“What are you doing?” her mother asked, moving quickly to prevent her feet from hitting the floor. “Stay put. I’ll get whatever you need.”
“I need to see Morgan.”
“You’ll stay right here,” Mom insisted. “Do as the doctor ordered. You don’t even know where Morgan is at the moment.”
“Can you find out?”
“I’ll call the marina. Surely someone there can tell me.”
Cordelia lay back in bed as Mom made that call.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Morgan Murphy.” Mom paused. “Yes, I can wait.” Another pause and then, “I see. Can you get a message to him when he returns? Please tell him that Cordelia Ward must spend the night at the medical center.” She gave her cell number, then said, “Thank you so much.” She met Cordelia’s gaze. “He’s still at the site with the authorities. Don’t worry, he’ll call.”
Call? Surely he would come for her if only to make sure she was all right for himself.
Her mother sat by her side, keeping her company and telling stories about Cordelia’s father that happened before she’d been born. Cordelia listened, her mother’s voice soothing her. Morgan’s face the last thing she saw before falling asleep.
…
After leaving the dive site, Morgan headed for the marina where he boarded Foley’s Treasure to face down the cook. Certain she’d put the gris-gris on him, he would find out for himself if she’d had a part in this tragedy. But according to the crew, Brigitte and her husband Leandre were nowhere to be found. They’d vanished within minutes of docking.
He called the hospital as soon as he got the message from Cordelia’s mother, even though it was late. He was disappointed when Madelyn Ward answered rather than Cordelia.
“I was tied up with the authorities until a little while ago. Cordy is all right, isn’t she? Can I speak to her?”
“She’s fine. She’s sleeping now. I don’t want to wake her.”
Sleep was probably the best prescription for her after all she’d been through fighting Innis, so Morgan didn’t argue.
“What did the doctor say about her wound?”
“That it’s spontaneous healing was quite unusual,” Madelyn said, voice ripe with questions she didn’t ask. “He ordered a transfusion and fluids and such. He wanted to keep her overnight as a precaution.”
“Good. I’m surprised she didn’t insist on leaving.”
“She did, actually.”
Morgan had to smile at that. He could imagine her giving the doctors and her mother a hard time. “You’re sure she’s all right?”
“She was weak and needed rest, but yes, I think so. I’m staying in her room to make certain she stays that way. What about you?”
“I wasn’t the one hurt, Madelyn.”
“Not physically, perhaps, but you’ve been through something unbelievable.”
He really had. He was still trying to come to terms with it all himself. “I’m good. Call me tomorrow when the doctors sign off on Cordy, would you? Then I’ll meet you at the marina.”
“All right.”
Having returned to the Evening Star, Morgan lay back in Cordelia’s bunk after moving the book sitting on the mattress. Though he was exhausted, he was worrying about her despite her mother’s reassurances. Part of him wanted to rush to the medical center to see for himself, but she needed that sleep more than she needed him.
If only he could sleep…
Glancing over to the shelf where he’d put the book, he realized it looked like a very old journal. He picked it up and held it for a moment, instinct urging him to open it and check out the contents. The pages were fragile, as was the ink put to parchment. And he noted the date of the first entry—1601.
A chill ran through him as he began to read:
Dunham Castle, 1601
ON THIS DAY I shall begin a journey inevitable from the moment I was born on Midsummer Eve, Witches’ Night. My nursemaid proclaimed that I am marked as a child of magic.
Yet I am not a witch, for the face of my beloved and what awaits me at journey’s end is shrouded from me by the veil of time. I know only that with him I shall scale peaks higher than my spirit could ever strive to reach alone, and because of him, I shall descend into valleys which will try my soul…
As he continued reading entry after entry, the past opened up to him in a way that no sunken treasure could ever reveal. He lost himself in Elizabeth and Will’s story, reading until the first streaks of dawn signaled a new day.
And when he finished the last page, he understood.
…
Cordelia awoke to daybreak to find her mother asleep in the chair next to her bed.
Morgan hadn’t come to see her. The knowledge choked her.
What was going on? Was he back working the site?
Unable to stay in the bed for another hour, Cordelia rose and took a quick shower and dressed. Miraculously, she felt fine, as if nothing had ever happened to her.
Too bad the crescent couldn’t have saved Will for Elizabeth.
When she left the bathroom, her mother was awake. “I want to get out of here. Now.”
“You have to wait a little while longer until you’re cleared, Cordelia. A nurse just poked her head in the door and said the doctor was making his rounds. He’ll be here in a few minutes. Sit.”
Cordelia was too nervous to sit. She walked to the window and looked out into a garden area. “I want to know what is going on. I can’t believe Morgan didn’t come.”
“He called to check on you after you fell asleep.”
“Did he leave a message?”
“Yes, he asked me to call him back once you were medically cleared and that he would meet us at the marina.”
Nothing more personal?
Deflated, Cordelia sank into silence as she waited for the doctor to arrive. Those few minutes turned into more than an hour. Then she had to wait for paperwork. And had to be transported out in a wheelchair to a waiting taxi.
Once in the cab, her mother said, “Morgan asked me to call to let him know when we were on our way. Would you rather call him yourself?”
Not knowing what she was about to face, Cordelia found her internal strength. “Let’s surprise him.”
It was midmorning by the time they arrived at the marina.
No surprise to find Morgan the center of a growing crowd and a television news team.
Cordelia couldn’t breathe for a moment—couldn’t step out of the vehicle—when she expected Morgan had already claimed the mother lode and had edged her out of the find. Certainly a reason for the media being there.
She looked to Morgan, who didn’t move, simply stood silently, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched, hair whipping around his beard-stubbled face.
Even with the car protecting her, she wasn’t free of his influence. A live wire seemed to connect them, to pulse through her, from her ring to him to her heart. He wasn’t responding to her in any visible way, but his emotions filled her.
Morgan wouldn’t betray her any more than Will would have betrayed Elizabeth.
She took a deep breath and gave him her trust.
As she exited the taxi, the cameras turned on her.
“Ms. Ward,” a reporter said, “I understand you found the Celestine’s mother lode.”
Her pulse fluttering with a happiness she could hardly contain, Cordelia looked to Morgan, who didn’t say a word. Obviously he’d told them she was responsible. And as tempting as it might be to take the credit as he apparently intended, she wasn’t about to. She might have been the one to find the wreck, but he had found Elizabeth’s girdle.
“You understand wrong,” she told the reporter. “Mr. Murphy is the one who found the mother lode.”
“Murphy, tell us about it,” a woman said.
Morgan gave the pretty reporter his best media smile. “Ms. Ward is being too generous. The person really responsible for the recovery of the Celestine and its mother lode is her father, the late Dr. Clive Ward. His years of careful research and his meticulous mapping pointed the way.” He aimed his smile straight at Cordelia. “He deserves every bit of credit. We merely carried out his legacy.”
Cordelia’s heart soared and her ring sent out tingles that made her certain…
…the wait was over.
“So you’re partners in this?” another reporter asked.
Morgan gave Cordelia a look that seared her down to her toes and said, “I can’t think of anyone I would rather partner with.”
“Nor I.” Cordelia moved to his side.
“What will the two of you do with all that treasure?”
Morgan put his arm around her waist and Cordelia leaned into his warmth and strength and thought she could stay there forever.
He said, “The treasure belongs in a fine museum.”
She added, “With my mother, Dr. Madelyn Ward, as curator.”
Still standing at the taxi that had brought them here, Mom gave her a radiant smile, and Cordelia knew she’d been right—the promise of challenging work was exactly what her mother needed.
Finally, Morgan took her in his arms. Her birthmark thrummed and her ring sent a sweet longing up her arm and down to her center. And when Morgan’s mouth covered hers, Cordelia knew their love had been destined.
Epilogue
Dressed in a long-sleeved, ankle-length, diaphanous white gown that showed off her cleavage and nearly every inch of her long legs, Cordelia picked up Elizabeth’s celestial girdle. Morgan had recovered it from where it had returned to its sandy grave. Searchers had found no sign of Innis or of the shark attack. If she didn’t have the crescent scar to assure her, she might think they’d imagined it all.
The girdle gave off a sense of wonderment and hope, traits that she’d admired in Elizabeth, and because of her strong connection with her ancestress, her idea that she and Elizabeth were somehow one, Cordelia secured the girdle around her waist.
She stared at her image in the full-length mirror.
Who would Morgan see?
He’d given her a half hour to ready herself—said he could only be apart from her for so long—and only half that had passed. She sat at the dressing table and pulled her long, blond hair up in a twist and secured it with a clip set with a sapphire-studded star and ruby crescent moon.
And then she opened the top of the treasure box and lovingly touched the journal of the woman who had first worn the Posey ring. Elizabeth had been a woman bound to duty with few choices in her life. Cordelia’s life had been filled with choices. She’d been able to be anyone, do anything she wanted. Getting to this privileged life had been a painful process that had taken centuries.
Cordelia understood Elizabeth’s charge now. Elizabeth had used her journal to speak directly to her. Cordelia had been privy to her mind and magic.
To the journal she would store in the box, Cordelia would add the chain and crescent that connected her back to Elizabeth.
But not just yet.
For now, the chain remained around her neck, and the crescent dangled between her breasts. She hadn’t removed it since Morgan had used it to save her life.
Opening Elizabeth’s journal to the first blank page, she began to write.
Murphy’s Point, Moonspinner Key, 2013
I am in Morgan’s home now and never have been happier.
I owe it to you, Elizabeth, for your never-ending love story captivated me from the first page.
I feel one with you and I wonder if you somehow feel it, too. Did you help to save our lives when Innis would see us dead, or did I hear your whispers simply to appease my own heart?
Together, Morgan and I have at last conquered that which has shadowed our lives. I am confident the evil is banished, for, together, Morgan and I ended the curse on the rings that connect us forever to you and Will.
I have recovered fully and in the moon that has passed, have found joy working side by side with Morgan to raise the Celestine’s mother lode, an auspicious beginning to our life together.
Tonight will take us a step closer. We chose to start over, to get to know each other as only two people whose souls are joined can do. But tonight, we will join our bodies as you did with Will.
Following your example, I plan to record Morgan’s and my journey together from this day forward, so that my daughter and the women who follow her may know us and the paths we take.
I hear the clock strike ten.
It is time.
My new husband awaits.
Filled with anticipation, Cordelia closed the journal, rose and turned to find Morgan waiting for her in the open patio doorway. He was dressed in tight, knee-length black pants and an open, full-sleeved white shirt that billowed in the breeze, revealing a body chiseled by the gods. His dark hair whipped around his rugged face to reveal the emerald in his right ear. As he had the first time they’d met, he looked every bit the dangerous pirate.
Her lips quivered, and she couldn’t hold back her grin.
A smile that equaled hers softened his fierce expression, and he held out his hand for her to join him. Together, they set out into the near dark, crossing the patio to the sandy path leading to the water’s edge.
As always, she was drawn to the night sky so like the one a month ago when their magical adventure began.
There was something special about this sky.
About this moon.
These stars.
This night.
“The same moon under which I discovered the Posey ring,” he said.
“And I Elizabeth’s journal.”
With the water lapping over their bare feet, Morgan swept her into his arms and kissed her breathless. She was ready for him, had been ready for what felt like four centuries.
He wrapped his hands around the girdle and pulled her against him, and she could feel the strength of his desire through her filmy gown. Her pulse raced and her heart thundered when he lowered his head to her breasts. Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips found the valley between them.
Light, sensual kisses traveled downward, valley to belly, belly to juncture. He spread her gown. She spread her thighs. Already wet for him, she threw back her head and gasped with pleasure when he drank her in.
She’d been waiting her whole life for this.
She wanted to be one with him through this and every lifetime.
The pressure in her quickly mounted and spread, and she tore at his hair to that he would stop before she came.
“Together,” she whispered.
“Always.”
He stripped out of the knee pants and tossed them on the sand. The waning moon loved his turgid flesh. He was hard and beautiful and he was hers.
He kissed her again and swayed, bringing her with him, so they fell together in the shallows. The tide coming in washed over them. She in her gown and Elizabeth’s girdle, he in his full-sleeved shirt, they rolled and laughed and got soaking wet, and when they finally stopped, she landed on top.
Heart pounding, she stared at his face as she mounted him, so wet that he slid inside, sleek and deep. He ran his hands up her thighs, one thumb lingering at her heart, the other hand cupping a breast and thumbing a nipple through the material. Never taking her gaze from his beloved face, she spread her hands over his naked chest and began the rhythm that would lift them to the stars.
As they pleasured each other, her mind filled with the love story that had sealed her fate with this man. Words tumbled through her head, their magic pulling her back in time.
The part of me which never d
ies will find Will at last. If I combed the earth and searched through the stars, there is no being I would want but this one. Again passion shall beat between us like a living force.
I long for this with every breath I draw.
“Will…?” Cordelia whispered.
“…is it truly you?” Elizabeth finished.
His fingertips brushed her throat and her skin heated under his touch.
“I have returned to you. How can I take away any doubt, love?”
The growing pressure within her body made her voice husky. “Perhaps memories…”
He stroked her hair, lifting it in a mass to his face. “I can still smell its lavender scent when we walked to the pond behind my grandfather’s cottage. I followed you to paradise there, love. The water gave life to our daughter.”
Her senses battered by hope and fear, she mused, “Is that why we both love the sea so much now?”
With a murmured agreement, his mouth rocked gently over her parted lips.
She abandoned herself to his touch, his hands caressing her breasts, her thighs, all of her.
“Oh, Will.” She murmured his name over and over as her burning desire heightened.
“Remember, love, our last day in the glade?”
Soul-deep sadness ravaged her body and she buried her face in his shoulder. “No! No, never that memory.”
He cupped her face and she gazed into his beloved blue eyes. They were rich with luster and lit by flames of life brighter than she had ever seen.
“No one knows what happened there except us. Remember what you said to me, Elizabeth? You must.”
Shudders rocked her body. “I promised I would overcome Carlyle’s curse. That this was not the end for us. I knew I carried your child, and I promised Stephen would be granted his birthright.” Tears blinded her, making Will’s face shimmer with an unearthly beauty. “Our Serena ruled beside Stephen. They were great and just. As you would have been.”
His smile urged her on.
“Then I said, for us heaven can wait. If it takes a thousand lifetimes, we will be together again.”
Written in the Stars Page 19