“Sounds damned Gothic.” Dominic’s lean, suntanned face still carried signs of disbelief. “Look, Nicholas, I’m finding all this very hard to accept. Maybe I’ve been too long at my vineyards and I’m accustomed to hearing nothing but French morning, noon, and night.” There was indeed a hint of an accent in his voice. “Let’s try it again, shall we? You’re telling me that an ancestor of mine left a case of Château d’Yquem 1792 down in your cellars. A case of vintage Sauternes in perfect condition that could bring, even conservatively, over a million pounds at auction?”
“That’s what I said. The man was Gabriel Ashton. The fifth earl of Ashton, to be exact.”
“Bloody hell.” Dominic ran his hands through his hair, burned by the French sun to a rich mahogany. “Since I was a boy I’ve heard stories about mad Uncle Gabriel. Many a night my sister and I went to sleep shivering from some horrendous tale our father had told us. The man was either a black-hearted scoundrel or the most reckless hero England ever knew, snatching French aristocrats from the very shadow of the guillotine. But no one in the family ever knew what happened to him. He simply vanished one day without a trace.”
“Well, now you know where he died, at least,” Nicholas said grimly. “The why remains a mystery, however.” He sat back, noticing how fit his old friend looked sporting a new set of muscles and skin baked copper by the French sun. The last time they’d met, Dominic had been guarding the Prince of Wales on a state visit to Thailand, and the strain of Dominic’s work as a royal bodyguard had been all too apparent.
That vineyard he’d bought in France three years ago had to be good for him, Nicholas decided. La Trouvaille, wasn’t it called? “That’s it in a nutshell. And it’s all yours, Dominic.” A speculative light entered Nicholas’s green eyes. “Well, half of it at least.”
“Mad Uncle Gabriel. A million bloody pounds.” Dominic stared blankly at his glass of sherry. “My God, I could finally start setting in those new Sémillon vines that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on. Then maybe I’ll commission some new oak casks for—” Abruptly his head rose. “Half? What happens to the rest of the money?”
“I’m afraid that’s where things turn a bit tricky. As I said, your ancestor was most precise about how the funds were to be disposed of.” Nicholas cleared his throat, turning a jewel-studded Fabergé egg in his fingers.
“Out with it, Nicky. What do I have to do, spend a night down in that haunted wine cellar with Mad Uncle Gabriel’s ghost?” Dominic laughed softly. “For a million pounds, I’d spend a week down there, ghosts and all.”
“You’d be surprised what you might find in this house, Dominic. But it’s not so simple. Someone else is involved in the bequest. And I feel that the two of you are honor bound to solve the mystery of that skeleton I happened across.”
Dominic barked out a laugh. “I have to split with you, is that what you’re saying? If so, out with it, my friend. After all, I owe you Draycotts something for keeping that wine safe all these years.”
“No, not me.” Nicholas looked at his friend, noting the calluses from hard field work and the little lines at the edges of his eyes. From days squinting in the sun, days of backbreaking physical labor setting in vines, stringing protective nets, and harvesting grapes, Nicholas knew.
If he didn’t love Draycott Abbey so well, Nicholas would envy his friend, who had beautiful rolling acres of vines in one of the loveliest valleys in France. He worked hard, lived well, ate wonderfully, and the little lines at his eyes attested to the fact that Dominic Montserrat laughed often and hard. Life didn’t get much better than that, Nicholas thought. Surely that was the right kind of work, healthy labor that made things grow where before there had been nothing. Not like the other kind, the work that had carried Dominic to tense meetings with suspicious men in far-flung cities with unpronounceable names.
But Nicholas knew he couldn’t put off the rest of his news any longer.
“So who’s the lucky man? He’s going to get one hell of a surprise when he finds he’s just inherited a case of priceless sweet white Bordeaux.” Dominic’s eyes crinkled at the thought. “I certainly did.”
“Not he, she.”
“That’s better yet. Maybe she’ll be so overcome with delight at the news that she—”
“It’s someone we both know.” Nicholas’s fingers tightened. “Donnell O’Neill’s daughter.”
Dominic went very still, his eyes on the sunlight spilling through the study windows. “Cathlin O’Neill?”
“One and the same.”
The silence unraveled until the whole room was filled with it.
Dominic strode to the window and stared out at the moat. “Cathlin O’Neill, the girl whose mother died here? I remember your father was off in Brazil at the time, buying a copper mine. We were up at school when you found out. Bloody awful.”
Nicholas nodded grimly. “We never found out exactly what happened to the mother. When my father came back, the police told him it was probably a simple accident. Or…”
“Or what?”
Nicholas shrugged. “Or it might have been something else. Elizabeth Russell O’Neill was here to examine some textile samples that needed restoring. My father was very keen that it should be done right and had insisted on hiring the best authority, which Elizabeth O’Neill was. She’d brought her young daughter along with her for the weekend and even though Cathlin was only ten, she loved this place as much as her mother did.” Nicholas turned the priceless jeweled egg, frowning as it caught the light. “You know the rest. That first night they were here, her mother went out and never came back. There were only a few servants on duty in my father’s absence, but none of them saw or heard anything odd and there was no sign of foul play. But the next morning little Cathlin found her mother’s body beside the moat, where she’d plunged from the roof.”
“Good God.” Dominic looked at his friend. “Possibly suicide?”
Nicholas shook his head. “She had no history of instability and she was happy in her marriage, by all accounts.”
“And there’s nothing more? You never discovered how it happened?”
“Never. The girl remembered nothing—the result of trauma, we were told. At the time there was some talk of a political connection, since her father had been involved in government work. But nothing concrete ever turned up. I can’t believe this is all coming up again.” Nicholas glared out the window. “I’m almost tempted to pitch that wine into the moat, since the last thing I want is all this muck dredged up again. Believe me, the press will have a field day when they find out.” He sighed and set down the jeweled egg. “I don’t want Kacey and little Genevieve upset by this either.” Nicholas studied a framed photo of his laughing wife and five-year-old daughter. “I think it best we leave as soon as the conditions of your ancestor’s will have been put into motion. Perhaps some digging in London will turn up new answers about the mystery of Gabriel Ashton.”
“But what do Cathlin O’Neill and I have to do with this wine? I don’t understand.”
“Your ancestor insisted that the two eldest living descendants of himself and one Geneva Russell spend seven days and nights here at Draycott Abbey. Then—and only then—the wine would be theirs. Cathlin is the oldest living relative of that Geneva Russell, through her mother.”
Dominic stared at his friend. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid not. And this will was quite specific, Dominic. In fact, the legal terms are enforceable even today. You can see why I feel I have to carry out those terms exactly as Gabriel Ashton asked.”
Dominic cursed softly. Already he could see his hopes of expansion at La Trouvaille vanishing like early morning mist in the French sun. “But what’s all this business about seven days and nights?”
“Assuming that these descendants are of an age of independence and of sound mind and body, they must spend seven nights together here at Draycott Abbey. It was Gabriel’s express wish.”
“Isn’t this all rather f
arfetched, Nicky? The man’s been dead for two hundred years and from all I’ve heard he was far from a saint himself. Why not just forget all this folderol? He certainly isn’t going to know.”
A frown worked down Nicholas’s handsome face. “He won’t, but I will. Dominic, the man wrote his will as he lay dying. He signed his name in his own blood. How can I ignore such a request?”
“It’s probably some kind of trick one of your demented ancestors thought up. You Draycotts seem to have a damned morbid sense of humor, especially that ghost you always talked about as a boy.”
“This is no trick, Dominic. I had an architect in to look at that wall, and the bricks were authentic for their period, and the mortar was brittle with age—two hundred years of age.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“You’d better start. La Trouvaille’s future is going to depend on how seriously you take what I’m telling you. A great old vintage like that Château d’Yquem is worth a fortune now.”
Dominic’s jaw hardened. “You don’t have to tell me what a rare Sauternes is worth!”
“Stop it, Dominic. I know this is hard for you, but it’s the very thing to get you back on your feet at La Trouvaille. That vineyard has drained your pockets since day one, and you know it. Your father left you damned comfortable, but a million pounds will buy a hell of a lot of new vines and every kind of technology you could ever want.”
“But why do we have to go through with this farce about the will? I’ve got grapes to tend and wine to get into cask. Can’t we just take the wine and sell it now?”
“Out of the question. The heirs of Adrian Draycott were assigned to oversee the terms of the will, and I mean to comply with the man’s wishes.” A challenging gleam lit Nicholas’s eyes. “Which means I’ll just have to toss the wine off the abbey roof and leave it in the moat to feed the fish.”
Dominic went still. “The will specified that?”
“Afraid so.”
The earl of Ashton rubbed his jaw, calculating exactly how many oak casks, stainless steel distilling vats, and computer-scanned irrigation pumps he could buy with half a million pounds. “Damned expensive fish food.”
“Isn’t it though.”
Dominic muttered something low and graphic and shoved his hands into his pockets, trying not to think about how much good that money would do at La Trouvaille.
“There’s something else you should know, Dominic.”
“Sweet God, what now?”
Nicholas looked grim. “This kind of news is going to interest a whole lot of people. I’ll try to keep the wine secret as long as I can. I’ve already paid the plumbers to keep their mouths shut, in fact, but eventually one of them is bound to let something slip. And since the will is a legal document, I will eventually have to see that it is publicly recorded. When I do…”
“Go on, Nicholas.”
“Let’s just say that I suggest you find Cathlin O’Neill and get her up here where you can keep your eye on her.”
“You think she’s in danger?”
“It’s only logical, considering the value of this wine. Wouldn’t you be interested in possessing such a treasure?”
“If I had the money to spare, of course.”
“There are other people with fewer scruples. They’ll try to get it any way they can.”
“Kidnappers?”
“Would you give up the wine if Cathlin were taken?”
“Of course. But it won’t come to that.” Dominic thought about the dangers he had confronted while guarding presidents and kings in every corner of the globe. He found it hard to imagine that he’d meet his end back in sedate, stuffy England, trying to protect a case of wine.
Then again, he hadn’t made it to the relatively ripe old age of thirty-five by underestimating any kind of danger. “Have you spoken to Cathlin O’Neill about any of this?”
“I’ve tried, but she hasn’t returned my calls. Draycott Abbey can hardly hold fond memories for her, of course.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched. “If I should decide to look up Cathlin O’Neill—and I do mean if—where would I find her?”
“She has a wine shop on Regent Street. No, wait a minute.” Nicholas delved through a pile of papers on the edge of his desk and pulled out a sheet of thick vellum stock. “If I remember correctly—yes, here it is. Cathlin’s on the program of a charity auction to be held at the British Museum next week.” Nicholas held out the engraved invitation. “And do it right, if you please. I don’t want any more restless ghosts pacing the parapets and wrecking my sleep.”
“Any more? You mean those stories you told me in school were true?”
Nicholas frowned. “Never mind. Just find Cathlin and convince her somehow. Use that famous Ashton charm I keep hearing about.”
Dominic shook his head. “I’m making no promises, Nicholas.” He swung his jacket over his shoulder. “How can you expect her to come back here after what happened? Who would want to face all that again? I certainly wouldn’t.”
“Maybe it’s time she did. No matter what she decides, she’s involved, and she’s going to need someone to keep her safe when this news gets out. And you were always the very best, Dominic.”
“Not anymore. I’m out of that world, Nicholas. You’ll have to find another bulletcatcher.”
“Why? You never told me what happened,” Nicholas said softly.
Dominic watched his shadow slant across the lush peach carpet. Outside, the air filled with birdsong. “Because it almost killed me, Nicholas. After a while I saw shadows everywhere and I couldn’t tell my friends from my enemies. I can’t go back, not to the shadows, not to the adrenaline highs and the cold sweats. Not even for a million pounds.”
And when Dominic left the abbey, he didn’t look back. Danger had once been a way of life for him. He had been a cold professional, a man who had learned the hard way to trust no one.
But France had softened him, taught him balance. The long sunny days and lazy velvet nights of his fields along the Garonne had wiped away some of the anger and most of the bad memories.
And Dominic liked it that way.
So he would go see Ms. Cathlin O’Neill in all her glory at a society wine auction. He was curious to see how good she really was. But that was the beginning and end to it.
Nothing was going to pull him back into the shadows, not even the last, desperate words of a dying ancestor.
Or so he told himself.
CHAPTER TWO
THE STATELY VESTIBULE OF the British Museum was filled with the glitterati of four continents. Amid the Indonesian orchids and dwarf oranges, royal dukes rubbed elbows with English rock stars, California winemakers and unsmiling Japanese investors. Champagne flowed, diamonds glittered; the suits were strictly Armani and the gowns were all haute couture.
Cathlin O’Neill looked on and stifled a sigh. It was the world she’d made her own, the world she’d become intimately familiar with since she’d come to England to expand her business as an appraiser and dealer in rare old wines. She knew that tonight the bidding would be fierce, all proceeds from the charity auction going to benefit a popular wildlife trust. It didn’t hurt that more than a few in attendance expected the Prince of Wales to put in an appearance before the evening was out.
Cathlin entered the antique-strewn ladies’ room and turned before the mirror, straightening her elegantly severe black velvet suit. She looked like what she was: young and clever and very American. If the stuffed shirts around her didn’t like it, then too bad for them. She’d had to deal with too many condescending aristocrats since coming to London and she had done it smoothly and well—but she hadn’t liked it. She was tired of the formality and tired of the condescension. All she wanted was to finish her work here and go back to her little apartment off Piccadilly Circus, kick off her heels, and finish an article commissioned by a major wine journal on the pitfalls of sulfites in the winemaking process.
Hardly light reading, Cathlin thought.
Bu
t most of her thoughts had been far from light these last months. She had begun to have serious doubts about staying on in England. She disliked the climate and disliked the tone of the city and wanted nothing more than to return to her plant-filled rooms in the sunny Philadelphia shop she kept off Rittenhouse Square.
In addition to her subjective biases against London, the last months had stirred up memories of her English mother, memories that Cathlin preferred to leave buried. But she found she had little choice. The images seemed to come and go at will, and they’d been coming more often since she’d returned to England. Cathlin knew she’d have to make up her mind soon just how much longer to stay. When her friend, formerly the head of Harrods Wine Department, had first called, a partnership had seemed a good idea. Now Cathlin wasn’t so sure.
She shoved back her glossy black hair and frowned into the mirror. Outside, the premier auction event of the season was about to begin, and her partner, an old friend from college days in Ithaca, had talked Cathlin into gaveling the Sauternes segment. As an expert in the early sweet white wines of Bordeaux, Cathlin knew how to fill her patter with a running commentary on good wines, bad wines, and how to know the difference between them. She named names and quoted prices, when no one else dared. As a result, she’d been the hit of two similar London auctions, especially when she’d poured out a sample taste of one of the offerings, then tossed the bottle over her shoulder, saying no one needed to be afflicted with an unfortunate mistake like that year was.
The charity council had nearly succumbed to cardiac arrest and the owning wine company had been apoplectic. But Cathlin had been dead on target and the rest of the audience had laughed wholeheartedly.
The next day the phone at her shop on Regent Street had rung right off the wall.
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