TWENTY MINUTES LATER Nicholas Draycott tracked Dominic down in the middle of the gently sloping lawns that led away from the moat. The viscount smiled wryly as he watched his friend go through sharp jabs and impossibly high whipkicks, covered with sweat and looking mean.
The man was a master and no mistake, Nicholas thought.
And just as well.
They all were going to need that expertise to survive when the news of this discovery got out.
“You’re looking damnably fit, Dominic.”
Dominic wiped his forehead with a towel and held out a hand. “Not too bad for an old playboy vintner. You look lean and mean yourself.”
“Oh, my Thailand days are over, I assure you. The most exercise I get these days is chasing that scapegrace young daughter of mine around the abbey grounds.”
“There could be worse ways of getting exercise.”
Nicholas nodded. “You ought to try it. Kacey has little Genevieve in town, while she does some research on the local records, but you’ll see them tonight.”
Dominic looked off over the hills. “I’m glad for you, Nicholas. For this. And for how well everything has worked out.”
For a moment the silence stretched out. Then Dominic bent over the wooden fence and lowered his body into a thigh-stretching warm-up. “And it’s about time you showed up, considering that you finally have me where you wanted me.”
“Not alone, I hope.”
“No, Cathlin’s here, too. She got in an hour before I did, but I’m not sure how long she’ll stay. She’s down in your cellars right now nursemaiding that bloody case of wine.” Dominic broke into a series of dancelike high kicks coupled with shadowboxing jabs. Fists raised, body moving, he jabbed, then lunged into the chassé kicks that made French kickboxing, or savate, so lethal. “Nothing could tear her away, in fact.”
“Is that irritation I hear?”
Dominic glared at his friend, as sweat ran in beads down his broad chest. “You’re damned right it is. The woman’s impossible. Not time nor prayer nor divine intercession is going to change that. She hates me, she hates my profession, and she hates Draycott.”
“She’s here. That’s a start.”
“Against her every wish, she’s here. Even after what happened at Seacliffe, she refuses to believe she might be in danger.”
“Something happened down there, did it?”
Dominic pounded at an invisible opponent, dipping and bobbing, his face grim. “Which incident are you referring to, the time I lost the prowler with the semiautomatic revolver or the time that someone nearly ran us off the road on the way back to Seacliffe?”
Nicholas whistled soundlessly. “That bad already? I’d hoped we’d have a little more time.”
“Well we don’t. I discovered that your letter to Cathlin was missing my second day at Seacliffe. Whoever took it knows every detail of the discovery and Gabriel’s will. Someone wants that wine and my guess is they’re willing to kill to get it.”
“Instinct?”
“Like a kick to the gut.” Dominic’s eyes hardened. “You remember that last winter in Thailand? How I was sent out alone?”
Nicholas wouldn’t ever forget. It had preceded his own captivity by mere months. “I remember.”
“Well, I’m feeling that same way right now, and I don’t like it.” Dominic stabbed at an imaginary opponent and frowned. “I never wanted back into this life, Nicholas. There are too many shadows. And now, on top of that, there are the dreams…” He cursed and turned away.
“What dreams?”
“Something—nothing. Blast it, I don’t know, Nicholas. Maybe I’m just too rusty. But my dreams aren’t your problem. I don’t know why I even mentioned them.”
“Maybe because we’re friends. By listening, I also ensure a continuing supply of that wonderful wine of yours. If you’d put more fields into production, I wouldn’t have to bribe half of the Garonne Valley to save a few cases for me.”
Dominic looked shocked. “Bribe? I never knew. The volume is low to keep my quality high until I can expand in an orderly fashion. But you could have called me anytime, Nicky, and I would gladly have—”
“Not a bit of it. You’ve made a wonderful success of La Trouvaille in three years, and I’m perfectly willing to grease a few palms if it will make the French functionaries look on you more indulgently.” Nicholas’s smile faded as he looked at the old Jeep parked near the stables. “And now I think it’s time I spoke with Ms. O’Neill. Marston tells me she has every look of intending to stay in the cellars for hours. I want to see that she is given every courtesy here, Dominic. It’s the least I can do, considering…” His voice hardened. “Considering all she lost here.”
“I understand.” Dominic spun a sharp right hook at an opponent only he could see. “I just don’t want you surprised if she doesn’t stay around very long.”
Nicholas stared at the roses dancing beside the moat. “Then I suppose we’ll have to find a way to change Ms. O’Neill’s mind, won’t we?”
There was a marked firmness to his jaw as he strode off toward the abbey a few moments later.
DOMINIC WAS FINISHING another series of flying high kicks, oblivious to the world, when a slender form homed in on him with the ferocity of a Scud missile.
“Dominic Montserrat, I want to talk to you!”
“You want to pull out my nails slowly, one by one, more like,” he muttered, giving his chest a swipe with the towel hanging on the fence nearby.
Cathlin puffed up, arms akimbo, black hair waving in the wind. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I believe I’m exercising,” her quarry said calmly.
Cathlin caught a breath, pulling her eyes away from the broad expanse of Dominic’s bare chest. “Are you trying to deny it?”
“I might, if I knew what you were talking about.”
“I knew you’d deny it!”
“If you’ll just calm down, Cathlin—”
“That’s Ms. O’Neill to you, Officer Montserrat. Or have you already forgotten your riveting little speech about everything being business between us from now on?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Dominic said. Softly.
“Don’t you threaten me.”
Dominic reached past her for his shirt. “What’s got you so furious?”
“This.”
Tossing his towel over his shoulder, Dominic picked up the tabloid pages Cathlin was waving in the air.
The headline was brutal and bold. “Dead lord comes back from grave to uphold family curse.” Below the blazing headline was a very out-of-focus photo of Nicholas Draycott, hollow-eyed and gaunt after his return seven years before from a hellish captivity in Thailand. Next to Nicholas was overlaid a grainy shot of an oil painting in the National Gallery.
The hair was long, the eyes were hard. Discounting the black satin and the diamond stickpin, the man might have been Dominic Montserrat’s twin.
“Mad Uncle Gabriel, I presume?”
Dominic nodded. “This one is by a lesser artist than the portrait at home, but the likeness is accurate.”
“You two could be twins,” Cathlin said accusingly.
“I’m a regular throwback, all right, demons and all. Where did you find this?”
“Under your seat in the Triumph.”
“Searching my car now, Irish?”
Cathlin colored. “I had to get something from the Jeep. Your car is parked right next to mine and I happened to notice the headline. When were you going to tell me about this?”
“When it became important.”
“Dead lord comes back to uphold family curse? I’d say that was fairly important.”
Dominic sighed. “It’s just nonsense. Some bright person got the idea that Mad Uncle Gabriel had lost the Ashton diamond through treachery and had cursed whoever possessed it. It’s just family legend, Cathlin.”
“And I found the Ashton diamond at Seacliffe.” Her eyes darkened to burnished gold. “Do you
think he gave it to Geneva?”
“We’re here to look for facts and records, Cathlin, something that makes sense. Not family legends.”
“Maybe legends are all we’re going to find. Maybe that’s all you have to go on when the facts are lost over time. Or when they’re hidden,” she added bitterly.
Dominic fingered the towel slung over his shoulder. “Are you talking about Gabriel or your own past now?”
Cathlin frowned out at the shimmering waters of the moat. “Both. I need to know what really happened here, Dominic. Without that piece of my past I’ll never have a real future.”
“What if it gets dangerous, Irish? When news of the will leaks out, a lot of people are going to be interested in your whereabouts. A fanatic collector might consider trying to steal the wine from the abbey, but it would be much easier to get the wine through you.”
“Kidnapping?”
“Possibly. Or some nasty coercion. Even a barter, if one of us gets taken. What I’m saying is that things are going to get rocky.”
“Then do your job. You’re a bodyguard, aren’t you?” Cathlin’s voice was cold.
“Even bodyguards make mistakes. And when that will becomes public knowledge, every two-bit criminal and out-of-luck thief in England will be trying to get his hands on that wine. Or on us.”
“Like the men in that car?”
“Maybe.” Dominic cursed softly, tired of having to field questions he couldn’t answer. “But the conditions are still the same, Cathlin. If you stay, you do what I say, when I say. Nicholas will back me up on this.”
“Don’t count on it,” Cathlin said flatly.
Dominic’s eyes hardened. “You know that Gabriel’s murderer was never found, don’t you? No one knows what happened that last night down in the cellar. And Aunt Aggy tells me—” He stopped.
Something about the hardness in his eyes made Cathlin frown. “What, Dominic? What did she tell you?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“She found some letters in an old hatbox in the back of her armoire. It appears that all London was abuzz with gossip in the spring of 1794.”
“So?”
“So the story circulating was that Gabriel Montserrat had finally gone past the line by kidnapping a respectable young woman from the safety of her own house.” Dominic looked out over the moat, past the tangle of old roses. “And then he murdered her.”
“No,” Cathlin whispered. “Why would he murder her, then mention her in his will? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it does. Maybe guilt drove him to make up in death for what he’d done to her in life.”
“You can’t believe that.”
Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know what I believe. And I don’t know if we’ll ever have the answers.” When he turned, his face was hard. “Nicholas said to tell you we’re dining at eight in the Yellow Salon.” His eyes glinted for a moment. “Wear something special.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“DAMNED, STUBBORN WOMAN.”
Dominic watched Cathlin stride over the gravel path along the moat.
A dozen tasks awaited him. He needed to go over the inside security arrangements, then discuss them with Nicholas. After that he wanted to take a look at the cellar and see if anything had been overlooked down there.
Yet here he stood, thinking about the past, thinking about a woman with haunted amber eyes.
Dominic’s shoulder began to throb. Too much boxing. But someone who came up from behind wasn’t going to care if his shoulder hurt or not.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fragile piece of fabric. Light broke over the Ashton diamond glinting on his palm, cold and beautiful.
Dominic twisted it thoughtfully, wondering why such a precious gem was attached to a piece of simple white cambric. He had taken it from Cathlin’s chest at Seacliffe, sensing he might find answers somewhere in those cold facets.
He stared down now, watching the diamond sparkle, thinking about this hard-faced ancestor and his strange bequest.
Feeling the images form into memories…
GENEVA RUSSELL CROSSED THEpolished floor and sank down on the gilt chair before her dressing table.
Her face was pale, her eyes haunted as she slid off her gown and tugged on a cambric wrapper.
Though a week had passed, she could not forget the fury in Gabriel’s eyes, nor the fierce disgust in his voice.
Jezebel. How right he had been.
Listlessly she pulled the pins from her hair and brushed out the rich black curls, barely aware of her movements. Devere had come to see her twice already, braying and blustering that he would have Isabel de Verney carried to the guillotine.
But not yet. Devere needed Geneva’s sister alive, as a means to threaten Geneva. It was the Rook he wanted, and he needed Geneva to lure the shadowy hero of a hundred forays out of hiding.
It was for that reason that Geneva was leaving London tomorrow for Seacliffe, the family’s estate near the southeast coast. The grand old house overlooked the barren sands and tidal pools of Romney Marsh and not even Henry Devere would bother her there.
She stared down at the exquisite leather trunk neatly packed beside her bed. Inside were the jeweled shoes and satin gown she had worn at the masquerade. With them was the cameo that Gabriel had given her. Geneva would never wear any of them again. There was too much pain in her memories of that night.
“Will you be wanting anything else, miss?”
Geneva smiled at her maidservant, hired along with this furnished house in a very elegant part of London. “No, that’s all, Amelia. I shall close the trunk and you can see it loaded onto the carriage to go with us to Seacliffe tomorrow.”
The young woman nodded. “Very well, miss.” She dropped a quick curtsy and went out as silently as she had come.
Geneva barely noticed. Carelessly she pulled off her wrapper and studied her reflection in the mirror. Her face was as pale as the white cambric nightgown she wore. The only light and animation about her came from the diamond stickpin she wore at her neck. Geneva would wear it always to remind herself of her perfidy and the grim look in the eyes of the man she had betrayed.
A shadow slid into her vision, captured in the mirror. A shadow with glinting eyes and a hard jaw.
She spun around, her hand at her lips. “You!”
It was the only word she uttered before Gabriel Montserrat pulled a snow-white cravat from his pocket and bound her mouth. His eyes moved over the curves hinted at beneath the fragile cambric. “So you think to mock me, do you? You even wear my own jewel. But I shall see you repaid for your treachery, my sweet, in ways you can’t imagine.” He ignored the burning desperation in her eyes, ignored the way her face paled to white. In tight silence, he found her gown, tugged it over her shoulders, and drew the laces up the back. “We are going on a trip you see, my love. We have a great deal of business to finish, you and I.”
He looked at her one last time, saw the hint of the diamond at the edge of her gown, and with a curse he tore it free. “I’ll have that back now, my dear.”
But Geneva kicked him wildly, every movement filled with desperation. Cursing, Gabriel dodged the blow.
And in the process the Ashton diamond dropped unnoticed from his fingers, landing in the chest beside Geneva’s bed.
Grim-faced, Gabriel caught his captive over his shoulder and strode down the stairs. “No more tricks, my love. We’ve a long coach ride before us, so I suggest you cool your anger.” Through the quiet house he stalked, Geneva draped over his shoulder like a sack of flour, her bare feet kicking. At the bottom of the stairs he was met by a wide-eyed servant, his clothing all awry.
“Miss Russell! My lord! What are you—”
Gabriel slid a pistol from his pocket and leveled it at the man’s chest.
“But you can’t—” The butler looked at the pistol and swallowed. “That is, you really shouldn’t—”
“But I am,” Gabr
iel said flatly. Then he strode out into the London night, his kicking hostage held tightly in his arms.
GABRIEL’S COACHMAN HADbeen waiting for his signal. Immediately a high-stepping team raced around the darkened square. Gabriel bolted down the steps and slid Geneva to the ground.
His eyes burned silver as he removed the gag from her mouth. “There is no use screaming, my dear. I am taking you where you cannot betray me.”
“But you can’t!” Geneva’s eyes were wild as she studied the darkened square behind them. “Devere has been watching the house all week, hoping that you would come after me. That’s why I was leaving for the coast.”
“An unsuccessful lie, my dear.”
Geneva pounded his chest, her small hands fisted. “He’ll come, I tell you! The French have put too high a price on your head for him to resist.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. Was this another of her tricks? He studied the darkness around them, watching for any sign of movement.
None came. So much for that, he thought grimly.
Not that it mattered. An hour’s ride would see the dust of London’s streets long behind them. Soon they would be beyond the reach of Devere or his minions.
Gabriel was just on the verge of telling Geneva to save her breath when he heard an old wooden shop sign hammer across the square.
Clang-clang, it cried, creaking in the wind. The noise reminded Gabriel of the windmill in Dunkirk, sails straining in a channel gale. He had heard the sound just before he discovered the three dead children. He knew the sound would haunt him always.
Suddenly a crack split the night. Gabriel shoved Geneva inside the carriage, while the coachman fought to control the team.
Another shot exploded past as Gabriel leaped within and wrenched the door closed behind him.
He tried to ignore the press of Geneva’s soft breast where she lay beneath him. He tried to ignore her lilac fragrance and the way her hip rode against his thigh.
“I tried to tell you,” she said raggedly. “He knew that you would come.”
Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Page 30