Page 56 of Mesmerized

“I think it would be best if your maid slept on a cot here in your room,” Stephen said. “I’ll have one of the footmen set up a bed immediately.”

“I am sure that isn’t necessary,” Olivia protested, but her heart was not in it. In fact, she knew that if she had to stay in this room the rest of the night by herself, she would not spend any of it sleeping. So she gave in and allowed Joan to sleep in the room, and even accepted Tom’s offer to sleep in the hall across her door, just to make absolutely sure that nothing could enter.

Even so, it took a long time before Olivia could go back to sleep, and she awoke several times during the night. Only when the dawn shone in around the draperies was she finally able to fall deeply asleep.

The next morning, after breakfast, Stephen took her arm, suggesting a stroll around the garden. They walked along the paths, coming after a while to the vine-covered bower in the center of the garden. A wooden bench sat beneath the arch of the trellis, for sitting and contemplating the beauty and peace of the garden. Stephen led her to the bench, and they sat down.

“I hope you are feeling better,” he said, looking into her face with concern.

Olivia nodded. “Yes. I am sorry to have been such a nuisance. It was foolish, no doubt. Probably the peculiar events of yesterday evening made me have such a...a disconcerting dream.”

“Perhaps.” He paused and looked down at his hands. “Still...we have dreamed of these people before. Together and separately. It puzzles me. It seems—I cannot help but think there is some significance to them. I know it sounds superstitious, but...” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

“I, too, cannot help but feel they are somehow significant,” Olivia agreed. “Yet I cannot understand the dreams. I am not one to believe in signs or portents.”

“But neither can we overlook what keeps presenting itself to us,” Stephen added. “Why do we keep dreaming of these people? Have you ever dreamed of this woman before?”

Olivia looked at him, startled. “No. Never. Not until I came here.”

“Nor have I. Until the night I met you.”

Olivia wrinkled her brow. “Are you saying that somehow our meeting set off these dreams?”

“I don’t know. It sounds ridiculous.” He sighed. “Tell me in detail about this dream of yours. You saw Lady Alys packing?”

“Yes. She was folding clothes and putting them in a trunk. And she looked straight at me and said something about it being important to keep your things safe. I can’t remember her exact words—oh, wait, she said ‘precious’—to keep what was precious to you safe. It was so odd, it was as if she were talking right to me, and yet I wasn’t in the dream, not as a person. It was just something I was seeing. Then she went and got a gold box.”

“A gold box?”

“Yes. It was about this big.” Olivia gestured with her hands. “And quite prettily engraved around the edges. It was so vivid in the dream! She set the box down on the bed and opened it. Inside it was some jewelry—gold chains and gold and silver bracelets, some rings. She took out a gold cross. It had a red stone in the center of the cross—” Olivia stopped abruptly and looked at him. “It was, well, I guess it was like the cross Madame Valenskaya was talking about, the one you told me was in the Martyrs’ treasure. Oh, of course! The gold box! You told me about the treasure box and the gold cross. That must have been why I dreamed about it.”

Olivia realized she felt strangely disappointed to think that her dream had had no significance but had simply been caused by things she had heard about the past few days.

“Did I tell you it was gold?” Stephen asked.

Olivia hesitated for a moment, thinking. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember your saying it. I was picturing it as a wooden box while you were talking. That is why I did not connect it at first. Is it gold?”

“Was there anything else in the box?” Stephen asked, sidestepping her question.

“Yes. She took out a necklace, as well. It was beautiful, made of gold beads, and the beads looked as if they had some kind of engraving on them.” Olivia was gazing blankly out across the garden, recalling the dream in her head, and so she did not see Stephen stiffen at her words.

“She went to another trunk and took out a belt that was made of gold links, and in the center of the belt, where it fastened, there were stones like the one in the cross, three of them, one centered in each link. It was the belt she was wearing when we saw her.”

“I didn’t notice the belt,” Stephen said abstractedly. “But I—”

He stood, reaching down to take her hand and pull her up, too. “Come with me. There is something I want to show you.”

Chapter Eleven

STEPHEN WHISKED HER back into the house and seated her in his study, then left. He had refused to answer any of her questions as they walked back through the garden, merely shaking his head and telling her to “wait and see.” By the time he reappeared at the study door, Olivia’s curiosity was at a fever pitch.

He stepped into the room, carrying a small bundle, and closed the door behind him. Olivia stood up as he carried the bundle over to his desk and set it down. Stephen carefully unwrapped the blue velvet covering from around the object, revealing it at last as a golden box about a foot long and over half as tall. Around the edges of the box were engravings, and in the front it fastened with a clasp that came down over a small bar, which then turned to open and close it.

Olivia stared, her hand going to her stomach. She felt as if someone had knocked the breath from her. The box before her on the desk was the same one she had seen in her dream last night.

“It’s the same,” she breathed, reaching out her hand toward it, then letting it fall, not touching it. “Oh, Stephen...it’s exactly the same.”

Her eyes began to water, and her stomach felt like a chunk of ice. She sat back down abruptly. “This is impossible.”