Immortal Trust (38 page)

Her emphatic position on something as relatively insignificant as a dagger and a ring said little for the way she would receive the rest of his news. ’Twould take every bit of patience he possessed to make her believe in who he was. What they both were. And pointing out that the birthmark on his buttocks matched the one on her shoulder and proclaimed something greater would accomplish naught more than another of her amused giggles.

“The Templar secrets are not meant to be shared with the world. ’Twas a reason they hid themselves away. A purpose that their existence reveals, and the artifacts you speak of link them to that purpose,
if
they are correctly traced.”

“And so what?” She folded her arms over her bare breasts. “They are
dead.
Whatever drove them underground—politics, debts, heresy, you name it—no longer exists. You don’t want them linked to the Church? Fine, we don’t have to publish that they came from the same excavation plot. We can document the finding and quietly let the information slide.”

“They are not dead.”

His low response snapped her mouth closed. In the next heartbeat it fell open with a whispered, “What?”

Lucan pulled in a deep breath. ’Twas not how he had planned to start this conversation. He had intended to approach it more like an engagement. With the torc as an offering to a confession of unyielding love.

Nevertheless, he had said too much. He could not stop now. “The Holy Order of the Knights Templar is not dead. It exists. I am a part of it, not my ancestor.”

He read her disbelief in the narrowing of her brow. Felt it in the absence of her hands, as she pulled them away from his body. Heard it in her short laugh.

Before she could completely vacate his lap, he caught her hands and held them tight. “I am a Templar knight, Chloe. And you are part of the Templar purpose. Of
my
purpose.”

An insistent hammering on his door cut off the rest of his explanation. Lucan let out a harassed sigh and tipped his head back. “Begone!”

“Monsieur! Je suis désolé, il est important!”

At the concierge’s frantic French, Lucan frowned. Important? Naught could be more important than this conversation.

The furious pounding, however, argued his belief.
“Monsieur!”

Lucan eased Chloe off his lap and motioned for her to don the shirt he had worn the night before. As she pulled it over her head and quickly added her underwear, he crossed to the door. Harassed beyond imagination, he yanked it open to stare at the smaller, agitated man.

“Monsieur, I am so sorry. You did not answer soon enough. I could not stop—”

Two burly members of the gendarmerie shouldered the château’s representative aside and barged into the room. Julian followed on their heels. He spared Chloe only a passing glance before he thrust a finger at Lucan’s chest. “That’s him. That’s the man.”

Before Lucan could do more than blink, the two gendarmes wrested his arms behind his back and hurtled him toward the door. He sank his weight into their determined push, thwarting their efforts to shove him into the hall. “Release me. I have done naught.”

Behind him, Chloe cried, “Julian! What’s going on?”

No sooner had the question broken through the air than Gareth appeared in the doorway. He took one look at Lucan, bound between the two guards, and scowled at Julian.

Confronted by not one, but two men who easily doubled them in size, the gendarmes evidently found it prudent to cease their insistent shoving at Lucan’s back. Instead, they twisted his arms painfully toward his shoulder blades, forcing him to submit. He bit back a rush of anger and complied. Fighting would only give them further grounds.

“Julian!” Chloe latched on to her brother’s arm. “Tell me what is going on!”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on.” He shook off her hold to fling his hand at Lucan once again. “He’s played you for a fool. I caught him in the trailer today looking at that signet ring and silver dagger. When he left, the ring went with him.”

“You lie!” Lucan thundered. He surged forward to wrap his hands around Julian’s neck, but the sharp twist of his arms stopped him in his tracks.

Chloe’s eyes widened like saucers. Her lower lip quivered, and she looked between the two men. “You can’t be serious, Julian. Lucan wouldn’t steal. We were just talking about those items.”

Saints’ love her, she had faith in him. Lucan sagged at her words. This would end in moments, and when it did, ’twould be Julian who left in the guards’ escort. When he managed to free himself from the jail, Lucan would be there to pound him back to the hell he had come from. God’s teeth, could no one else smell the stench that rolled off him?

“Check his coat. He probably pocketed the damn thing. Though I wouldn’t be surprised to find it empty either. We’ll have to check his car.”

Chloe hesitated, her gaze straying to the coat Lucan had carelessly flung over the back of the couch. A deep foreboding crept down his spine as he too looked at the leather. Julian had brought his coat out. ’Twas no gesture to hurry him away from the site. ’Twas blackmail. Lucan had no doubt that whatever trinket Julian claimed was missing would lie within his pocket.

Bloody Christ!

He struggled against his captors’ hold, determined to break free and choke the life out of Julian. At least that would be a crime worth punishment. For when Chloe discovered a relic in his coat pocket, he would suffer far greater.

’Twas Gareth who dared to pick up the coat. He shoved his hand inside, his gaze locked on Lucan, conveying he understood the truth.

And the likely outcome.

Lucan knew the moment Gareth’s hand touched the relic. His eyes closed a fraction. His jaw tensed. A breath of air hissed through clenched teeth.

It took all of Lucan’s self-control not to bellow in rage as Gareth pulled his hand free and opened it to reveal le Goix’s Templar ring. He stamped down the fury, turned pleading eyes on Chloe. Silently, he begged her to believe in all she knew about him. He had no reason to take the relic. He would have never touched it had she denied him permission to return it as he wanted to.

She watched him, her doubt etched into her ashen face. “Lucan?”

“I did not take it, Chloe. Why would I ask you about it, if I already possessed it?”

“Mademoiselle, what do you wish us to do?” asked the gendarme at Lucan’s left.

Her eyes flickered, wavering between what she knew in her heart and what visible facts lay before her eyes. Praying to the only power he knew who could intervene and right this intolerable wrong. He held his breath. Waiting. Hoping.

*   *   *

The blissful world of happiness Chloe had known only a few minutes earlier slowly crumbled into pieces and crashed onto her shoulders. Standing between her brother and Lucan, she stared helplessly as the walls around her closed in. Both expected her to believe in them. Lucan’s pleading stare demanded she remember his words. The promise he would never hurt her. His eyes hardened with each second that passed and she remained silent. Julian watched expectantly. His anger boiled to the surface, gleamed behind his eyes. The longer she stood quiet, the more triumph crept into his gaze.

Whom did she choose? Whom did she cast aside? Did she turn her back on the only flesh and blood she possessed, or did she walk away from the one man she wanted most?

“Chloe,” Julian pressed. “He’s not who he claims to be. Lucan Seacourt doesn’t exist.”

She whipped her head around to blink at her brother. “What?”

“I checked with the Church. They don’t know anything about him, or him.” He jabbed his thumb at Gareth. “They don’t work for the Catholic diocese. And Lucan Seacourt died in the thirteenth century. Lucan
of
Seacourt. He’s that man whose tomb they unearthed. His name was engraved in the shield they found.”

Chloe gasped for air, but her lungs refused to fill. Lies? Oh God, it couldn’t be true. She grabbed for the back of the couch as her knees went weak, unable to bring herself to look at Lucan and see the defiance in his eyes.

“You’re lying,” she whispered. Julian had to be. She’d touched Lucan. Given him entirely too much of herself for this to all be farce.

“I’m not. Pick up the phone. Here’s the number.” He thrust a piece of paper beneath her nose.

“Chloe, for the love of the saints, this is nonsense,” Lucan protested. Resignation filtered into his voice. There could only be one reason for such a lack of conviction—guilt.

“Chloe, please listen to me. I just told you what I am.”

A knight Templar … A story even more implausible than Julian’s claims that Lucan had stolen the ring. But if he believed it … If he truly felt some tie to the extinct order, or even pledged membership to a legacy Masonic organization … Wouldn’t that give him reason to possess the ring?

A sob rose to cut off her words. Shaking her head, she turned away from both brother and lover. Dead. Lucan of Seacourt was the knight in the grave. Damn it all, they had talked about him in the car! No wonder Lucan knew so much. He’d studied the discovery enough to mimic the role.

Oh, Lord in heaven, she couldn’t be a bigger fool. She’d fallen right into his game. She would have surrendered the priceless relic without question. And he’d done exactly what Julian forewarned—used her.

“Arrest him,” she choked out. “Just … get him out of here.”

“Chloe!”

She grimaced at the harsh, unfriendly bellow. Let him protest. Let him rant. For that matter let him hate her. It would make forgetting him easier.

“Monsieur, you come with us.”

The commotion behind her back told her Lucan wasn’t making it easy to get him out of the room. She dug her nails into his couch and squeezed her eyes shut tight to block the hoarseness of his voice as he called out to her once again.

The door slammed shut. Julian’s heavy hand settled on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sis.”

She shrugged his hand off. “Go. I don’t want to see you either.”

He gave her back an affectionate pat, and she felt him leave her side. A few seconds later, the door closed once more. Quieter this time.

The silence that remained was deafening.

CHAPTER 35

Lucan sank his head into his bound hands and raked his fingers against his scalp. Worry consumed him. With only Gareth to watch over Chloe, and her present state of disbelief, Julian could strike at any time. He could not fault her for believing her brother. Mayhap if he had been given a few more moments to tell her the truth, he would not be sitting on this hard bench, listening to the monotonous tick of an unseen clock, and feeling his life slip by with each passing second.

God’s teeth, when he got free from here, he would rip that demon in half, regardless of his blood tie to Chloe. Her wrath would be immense, but ’twas a sacrifice Lucan was willing to make.

He dragged his hands down his face and leaned back, resting his head against the cinder-block wall. Beyond the bars of his cell, footsteps trekked down the sterile hall. The same pair of polished steel-toe boots with a slight heel he had heard intermittently for the last several hours.

His muscles twitched with restlessness. Chloe was out there. In danger. And the Almighty only knew what the person she trusted most had planned for her.

If he did not find a way out of this suffocating cell, he would go mad.

The clang of something hard against the bars drew him upright. A guard, no doubt the one whose shoes had worn a hole through Lucan’s thoughts, peered in.
“Vous avez un visiteur.”

A visitor? Lucan frowned. Chloe mayhap? Could she have changed her mind?

As he pondered the possibility, a well-dressed man stepped from behind the gendarme. Long, golden hair tumbled freely about his wide shoulders and framed a face so beautiful, Lucan flinched.

Raphael. God’s teeth, mayhap the Almighty had heard his pleas after all.

Lucan shot to his feet. Before he could speak a word, however, the archangel lifted one hand, palm out, indicating he should remain silent. He turned to the guard with a smile as brilliant as gold. A subtle light flowed from his fingertips, drawing the gendarme’s attention to Raphael’s flawless palm.

Lucan watched in fascination as the official’s eyes widened. At the low chanting words that issued from Raphael’s voice—spoken so softly Lucan could not make them out—the gendarme slowly nodded his head. The light dimmed. Raphael fell silent and lowered his hand.

“Monsieur, un erreur a été comise.”

A mistake made? Saints’ teeth, aye, ’twas one monster of a mistake. But the guard’s statement perplexed him further. Lucan squinted expectantly, awaiting further explanation. It came as the gendarme inserted one key from a ring of several and twisted the cell lock. Opening the heavy barred door, he stepped inside and motioned for Lucan to approach.

Wary, Lucan looked over the guard’s shoulder at Raphael. A slow nod of the archangel’s head instructed he should obey the official’s request. Lucan moved closer to the guard.

Pointing one stubby finger at the heavy handcuffs cutting into his wrists, the man instructed,
“Vos mains, s’il vous plaît.”

Understanding settled around Lucan. He lifted his hands toward the gendarme, complying with the request. The shorter man flipped through his multitude of keys, picked out a smaller, less obvious bit of metal, and thrust it into the hole at Lucan’s wrist. With one quick flick of a scarred wrist, the handcuffs released.
“Vous êtes libre de partir.”

Free to go.

Lucan did not waste a moment as he hurried out of the cell and joined Raphael in the narrow corridor. “Thank you,” he murmured beneath his breath.

“Say naught of it. Gareth told me of your predicament. Come.” He grabbed Lucan’s elbow and ushered him through the central processing room of the gendarmerie, across the lobby, and out the wide front doors. He did not stop until they had reached a silver SUV parked at the rear of the well-lighted lot. “You must take care not to be seen. I cannot follow behind you and alter the memories of all those who know of your arrest.”