Siren's Secret (36 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He patted her hand. “So am I, my dear. I thought you were smarter.”

Olivia snapped back insulted. “Sir Jason, there is just nothing there to explain any further. I believe the secret was that the astrolabe was sent to the ends of the earth. And the treasure is a metaphor … or I have misinterpreted it.” Olivia thought. “That’s very possible. I could be wrong about that meaning.”

“I see. Very well.” He stepped from the tent. “Why don’t you join us down in the tomb? Maybe that will stimulate ideas.”

“I’m going to keep working on the translation today, thank you. I’m still exhausted. Some sunlight will do the trick.”

Moreau stopped in the entrance. “Nonsense. Gather your things.”

Olivia begged off, but he sent two guards in to wait for her. She didn’t move. One of them spoke some English, so she told them she was staying there to work. They insisted, and she told them to leave. Then they poked her with the bayonets on their muskets to get her to move. She knocked their guns away, infuriated, and shouted for them leave, calling to her father. Her father came and told her to gather her stuff—immediately.

The guards stepped outside and waited.

Olivia took her time. She was wearing her professor clothes and put on her long jacket to cover her body. She packed her leather carryall with her journal, inking pen, and fresh ink. Then she finished her water and put her poison pouch over her other shoulder. It was half full. She prayed she would not need it.

When she stepped outside, a guard pushed her. She kicked him in the groin, furious with the manhandling. “What is the meaning of this? Get your barbarians off me, Moreau.”

“They are merely being cautious, my lady,” Moreau said, intervening and taking her arm to guide her. “There’s still a missing treasure to discover. We don’t want anyone to leave the site with information before we can secure it.”

“There is no treasure,” she said. “Only what we found yesterday.” She yanked her arm free of his hold, intending to find Stafford, but froze instead.

Her companions, the crew, and their local servants were in the center of the camp surrounded by several rows of guards. The men looked ready to fight their way out bare-fisted.

She ran to their aid. “Father. Explain this please.”

He looked at his partners, then at her. “I can’t. I’m sorry, dear. It seems my partnership with Lampley has reached the ultimate parting of ways.”

Olivia moved to stand with her friends, but Moreau grabbed her, his grip digging into the muscles of her shoulder. She stepped sideways and backward, breaking his grip, fury building inside her. She tried to give Elizabeth an encouraging look. Her friend nodded, leaning into her husband for safety.

“You had to know this would happen if you did not cooperate, Lady Olivia,” Moreau said.

“I
have
cooperated. I’ve helped you get into the tomb at great risk to myself and my friends. I’ve told you all I know. There is no treasure of material value. The librarian’s greatest treasure was love.”

Moreau laughed. “Love?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so, my dear.”

They didn’t believe her.

Gads. What now?

“The damned librarian was a fool for love and fooled everybody else!” She tried to explain further, but they did not want to hear it.

“I’ve lost my patience, Lady Olivia. Enough.” Moreau motioned one of his men behind her friends.

Moreau waved a hand to one of the guards.

The soldier behind Nathan ran his bayonet through Elizabeth’s husband, piercing his chest.

Olivia screamed.

Elizabeth had awakened that morning optimistic and happy. With Nathan next to her anything seemed possible. Then they were rudely interrupted. Nathan had expected it and made sure they were already up, securing Lampley’s gun at her ankle. He too was hopeful, telling her that Riad would likely get their message today and come help. The worst part would be the wait.

He’d been wrong.

Olivia screamed.

Elizabeth saw the direction of her friend’s horror and turned. Nothing in her life mattered after that.

Her arm flew around the back of her husband.

Nathan looked down, stunned. Then at her. His face showed his understanding. And his sorrow. He did not want to leave her. His eyes would not leave her.

Elizabeth didn’t scream.

Nathan needed her.

She caught his back just as the long knife twisted and the soldier yanked it from her beloved’s strong, vibrant body. Somehow Stafford was there. Helping her.

They laid Nathan on the ground. She knew he would not last long. The injury was near his heart. She would not waste their precious seconds.

“My love,” she said. “Nathan. I love you.”

He tried to speak. His hand reached for Stafford and squeezed, the panic clear when he rasped the one word to his friend. “Elizabeth.”

“She will want for nothing. I swear it, Nathan. I will take care of her, give all that was due to you. She will become our family. She will be loved,” Stafford vowed, clutching his friend’s hand.

Elizabeth saw that his words comforted Nathan. Now all he had was regret. She would not allow that.

“Look at me, Nathan.” She swallowed the fierce lump in her throat. “I love you. The days we had were everything to me. They were everything. You … are everything.” She stroked his face. “You made every single minute perfect, and I would not give up a second with you, not for the world. You are the greatest adventure, greatest happiness, greatest gift”—she could not stop the tears—“greatest love I have ever had. I love you. And I want you … I want you to go to sleep, knowing I will be fine. Because of you. Because of the love you gave me in the time we had. Do not leave me with regret, my love. You have nothing to regret.” She kissed his lips. “You were a miracle in my life.”

Elizabeth cradled his head in her hands, kneeling over him, unable to take her eyes from his, desperate to keep him as long as possible. Wanting their connection, knowing it would soon be forever lost.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”

He reached to touch her and she grasped his hand, pulling it to her cheek.

His body struggled as he gasped and fought for his last words. They were a mere breath, but she heard them.

“I love you.”

Elizabeth’s body shuddered with his. Then silence.

“Nathan?”

His body was still.

His clear blue eyes were open, but he was not there. She searched, but he was not there. Someone closed them. Stafford, she guessed.

She wrapped her arms around her husband and her head fell to his, bereft. She would not leave him, no matter the threat.

Somewhere around her, there was movement. A woman cried out in fury. And then Elizabeth remembered the small pistol in her boot. She huddled closer to Nathan, reaching the gun and pulling it free under her skirts. No one could see it. She looked up to the guard nearest.

Blood dripped on the end of his long musket.

She looked into his eyes, and he stared back. His mouth curled up with a half smile, arrogant because he was the one with the gun. Then he looked her over insultingly and spit on the ground before saying something to his friend, laughing at them.

She shot him in the chest before anyone knew she was armed.

Olivia saw the look on Elizabeth’s face. It was stark, bleak, and unrepentant. Her friend had killed the soldier before anyone could wonder where she’d obtained the gun. Moreau lifted his own weapon and aimed at Elizabeth.

“No!” Olivia leaped. She covered Elizabeth and Nathan with her body. “Don’t shoot. Please, leave her. I’ll help you. Moreau, I’ll help you. Please. Don’t hurt her.”

Moreau sheathed his gun. “Very well. When you put it that way.”

Olivia tried to help Elizabeth, but her friend pushed her away, caring little for her own life, it seemed.

Moreau twisted his mustache, eager to be off. He indicated the hostages. “Hold them for now. We’ll take my men, Lampley,” he said, motioning to their commander. “Twelve guards should be plenty.”

Lampley ordered some guards to join them. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “The men need direction.”

Olivia saw Lampley’s face. She’d thought him handsome. Now she thought him hard and insensitive. He’d not done a thing to help. She berated herself for misjudging him.

Samuel brushed the hair back from Nathan’s face. He couldn’t stop the rush of memories that assaulted him—the years he had shared with his friend, as a boy and an adult. He thought, too, of the years Nathan would never have with Elizabeth. It felt as if his chest had been cut open with a blunt knife and his heart tossed onto the burning Egyptian sand. He wanted to sit and weep with Elizabeth.

He knew he couldn’t.

He wouldn’t leave Olivia. Not now. Not when the threat on her life was imminent.

He stood up and joined Olivia. “Wait. I need to go as well.”

“No!” Alex gasped, grabbing his arm.

He turned to Moreau. “I help her work out the puzzles, and I’m the only one who can keep her calm. You’re going to need me after what you just put her through.”

Moreau hesitated, then consented.

“Samuel.” His sister begged him, her eyes pooling. “We have lost Nathan. It is enough.”

“Allie, I have to.”

She shook her head, dismayed. “She doesn’t even believe in love.”

“But I do,” he said.

She threw herself at him and squeezed. “I love you, brother. But if you die, I’m not naming my child after you.”

Samuel released his sister. “You know what to do without me, Allie girl.”

“But that won’t be necessary,” Worthington reminded him.

Alex gathered herself. “I know what to do, Samuel.” She dropped her gaze to Elizabeth and Nathan. “I’ll take care of everyone.”

Samuel smiled, grateful, then turned to follow Olivia.

“Olivia, wait,” her father said.

Olivia stopped dutifully in front of her father, who was detained with the others.

Samuel waited for the man to say something from his heart.

“I—I beg you, be careful,” Merryvale said.

“I will,” Olivia said. “You too, Father.”

Samuel caught her confused and disappointed expression. He nodded to Merryvale as they passed, but the man looked away.

He prayed the man had not just lost his last opportunity to tell his daughter he loved her.

Olivia would not have made it down the flight of stairs into the catacombs without Stafford. She couldn’t see, for one thing. The tears would not stop, nor would the trembling. She could not comprehend that Nathan was gone forever. Nor could she bear to think of Elizabeth’s agony and the loss her friend would suffer the rest of her life. The injustice of it burned her insides.

The fever of outrage blazed with every step until it dried her tears and straightened her spine. She would not go weakly to her grave.

The guards had marked with builder’s chalk on the maze floor, identifying the safe path for workers. They walked through without incident, then down the wooden steps the servants had erected where the floor had dropped in the next chamber. Olivia was gratified there was a path that did not require swushing of asps.

Moreau directed the servants to take their last loads from the tomb chamber and leave for now. The workers gladly exited, and the guards took their posts.

Olivia and Stafford made a quick study of the looted area. All the astrolabes had been removed, the elaborate room reduced to stone turntable and walls. The pieces of the wall art the duchess had destroyed were in a corner for export. Moreau would no doubt want to study that in more detail.

The scroll room was only half dismantled. There were not enough crates yet to hold all the objects in the room.

“Where is the cone?” Olivia asked.

Moreau waved for a guard to bring it.

Olivia took the cone and sat, thinking. Samuel’s sister had done this very same thing when she’d first held the stone. And then had told Olivia not to lose it.

What you seek, you already have.

A priceless treasure, a secret to die for, knowledge of the ages. Was it a metaphor or literal truth?

“How big is this astrolabe disc that you seek, Moreau?” she questioned.

“I’m told about two inches in diameter,” he said.

Olivia went to the sarcophagus and studied the medallion around the woman’s neck. “This size?”

“Yes,” he said. “You don’t think it’s on the body, do you? Mummified?”

“It’s possible,” she said. “But no. I don’t think that.”

“In any case, I already had my men open it and check,” Moreau said.

Olivia looked at him in horror … and a little curiosity. “The words in this room are a riddle,” she told them, pointing to the hieroglyphics. “ ‘Use your knowledge to discover the secret, and there will your treasure be.’ ”

Moreau became annoyed. “Enough of puzzles, Lady Olivia. Where is the disc?”

Olivia walked confidently to the wall with the three circular inserts. Each had a symbol above it: a triangle, a star, and a circle. “The disc is the treasure. It’s in one of these compartments. You have only to pull it out.”

The men brought their torches to the compartments. At the far end of each was a small object—a box of some kind. Overall, they looked harmless. But nothing in this tomb was harmless.

“What about that?” A guard pointed out the heavy blade Stafford had triggered the day before. Within a foot of each option was a lever on the wall. It activated the large blade from above.

Olivia swallowed hard. “I would guess that is to give you two chances to get it right.”

“Your call, then, Lady Olivia.”

“Well, um … a triangle represents knowledge, and the librarian was a keeper of knowledge. The star, for the stars in the sky, could be part of your astrolabe story.” She paused. “The circle could represent the sun. That might be good too, since the sun is life-giving.”

“You said to use your knowledge to get the secret to find the treasure?” Moreau asked.

“Yes.”

“And you’ve no idea which of these might be the right one?”

Olivia thought for a moment, staring at the funerary cone, turning it around in her hands.