Immortal Trust (10 page)

“So what did you want to tell me?” she asked around a mouthful.

The relic. Aye, he had not thought that far. Sifting through bits and pieces of his knowledge, he grasped for something important to tell her. The beads. He would tell her more about the beads. “Each of the beads is carved from ivory. It required a full two years to—” He stopped as she dunked her sandwich into a bowl of broth. His mouth watered. His stomach protested overloud.

Chloe paused, the sandwich a fraction away from her mouth. “You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“I shall.”

With a roll of her eyes and a soft chuckle, she set the sandwich on her plate, picked up a steak knife, and cut it in two. She beckoned him to the cushion beside her. “Here, I’ll share.”

“That is not necessary.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It is. Because if you keep watching me like a starved wolf, you’re going to ruin my dinner with guilt.”

Chagrined, he felt heat touch his cheeks. He stood and took a seat at her side. “I apologize, milady. It seems in my hurry to join you in France, I have neglected to eat.”

Her distance rolled away with a husky laugh. “How well I know that feeling. Here.” She passed him half. “Help yourself to whatever else. Want me to order another glass of wine?”

Lucan could not silence a pleasant moan as he bit into the thick slices of roast beef. In answer to her question, he shook his head and closed his eyes, satisfied by the food alone. Too hungry for words, he lapsed into silence.

*   *   *

Reclining in the corner of her couch, her feet tucked beneath her hip, Chloe smiled at Lucan over the top of her wineglass. He sat across from her, his thigh inches from her toes, an identical glass in hand. What had begun as sandwiches turned into a four-course meal when Caradoc knocked at her door with Lucan’s previously ordered meal. They split it too, and somewhere between lobster and steak, she’d requested the full bottle of wine from room service.

As they dined, they shared a comfortable closeness. Her earlier angst evaporated—maybe from the wine, maybe from the laughter. For beneath it all, as Lucan and she talked about the things they enjoyed, his sense of humor broke free. He teased freely, held her eyes a bit too long. As he did now, his glass lifted to his lips while he swallowed the sweet late harvest Riesling.

The intimacy of his quiet gaze didn’t escape her. Somewhere during their extended meal, they had crossed a line.
She
had crossed a line. The man who sat beside her now was no longer Lucan her professional rival, but Lucan, the man he’d asked her to see. And what she saw, she liked. Immensely.

He still bore the same appearance that made her think of motorcycles and sneaking out of her parents’ house as a teen. But beneath the wild long hair, the darkly chiseled features, and his knowing gray eyes, Lucan possessed a refined nature. He was the kind of man who understood the difference between Riesling and Viognier. Who could appreciate classical music as well as a good dose of rock and roll.

Beneath each fascinating layer, Chloe discovered something constant and unchanging. From the moment he had entered her room she’d felt safe. Even now, with the sun no more than a sliver on the horizon—the time the demons usually swamped her—she barely noticed the things beyond her windows. Though the wind blew, and now and again she caught the subtle hum of malicious energy, Lucan’s presence cocooned her with the promise of safety.

“Tell me about Egypt.” He nodded at the stack of historical references on her table. “Did you enjoy your time there?”

“Oh,” she said on a sigh. “I love Egypt. I love the tombs. The art. Everything about it. Not so much the cities—but then I don’t tend to spend a lot of time in them. Out there in the shifting sands, it’s heaven. You never know when the next storm might reveal some piece of lost history.”

“I was there many years ago. I remember quite well the heat and sand.”

“Oh? What were you working on?”

Lucan shook his head. “’Twas a military contingent. A brief assignment to lead those who had gotten themselves into quite a predicament back home.”

With all the stories of tourists captured and foreigners disappearing, his story didn’t surprise her. It did, however, explain the uncanny feeling that he’d protect her. That military training had a way of seeping into every day life.

“Were you in the service long?”

He set his empty glass aside and folded his arms behind his head. “Aye. Until this assignment, ’tis all I have known.” Sitting forward, he flipped open the book on ancient tombs and thumbed to the first page of the Bahariya Oasis. “I remember this place. To avoid the enemy we were forced to hide in tombs. The art was amazing. We had to descend through the bottom of abandoned homes. ’Twas near impossible to cover our comings and reseal the floors.”

Chloe’s feet thumped to the floor as excitement tripped down her spine. He’d been to Bahariya. In the tombs. Possibly those she’d walked in—her work had included the demolition of several abandoned homes. “Do you understand hieroglyphics?”

“Aye. A bit of them. Though I am certain your knowledge exceeds mine.”

She chewed on her lower lip, debating. If she showed him the image she’d copied, would he ask questions she couldn’t answer? Or would he assume it was simple curiosity? She shrugged off the worry, too anxious to find someone who might have seen the sigil that had doomed her. Standing, she went to her desk and withdrew a time-crinkled notebook. She flipped it open to the photograph she’d pasted inside and set it on the table beneath his nose. She tapped the curious picture of the jackal-like Wepwawet. “Have you seen this before?”

A shiver rolled through her as she looked once again at the glyph she knew by heart. The grayish head identified him clearly as the Egyptian deity who led the dead through the underworld. But where typical depictions of Wepwawet showed him holding an ankh in one hand and a spear in another, in this one, he clutched a sword and a strange winged head. On discovering the glyph deep within a shaman’s tomb, she’d first thought it to be a false reproduction—the sword had yet to become the weapon known today during the era the tomb was crafted. Yet her team had the paint sampled, proving it predated Alexander’s conquest by several centuries.

Lucan visibly stiffened. He shook his head slowly and murmured a quiet, “Nay.” But when he lifted his gaze to hers, his eyes flickered with words he didn’t say. He
had
seen it, damn it.

“What does it mean?” she pressed.

“Where did you find it?”

She shook her head and perched on the edge of the couch. If he didn’t trust her enough to reveal the meaning, she wouldn’t tell him why she wanted to know. Not to mention, if she spouted off about demons following her and curses, he’d probably laugh—as both Julian and Blake had. “I didn’t find it. I was told I would encounter something meant for my eyes alone in the unfinished antechamber. That glyph was the only sigil present.” And she’d known nothing but fear since that fateful afternoon.

Lucan’s gaze bored into her. “Who told you of it?”

She shrugged, ignoring the way the intense light behind his stare sent another shiver rolling to her toes. “Just a guy.” Under no circumstances would she tell him—or any other human being for that matter—that she’d heard the voice plain as day in the tunnel, the same voice of the native man in the oasis, but it had come out of nowhere. She’d turned around, expecting to see his weathered face, only to find darkness, her team farther back, quietly at work documenting funerary items. She’d been alone in that tunnel when some
thing
had spoken to her. The same something had attached to her and refused to let go.

Chloe collected the notebook and returned it to her desk. As she passed the small window, the all-too-familiar
tap-tap
clanged in her head. She cast a nervous glance to Lucan, but he turned the pages in her book, unaware they had unwelcome guests.

He looked up as she neared the loveseat. “Chloe, this afternoon…” His gaze searched her face, uncertain.

Chuckling, she waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. Julian and I argue in public too. I evidently have a way of provoking people.”

“Nay. I am not speaking of that. The reliquary—I meant it when I said you should mention naught of its divinity. If it fell into the wrong hands, or the wrong people should learn you possess it, your life could be in great danger.”

She almost laughed. If he only knew the greater threat that haunted her. Men, guns, kidnappings, and death threats didn’t hold a candle to true evil. Instead, she merely shrugged her shoulders. “I’m willing to risk my safety if it reveals the secrets of our past.”

He reached between them and caught her hand. Sincerity softened the insistent lines of his expression. “You possess the Veronica, a sacred relic that belongs to the Church. I cannot allow you to harm yourself, or the cloth. I must return it.”

When she pulled on her arm, annoyance driving her to distance herself from the warmth of his fingers, he refused to let go. She stared at the soundless television, determined to ignore his argument. As an archaeologist he should understand the need to educate the public. The purpose was the very foundation of their profession.

“Chloe.”

His quiet voice urged her eyes back to his.

“I will make you a promise. When I return it, I will do everything in my power to establish a sacred resting place for such an important item. A place where it can be viewed, its story can be told, and ’tis safe from thieves and those who would wish to use it for corruption.”

For one endless moment, Chloe couldn’t breathe. Compromise, she hadn’t anticipated. But what he offered was exactly what she desired—
if
the relic proved to be what he claimed. She didn’t know how to respond to such a generous offer. Didn’t know how to look away from his mesmerizing gray eyes that revealed such honesty she could feel his words in her soul. He meant it. He really meant it.

So had Blake, at one time.

She shook off the spell and frowned. “What if it isn’t the Veronica? What if it’s just another cloth, or what if nothing’s inside at all?”

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “’Tis not, but should it be, you may do what you will with both the reliquary and the contents. We could open it tonight and solve those questions.”

“Don’t be silly. There are
processes
. Protocols I established with my team to ensure every relic was treated the same way.” Her frown deepened as she remembered her students and her brother. “This isn’t just about me and you. Julian wants to witness the opening. Andy’s excited about it also. I have a whole team that came here in the middle of winter, hoping to find something of significance. Now we have. I won’t cut them out. And I won’t jeopardize the integrity of my hard work among my professional peers either.”

“I shall respect that.” His thumb stroked over the back of her palm, stirring to life all the awareness she so desperately wanted to ignore. Tingles raced up to her shoulder. Her pulse stuttered. In the core of her soul, something wholly unfamiliar awakened to that gentle back-and-forth motion.

“Will you trust I shall reveal the cloth when the time is appropriate?” His eyes said something else, a plea she didn’t dare consider:
Will you trust
me
?

She glanced down at their joined hands, the warmth of his palm as enticing as water after a hot day amid the Egyptian sands. Strong fingers. A grip meant to soothe, yet prominent evidence of the power in his hands. Altogether masculine. Wholly appealing.

Against her will, her fingers tightened around his. She nearly sighed at the delight of holding on to him. They sat in her room, avoiding the subject of their earlier kiss. It had been so long … Did she dare take a leap of faith and believe in what he offered? His words
and
the physical pleasure?

No, she couldn’t. Not when they disagreed over an important artifact. As long as they stood at opposing corners, too much room existed for him to work toward his own purpose and hide his intentions. Trust couldn’t be established on such rocky terms. And though he had sworn he’d expose the relic if it proved legitimate, he’d mentioned nothing about giving her team credit for the find.

“I think you’d better leave, Lucan,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he answered, equally as quiet.

He rose, bringing her to her feet alongside him. She followed to the door, indulging in the simple pleasure of holding his hand a few minutes longer. But when he should have disentangled his fingers and reached for the handle, he turned sideways and lifted her chin with his opposite index finger. He shook loose her fingers, used that hand to sweep her hair away from her shoulder. Then with it, he captured the side of her face and brushed her cheek with that tantalizing sweep of his thumb.

She knew he was going to kiss her. Knew she ought to step back and stop him before he could dip his head. But though logic screamed at her to move, she stood stock still, barely breathing.

As light as a feather, his lips brushed over hers. His breath stirred the fine hairs on her face. Goose bumps broke over her skin, and Chloe pulled in a short breath to keep from stumbling against his chest. With an inward whimper, she parted her lips and invited him into the kiss.

Lucan’s mouth settled over hers softly. His lips played a game of capture and release, each press longer than the one before, until he slid his hands into her hair and accepted she had no intentions of breaking free. Warm and enticing, the tip of his tongue slid along the seam of her lips and, caught up in the rush of heady bliss, Chloe touched hers to it. The rich flavor of the wine they’d shared lingered on his mouth. She drank it in as deeply as she had from her glass.

Pleasure ignited like fire, warming her from the inside out. She leaned into his body, twined her arms around his neck, and rose to her toes as he deepened their kiss. The velvety stroke of his tongue against hers took her to a place she had forgotten. An oasis where no harm came from pleasure and desire knew no punishment. She indulged, abandoning her fears in favor of the safety Lucan’s nearness offered.