Amber (Jewel Trilogy, Book 3)

by Royal, Lauren

  "Oh." Just as Trick had said. Kendra glanced at her slumbering husband. He slept like the dead, like he'd spent another wakeful night before succumbing to exhaustion. She, on the other hand, had slept like a newborn babe, dreaming dreams that made her cheeks burn to remember them.

  Mrs. Ross was watching her, a question in her faded blue eyes. Kendra put a cooling hand to her face. "Though Trick insisted it was surely the rain, I thought I heard footfalls on those steps last night."

  The woman's gray head nodded sagely. "It's been said to happen."

  "People go up on the roof?"

  "Not people, lass."

  "Ghosts, then?" Kendra's breath caught. "The ghosts of prisoners?"

  "Not that I've heard."

  Kendra blushed as the woman bent to retrieve yesterday's clothes from the floor. Cavanaugh and Jane ought to be doing that—not that she and Trick should have left their garments on the floor in the first place. What could Mrs. Ross be thinking?

  But apparently she was still thinking about the stairwell. "Other ghosts," she clarified, shaking out Trick's discarded kilt. "One in particular, a young servant girl who was said to have borne an illegitimate Duncraven son in this room some two hundred years past. Potential threats to the title, they were, and both swiftly put to the sword by an anonymous knight."

  Kendra swallowed. "Anonymous?"

  "Well, you cannot very well tell who's in a suit of armor now, aye? But legend says it was Lord Duncraven himself. A heartless man, to hear the tales." She smoothed the folded tartan over one arm. "The girl still wanders the spiral staircase, searching for her bairn. Some say they've seen her in this room, watching at the foot of the bed where a cradle may have once rested," she added, laying the red fabric right where Kendra imagined the poor murdered girl might gaze. "Don't you worry now, lass. She doesn't do any harm."

  Was it the ill-fated servant girl she'd heard, then? Kendra wondered. Or had Mrs. Ross invented this story to cover her own wanderings? Or had Annag or Duncan been trodding the winding stone stairs?

  Or had it only been the storm, mixed with her own imagination?

  Her musings were interrupted when Mrs. Ross bustled over to Trick. "Wake up, lazybones." She thwacked him with her dust cloth. "Lord Niall is waiting."

  Halfway downstairs, Trick's feet dragged to a halt on the second floor landing. "Bide a moment."

  On the step below him, Kendra turned and looked up, tightening Mrs. Ross's shawl across the bodice of her lemon gown. "Niall is waiting to take us to the treasure chests."

  "Then he'll wait." She looked so pretty this morning, all cheerful yellow against the dingy stone staircase, her mouth slightly swollen from his morning kisses. He bent down to give her another one, wishing he could take her back to bed. Their lips clung for a long, sweet minute before he straightened with a sigh and stepped from the turret, crossing the sitting room to knock on the master bedchamber door.

  "Enter," came a muffled voice.

  A voice not unlike his own? Trick hesitated, his hand on the latch.

  "Did you not want to go inside?" Kendra asked.

  He took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Beyond it, Hamish sat against the sturdy oak headboard, his long, skinny legs looking like stilts beneath the coverlet. Trick gazed at him, a question burning inside him—a question only Hamish could answer.

  But he couldn't seem to make himself cross the threshold, nor could he force the question past his lips.

  Kendra had no such compunctions. She pushed past him and hurried over to Hamish, grasping the old man's hand. "Goodness." With a flounce of her English skirts, she seated herself at his bedside, a bright ray of sunshine in the gloomy room. "Rhona's vile green drink really worked magic, didn't it?"

  Indeed, Hamish was munching on breakfast and looking much better. Younger. Trick was surprised to realize he wasn't such an old man, after all.

  "Aye, I expect it did work magic," Hamish agreed. "But although she left a supply, I haven't been able to force myself to drink more." He made a face. "She'll be at me like a screaming banshee when she sees how much remains. Maybe I can prevail upon you to bury it somewhere?"

  Kendra laughed. "Where is Rhona, anyway?"

  Hamish shrugged. "I'm mending, aye, and she has her own life to attend to. There are people here to help me should I need it." His mouth curved in a smile very like Niall's—and his own, Trick grudgingly admitted. "To tell you the honest truth, it's been pleasant to spend a wee bit of time alone. A man gets cranky with people always fussing all over him."

  "I'm sure he does," Kendra said, slanting a glance at Trick. She rose and went to open the shutters, letting morning light flood the room.

  Hamish's gaze shifted to the open doorway, and his forehead creased in a frown. "Come in, lad, will you?"

  Trick did so, slowly, still gazing at the man that Kendra insisted was his father.

  "Have a seat," Hamish said.

  He didn't. The question fought to get out.

  The older man blinked. "It's uncanny how much you look like Niall. I used to catch your mother staring at him with a sad, faraway look in her eyes."

  The same sad, faraway look that Hamish was giving him now. A look Trick suspected was on his own face.

  At last, the words tumbled forth.

  "Niall and I, we look so alike because...because we have the same father, don't we?"

  Before Hamish even answered, Trick knew Kendra had been right. "Why?" he asked. "Why was I never told? And why did my mother marry another man and then have a child with you?"

  Hamish licked his lips, not so papery this morning. "It wasn't like that, Patrick. She was already carrying you when she agreed to the marriage. Her only other choice was to give birth to a bastard child." His light brown gaze met Trick's own. "Her father threatened to kill me if she refused to marry the duke."

  Kendra gasped. "He cannot have meant that."

  Hamish turned to her. "Can you blame Elspeth for not testing him, lass?"

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I cannot even imagine..."

  "Well, if you'd known the man, the threat wasn't so hard to imagine coming from him."

  "Very well, then, maybe she had a reason." Trick ran a hand back through his hair. "But why keep the truth from me?"

  "The duke never knew you weren't his child. We didn't mean to keep you in the dark forever, but you left here at ten—too young to be told, to understand the importance of hiding your true parentage from the man you thought was your father. And when you returned..." Hamish's gaze flickered down to his lap, then back up. "I wanted to tell you the moment you arrived. But after all this time, I wasn't sure how you would feel."

  Despite a long night spent thinking about just that, Trick wasn't sure how he felt himself. Anyone, even Hamish, had to be better than the duke, but the discovery of a new father left him reeling.

  "I'll have to get used to this," he admitted.

  Hamish nodded, looking both solemn and pleased. "I've waited twenty-eight years to acknowledge you as my son. I can wait a wee bit longer."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The day was sunny, the ride toward the town of Falkland pleasant over rolling hills. It felt so good to be out of the depressing castle that Kendra found herself smiling at nothing more than the light breeze, the purple thistles dotting the hillsides, a pair of blackbirds flying by. She chattered to Niall about anything and everything, enjoying his easy company. Seeming as grateful as Kendra to be out and about, Pandora felt warm and frisky beneath her.

  Trick, however, was brooding.

  Two miles into their journey, he finally turned to Niall. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Pardon?" Niall cocked his head, gleaming blond in the sunshine. "Why didn't I tell you what?"

  "That our mother's is not the only blood we share."

  Niall reined in at that, turning sideways to block the road. His mount danced under him as he stared at Trick. "What are you trying to say?"

  "Did you think I wouldn't want to know w
e're full brothers?" His jaw tight, Trick studied Niall a moment. "Did you think I wouldn't care to know that Hamish is my father as well as yours?"

  The younger man's face went white. "I didn't know." His amber eyes wide, he swallowed hard. "Are you sure? I swear to you, Patrick, I didn't know. Mam and Da never breathed a word."

  Kendra, for one, believed him. Nobody was that good an actor.

  But her husband, evidently, was blind. "Why wouldn't they tell you?" he pressed furiously. "What possible reason could they have had?"

  "Trick!" she exclaimed in irritation. Not unlike her own brothers, he could be thickheaded beyond bearing. "I expect they thought your parentage was none of Niall's business."

  "My mother knew how to hold her tongue," Niall added, his amber eyes darkening to bronze. "And my father is the most loyal man I've ever met. A loyalty I thought we'd share, now that we've found each other." With a jerk of his reins, he turned and trotted off down the road.

  Kendra glared at her husband until his face turned red and he looked away. "All right," he shouted after his brother. "I believe you!"

  There was no response, and looking at Niall's stiff back, she could sense his pain. Trick dug in his heels, motioning impatiently for Kendra to follow.

  "You might also say you're sorry," she suggested under her breath as she drew alongside.

  He stared at her a moment, then back to Niall. "And I'm sorry!" he called. Maybe not as sincerely as she'd have liked, but the effort was there.

  Yet his brother's back remained rigid.

  She saw a muscle twitch in her husband's jaw. "Very well, then, I'm not sorry," he growled.

  They caught up to Niall and rode three abreast, the men in an obstinate standoff on either side of Kendra. The blowing of the horses failed to drown out their alternating huffs. She felt like Zeus in the Trojan War, stuck between the battling gods, wanting to stay neutral but suspecting she couldn't.

  The gates of Falkland loomed ahead, and still neither of them softened. They were most definitely brothers, one as pigheaded as the other. As they entered the town, a few people waved to Niall, calling out greetings and condolences. He nodded his acknowledgments without uttering a word.

  They rode past Falkland Palace, two long ranges of gray stone with a charming turreted gatehouse and slanting, moss-covered slate roofs. Kendra turned to her brother-in-law and forced a jaunty tone. "From how Hamish described the banquet, I expected the town of Falkland would be larger. Busier."

  She'd known he wouldn't ignore her. "At one time it was more important," he told her, looking straight ahead. God forbid he should inadvertently meet his brother's eyes. "But Falkland today is naught but a small market town, populated mostly by weavers who keep indoors practicing their craft. You can blame the Union of the Crowns for that."

  "Why would that make a difference?" she asked brightly. "Trick, you know a lot of history."

  "Not of Falkland." She'd never heard him sound quite so peeved, not even when he was fixing to murder Duncan. "For God's sake, I haven't lived here in eighteen years."

  As her efforts at conversation ground to a halt, she heaved an internal sigh. The clip-clop of their horses' hooves on the cobblestones seemed loud as thunder against the men's willful silence. As they rounded the market cross, a dray cart coming from the other direction forced them to the side of the narrow street nearer the houses.

  "The lintels are all carved," she remarked, prattling on like a featherbrained nincompoop. She pointed to the nearest door, the stone beam above it engraved with letters and numbers. "What do they mean?"

  "They're marriage lintels—" Trick began.

  "Look there," Niall interrupted. "Two lovers' initials, and 1610, the year they were wed—the year their household was established. And other markings indicate their occupations. See, the crossed mells of a stonemason. And there, a shoemaker's knife."

  As they rode past a few more, Kendra started to make sense of the symbols. "I see a butcher's cleaver. But the big '4' with three little x's...what does that mean?"

  Niall opened his mouth then clamped it shut when his brother rushed to answer before him. "A merchant—a burgess with trading privileges."

  The carvings were lovely, she thought, determined not to let their attitudes affect her appreciation. Lasting memorials to marriages begun in hope rather than deception. She turned to her surly husband. "These lintels are so romantic."

  Trick rolled his eyes, prompting Niall to nod—pleasantly, she would think, if she didn't know it was mainly to make his brother look bad. "Some go back a hundred years or more," Niall told her. "Watch for them as you ride."

  She peeked down the wynds as they went, but soon they were passing through West Port, the gate that marked Falkland's boundary. Dense woodlands loomed ahead. "The trees are so near to the town," she remarked, sounding inane to her own ears.

  "Why wouldn't they be?" Trick asked churlishly.

  "Actually," Niall said with a smug smile, "though nearly all of Fife was once covered in forest, the only large tracts remaining are here by Falkland. One of the reasons the Stuarts of old so valued their palace, a place to escape from affairs of state and spend some time hawking and hunting the wild boar."

  She half hoped to see a wild boar now—at least such a threat would put an end to this petty bickering. Here they had to ride single file, weaving through the trees, which looked much the same as trees in England. Finding nothing left to comment on, Kendra chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering why she'd bothered trying to get her husband and his brother to talk in the first place. Brothers would be brothers, that she knew—from entirely too much experience with her own.

  They were both stubborn as mules, she decided, and they could hate each other for life for all she cared.

  Suddenly Niall heaved a sigh and looked back, his gaze reaching past her to Trick. "Full brothers," he said, calm as anything. "Bloody amazing, isn't it?"

  "Aye." Aghast to hear Trick's agreement, she twisted in the saddle to see a smile teasing at the corners of his wide mouth. "Bloody amazing."

  And just like that, they were best of friends once more.

  Men. She wanted to spit.

  She was still muttering to herself when they came to higher ground, a sparser wooded area that must once have been a clearing. It was peppered with stone ruins so thick and old, they could be of nothing else but a long-ruined castle. Overgrown with clinging plant life, low broken walls seemed to tumble over the uneven land, and the foundations of a round tower stood open to the sky, a few worn steps leading up to nowhere.

  "We're here," Niall said.

  They dismounted and tethered their horses. Pulling a heavy key from his pocket, Niall stepped into the circle of stone and reached through a layer of dirt and dead branches that seemed stuck to the hard-packed forest floor.

  Not by a quirk of nature, though—by design. His fingers found a concealed padlock and fitted the key inside. It opened with a rusty click, and he tugged it off, hefting a wooden trap door that lay hidden beneath.

  "Go ahead," he said.

  After staring for a moment, Kendra followed Trick down a steep stone staircase, pausing when the trap door thudded shut and plunged the space into blackness.

  Holding her breath and her husband's hand, she felt her way to the bottom.

  It was a dungeon, deep in the earth. The only light was a tiny shaft that came through the tall ceiling from behind an iron grille. As her eyes adjusted, the sparse illumination revealed gruesome instruments of torture. A musty smell seeped from the packed dirt floor, making her imagine the ground wet and red with the blood of prisoners.

  Hugging herself, she shivered.

  Near the center of the chamber a human cage swung, its door hanging drunkenly from ancient hinges. The wooden rack sitting in a corner would have been used to pull a man apart. Along the far wall, four sets of ankle manacles were anchored near the floor, with matching sets for wrists higher up.

  I reckon I'll give you a few years before I g
o hunting for a way to keep those hands tied up and both of mine free.

  She heard the scrape of steel on stone, then the soft hiss of a wick catching fire. "They're gone!" Niall burst out behind her, his voice laced with disbelief. She swung about to see him holding a candle high, his eyes wide in the flickering light. "The treasure chests are gone!"

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Trick reached to put a calming hand on Niall's arm. "Where were they?"

  "Here, I tell you. Here, and here, and here." He paced the dim chamber, indicating bare spots where Trick could see that heavy, rectangular objects had once sat. "I saw them but two days ago—the morning of the day you arrived. They were here, same as always. As they've been since before I was born. Before any of us were born."

  The dungeon was warm and stuffy. While Trick found another candle and lit it from Niall's, Kendra slipped her cloak off and hung it from one of the manacles on the wall. "Whatever were you doing here two days ago?"

  Niall hesitated but a moment. "This was Mam's secret retreat. I came...to feel closer to her. To escape the clamor of the wake for a wee while. How can all that treasure have gone missing since then?" He held out the lock, staring at it. "How did the thieves get this open?"

  Trick took it from his hands. "It wasn't forced or picked."

  "How can you tell?"

  "There'd be marks." He handed it back. "Who else has a key?"

  "Only Rhona and Gregor. So far as I know, nobody else is even aware this place exists. It makes no sense. Twenty-three enormous chests, all gone." Niall stepped closer to Trick, his face looking sallow in the light from the candle in his hand. "Will you help me find them?"

  Trick blinked. He'd planned to leave for England tomorrow—a search could take days. Weeks. "I must get home. This isn't my responsibility. But of course I will bring the news directly to the king."

  "What if the thieves start selling the treasure, aye? Gold and silver platters and goblets? We're a poor country. Should anything so rich as that treasure show up, surely someone will figure out whence it came, and then an inquisition will be made, and Mam and Da could be implicated."