“Wow. Braham’s serious about security around here.”
“With so many members of the clan living and visiting here, as well as the gold and the brooches, there’s a lot to protect.”
“I guess so.” She sipped her coffee again before asking, “What are we doing today? Do you have to work?”
“Yeah. I’ve got two videoconferences scheduled for this afternoon, emails to answer, and calls to make. I’m sure the kids would love a mini soccer camp if you’re up to some sideline coaching. But we’ll start with breakfast at the big house, followed by a clan meeting at ten.”
“I’ll make breakfast.”
“Charlotte has a full staff, so her chef will prepare whatever you want.” He checked the time. “We should shower and head that way.”
She dumped the last of her coffee and eased out of the chair. “Why don’t you shower first? I need to check emails. I didn’t look at anything yesterday.”
Ninety minutes later, they unplugged the golf cart from the charging station and drove up to the big house for a breakfast of buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, fruit, and link sausage. Then shortly before ten, they happily strolled into Braham’s study to find Kenzie and David, Pete and Sophia, Elliott and Meredith, Jack and Amy, Matt and Elizabeth, Remy, and of course Braham, sitting at a conference table facing a large TV mounted on the wall.
“There she is.” Kenzie jumped up to hug Penny, followed by Sophia and Amy. “You look rested, radiant, and well-loved.”
Penny licked her finger and flicked the air. “Check, check, and check.”
“Meredith filled us in, and we both texted Rick last night,” Sophia said. “He told us he was sitting beside the bed watching you sleep.”
“Sounds as exciting as watching grass grow,” Penny said.
Kenzie laughed. “Hell, he was hoping you’d wake up so he could jump your bones.”
“Damn. She’s ragging on me, babe. She assumes I’m as sex-crazed as her husband.”
Kenzie knuckle-punched his arm. “I’m not taking that bait, O’Grady.”
His mind immediately flashed back to the night she took him down, and he frowned at her.
Kenzie rubbed the spot on his arm where she’d punched him. “We’re cool, right?” she asked.
He nodded. “Always and forever.” Then he looked at Penny. “Since I stayed awake the night before the Battle of New Orleans watching you sleep, why wouldn’t I watch you sleep the night you come home from the hospital?”
Penny blinked once before her dark lashes fanned up in surprise. “Really? You did that before the battle?”
Yeah, babe, I was so fucking hard I couldn’t sleep.
“Yep, I did.”
“If ye need to lie down, I’ll pull the sofa over so ye can see the monitor,” Braham said.
Penny waved away the suggestion. “I couldn’t run a 10K and set a personal record, but I’m rested and well-fed and can sit at the table just fine.” She slipped into one of the swivel leather conference chairs. Rick sat next to her and wrapped his fingers around hers with a firm, hot grip.
The screen flashed on, showing a group of people around a conference table with a view of mountains through the window behind him. Rick pointed, starting at the left, and introduced everyone. “That’s my brother Connor and his wife, Olivia, and Olivia’s sister Amber, and her husband, Daniel.”
“I vaguely remember them,” Penny said.
Then the screen split to reveal a man sitting alone at a desk in front of a wall full of framed photographs of horses. “That has to be one of your brothers,” she said.
“That’s Shane. He lives in New South Wales, Australia.” The screen split into thirds, and Rick continued pointing. “That’s Pops and his wife, Maria, plus my sister, JL, and her husband, Kevin. Next to them is my other brother Jeff and his wife, Julie, and Kit and her husband, Cullen. You’ve met them.” The screen split a fourth time. “That’s Gabe. He manages the winery in Tuscany.”
“Is that everybody?” she asked.
“Except for Rhona, Philippe, and Charlotte,” Braham said. “They’re at the hospital and unavailable to call in.”
Elliott called the meeting to order. “Next weekend we’re heading to New York for the Belmont Stakes. If ye haven’t committed yet and ye still want to go, call Cate to get on the list for tickets, hotel reservations, and to reserve yer seat on one of the planes.”
“I’m coming,” Shane said. “I’m meeting a few breeders interested in shuttling their stallions to the ranch to stand the Southern Hemisphere breeding season.”
“It’ll be good to see you, son,” Pops said.
“You too, Pops.”
“Call me later,” Elliott said, “and let me know who ye’re meeting. I might be able to join ye.”
“I’ll phone you as soon as we finish this call.”
“We’re having a 4th of July celebration here at the plantation,” Elliott continued. “Isabella and Emily have to work, but James Cullen, Patrick, and Lincoln will be here, along with the rest of the kids. And Philippe told me Rhona overheard a conversation about moving her house here to the plantation, so it’s no longer a big secret.”
“Who spilled the beans?” Kenzie asked.
“Philippe and I were talking about the schedule, and she overheard Philippe’s end of the conversation,” Elliott said.
“The contractors have already started on the foundation, plumbing, and wiring, so the site will be ready to receive the house when it arrives from New Orleans,” Braham said.
“The housewarming will coincide with the 4th of July celebration,” Elliott said. “And the next week we’re going to Gothenburg, Sweden for the Gothia Cup. There’s room for everyone, but we need to get tickets and public transportation passes. Let’s try to limit our carbon footprint and take buses and trains while moving around the city.”
Rick burst out laughing. “We’re taking both jets to Sweden. If you want to reduce our carbon footprint, we should fly commercial.”
One of Elliott’s eyebrows rose just enough to signify what he thought of Rick’s suggestion. “Leave the winery’s jet in the hangar, then.”
“Hell, no,” Rick said. “I wasn’t the one complaining about our footprint.”
A muscle in Elliott’s jaw twitched. “I was going to give ye the floor to make yer announcement, but I might just give it to Penny instead.”
She laughed. “Come on, Boss. Be nice.”
Elliott glanced at Penny. At first, his expression was veiled, but then he couldn’t hide his amusement, and with a glint in his eye and the faintest curl of his mouth, he said, “Go on, lad. Share yer news with the family.”
How many times had friends and family announced a marriage, a pregnancy, or a birth, and Rick always offered sincere congratulations but wondered when it would be his turn. Now it was.
He reached into his pocket to feel his mom’s rosary beads before reaching for Penny’s hand and rubbing his thumb over her ring. Sometimes he missed his mom like crazy, and this was one of those times when he wished she was still living so she could share this moment with them.
She would love Penny for her guts and her heart. And her cooking skills, he chuckled to himself. His mom had a few specialty dishes that she’d make in the morning before she headed to the theatre. He remembered eating a lot of Irish stew growing up.
“I’m sure everybody has heard by now that I asked Penny to marry me”—he squeezed her hand—“and she said yes.”
Shouts of congratulations came from New South Wales, Colorado, Kentucky, and a loud “Congratulazioni” from Italy.
“I expect to be best man,” Connor said.
“You’ll be my best man—along with Pops, Jeff, and Shane.”
Connor laughed. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“When’s the wedding?” Pops asked. “Maria and I have a busy schedule, and I want to be sure to pencil it in.”
Rick chuckled. “I’ll give you plenty of notice, Dad.”
�
�Okay, let’s bring this back to the other reason for this call,” Elliott said. “We have new information about the torc. Penny found a letter from Jean Lafitte in the box the pendant came in. Lafitte heard rumors of a magical torc while he was touring Sweden in 1843, but he never found any leads.” Elliott nodded at Penny. “Is there anything ye want to add to that, lass?”
She shook her head.
“David made another discovery,” Elliott said, nodding to David. “Why don’t ye fill us in?”
David pulled his chair closer so he could easily be heard on the spaceship-style conference phone in the center of the table. “I’ve discussed Colonel Bowes with most of ye in previous calls,” David said. “As a reminder, the colonel taught Penny at West Point. She then met one of his ancestors, Navy Lieutenant Maurice Bowes, while at Barataria. We don’t know when Lafitte was in London, but he found Maurice Bowes there, killed him, and stole the pendant.”
“Did he have to kill him?” Connor asked.
“According to the letter,” Penny said, “Bowes asked Lafitte if I had returned to my time yet. Jean believed that knowledge put me at risk, so he killed Bowes.”
“How’d Bowes know you were a time traveler?” Connor asked.
“Yeah, well, that was my fault. I thought the British officers at Barataria were reenactors. I got carried away at a dinner party and told them exactly what was going to happen at the Battle of New Orleans and when the peace treaty would be signed. It was dumb, I know, but I believed I was stuck in the middle of a bunch of crazy people.”
“Shit,” JL said. “If I was dumped in the middle of a pirate community, I would think they were nuts, too. It would never occur to me that I’d fallen through a time warp. Did you have a gun with you?”
“No,” Penny said. “I had a switchblade, and it saved my life, but a gun would have been nice.”
“What do you know about the colonel’s death, and how is he connected?” Connor asked.
“According to my research,” David said, “the day we dug up the treasures, Colonel Bowes was brutally murdered at Jarlshof in the Shetland Islands. It was ritualistic torture that ended in a beheading.”
“Damn,” Connor said. “Are there any leads?”
“Not yet,” David said.
Kenzie stopped typing on her laptop and looked at Elliott. “Is that why you sensed danger the day we left New Orleans?”
“Could be,” Elliott said.
Pete opened Sophia’s journal and thumbed through several pages. “Looking through these early sketches, Bowes’s beheading matches what happened in your vision, David. Was he painted blue?”
“He wasn’t, but his body was inside a blue circle,” David said.
Penny shivered, and Rick rubbed her shoulders and was surprised by how chilled she was. He left the room in search of a throw blanket, snatched one off the sofa in Charlotte’s office, and returned to the meeting to wrap it around Penny’s sleeveless shoulders.
She pulled it tightly around her, letting the ends trail down her bare legs. “Thank you.”
“David, if you need help digging into the colonel’s death, call me,” Connor said.
“I want to help too,” JL said. “As long as I can do it from the farm since I can’t leave for a few days. The boys have activities, and they’d both throw fits if they had to miss them.”
“What’s that lazy husband of yours doing?” Connor asked.
“Managing Stormy Gate’s media presence for the Belmont. I think he’s glued the phone to his ear.”
Connor laughed. “Kevin or Stormy Gate?”
“Ha. Ha,” Kevin said. “You’re welcome to come out here and manage the press. I’m the money guy, not the media guy.”
“Ye’re doing it because ye know more about that horse than anyone else,” Elliott said.
“Not true, Dad,” Kevin said. “Deep in the recesses of all your contenders, you’ll find the immortal Secretariat. You have single-handedly created a dynasty, and no one knows Thoroughbreds, and that includes Stormy Gate, as well as you.”
Listening to Kevin, Rick knew he spoke the truth. Today, though, racing wasn’t the main topic the family needed to discuss. But sometimes these meetings were a scattershot collection of a half-dozen topics. Eventually, they’d get around to dealing with the important shit.
Since he was in a hurry to get Penny back to the cabin, Rick decided to play traffic cop. “If we’re done talking about racing, what are the next steps to finding the torc?”
Elliott tapped his fingertips together as he looked around the table. Finally, he said, “David, Remy, and I are going to the castle tomorrow to do an inventory of the Viking treasures hidden there. After we photograph each piece, David is going to write a program that will analyze those pieces and compare the artistry and metal with the brooches and the pendant.”
Viking treasure? Hidden in Scotland? Photographs? Computer program?
Rick’s spine straightened. “Wait a fucking minute! Are you just going to gloss over your eight trips back in time and not tell the rest of the family?”
“He called us after the dinner party the other night,” Connor said, “and explained where he went, why he went, and why he didn’t tell anyone.”
Rick’s pulse flared, along with his anger. “And that’s fine with you? Are you kidding me?”
“He told us too,” JL said.
“And me,” Shane said.
“Me, too,” Gabe added. “But I was pissed as hell.”
Rick finally let go of Penny’s hand and all but pounded his fists on the table. “I’m glad you were pissed, Gabe. We all should be. Elliott was wrong. He shouldn’t have gone without telling the rest of us what he was doing.”
The faint lines at the corners of Elliott’s eyes deepened with tension, but he didn’t respond.
“Elliott and I hashed it out following dinner,” David confessed, “and he pulled the Keeper card. We can’t judge him for making decisions we don’t agree with. He carries the burden along with the privilege. Under the circumstances, if I were the Keeper, I would have done the same.”
“Then we should vote on it,” Rick said, “and agree that no one can travel alone.”
“We can’t put restrictions on the Keeper’s authority,” David said.
“Who the hell knows what that authority is, or was ever intended to be? We’re just making it up as we go along, and have now decided that the Keeper has supreme authority. If we assume that, we can assume anything,” Rick said.
Elliott knocked on the tabletop. “We’re still searching for the truth. Once we have the torc, we’ll have new information. Will we know all there is to know? Probably not. But let’s table this discussion till later and move on.”
When Elliott said to move on, they moved on, even if the rest of the clan wasn’t ready.
Penny held up her hand and waved it. “I have a question.”
“Go ahead, lass. Ye have to jump in,” Elliott said. “If ye wait for a lull in the conversation, ye’ll never get a chance to speak.”
“Do you know how old the brooches are? Or even when or where they were made?”
“We originally thought fifteenth or sixteenth century, but we now believe it was much earlier,” David said. “Since we can’t take a brooch to ancient art and antiquities experts for valuation, we’ve had to depend on our limited resources and expertise.”
“How much earlier?” Connor asked. “Like the century of the blue-painted warriors in David’s vision?”
“And Penny’s nightmares,” Rick reminded them.
It was quiet in Braham’s office and the other four locations participating in the call, until Pops said, “You just told us about the brutality of the colonel’s death and how the blue paint used in his killing also appeared in David’s vision and Wilhelmina’s nightmares.
“It doesn’t take this old cop’s nose to smell a connection between the colonel, David, and Wilhelmina. So I have to ask the obvious. How much danger are David and Wilhelmina in, and, mo
re broadly, the rest of us? Do we need to shelter in place? Come to the plantation? Or what?”
“It looks like they tortured the colonel, but we have no way of knowing if he implicated Penny,” David said. “We don’t even know if he knew Penny had a brooch. All we know for sure is that he had a ring with the crossed-keys Illuminati symbol that was identical to one worn by Lieutenant Bowes.”
“According to Lafitte’s letter, the lieutenant knew Penny was a time traveler. That’s why Lafitte killed him,” Rick said.
“It has to be the same ring. Jean wouldn’t have taken it. It would have implicated him in the lieutenant’s murder. He believed if he killed the lieutenant, he’d never have descendants who would hurt me in the future,” Penny said.
“Except that he already had a wife and two kids,” Meredith said.
Penny gasped and jerked around to look at Meredith.
“My genealogy researchers traced the colonel’s family back to Navy Lieutenant Maurice Bowes,” Meredith said. “At his death, his young son inherited the estate.”
“If the lieutenant had a journal, letters, or notes, they would have gone to his son along with the ring,” Penny said. “Even if the lieutenant included notes about my forecast and a description of me based on Soph’s paintings—or even the sketch of me he stole from Rick at gunpoint at the Villére Plantation—no one could have known what century I’m from. How could they find me?”
“If I tried to delete yer identity, I could remove ye from public records, but not from personal diaries, journals, and letters,” David said. “If the Bowes family passed along information about ye from one generation to another, someone would have always been looking for ye, and the colonel ultimately found ye.”
“It’s still not making any sense to me.”
“What if the colonel intentionally hurt ye, hoping to make ye mad enough that ye’d confess?” David asked.
“Confess to what?”
“That you killed the lieutenant, that you had a brooch, that you could time travel,” Kenzie said.
The Topaz Brooch: Time Travel Romance (The Celtic Brooch Book 10) Page 81