Legacy of Danger

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Me? The reason why someone hadn’t snatched Alex up long ago was her? He hadn’t wanted her then, why would he want her now?

She watched.

Alex held court with several professors and some pretty female students. Girls flocked to this young, handsome, and witty language professor. A bit on the exotic side, Elena thought. They stood close, leaned over him, and looked sorrowful. She caught snatches of conversation.

“I’m so sorry. I know how close you were to Mrs. Dkany. Maybe I could find a way to cheer you up?”

He smiled at them and muttered. “Thanks. She was special. Talk to Elena. She has some great stories about Magda.”

He was sending these women over to her?

They remained by his side. They were offering condolences, probably other things, too.

This wasn’t the Alex she remembered.

Once or twice, Elena caught him shooting glances her way. She turned toward a small crowd of neighbors.

“That man has bedroom eyes,” Mrs. Rice, her next-door neighbor, said. “Oh, Elena. I’m glad you’re here. Now, I’ve brought over some . . .”

Elena lost the name of what Mrs. Rice brought. She glanced at Alex but pulled away when he turned and stared. Yes, he did have bedroom eyes. She’d heard about his reputation. Alex must have changed a great deal.

The last of the women dropped a piece of paper in Alex’s coat pocket as she left. Maybe a phone number? When she closed the door, he tossed the note into the nearest trash can. So much for the Mrs. Brancusi wanna-be.

A tall, thin man with an abundance of graying hair and a high forehead stood in the corner of the living room. A good-looking man, Elena thought. He wore a familiarity, but she couldn’t quite place him. I know you. Why do I know you?

He played with his highball glass, talked to guests, glanced at her, then surveyed the room. Elena wondered if he was waiting for everyone to leave.

When the last of the guests left, the man remained, standing in silence—observing.

“Raven hair and blue eyes, you are the lovely Elena Dkany.” The man bowed. “Although, I must say you are prettier than the last time I saw you.”

Lovely? Her? She didn’t think so. What did this man want? When had she last seen him? Elena tried to recall, but with Alex watching her, her mind went blank. Alex appeared amused. She glared and sent his head back into the book he held in his hand.

The man shook his head. “No, no. I do not wish to stir the bad memories.” Then, she remembered. Gregory Balogh. Her grandmother’s solicitor from Romania and the family’s castle caretaker. The man who’d saved her life. The man who loved and cherished her grandmother. She hadn’t seen him since that awful night, but she loved him all the same. “You’re Uncle Gregory.”

Gregory Balogh bowed and kissed her hand. “It is a compliment that you remember me.” He turned to Marina, “And, from the bright red of your hair, you must be the younger sister of Alexander? I’m told you will be a resident in Internal Medicine at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I offer congratulations to a brilliant and beautiful lady.” When he kissed her hand, a blush raced straight into Marina’s face.

Elena raised her eyebrows. He certainly knows how to dish out compliments.

“But, please to sit,” he said, stretching out his hands to all three.

Elena didn’t know why, but they all obeyed like good, dutiful children.

“So, there it is. I know everyone. And, perhaps you remember me, as Miss Elena did. Gregory Balogh at your service. I arrived late. I am desolate to miss the dear lady’s funeral. But I am here now, no?” He sat straight up in an uncomfortable-looking wingback chair. “A tragedy—a waste. Magda was a dear friend, Elena.”

“Uncle Gregory,” Elena said, her spirits rising. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You saved my life.” She remembered him, so long ago, bending over her as she lay on the living room floor in her apartment in Bucharest just before she passed out from pain and loss of blood. The memory of the attack she’d locked away.

“Yes, and that is now over, yes? We put the past behind us.” He set his glass on the end table, leaned forward, and said, “I am, of course, an uncle only in friendship.”

Alex sat on a bench and plunked a note on a walnut upright piano. They’d played it together while they were dating. He’d taken his left hand, her the right, during a rousing, hilarious rendition of ‘Chopsticks.’ His glance sent a slight shiver down her spine. He appeared to remember too. She turned away—that was then, this is now.

“That’s okay,” Elena said with a sigh before returning to the conversation. “My family loved making relatives out of friends.”

“Yes, this is true, which is why what I am about to tell you should come as no shock.” The tone in his voice roused her curiosity. “I am here, of course, not only to pay my respects but to read Magda’s will.” He raised his hands. “Of course, on this night, it seems not right. But it must be said—what the Dkany and Brancusi families wished for their children.”

Elena glanced at Alex.

He shrugged back.

Marina said, “I didn’t know Aunt Magda or mother had any specific plans for any of us.” She smiled. “Except for us to be successful and, hopefully, happy.”

Gregory nodded. “Yes, of course, my dear lady. You are all successful. But of what I speak does not concern you directly.”

“Oh. Thank goodness.” Marina looked visibly relieved.

Gregory coughed. “The Dkany Castle has always been owned by the Dkanys. With the passing of your brother, Miss Elena, Magda realized the castle would come to you and could eventually pass from the Dkanys if they had no heirs. She spoke with the Brancusi family. They felt a marriage between you and Alexander could bond the families forever. A match to ensure the Dkany Castle would remain within the ancestral circle. It was a marriage your families had hoped for since you were in your teens.”

Elena’s jaw dropped. The cuckoo on the wall chirped seven o’clock. She abruptly looked up at the wooden bird and wanted to wrench the stupid thing’s neck. The past week’s emotions finally caught up and walloped her in the form of giggles that wouldn’t quit.

He frowned, shifted in his seat, and said, “It’s not that funny.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “An arranged marriage? I didn’t think families did that anymore.” She took several deep breaths and swallowed the nervous laughter. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a horrible week.”

Alex focused on the oriental carpet. Realization hit.

“You knew about this when we were dating?”

He tossed his gaze through the patio door.

A sourness arose from the pit of Elena’s stomach. Her eyes fixed the floor to hide her hurt. “So that’s why you wanted to date me. Our families forced you into it.”

Alex’s eyes darkened with defiance. “Magda obviously didn’t force you into anything. You ditched me and married someone else.”

“You wrote and said it was best we date other people. So, I did.” Elena stood, her anger aimed at Gregory Balogh, who clasped his hands and looked uncomfortable. “You people are too much. You think you can force a boy and girl to marry in the twenty-first century?”

Alex raised his hands in protest. “Elena—”

“No. This is really too much.” Trying to control her anger, she rose and turned toward the door.

Gregory stood and held out his hands. “You would be surprised. There are still many arranged marriages in our societies. Many work out very well. Please, Miss Elena. If this had not been an agreeable solution, the families would never have suggested it. Alex did not object.”

Elena spun around and replied, “But I might have.” She stared daggers at both men. “I’ve never heard about this. Weren’t my feelings considered at all?”

Gregory shrugged. “It didn’t seem important. You and Alexander . . . close friends already, no? We thought you liked each other. Unfortunately, complications prevented the union from taking place.” He smiled. “They no longer exist.”

How could he be so blasé about the death of her husband and baby?

The solicitor continued, “Of course, nobody can tell you whom you should marry.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Elena said.

Gregory frowned, raised his highball glass, and finished the remains. “I am charged with the responsibility of informing you of the family’s wishes, that is all.”

This was no joke. Their families had meant for them to marry. She’d wanted to marry him someday. She thought he’d wanted to marry her. She’d been wrong. This conversation and the memories it invoked were too overwhelming. She needed out. The French doors were only a few feet away. She tried to retreat.

“Elena, I would have married you.”

Elena jerked around. “What?” Her gaze found Alex, who was staring at her with his sad and damned bedroom eyes.

A shadow clouded his face again. “But I’m sure you did a lot better with Janek Ivanov.”

“What in the world do you mean?” Elena asked, staggered by the defeat in his tone and his sarcasm. She wanted to hit him; instead, she stood in the middle of some bizarre Victorian drama.

Uncle Gregory placed his hands in a prayer motion. The reflected colored lights of the Tiffany lamp on the end table falling on skin pulled taut over gaunt cheekbones. “Elena, I beg of you. Please . . . do sit. There is more to say and do.”

Elena averted her eyes and gave it some thought. Her head tipped a nod before she settled back on the sofa.

Reaching into his briefcase, Gregory pulled out a plain white square box and handed it to her. “This is for you.”

Surprised, Elena opened it. She removed a silver box with figures of fifteenth-century boyars appearing so accurate in detail, a gift likely created it in that era. Her breath refused to exhale, and she finally gasped. “The army of noblemen of Romania,” she whispered, half to herself. “This is exquisite.”

“It is so. Pure silver, but . . .” Gregory said, his eyes shining. His tone lowered to a whisper. “Look inside.” The penetration from his eyes narrowed like a laser to the box. “This has been in safekeeping. Open it.”

When she opened the case, she clapped a hand to her cheek and couldn’t speak. A large blood-red ruby lay on a backdrop of white velvet. “My God,” Elena murmured. She fingered the stone. “The color of blood.” She looked up. “And passion.”

Marina, who’d been quietly looking on, rose and peered at the stone. She turned to Gregory. “It’s gorgeous.”

“This ruby was embedded in an altar-cross, and the monks presented it to Viktor Dkany for valor on the battlefield.” Gregory stood silent for a moment then said, “He’d killed Prince Vlad Tepes, and for that, he was highly rewarded. The stone has quite a history.”

Elena whispered. “You mean this ruby dates back to the fifteenth century?”

“Probably older, my dear,” he replied. “Remember, the Turks possessed it first.”

Alex picked up The History of the Romanian Empire from the coffee table. Elena couldn’t tell whether he was fascinated with the topic or bored with Gregory Balogh. His sister threw her brother a look, and he put down the book. “So, where’s the cross, now?” He asked.

“Ah, destroyed in an earthquake. Only the ruby survives.” Gregory remained solemn. “It remained in the castle vault for over five hundred years. Now, you are its sole possessor.”

“Earthquake,” Alex said, thumbing through the pages. “Romania is plagued by them. A big one hit in the ‘70s.”

Gregory nodded. “Yes, that is correct in 1977. Over 1500 people were killed in Bucharest alone. But the earthquake also hit farther than the capital. The town of Vrancea—”

“Was the epicenter,” Alex said. “Vrancea Mountains in the Eastern Carpathians.”

“Yes, true. However, the Vrancea Earthquake was not the one that took the cross.”

“Oh,” Elena said, turning away from the ruby. “When was the cross destroyed?”

“In 1523. The last time anyone saw the cross before it disappeared.”

“You’re just full of cheerful facts,” Marina said. “But wasn’t there one just recently?” She glanced at the ceiling then nodded. “Believe it was somewhere in Transylvania, maybe even in Dkany. I read about it on the Internet in The Romanian News.

Gregory nodded again. “The Internet. A useful, if not sometimes a deceptive, source of information. But that is correct. There was an earthquake not far from Dkany only a week ago.”

“Any damage?” Elena asked.

“Yes, unfortunately, that is so. Some of the underground passages were blocked by the rubble. The chapel organ was damaged. The instrument was unique. It had golden pipes. Such a shame. We hope this is not a, how-do-you-say, a prequel to a more serious tremor?”

Elena sighed. A castle in Romania, complete with a historic organ and underground passages. A rare ruby from the time of the Turkish Empire. How lucky could one girl be?

She stood gazing into the ruby’s crystalline center again. Apprehension and foreboding wound their tentacles down her spine. Her eyes closed. Something inside her head rotated, like the whirling movement inside the stone.

“What’s wrong?” The voices came from all around, but they echoed far away.

Her eyes opened again. Inside the center, a b****y battle full of fifteenth-century boyars raged in the background. Silhouettes of impaled Turks lined the horizon.

Switch. A young boy searched for something or someone. Then he disappeared, and a vision appeared of a monk executing a young woman in the present. She didn’t know the boy. The woman, she knew.

Her.

The room took on a surreal quietness that seemed to extend to the outside. Even the birds stopped singing.

Cuckoo.

The clock broke the trance that hovered over the room. Elena tried to scream, but no sound came. She grabbed out for something—anything, but the walls started to spin, and the ground came rushing toward her. She fell into Alex’s outstretched arms, and the ruby fell at his feet before darkness swallowed her consciousness.