Christmas at Draycott Abbey Read online

  “Erratic. I just got her inside and I haven’t had time to—hell.” Ian stared down at the blood seeping along her neck. When he lifted back her hair, he had seen the outline of a deep and jagged wound just above her right eye. “She’s got head trauma. The wound is narrow but deep. I can see the bone.” Ian gently lifted one eyelid. Her pupils did not respond.

  “No eye response, Teague. She might have hit her heard. Or possibly a bullet has grazed her. Should I take her to the hospital in Hastings?”

  “Don’t move her. She may have neck or spinal injuries. I’m wrapping up here, and I should be there within an hour. Call me if her condition changes.” Izzy muttered under his breath. Ian heard the tapping of the keys. “I don’t want to call Nicholas about this yet. This is the first vacation that he and Kacey and their daughter have had in six years. As long as she remains unconscious and stable, we’ll handle it between us. I’ll bring my medical kit.”

  It was exactly what Ian had hoped to hear. Nicholas Draycott, the Viscount Draycott, was an old friend of Ian’s. Nicholas had been through his own personal traumas following months of captivity in Asia. He had finally found happiness with an American visitor to the abbey, although their busy lives left them little time for relaxation. Ian didn’t want to jeopardize his friend’s first real vacation in years. “Understood. I’ll send those photos to you immediately. Should I use the same e-mail address?”

  Ian heard more tapping at a keyboard. Teague’s security skills were legendary. There was no better person to watch your back in a firefight than Izzy Teague. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, I’d prefer fewer people to have access.” Izzy rattled off a string of meaningless numbers and letters. “Use that address. Send me whatever you have.” The line went dead.

  Ian didn’t like the idea of waiting an hour for a medical assessment, but he knew that Izzy’s training in field medicine was superb. As long as his intruder remained calm and stable, Ian would wait.

  But his questions lingered. Who in the hell was she? Why had she been running in the rain across the abbey grounds, in bare feet and nothing but a thin cotton dress?

  She muttered brokenly in her sleep. Her bruised hands tightened on the blanket and tried to tear it free.

  “It’s going to be fine. You’re safe here with me,” Ian whispered. The words seemed to well up from some deep part of his memory, coupled with that odd sense of protectiveness. He had the strange feeling that she was important to him—or that she had once been so. Though it made no sense at all, though they were complete strangers, Ian’s urge to protect this woman was raw and overwhelming.

  He stood stiffly, studying the pale, chiseled features marked with cuts. Every instinct whispered for him to trust her, and yet trust was a luxury he could never afford. In his job, everyone was a suspect. Every movement was a threat. A woman with a slim body and long legs like this would tempt any sane man to throw away reason and caution.

  But for him, trust was not an option.

  So Ian closed down his instincts and hardened his heart. Until he had more information, she was just another intruder in the night. He had to remember that.

  Beyond the sheeting rain, beyond the old casement windows, a light glinted through the deserted abbey. First it flickered out. Then slowly it climbed and began to move. Gathering strength, it crossed the staircase and found the Long Gallery, with its rows of priceless portraits. Phantom light brushed the face of the first Lord Draycott, returning in splendor from the Crusades astride his powerful destrier.

  Light touched the third Viscount, bloody from the wars in France.

  And then it came to rest, outlining the cold features of the fourth Viscount. Lace curled at his wrists and gleamed at his throat, but the opulent fabric did not soften the arrogant set of that mouth and eyes. The painting was a masterpiece, from the hand of England’s finest artist. Every line crackled with life and force so real that the figure almost seemed to breathe.

  A random stranger standing in the gallery would have sworn that the figure did move.

  The heavy curtains flared out. Moonlight seemed to drift through the high windows and pool at the Viscount’s feet.

  Cold laughter filled the gallery as a shadow separated from the darkness. Keen eyes took in the colors of the painted portrait.

  His portrait, to be sure.

  Yes, the likeness was superb. That Gainesborough fellow had been irritating but excellent at his craft. Sometimes Adrian Draycott amused himself by observing tours of the house. He enjoyed watching the smiles and laughter fade when they glanced upon his brooding face.

  Yes, it was a face that had made servants quake and aristocrats move to avoid his path. Once the whole house had rung to his shouted commands. He had known every inch of the abbey grounds, cared and inquired after every tree and every rose. He was a cold, heartless man, but that coldness had never extended to this beautiful house.

  His power was gone, his fortunes only memories, Adrian Draycott thought sadly. Today the tourists never suspected he was nearby. The abbey’s stalwart butler, Marston, never noticed Adrian cast his arrogant glances. Even the current viscount and his family, though occasionally sensing a strange presence, gave no sign of noticing his wishes.

  To guard the abbey was his curse—and his joy. He was still repaying the harm he had done in that earlier age. And until his tasks were done, the abbey would be in peril.

  At his feet came the silent brush of warm fur.

  Adrian Draycott’s hard features softened. “Well met, my old and true friend. Do you feel it too? She has come back, and yet the rest is shrouded in my memory. But danger walked with her once, and a colder danger walks at the abbey again. We are called to work, Gideon. If we fail, the cost to us will be grave indeed.”

  The cat stared at him intently, as if to will his loyalty into words.

  Adrian reached down and stroked the powerful back. “So once again you will walk beside me? Though the peril grows?”

  The cat’s tail flicked hard as if to show contempt for the thought of any other choice.

  “You honor me, my old friend. But we must be abroad. Something has moved out beyond the ridge. And there is another movement, ever so slight, that I sense by the Witch’s Pool.”

  Lace stirred in a phantom wind. Outside in the night came the wild peal of bells.

  Twelve times, and then one more lonely peal.

  “I grow too old for these careerings. The years weigh upon me, Gideon.” Light circled around his head and the room seemed to tilt, caught in angry, swirling emotion. “But I have no choice. It was a vow freely given. First to her, all those years ago. Then to a friend bound to me closer than blood. I failed them both. But I must not fail them now.”

  Adrian’s face hardened. He swept out one arm, powerful in richest black velvet. Lightening seemed to crackle along his outstretched fingers.

  Then the abbey ghost and his oldest companion were gone.

  She was dying.

  Clair Haywood pushed at the weight that crushed down against her chest. She fought to breathe, locked in terror as she struggled up from nightmare dreams of men with proud eyes and blackened hearts.

  She sat up and choked back a moan. Pain tore through her head. The room was in shadows, lit only by the golden rays of firelight. Nothing about the place was familiar.

  Tall portraits flanked the grand fireplace. Antique rugs and old French furniture covered the floor.

  Clair looked down, flinching at the sight of the bruises and cuts on her legs beneath the cheap cotton dress. Memories of her days in captivity churned up like smoke. She remembered the man with the cold eyes. She remembered his powerful companions. Most of all, she remembered Nina’s last phone call. That night she had been frightened, her voice low and whispered. “Come to England, Clair. I need you. I was so wrong about him. And the other men, the ones who come here for meetings—they are even worse. I know he does not trust me. He has kept me here locked inside for weeks. He uses my computer to send you e-mails
from me. Trust nothing that you receive that way. Say nothing to him in turn. But try to have this number traced. It’s blocked, and I have no clue where they have taken me. Hurry, Clair. I’m afraid. So afraid that he means to—”

  Clair closed her eyes at the memory of what she had heard next.

  Her sister’s sudden, indrawn breath. The sounds of a struggle.

  “You were warned, Nina.” Clair would never forget that cold, aristocratic English voice.

  That was the last that she had heard from her sister.

  Was this the place where they had taken Nina months before?

  Wincing at the hammering pain in her forehead, Clair struggled to her feet. Dizzy, she pressed a hand to the silk-covered wall, focusing her thoughts. There were two doors to the room, one leading outside and another to a small closet. Something seemed to pull her footsteps beyond the doors to a section of wood paneling that almost seemed….

  Familiar?

  She traced the wooden molding, edge to edge. When Clair pressed harder, a latch clicked. She stood stunned as a small door opened. Narrow steps descended in a tight curve down into the darkness.

  No time to think. No time to wonder how she had found that secret latch. The danger was too close.

  Clutching the blanket around her shoulders, she closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall. Forcing away her pain, she followed the steps downward.

  Ian filled another hot water bottle and then gave Churchill his final dose of medicine. Their last mission in Paris had nearly crippled the animal, but the dog had begun to recover.

  In the weeks since their return Ian had been fiercely protective, warning that the animal could not be put to service again until all his strength was recovered. Churchill sensed that protection and offered his loyalty in return.

  Frowning, Ian studied the scars on the animal’s legs. Finally the marks had begun to fade. But the dog still woke in the night, shaking restlessly, listening for gunshots.

  They both woke that way, Ian thought wryly.

  Suddenly the big dog turned, rigid and alert. He stared at the door to the kitchen and trotted forward. His head tilted.

  Listening.

  Ian opened the door and stood beside the rigid dog. The abbey was silent. No sounds of cars or guns or lethal attack.

  And yet his dog did not move.

  Had the woman in the library awoken?

  “Track, Churchill.”

  The dog shot away, bounding up the stairs. Ian was close behind.

  But when they reached the library, a trail of blankets led across the floor. Blood covered the corner of the carpet. Their intruder was gone.

  Smothering a curse, Ian followed the line of tangled blankets and saw where the last one had fallen in a heap beneath the portrait of Nicholas Draycott and his family.

  Both doors in the room were closed. The only way out was through the door Ian had just used. The closet held only coats.

  And yet over the years he had heard stories of hidden stairways and secret doors in this ancient house. Ian searched each wall now, focused on the wood beneath the Draycott portrait where the blankets had fallen.

  Beyond the wood he heard a faint squeak.

  A small door sprang open. In the shadows he saw another blanket where darkness shrouded the narrow steps of a hidden passage.

  Churchill stood alertly, ears pricked forward, body tense, awaiting Ian’s command.

  Ian held up the blanket, giving the dog her scent. “Track,” he ordered curtly.

  The dog bounded down into the shadows, following the scent. Ian followed, his face grim.

  Somehow Clair had known there would be roses.

  Shivering, she pulled the wet blanket around her shoulders, staring at the granite wall before her. The passage had led her here to the edge of a moat, where roses still bloomed, their glorious petals wild shades of peach, yellow and blood-red.

  She had always loved roses. Growing up, she had had a skill for nursing the weakest plant back to health. But these roses were like none that she had seen before.

  Despite her fear, she couldn’t pull her gaze away from the ancient weathered wall covered by vines. Every bud hung dense with petals, cupping inward in tight layers. These were nothing like the insipid hybrids so popular back in the United States. Even in the gusting rain, their perfume was overpowering. Rich and sweet, they reached out, calling Clair to a place that felt like…

  Home

  You came.

  You will be safe here, the house whispered.

  The muddy slope glittered in a flash of lightning as names flashed into her mind.

  Fantin Latour. Maiden’s Blush.

  Gloire de Dijon.

  Clair could see their colors now, even in the dark. Rain hammered at her bruised body as exhaustion left her weak and swaying. None of it made any sense.

  She closed her eyes on a sob, sliding down the muddy slope toward the silver water that shimmered like a half-remembered dream.

  Like a past that had been here waiting for her.

  And then sanity returned. Gasping, Clair turned and ran, her eyes trained on the open stretch of ground beyond the moat. The woods lay close beyond. She could hide there in the shadows.

  Then somehow she would make her way back to the road. If she stayed out of sight, she could walk to the nearest town to find the local police station and report what she knew. She had heard enough before her capture to know that her sister’s captor was no innocent businessman.

  She had overheard terse comments about shipments and couriers. Deliveries were expected from various parts of the world, centered in a small town south of London. Clair had no idea what the couriers carried. Biohazards? Security secrets? Drugs?

  She’d never gotten close enough to answer any of those questions. But whatever they carried would threaten Britain and all of the country’s allies. Her sister’s killer had betrayed that much one night in a slurred boast.

  But that night Claire had been discovered and ordered into restraints. Nina’s killer enjoyed inflicting pain. He had taunted Clair, describing how pathetic her sister had become, at the end of her life.

  Clair closed her eyes in pain. He couldn’t be allowed to escape. Even if she died in the process, she had to relay the information about what was planned and the date of the deliveries.

  She ran again, clumsy and half lost. She knew this house was not where they had held her. This estate dated back to the fourteenth century, the historian in her whispered. Clumsy in her exhaustion, she slipped, dropping to the muddy slope. The ground seemed to sway as she stared dizzily up the slope. For long seconds everything went blank. Her name. Her mission.

  The dangerous men who followed her.

  Clair drove her nails hard into her palm, using pain to focus her thoughts. Blood trickled into her eye and she shoved it away with an angry sweep of her cold fingers. She was near the end of the moat now. Only a few hundred yards until the safety of the woods.

  She had to hurry….

  A dark shape cut off her view of the water, the dog she had seen earlier. Teeth bared, it inched toward her. Half frozen, Clair tried to climb the rugged stones above the moat, but her fingers slipped.

  She rolled downwards. Thorns dug at her fingers. Rose petals spilled down, torn free by her blind flailing just as they had fallen before, long ago.

  Love had brought her to the abbey then—and honor had driven her away to danger.

  And death.

  Memories poured over her like angry smoke. And then like half-seen dreams they vanished....

  Shuddering, Clair fell down into the hollow darkness. The storm swallowed her cry as the icy waters closed over her.

  Just like the last time she had tried to leave Draycott Abbey…

  There.

  She was running hard, following the moat.

  Ian Sinclair grimaced. The cold had penetrated his knee. Every movement sent shards of pain through his leg. But he didn’t stop, listening for sounds of cars or accomplices.


  There was nothing except the howl of the wind.

  He cursed as he saw her turn and then the slope gave way. In a flash of light fabric she fell, vanishing into the dark waters of the moat.

  Ian memorized the spot where her pale shape had vanished, running hard. He couldn’t lose her now. Not when he had waited so long….

  Blurred images seemed to well up, bringing the faces of strangers. Clothes that were not of this time. And yet all of it felt familiar to him.

  Angrily, Ian focused on the spot where she had disappeared. At the top of the bridge he threw off his jacket and shoes and climbed the narrow arch.

  Never taking his eyes away from the water, he jumped.

  The shock of the icy currents drove the breath from his lungs. Aware that time was running out, he dove downward, searching for her hand or her hair or the corner of her dress.

  Nothing.

  Mud and silt churned up, choking him. In the storm he could see nothing.

  He dove again, then resurfaced, each time checking the front lights of the abbey to remember his position. Ignoring the throb at his knee, he searched again and again. Something struck his leg. Smooth and slick, it gripped his knee and then tore free.

  Lung burning, Ian reached down and gripped the cold hand. With one powerful kick he shot back to the surface, pulling the limp body with him. Gripping her against his chest, Ian crawled through the mud and up the slope. Her skin was like ice. She stilled hadn’t taken a breath.

  Quickly, he tossed her onto her stomach and hammered twice at her back. No response.

  Again he struck just below her shoulder blade. She shuddered and then convulsed in coughing. With a groan she dragged in a raw breath.

  He threw his coat around her and swung her up into his arms. As lightening exploded over the woods, he saw a dark mark at her forehead. More blood. The little fool.

  Even now she struggled, beating at his chest with shaking hands, mumbling half-formed words. There it was, the number she had repeated before. And then the name of a town, a place Ian had passed through often on his way from London. Nothing of importance there.