Siren's Secret

by Trish Albright

  Moreau laughed. “Love?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so, my dear.”

  They didn’t believe her.

  Gads. What now?

  “The damned librarian was a fool for love and fooled everybody else!” She tried to explain further, but they did not want to hear it.

  “I’ve lost my patience, Lady Olivia. Enough.” Moreau motioned one of his men behind her friends.

  Moreau waved a hand to one of the guards.

  The soldier behind Nathan ran his bayonet through Elizabeth’s husband, piercing his chest.

  Olivia screamed.

  Elizabeth had awakened that morning optimistic and happy. With Nathan next to her anything seemed possible. Then they were rudely interrupted. Nathan had expected it and made sure they were already up, securing Lampley’s gun at her ankle. He too was hopeful, telling her that Riad would likely get their message today and come help. The worst part would be the wait.

  He’d been wrong.

  Olivia screamed.

  Elizabeth saw the direction of her friend’s horror and turned. Nothing in her life mattered after that.

  Her arm flew around the back of her husband.

  Nathan looked down, stunned. Then at her. His face showed his understanding. And his sorrow. He did not want to leave her. His eyes would not leave her.

  Elizabeth didn’t scream.

  Nathan needed her.

  She caught his back just as the long knife twisted and the soldier yanked it from her beloved’s strong, vibrant body. Somehow Stafford was there. Helping her.

  They laid Nathan on the ground. She knew he would not last long. The injury was near his heart. She would not waste their precious seconds.

  “My love,” she said. “Nathan. I love you.”

  He tried to speak. His hand reached for Stafford and squeezed, the panic clear when he rasped the one word to his friend. “Elizabeth.”

  “She will want for nothing. I swear it, Nathan. I will take care of her, give all that was due to you. She will become our family. She will be loved,” Stafford vowed, clutching his friend’s hand.

  Elizabeth saw that his words comforted Nathan. Now all he had was regret. She would not allow that.

  “Look at me, Nathan.” She swallowed the fierce lump in her throat. “I love you. The days we had were everything to me. They were everything. You … are everything.” She stroked his face. “You made every single minute perfect, and I would not give up a second with you, not for the world. You are the greatest adventure, greatest happiness, greatest gift”—she could not stop the tears—“greatest love I have ever had. I love you. And I want you … I want you to go to sleep, knowing I will be fine. Because of you. Because of the love you gave me in the time we had. Do not leave me with regret, my love. You have nothing to regret.” She kissed his lips. “You were a miracle in my life.”

  Elizabeth cradled his head in her hands, kneeling over him, unable to take her eyes from his, desperate to keep him as long as possible. Wanting their connection, knowing it would soon be forever lost.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”

  He reached to touch her and she grasped his hand, pulling it to her cheek.

  His body struggled as he gasped and fought for his last words. They were a mere breath, but she heard them.

  “I love you.”

  Elizabeth’s body shuddered with his. Then silence.

  “Nathan?”

  His body was still.

  His clear blue eyes were open, but he was not there. She searched, but he was not there. Someone closed them. Stafford, she guessed.

  She wrapped her arms around her husband and her head fell to his, bereft. She would not leave him, no matter the threat.

  Somewhere around her, there was movement. A woman cried out in fury. And then Elizabeth remembered the small pistol in her boot. She huddled closer to Nathan, reaching the gun and pulling it free under her skirts. No one could see it. She looked up to the guard nearest.

  Blood dripped on the end of his long musket.

  She looked into his eyes, and he stared back. His mouth curled up with a half smile, arrogant because he was the one with the gun. Then he looked her over insultingly and spit on the ground before saying something to his friend, laughing at them.

  She shot him in the chest before anyone knew she was armed.

  Olivia saw the look on Elizabeth’s face. It was stark, bleak, and unrepentant. Her friend had killed the soldier before anyone could wonder where she’d obtained the gun. Moreau lifted his own weapon and aimed at Elizabeth.

  “No!” Olivia leaped. She covered Elizabeth and Nathan with her body. “Don’t shoot. Please, leave her. I’ll help you. Moreau, I’ll help you. Please. Don’t hurt her.”

  Moreau sheathed his gun. “Very well. When you put it that way.”

  Olivia tried to help Elizabeth, but her friend pushed her away, caring little for her own life, it seemed.

  Moreau twisted his mustache, eager to be off. He indicated the hostages. “Hold them for now. We’ll take my men, Lampley,” he said, motioning to their commander. “Twelve guards should be plenty.”

  Lampley ordered some guards to join them. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “The men need direction.”

  Olivia saw Lampley’s face. She’d thought him handsome. Now she thought him hard and insensitive. He’d not done a thing to help. She berated herself for misjudging him.

  Samuel brushed the hair back from Nathan’s face. He couldn’t stop the rush of memories that assaulted him—the years he had shared with his friend, as a boy and an adult. He thought, too, of the years Nathan would never have with Elizabeth. It felt as if his chest had been cut open with a blunt knife and his heart tossed onto the burning Egyptian sand. He wanted to sit and weep with Elizabeth.

  He knew he couldn’t.

  He wouldn’t leave Olivia. Not now. Not when the threat on her life was imminent.

  He stood up and joined Olivia. “Wait. I need to go as well.”

  “No!” Alex gasped, grabbing his arm.

  He turned to Moreau. “I help her work out the puzzles, and I’m the only one who can keep her calm. You’re going to need me after what you just put her through.”

  Moreau hesitated, then consented.

  “Samuel.” His sister begged him, her eyes pooling. “We have lost Nathan. It is enough.”

  “Allie, I have to.”

  She shook her head, dismayed. “She doesn’t even believe in love.”

  “But I do,” he said.

  She threw herself at him and squeezed. “I love you, brother. But if you die, I’m not naming my child after you.”

  Samuel released his sister. “You know what to do without me, Allie girl.”

  “But that won’t be necessary,” Worthington reminded him.

  Alex gathered herself. “I know what to do, Samuel.” She dropped her gaze to Elizabeth and Nathan. “I’ll take care of everyone.”

  Samuel smiled, grateful, then turned to follow Olivia.

  “Olivia, wait,” her father said.

  Olivia stopped dutifully in front of her father, who was detained with the others.

  Samuel waited for the man to say something from his heart.

  “I—I beg you, be careful,” Merryvale said.

  “I will,” Olivia said. “You too, Father.”

  Samuel caught her confused and disappointed expression. He nodded to Merryvale as they passed, but the man looked away.

  He prayed the man had not just lost his last opportunity to tell his daughter he loved her.

  Olivia would not have made it down the flight of stairs into the catacombs without Stafford. She couldn’t see, for one thing. The tears would not stop, nor would the trembling. She could not comprehend that Nathan was gone forever. Nor could she bear to think of Elizabeth’s agony and the loss her friend would suffer the rest of her life. The injustice of it burned her insides.

  The fever of outrage blazed with every step until it dried her t
ears and straightened her spine. She would not go weakly to her grave.

  The guards had marked with builder’s chalk on the maze floor, identifying the safe path for workers. They walked through without incident, then down the wooden steps the servants had erected where the floor had dropped in the next chamber. Olivia was gratified there was a path that did not require swushing of asps.

  Moreau directed the servants to take their last loads from the tomb chamber and leave for now. The workers gladly exited, and the guards took their posts.

  Olivia and Stafford made a quick study of the looted area. All the astrolabes had been removed, the elaborate room reduced to stone turntable and walls. The pieces of the wall art the duchess had destroyed were in a corner for export. Moreau would no doubt want to study that in more detail.

  The scroll room was only half dismantled. There were not enough crates yet to hold all the objects in the room.

  “Where is the cone?” Olivia asked.

  Moreau waved for a guard to bring it.

  Olivia took the cone and sat, thinking. Samuel’s sister had done this very same thing when she’d first held the stone. And then had told Olivia not to lose it.

  What you seek, you already have.

  A priceless treasure, a secret to die for, knowledge of the ages. Was it a metaphor or literal truth?

  “How big is this astrolabe disc that you seek, Moreau?” she questioned.

  “I’m told about two inches in diameter,” he said.

  Olivia went to the sarcophagus and studied the medallion around the woman’s neck. “This size?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You don’t think it’s on the body, do you? Mummified?”

  “It’s possible,” she said. “But no. I don’t think that.”

  “In any case, I already had my men open it and check,” Moreau said.

  Olivia looked at him in horror … and a little curiosity. “The words in this room are a riddle,” she told them, pointing to the hieroglyphics. “ ‘Use your knowledge to discover the secret, and there will your treasure be.’ ”

  Moreau became annoyed. “Enough of puzzles, Lady Olivia. Where is the disc?”

  Olivia walked confidently to the wall with the three circular inserts. Each had a symbol above it: a triangle, a star, and a circle. “The disc is the treasure. It’s in one of these compartments. You have only to pull it out.”

  The men brought their torches to the compartments. At the far end of each was a small object—a box of some kind. Overall, they looked harmless. But nothing in this tomb was harmless.

  “What about that?” A guard pointed out the heavy blade Stafford had triggered the day before. Within a foot of each option was a lever on the wall. It activated the large blade from above.

  Olivia swallowed hard. “I would guess that is to give you two chances to get it right.”

  “Your call, then, Lady Olivia.”

  “Well, um … a triangle represents knowledge, and the librarian was a keeper of knowledge. The star, for the stars in the sky, could be part of your astrolabe story.” She paused. “The circle could represent the sun. That might be good too, since the sun is life-giving.”

  “You said to use your knowledge to get the secret to find the treasure?” Moreau asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve no idea which of these might be the right one?”

  Olivia thought for a moment, staring at the funerary cone, turning it around in her hands.

  Finally, she took a deep breath and walked in front of the first symbol, the cone’s magnet facing out. She stood and waited. Then she did the same in front of the next two symbols. Finally she shrugged. “I thought perhaps there would be a magnetic pull near the correct option.”

  Moreau snatched the artifact from her and did the same thing. Olivia waited to see if he noticed anything unique.

  Moreau motioned a guard to the triangle insert. The man looked inside suspiciously, then slowly reached in nearly to his shoulder. When he touched the box, he nodded and started to draw back.

  And then he screamed.

  The other guards went on alert as the man babbled hysterically. They pushed him aside to hold a light to the problem. His arm was in a spiked vise. The spikes pierced his arm in one side and out the other. The arm was not coming out.

  “Fascinating,” Moreau said. He stepped back and pulled the first lever next to the triangle symbol.

  The guillotine-like blade slammed to the ground, severing the guard’s arm before her eyes.

  She and the guard screamed with equal horror.

  She screamed again when the man turned, released from his arm. A limb stuck in the wall, bone and flesh cut clean.

  Blood spurted against the wall and splattered on their clothes. The guard lurched sideways, and his comrades ran to help him, trying to stop the blood and wrapping the stub of arm that remained.

  Olivia began to choke. Stafford caught her and turned her away.

  Two guards led the bleeding man out, but Olivia thought he would be dead before he saw daylight.

  Stafford rubbed her icy hands until she could breathe again. She adjusted her leather bag and pouch, focusing on driving air in and out her nose. Losing consciousness would not be advisable in their present company.

  The remaining guards shuffled nervously, staying near the small doorway, clearly ready to make a quick exit should they be volunteered.

  “Which one next, my lady?” Moreau asked.

  Olivia swallowed. “Please. Don’t make me do this.”

  “Stafford. Your turn.”

  Olivia nearly fainted. What if she was wrong? “No, please.”

  “Which will it be, Lady Olivia?” Moreau insisted.

  “I’m not sure. I think the third, but I could be wrong.”

  “Why do you think it?”

  “Instinct,” she answered.

  Stafford froze. “Seriously?” He stared as if he didn’t believe her. “You don’t have some logical conclusion and evidence for why you picked this one?”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t make sense if I tried to explain.”

  “Do you need more time to think? Because we can wait. Can’t we, Moreau?” he said. “Because, maybe since we’re in the middle room, it’s the middle one?” he offered. “Or go with the hole that is most like a star shape. We’ve been having luck with that.”

  A guard pushed him.

  “Can I at least have a kiss before I risk my arm and can never touch her again with two hands?”

  “Oh, Samuel!” Olivia threw herself at him and squeezed with all her might before lifting her face for his kiss. He touched her lips only briefly, while his hands—his big, beautiful hands—cradled her cheeks and he bent again to brush her lips and take one last taste before regretfully stepping away. Olivia opened her eyes as he released her.

  “I believe in you, Olivia. No matter what happens, don’t ever doubt that,” Stafford said.

  A guard grabbed Olivia’s arm and pulled her away.

  Stafford was taller than the wall insert and had to bend to reach in. He took a final look at his fingers, flexed his arm, and went in nearly to his shoulder, as the other man had done. Her heart pounding, Olivia couldn’t take her eyes from him. He put his other hand against the wall, as if ready to fight if necessary.

  “I feel it,” he said. “A box. Not too big.”

  “Get it free, Stafford, and you’ll walk away from all this,” Moreau said.

  “Right,” Stafford said. He took a deep breath.

  Then he gasped and breathed in sharply before a cry broke free. His face colored red with panic as a string of curses flooded from his lips.

  Tears and confusion hit her simultaneously. She’d been wrong.

  And she’d just made the most prodigious mistake of her life.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Stafford! Oh, Stafford!” Olivia grabbed his body to hold him up. “No.” She began to cry. “No. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She sobbed violently, her hor
ror and failure complete.

  “It seems, Stafford,” Moreau commented, “that since you activated this lever yesterday, you’ll have to gnaw your way free.”

  “Go to hell, Moreau.” He tried to pull his arm free and thundered from the pain and impossibility of it.

  Olivia touched him, trying to comfort, but he pushed her away.

  “Leave me.”

  “Stafford, I thought for sure I was right. The story made sense, and—”

  She turned to the middle slot, about to reach in, but Moreau pushed her away.

  “Process of elimination, my dear. As good a solution as any.” He motioned to a guard, who hesitated before reaching in. The man touched the object, but instead of freeing it he was paralyzed by a gripping force that made him howl in panic and fury.

  Olivia and Moreau stepped back in shock.

  “Gads! It was all a trick! There is no treasure!” Olivia said.

  Moreau slapped her in fury, causing Olivia to stumble backward into the sarcophagus. “You lying bitch. I’ve had it.” He took the cone and seized her. “Let’s go.”

  “No! We can’t leave them!”

  Moreau showed the guard his options. “The lever is right here.” The guard froze, horrified, then shuddered against the wall.

  “I’m staying!” Olivia cried. “I won’t leave you, Stafford. We’ll find a way out of this. I promise. I’m not leaving you!” She clung to him, her nails digging into his clothes to hold firm against the hands pulling her away.

  “Olivia, go,” Samuel said. “Get away from here. Enjoy your life, I only hope—” His voice struggled. “I only hope your life will be better for knowing me.” With his free hand he pulled her head to him and ravished her lips.

  It was a hungry, desperate kiss that plundered every part of her being, right through to her soul. When he released her she cried again.

  “I’m sorry I failed you, Olivia.”

  She wept harder, soaking his shirt. “You didn’t. It was me. I failed you. And Elizabeth. Nathan is gone because of me. I’m the one who deserves to die.” She clung to him. “Not you.”

  “Stop, my love.” Stafford’s voice was soft. He was losing his strength. With his free hand he touched her cheek. “I love you, Olivia.”