Darkest Dreams (20 page)

“Good Heavens, no. He's upset about his father keeping the symbol marking Lady Helen secret. He blames the earl for Mary's death.” Then I bit my lip. What was it about older sisters that seemed to pop the truth out of you even if you didn't want it to? I hadn't planned to tell Cassie everything. She had enough to worry about. “He has been in contact with all of the authorities along the coast, searching to see if any other women have died under similar circumstances.”

“So he's of the same mind as we are? Jamie is innocent,” Cassie said. “Bridget and I came out here to discuss the matter. Sean insists that I wipe everything from my mind and fill it with plans for the babies. I can't. What did Alex find out?”

I knew the only way to get her to rest at all was if she thought someone else was taking care of the problem. “No other women who've died have been marked with a symbol.”

“What else did Alex have to say, Andrie?” Cassie asked.

“Not much. He did draw me a picture of the symbol that marked Mary and Lady Helen.”

“Great day in the morning, Andromeda Andrews, why didn't you say so first thing! What was it? Sean refused to show me.”

“It's in my bag in my cataloguing notebook. Which I left in the buggy.”

“Come on.” Cassie grabbed my hand. “Let's go get it.”

“I'm with you two,” Bridget said, thankfully taking Cassie's other hand. Stuart would most likely be around the stables, and I had enough sensual thoughts of my own to contend with. Cassie's mind was totally focused on the mystery of Mary and Lady Helen's deaths and thus safe for the moment.

We dashed to the stables. My driver was still tending the horses he'd unhitched from the buggy, and I asked him about my notebook. He promptly retrieved it, and we hurried from the stable with Bridget lagging behind.

“He might be in town,” Cassie said.

“Most likely,” Bridget answered. “It's not like I would have said anything to him if he was here, mind you. But it does get a girl's dander up when he's not even around so she can flaunt herself in front of him and make him regret what he's missing.”

I laughed. Not because what Bridget said was so funny, but because Bridget had just expressed very clearly what I'd experienced the whole week Alex had been gone. Even today I'd been miffed to learn he wasn't at home. Stopping a few feet away from the stable, I dug my catalogue out of my bag and opened it up to Alex's drawing.

Cassie exhaled in disappointment as she peered down at it. “I've never seen anything like it before.”

Bridget squinted at the book. “The sun's in my eyes. Let me hold the book.”

I handed it to her, and she turned so that she could see it better. “I think there's something like this at the Circle of the Stone Virgins,” she said.

Cassie gasped and my pulsed skittered.

Bridget hedged. “Now, I said I
think
there
might
be. I haven't spent a lot of time looking around so I can't swear, but…”

“Let's go look,” Cassie said. “It's not more than five minutes away, up the trail behind the stables.”

The pounding of approaching horse's hooves gave us a fright. Bridget stuffed my notebook behind her back as we looked up to see Stuart almost upon us. He pulled the stallion to a halt and swiftly dismounted. “Ladies,” he said, nodding his head politely.

“Hello,” we all said in various tones, none of them good.

His dark gaze shot between each of our faces. “You want to tell me what is going on?”

Bridget huffed. “Ye don't want to talk to me when I'm a wanting to talk to you, Stuart Frye, so I'm not talking to you when you're a wanting me to either. Come on, ladies. Let's continue our walk.” Bridget then marched on past the stables, heading toward the trail that led to Dartmoor's End.

Cassie and I followed, barely resisting the urge to giggle, but once we were out of sight of the barn, Bridget burst into laughter. “Lawd. I may not like it much when he's dishing it out, but I love it when a man gives me the ammunition to fire back at him when the shoe is on the other foot.”

We laughed a bit then, when we reached the trail leading to the Circle of the Stone Virgin's, I halted. “I don't know if this is such a good idea. How do we know it's safe?”

“Andrie?” Cassie looked at me, flabbergasted. “You're shying away from an archeological site that's less than a few stones' throws from the bed you sleep in? I've been there several times. In fact, you insisted on going there the moment you learned of it. You forced me to go, if I remember right. This isn't like you. Do you know more than what you've told Bridget and me?”

I did, but none of it had to do with the old stones at the Circle of the Stone Virgins. “It's just that Mary's body was found in a chamber under the site. And if Bridget thinks that there's a carving at the site that might match what the killer did to her, I don't think we should go there unarmed.”

“Blimey, I've been traipsing through those stones since I could walk,” Bridget said. “Ya don' think that he's there, do you, Andrie?”

“No.” It was ridiculous to think the murderer was sitting in the circle waiting for us. “Let's hurry, though.” We started out at a brisk walk, then ran until we reached the carved stone pillars encircling the Druid god. A sense of something otherworldly hung about the clearing, as if the rules that bound earth and humans didn't apply to the spirits who dwelt within the crudely carved stones. The seven virgins surrounding Daghdha had a benevolent feel to their curved smoothness, and stood in sharp contrast to the lewd figure of a naked-below-the-waist man with a large belly and even larger unmentionables. I could barely force myself to look at his ugliness or how he gripped the Uaithne, his magical carved harp—the frame of which was a naked woman bent unnaturally backwards.

I suddenly wished we hadn't come, and from the way Cassie and Bridget stood unmoving next to me I guessed they might feel the same way. The three of us were at the edge of the forest, staring cautiously at the circle.

“Where do you think you saw the symbol?” Cassie asked. That she whispered so softly spoke volumes as to her own fear.

“I'm not sure,” Bridget said.

“We should go,” I said. “I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling.”

“It might just be that she has more sense than the rest of you,” Stuart Frye's deep voice interrupted the quiet, making us all jump with fright.

Bridget pressed a hand to her heart. “Don't you dare tell me you're a worried about me, Stuart, as you've nearly kilt me yourself. What are you a doing here?”

Stuart moved from the trees to join us on the trail. “Finding out what you three are up to. I'd advise none of you to ever gamble over cards. You're lousy liars. I'll ask once more before I alert Sean. What are you three up to?”

“Sean did not become God the day I married him, Stuart,” Cassie said, a frown creasing her brow.

Stuart laughed. “I bet he felt like one though. Listen, I'm not your keeper, Cassie, and you know more than anyone that I'm inclined to let a woman make up her mind about what's right for her, but—”

“What?” Bridget cried, outraged. “You've never let me—”

Stuart spoke louder to be heard over Bridget. “BUT when it comes to a woman's actually physical safety and future, I can't stand back and let her hang herself.”

“What's he talking about, Cassie?” Bridget demanded.

I wanted to know too, but I didn't have to ask. Since I was holding Cassie's hand I saw her flash of memory. I saw her talking to Stuart, then going into Sean's bedroom, finding him in pain, her kissing Sean in his bed…I snatched my hand from Cassie's.

“I'll tell you later,” Cassie said. “Show Stuart the symbol and what you told us, Bridget.”

Stuart looked at the symbol and paled. “It's here,” he said. “At least most of it is. Just eliminate the oval from the center of the circle, and you find the rest of it carved inside the sacrificial bowl at Daghdha's feet over there. We need to tell Sean and notify Constable Poole.”

“Then it wasn't a poacher this summer, was it?” Cassie whispered.

“What are you talking about, Cassie?” I asked.

“The bowl at Daghdha's feet. Bridget and I walked through the site on our way back from the village one Sunday and found blood in the bowl.”

“I don't know if it was a poacher or not,” Stuart said. “I found an animal trap in the woods not far away that day. There was blood on it, but nobody has come and reset it since. I've been checking on it. Now I think we should all leave.”

I didn't argue. I didn't need to peek into the sacrificial bowl, not with the story of a sacrifice so fresh in my mind. We returned to the house, sobered by the ominous implications that someone in this modern day and age had taken up the ritual of offering blood to a pagan god. And perhaps offering more than just the blood of animals—offering the lives of women.

Chapter Thirteen

That night I couldn't sleep, too many things swirling through my mind. Thoughts about Alex and the prison he'd sentenced himself to, remembrances of Aphrodite seducing her Alexander that led me to think about seducing Alex, then the whole discovery about the symbol's connection to the Druid ruins.

Cassie had told me about the legend behind the Circle of the Stone Virgins earlier this summer, when Gemini and I had first come to live at Killdaren's Castle. Daghdha, High King of the famed faery folk the
Tuatha de Danaan
, and a god worshiped by the Druids, was notorious for seducing mortal women, a fact that made his queen very jealous. At the Circle of the Stone Virgins it is said that he played his harp made of living oak, the Uaithne, to seduce seven of the world's most beautiful mortal virgins on the eve of Beltane. Then, after having his pleasure of them, he turned their earthly bodies to stone so that his queen would never learn of his deed. Or, it was rumored that he put the stones there to dupe his queen, and actually kidnapped the seven virgins and took them to a secret lair to pleasure him for eternity.

Giving up on sleep, I lit my lamp and searched for a warmer robe in my armoire. My hand came in contact with the Dragon's Curse book. I eagerly snatched it up, shuddering as I pushed away the historical fact cards I had stolen from the music room. Daghdha had used music to lure his seven virgins, and music had played a role in each of the women's deaths. I wondered if there was a connection.

It was enough to make me think twice about doing something as simple as singing a song, or listening to an instrument for that matter.

I stretched out on the gold brocade divan in the corner of my room, but the more I read about the Dragon's Curse and how horrifically it had played out in the Killdaren family history, the more chilled I became. I finally had to move to my bed to read, curled up under the thick blue-and-gold-tasseled counterpane to keep from shivering. Age after age, time and again, whenever male twins were born, one died at the other's hand. When I reached the year of 1490 and read where one brother in an authoritative position in Cornwall had accused his brother of heresy and saw to not only his public execution but had had his brother's wife burned at the stake for witchcraft as well, I shut the book. The Dragon's Curse seemed so real and so hopeless to overcome that it was more than I could absorb. I needed time to think about what I'd read and to get some perspective on it before I could do anything to help Alex or Sean.

And I either needed to find something else to read or forget sleep for the rest of not only the night but my life as well. Dark dreams were sure to plague me. Donning my slippers, I snatched up my lamp and headed for the library. Even Bridget and Cassie's book on vampires would be more conducive to helping me get to sleep than reading or thinking about so much ill intent and death.

The library shelves were ordered by subjects. I started with the As, passing through an entire case of books on astronomy, and moved quickly to the Es, thinking that a book on equestrian matters, especially if I could locate one on the Friesian breed, would give me something to discuss with Alex, or at least prompt a few intelligent questions on the subject. Something needed to bridge the gap I felt had been made by his walking away from my touch today. I found an interesting book on equine dressage. As I slipped it from the shelf another title jumped out at me.
A Gentleman's Treatise Upon the Art of Fencing.
Looking further, I found
Coup de Temps: Besting Your Opponent
.

Fingers tingling, I stacked the books in my arms and turned to leave the library only to come to a started halt in the middle of the room. For a moment, in the shadowed light, I thought Alex stood with his back against the doorjamb and his arms crossed in a familiar way, but it was Sean.

“You're up late,” he said.

“I couldn't sleep. I thought you and Cassie would be hard at work on the stars tonight.”

He sighed heavily. “Cassie's not speaking to me, and I can't concentrate. It's a good thing no astronomical events were predicted for tonight.”

“I guess Cassie is still angry then.”

“That would be an understatement,” he said, pushing from the doorway to march across the room with a limping stride, his hands fisted with frustration. He didn't have his cane with him tonight, so his gait was more marked. “Why won't she listen to reason?” he demanded.

“All she wanted to do was to ride into town with you, the earl and Stuart to report what we discovered to Constable Poole. Why was her request unreasonable?”

“Because,” he said, tossing his hands up in the air to prove his point, “I can't allow her to involve herself any more in this investigation. Don't you understand? Even if it turns out that Jamie didn't mean Cassie any harm in kidnapping her, it still happened. Now that she is with child…I—”