“Interesting,” Alix said. “I need to work on this mystery. Besides, if I wait until Jared returns we’ll get wrapped up in designs and I’ll never get up there. So where are the documents about Valentina?”
As Lexie had told her to do, Alix left the door open “for the hall light,” then pulled the string on the single bulb. Even though Alix hadn’t been in the attic before, she’d figured it would be full. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. The huge room covered the whole house and whereas the downstairs had been continually repaired and remodeled, the attic looked to be just as it was when Captain Caleb built the house. There were big, exposed beams overhead and a wide plank floor. However, Alix was glad to see that every inch was dry and even fairly clean. It was obvious that Jo Costakes’s Domestic Goddess team, who came in every other week to clean the downstairs, also sometimes took care of the attic.
Not that they could do much besides dust. In front was a space with a little couch, a rickety old coffee table, and a threadbare wing chair. Behind them, stretching out until they disappeared into darkness, were rows of boxes, trunks, baskets, furniture, and suitcases that were stacked nearly to the ceiling. Narrow walkways wove between the objects and she saw a couple more bulbs in the ceiling, but all in all, the idea of trying to find anything in the huge expanse made Alix want to turn and run.
She opened the door of an enormous armoire and found old clothes that looked to be from the twenties and thirties. In front was a fur-collared wool coat, some cotton dresses, and a sparkly gown, perfect if they were invited to a costume party.
So where was the info on Valentina? she wondered. Lexie had said it was all together, “to the right of the door.” But when Alix looked near the door she’d entered, she saw only a stack of tables.
“Maybe she meant to go down the aisle on the right,” she said aloud and started edging her way through it. About halfway down was another light and she pulled the string. The weak bulb made the place even gloomier. Any documents she found would have to be taken downstairs, as it was much too dark to read.
To her right was a six-foot-tall stack of storage boxes, the kind for files. On the end of each one, written in large letters, was VALENTINA. Alix stepped back as far as she could—about eight inches—to look at them. There had to be twenty boxes, all of them looking to be packed full. She climbed on the top of a steamer trunk on the other side of the aisle and stretched across to pull off the top box. She got it in her hands, but then lost her balance. For a second she thought she was going to fall. With her feet slipping, she held on to the box and made a leap to the floor. She landed on her seat on the hard surface. As she hit, the overhead bulb went out.
“Perfect!” she said, getting up. Just yesterday she’d noticed that the house’s supply of lightbulbs had run out and that they needed new ones. Grumbling, she picked up the box and started toward the front.
“Hello?”
It was a male voice that seemed familiar. For an instant, she thought it was Jared returning early, but then she realized the voice was deeper and sounded older.
At the end of the aisle, she stopped in her tracks. Standing there was a modern version of Captain Caleb. He had on jeans, a denim shirt, and heavy brown lace-up boots, but other than that, he was the Captain.
“I think I’ve startled you.” His voice was very much like Jared’s. “I’m terribly sorry. I better leave and return after we’ve been properly introduced.” He turned toward the door.
“No!” she said. “You don’t need to leave. You look too much like Captain Caleb to be anything but a Kingsley.”
“I look like Captain Caleb?” he said and even in the dull gray light she saw his eyes twinkle. “I couldn’t possibly be that handsome. No man today could be.”
Smiling, Alix put the box she was holding down on the floor. “I have to agree, and perhaps you do look somewhat different from him. Your eyes are less serious.”
“Ah, but then when that portrait of him was painted, the Captain had a lot on his mind. He was trying to win the beautiful Valentina.”
“From what I heard, he had no trouble with that.” As Alix plopped down on the little sofa, a spattering of dust went up around her and she gave a sigh. “Sorry,” she said as she looked up at him. “It’s just that I’m feeling overwhelmed at all the boxes I’m supposed to go through.”
“Do you mind?” he asked, motioning to the chair across from her.
“Please.”
He took a seat in the big wing chair, the flanges casting his face in deep shadow. He really did look like the Captain, she thought, but then maybe it was because she looked at Caleb’s portrait every morning and evening. Whatever the reason, he seemed very familiar. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Jared didn’t tell you about me?”
“No, he didn’t,” she said. “But then he didn’t volunteer any information about his cousin Wes either.”
When the man laughed, Alix was almost sure she’d heard the sound as a child. “I think I’ve met you before, but you’re …” From the look of him he was a bit younger than Jared, which meant that he wouldn’t have had that deep, adult laugh when she was so young.
“We did meet when you were a child,” he said, smiling. “But you’ve met so many of my family that perhaps you can’t place me. I’m Caleb.”
“That seems appropriate,” she said.
His smile made her relax. “I take it that the great cache of material isn’t making you want to dive in and explore?”
“No, it’s not.”
“I will tell you a secret,” he said. “I have read every word on those papers in the boxes.”
“Have you?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, I am directly responsible for a great deal of the information stored here. Would you like for me to tell you the true story of Valentina and Caleb? The one the rest of my family doesn’t know?”