Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise Page 39

  Softness would not serve him. The warmth of a woman’s skin was useless.

  He ignored the hated Lord Draycott, still motionless. All of Navarre’s attention was on the woman as she winced, rubbing her shoulder. “You have been hurt?”

  She blew out a breath. “I’ve had better days.”

  “Yet you protected my horse.”

  “Anyone would.”

  It meant nothing. It changed nothing.

  So he told himself. Then she staggered. Her fingers slipped down the horse’s back.

  “Go away. Leave us alone. You’re…frightening the horse with your anger and questions.” She closed her eyes, struggling to stand.

  Willful and arrogant, Navarre thought. She had the bearing of a queen.

  And he caught her as she fell. Lifting her into his arms felt utterly natural to him. She was warm, and her scent reminded him of all the things it meant to be a man. When her breath stirred on his cheek, it pricked more memories, more hungers he had thought long buried.

  Not buried at all, it seemed.

  Ferrant neighed and bumped his shoulder impatiently. Navarre smiled just a little. “Demanding as you ever were. Very well, we’ll be on our way. But not just yet.” Pulling the sword from its resting place between two stones, he waved the silver blade across the restless place of shadows, cutting the shapes that trickled free. They skittered away from the bright metal, as dark will always withdraw from light. After that Navarre set the blade on the stones so that moonlight pooled from its surface, sealing the shadows into the Other Place.

  For now.

  With the woman still in his arms, he mounted his war horse. “I’ve found the way of Draycott’s castle. Huge, by all the saints. We’ll manage the stairs if I’m careful.”

  They were a strange sight, the dark horse stepping gently through the doorway that led down from the roof. Navarre guided the animal through the broad halls, over priceless carpets and through the front door. Once outside, he jumped down from the horse. “Stay near, old friend. I’ll have need of you before this night is done.”

  He could not yield, Navarre thought, feeling oddly disoriented by the woman’s heat as he crossed the courtyard. He would put her in one of the beds in the gatehouse. Then he would forget her.

  He found his way to a room with cut-velvet curtains. She made a small sound of pain and confusion when Navarre put her down on the soft sheets. She was already half asleep. On the inside of her wrist was a fresh scar, the mark of a bladed weapon. A second scar crossed the back of her hand just above the wrist.

  What manner of woman was she?

  He forced his heart to harden, to ignore the scars and the bruise at her jaw. She was nothing to him, merely a pawn in the sweeping game played out between two warriors. It was his right to treat her as he liked, even to use her now while she slept, should he so desire.

  Heat stirred at the thought. Lust coursed through his veins.

  Silent, he turned his back, pacing the room. He must govern himself, putting away all distractions. Yet when she made a small sound in her sleep, something made him stop in the bar of moonlight and cover her, then slip one finger to check her pulse.

  Fast but firm. She had strength to match her courage. There was no reason to stay.

  No reason except to watch the play of her chest as it rose and fell. No reason except to savor the faint scent of roses and cinnamon drifting from her hair.

  By the bones of all the saints, he was mad.

  “No more of your temptation,” he whispered harshly, crossing himself against evil.

  Her simple white shirt parted, its odd circle closings awry. He saw the curve of one breast beneath a bit of white lace, and the dark outline of her soft nipple. The sight flamed in his blood. He could use her, treat her like a slave of war and teach her the pain that came with betrayal. It would have been a fine part of his revenge.

  Yet Navarre’s feet did not move. His hands were leaden. Furious, he listed the reasons why taking her was his right.

  All were true. And yet he did not shift by so much as a hairsbreadth.

  She whispered hoarsely, twisting in her sleep.

  Nightmares, Navarre thought. The burden of a guilty conscience, no doubt.

  But the words she muttered and places she named made no sense to his ear. As her restless movements drove her across the bed, he caught her when she would have rolled over the edge.

  His skin met the warm hollow of her throat, and beneath that the curve of her full breast. His fingers burned. By blind instinct he could not name, he cupped her pale skin, reaching beneath white lace to trace her heat, his blood goaded when he felt her breath check in response.

  Take her, by the saints. Use her for your needs. Too long has it been…

  The hot lust rode him hard then, visions of wet, sleek skin and panting breath. The blind mating and then the silken release.

  He pulled away, his hand clenched. He schooled his face to a mask, angry at his loss of control. No, he would go and wake the dreamer. Draycott would tell what the woman was to him—mistress or common harlot, though she seemed to have too much pride for either.

  The answer was strangely important to Navarre now.

  He had to know the truth.

  Outside the wind was rising. As he turned, Navarre saw motion in the moonlight near the moat. In the courtyard he heard his horse whinny softly in an old sound of warning.

  Two shadows moved over the lawn near the water, well hidden from all eyes but his. His awareness of danger, always acute, became a hammering in his blood.

  Draycott must wait, it seemed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  OUTSIDE THE WIND was rising.

  Branches scraped the abbey’s stone walls, while leaves rained down like dark snow.

  Exhausted, Sara was only dimly aware of noise and a sense of anxiety as she twisted in dreams that felt old and painfully familiar, too real for the world of sleep.

  The street was crowded with travelers and traders, priests and knights, but she had eyes for only one among them.

  The knight in gray, sitting on a horse that danced in the sunlight. She was promised to an old man of power and wealth who offered gold to finance the king’s expensive Crusade. But the knight before her was all she saw.

  They were forbidden. They had no future.

  But three nights before, though it was dangerous beyond reason, they had found a haven for an hour. Their tryst meant death to them both if the truth were known.

  Now they crossed on the road, and smiled, acting for all the world as simply ward and guardian, bound by respect and nothing more. She kept her expression calm and full of dignity and spoke politely. He nodded.

  But their fingers brushed, just for a second, when her horse shied from the crack of a passing cart. His callused hand gripped hers, locked.

  And then they were apart.

  Two lovers, forbidden. Forbidden to the man she loved with all her heart and every singing surge of her blood, allhope of happiness lost in the ashes of war. By the order of the king, she must wed the man with rotting teeth and coarse oaths who brought valuable alliances and lands in the south of France.

  Marianne, the ward of the duc of Navarre, tried to tell herself it was God’s will, tried to believe it was her duty to be docile and submit. But she had never been docile or good at convincing herself of lies, and she would not begin now. She had tried to find an ally among those at the king’s council, one who would speak for her to reverse the marriage. The Lord Draycott had offered his help, but not until the end of the campaign season. Her father and brothers were all gone, dead in the sands of Damascus. She had no allies, no wealth.

  The ceremony was moved, now one month forward.

  She closed her mind at the thought. She would give her body to no other than her knight. She would leave in the silence of night and flee….

  To go where? Who would take her in once the truth was known?

  A sudden premonition sent her back, trembling, one hand to h
er eyes. She saw not a crowded market and a sunlit road, but a broad avenue wrapped in darkness and shadows. English oaks lined the way. Before her stretched chill uncertainty and sure death.

  But beyond that a slight flame, and with it perhaps something more. Perhaps hope.

  NAVARRE MOVED LIKE A wraith through the oncoming storm, sure in his skill. At the edge of the green lawn he stopped, remembering the woman’s devices and the strange powers they conveyed. If these attackers had the same…

  If they could see in the dark…

  Well, then, so could Navarre.

  He chose delay over pursuit, letting the enemy come to him. He dug a spot beneath a mound of leaves, covered himself completely and lay still.

  His waiting was short. The first man crept out of the shadows fifteen minutes later. Navarre saw a mask across his face, with strange, misshapen eyes. The man moved at a crouch, turning his head to right and left, peering into the darkness. The mask allowed him sight, that much was clear.

  Navarre let him pass, whispering a small piece of magic to make him confident that his prey was weak and would be easily taken. But what the attacker did next surprised Navarre. He opened a small sheet of rigid paper, watching a tiny light that moved against a small map.

  So this intruder knew where he was going. He had a clear goal, some kind of old document hidden inside the abbey.

  Navarre watched the man put away the odd map and then he sent out his threads into the man’s mind. Thoughts were Navarre’s special skill after centuries in the Between World, where thoughts ran with the force of physical things. He could shape them easily now.

  The man in the strange mask didn’t hear Navarre slide free of his hiding place, nor did he realize a blade touched his neck.

  Only with the sharp pain did he begin to struggle, and Navarre planted the seed of fear into his thoughts, building the terror. Flailing, the man tripped on a fallen branch, his mask torn away. He lunged sideways, fell facedown on the muddy bank. In the space of seconds he dropped into the swollen moat, swept away downstream.

  IZZY REINED IN his impatience, staring at the tangle of stopped cars.

  Another fallen power line.

  Half a dozen police were out directing traffic, but despite their presence this section of the A21 was a nightmare right out of a post-apocalyptic film.

  As another crew attacked a second downed line, Izzy picked up his cell phone. The signal was erratic in the storm, but so far he was running fifty-fifty on his calls. Punching in the number for Draycott Abbey, he waited through six staticky rings, finally ending in a recorded message.

  He scanned his written notes, found another number, and dialed with one hand, watching a new emergency repair crew dressed in black slickers grapple with a live line.

  “Marston here.”

  “Same stuffy accent as ever, I see. I hope you’ll remember an old friend.”

  There was a pause, then the sound of laughter echoing through the crackle on the line. “Mr. Teague, I take it? About time you contacted your old friends in England. We haven’t heard from you in months.”

  “Life gets busy. You know how it goes, Marston.”

  “No apologies are required.” By habit, Lord Nicholas Draycott’s highly efficient butler kept any other thoughts to himself. Past incidents at the abbey usually indicated that Izzy Teague’s presence in the area involved more than a social visit.

  “Since you found my cell phone number, this must be important. What can I do for you, Mr. Teague?”

  “Izzy, Marston. Don’t start mistering me to death again.”

  “Of course, sir. Did you require Lord Draycott? If so, I’m sorry to tell you that he and the family are traveling in South America.”

  “No, actually I’m trying to reach someone doing research at the abbey. An American named Sara Nightingale.”

  “Ah. The woman from the Smithsonian Document Division.”

  The Smithsonian connection was Sara’s current cover, Teague knew. She would be good at the role. He’d watched a video of her at a high-level forensics conference, and she’d impressed him with her calm, organized mind and excellent knowledge of chemistry. She had the kind of tunnel vision that made for an excellent FBI agent, Teague thought wryly. “I’ve called the abbey and her cell phone, but there’s been no answer. You’re not there now, I take it.”

  “Sorry, I was in town stocking up on supplies when the storm hit. Heaven knows how long I’ll be stuck here now. There are trees down everywhere, and most of the smaller roads are closed. I take it you need to reach her urgently?”

  “That’s right.” Izzy didn’t offer details. Marston was smart enough not to ask.

  “I suppose if you have a good four-wheel drive, you could take the road through the marsh. Nothing more than a walking trail, mind you, but it will steer you away from the traffic. Then you can loop north to the abbey.”

  With one hand Izzy brought up a GPS screen on his sleek laptop. “Sounds like it could work. Where do I pick up this road?”

  “Watch for a green trail sign about ten miles out of Hawkhurst. You’ll see the entrance just beyond the stone cottage with the twin carved lions. Drive slowly past the hedge and you can’t miss it.”

  As the butler spoke, Izzy cued in the location on his computer. “Excellent. About how long to the abbey?”

  “In normal weather, twenty minutes. In this hellish broth? An hour or even more. Mind the washed-out track above Lyon’s Leap though. It’s a nasty go there.”

  “Will do. Stay dry, Marston. I’ll see you…when I see you.”

  “Which will be as soon as I can manage it, I assure you.”

  The line crackled out. Izzy glanced at the stalled line of traffic and then back at the GPS screen. He was still twenty miles from the point that Marston had mentioned. Until the power lines were cleared, it was anyone’s guess how long it would take him to cross that twenty miles.

  Meanwhile, rain slammed against the pavement above the rising howl of the wind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NAVARRE WAS NOT SURPRISED that the second man was more skilled in hunting than the first. Behind a bank of trees, the Crusader watched a dark figure crouch low in the mud. The man moved a small black wire at his ear, then turned and dug a spot into a wet mass of leaves, hiding just as Navarre had done.

  Except Navarre had already seen him.

  The storm hurled rain, and the ground oozed mud. Water spilled from the moat, which had begun to overflow its banks.

  Patient, Navarre lured the second attacker out of his hiding spot with the imagined sound of clumsy, frightened footsteps running down the hill. It was a trick Navarre had learned well: always give your prey the thing he wants most.

  Even if it was no more than an illusion.

  And this man Navarre wanted alive, not lost in the flood like his companion, so he drew him on, making him feel confident. The force of the stalker’s thoughts was nothing before Navarre’s. The Crusader had come from a different world, where thoughts had physical form. He shaped them easily now: reckless confidence. Then a careful image of sleep. Finally Navarre drove the man up the hill toward the abbey’s stables, which would make a safe cell for his captive until dawn.

  Thunder cracked. Something made Navarre halt, his captive motionless and silent. A heartbeat later, lightning flashed overhead and a heavy branch hurtled down exactly where the two men would have walked. Navarre’s skin prickled, little hairs rising at his neck. Something about the maelstrom felt nearly familiar, as if he had met such violence of nature before.

  For all his effort, he could not remember when or where. Even his magic had its limits. And more important than the storm were the answers he meant to wring from Draycott now.

  His patience was at an end.

  RAIN POUNDED AT THE abbey windows. Sara did not hear, caught in a bright, hot place where blood welled over desert sand, where knights raced under the moonlight and her death had already been written.

  Images ran like fog, slipping throug
h her fingers. They left her cold, trembling. She wanted to run from them, though she had never run from anything in her life.

  In this place there was blood and death, hot sand and a wind full of strange spices. There was a sharp beauty that called to her soul, but a greater calling came from the danger.

  She had no one to trust. Even now Philip’s men hounded her, barely hours on her heels after her escape from the nightmare of his captivity.

  The trunk. The terrible heat of her prison.

  Shuddering, she forced away the memory. If she could only find a safe place to rest, even for an hour….

  Her eyes blurred. There was no rest in the night.

  Not for one who had disobeyed a king—and escaped his mad son.

  NO LIGHTS BURNED in the stables.

  Navarre opened the door to a windowless room near the back and tossed his captive down on cold tiles. As a precaution, he picked up the small pack woven of black fiber, which the man wore around his waist.

  Then he probed the man’s thoughts.

  Why have you come here?

  The map. Upstairs in the library.

  What about the woman?

  I will kill her when I have what I need. She knows too much….

  Navarre’s eyes hardened. Who sent you to do this?

  His captive moved restlessly. I do not know. It was arranged by phone. No names were given.

  Navarre shoved the man facedown. Then he sent a final thread over his captive’s mind and barred the door from the outside.

  At the stable entrance, his great horse waited, calm and regal. There was nothing skittish in his movements now, no sense of further danger.

  “So the troublemakers are found,” Navarre murmured. “But who sent them here?” He stood silent, testing the currents of the night.

  No other attackers followed. Were they here, Navarre would have felt their traces. He was skilled at finding signs thanks to the Bedouins who had taken him in for nearly a year after he was lost in a caravan. After his return, some in Outremer had called him heathen. Despite his lands and titles, most had called him worse than that. Only one had accepted him for the man he was.