always made sure when they parted that they left him happy, and satisfied. Relationships between a man and a woman, he believed, should be shared, not dominated by either.

  He looked toward the two-story house. Actually, it should be called a mansion. Sweeping front porch, tall and stately pillars. Marble steps. It was a fine place. A place to be proud of. But he was a bachelor, and what did he need with a two-story, twelve-room mansion?

  Silver and cattle. His father, Travis Coltrane, had built a wealthy empire and signed it all over to him and his half sister when he’d taken Kitty, his mother, and gone to Paris to live. Dani was there now with them; the ranch and silver mine was his to run as he saw fit.

  So now, a year later, after getting it all back again, Colt felt things were going well. His new foreman, Bart Townsend, was a grizzled, leathery sort who knew how to keep a hundred hands under his thumb at all times. Colt did not have to do anything.

  He was beginning to feel a bit useless.

  …And also a little bit lonely.

  Sometimes, on a Saturday night, when the hands would ride into town to raise hell and have fun, he and Bart would sit on the front porch, drink cold beers, and talk.

  It was on these occasions that Bart invariably got around to how Colt ought to be thinking about taking a wife. “You need a woman all the time, not just when you got a yen. You need to start thinking about having young’uns. Boys to grow up and carry on the ranch. It ain’t good you just seein’ this ’un and that ’un, and never gettin’ serious about none of ’em. More and more, lately, you just hang around the ranch.”

  Colt would become amused at Bart’s nosing in his business and invariably would challenge him. “Then why don’t you take your own advice and find yourself a good woman? Get married. I’ve told you I’d give you the land to build a house on.”

  As always, Bart would snort, mumble about how he was too old to have some woman around all the time, then change the subject.

  Colt smiled. It was Saturday again. He was not planning on going into town with the hands. He’d wind up on the porch with Bart once more and hear the same lecture all over again.

  It wasn’t, he acknowledged, that he did not think about what it would be like to get married, to love someone, have someone to share his life. It might be nice, also, to fill up the spaces in his heart, and the big mansion, with children.

  There was no shortage of candidates for a wife.

  There was Melissa Waitley, comely daughter of Doc Waitley. She could have her pick of suitors, but she had let him know she placed him at the top of her list. Not a week went by that she didn’t send him an invitation to Sunday dinner.

  Then there was Arista Blankenship, the young schoolteacher. At least every two weeks she invited him to dinner, was always sending out cakes, pies, cookies.

  He did not consider himself arrogant to acknowledge privately that every eligible woman in town had let him know, some subtly, some almost brazenly, that they would like to be considered for the position of Mrs. John Travis Coltrane.

  Neither did Colt feel he was conceited to acknowledge his own worth. He was rich. He had followed in his father’s footsteps and continued to keep the Coltrane holdings extremely successful. He also knew he was considered good looking. Tall, muscular, with dark hair and eyes, he’d been told by enough women that he was attractive that he believed it himself.

  So, he candidly asked himself, why couldn’t he find a woman to marry?

  But that, he reasoned, was not the question that bothered him, haunted him in quiet, contemplative times such as this.

  The burning issue really was that Colt just did not trust women.

  He had been burned too many times. Even Briana, whom he had fancied himself in love with for a time, had originally tricked him, deceived him. Maybe it left a bad taste in his mouth for all time.

  Maybe, he mused with bitterness, he was just bored. Since returning from Europe, there had been no excitement in his life. All he had done was more or less watch someone else tend to his business. Sure, there were ponies to be broken, records to be kept, decisions to be made, dozens of chores to take part in. But it wasn’t what he wanted, not the way he wanted to spend his life, and it certainly did not make him eager to rise each morning and face a new day.

  He needed, and wanted, something more. Only he could not figure out what.

  In the distance, he saw a lone rider coming down the road, heading in. He knew it would be Bart, who had gone into town earlier to order supplies, check on mail, do a few other errands.

  He got up from his solitary perch and made his way down the slope. By the time he reached the porch, Bart was reining up.

  He gave Colt a broad grin, held out a small wicker basket. “Had to balance this just right, or the meringue might fall. Compliments of Miss Melissa Waitley.”

  Colt took the basket from him. He had expected something like this. Melissa always hung around the general store where either he or Bart did their Saturday shopping if they were in town.

  Bart dismounted. “There’s also fresh-baked cookies in the saddlebags, compliments of Miss Jessica Owens.” He pretended to frown, as though in deep study. “Can’t recall any gifts from her before. In fact, I can’t even recall seeing her before. Comely little lass, though. Blonde hair, big green eyes. Had Miss Melissa fuming, she did, when she walked right up and introduced herself and said she was told I was your foreman, and would I please bring you some treats and remind you that you promised to stop by her house for tea next time you was in town.”

  Colt also frowned as he tried to recall just who Jessica Owens was. He had stopped in to see the dentist last time he was in town, and there had been a young lady working for him as a nurse, and she had said something about maybe he could stop by for refreshments sometime so they could get acquainted, because she was new in town and didn’t know many people yet. But was her hair blonde? For the life of him, he couldn’t remember.

  Then Bart tired of his teasing for the mo
ment and handed him a packet of letters. “There’s one from Paris,” he pointed out.

  That was the one Colt opened at once. He scanned the neatly written lines from his mother, describing how she and Dani had just come back from Monaco, where they had cleared out the deBonnett château.

  He read on about how Dani was planning to open up her own art and antique shop. His mother was going to run it while Dani traveled around Europe on buying jaunts.

  She went on to wish that he was well and tell him once more how much she loved him, missed him, and hoped that soon they could make plans to come home for a visit.

  Colt folded the letter, stuffed it in the pocket of his buckskin vest, and grew thoughtful. His father traveled, now Dani would also be traveling…and, suddenly, Colt knew exactly what he was going to do with his life.

  He got to his feet, stretched, smiled, turned toward the house. There was much to be done.

  Bart sat straight up. “Hey, where you goin’? It’s not even good dark yet. We’re gonna cook us some steaks, like always, have some beers. No need in being alone on Saturday night. Ol’ Pete didn’t go into town neither. I tol’ him we’d be cookin’ some grub soon, and he could join us.”

  Colt opened the screen door, then turned to give Bart one last, thoughtful look as he declared, “I’ll be leaving Monday. I’ve got a lot to do before then.”

  “Leaving?” Bart was on his feet and hurrying across the porch, a baffled expression on his craggy face. “What’re you talkin’ about? We ain’t got nowhere to go this time of year. It’s time to get set for the winter, and—”

  “Oh, there is somewhere for me to go, Bart,” Colt said with a quiet smile. “Europe.”

  Bart at once bellowed, “Europe? What in thunderation for?”

  Colt went on inside, called over his shoulder with nonchalance, as though he traveled abroad often. “Oh, my family’s there. I miss them. I’d like to get to know my half-sister better. I want to spend some of my hard-earned money. I just want to live.”

  He hurried up the stairs, Bart still calling to him, but he kept on going.