Spirited Away (35 page)
Tristan took a breath to keep his anger at bay. "Thank you for the information, Constable Hurley. If you will, keep me informed."
"Well," Hurley continued, "that's still not quite all of it."
"Oh?" Tristan sent a glance at Jameson, who raised his white eyebrows.
"The third man had a slip of paper in the pocket of his trousers." The line went silent for a moment.
"It had Dr. Monroe's name, address, and contact number in the States, as well as your address, Lord Dreadmoor. Her mobile, as well. I'm guessing it was the chap who attacked her on the beach."
Tristan cursed under his breath. "Bleeding saints."
Again, Hurley cleared his throat. Tristan saw it was a habit the policeman had. "I realize you've quite a ... unique situation there at Dreadmoor. I suggest you have Dr. Monroe stay close at hand. At least until I've a better handle on this. No leads have been found so far. The crime scene was clean as a whistle—save Dr. Monroe's name. Whoever did this knew what they were doing."
Tristan agreed. "So it seems. Thank you, Constable. We'll be careful."
"Very well, then. I'll keep you posted."
The line went dead, and Tristan paced the kitchen. "Bloody saints, Jameson. She could have been killed."
Jameson calmly lifted the lid off a pot and stirred its contents. "Had he wanted to harm your lady, he could have done so by now. 'Tisn't the lady he wants. 'Tis something else."
"Mayhap." He walked over to the door and glanced over his shoulder. "I'm not giving him the chance."
Halfway across the hall, Kail stopped him. "She's found something. Digging like a madwoman, that one." He gave Tristan a grin. "She's determined."
"Don't I know it?"
Kail paused and turned his head. "What's wrong?"
Tristan continued through the great hall and out the door. "That was the constable on the phone.
There's been four killings and Erik is responsible, I'll warrant." He cut his gaze briefly to Kail. "No matter that he's taken over her mentor's body, he'll not get to her. I vow it. I've not a good feeling about this, Kail. Not at all."
As they walked up to the old kirk site, Tristan paused and stared. His Andrea was on hands and knees, her lovely little rump high in the air whilst she plundered the soil.
"Quite a sight, aye?" Kail said.
"Hmm. Quite." He gave his captain a warning glance. "Put your eyes back in your head, man, lest you want to lose them."
Kail laughed and slapped his shoulder. "I'll keep them, if it's all the same to you, little lad."
"Tristan!"
He ran to Andrea. "What is it?"
Shaking her head, she set her trowel down, pushed up, and sat back on her heels. She dragged her arm across her forehead. "Another leather tarp. Wrapped in twisted yew." She looked over her shoulder and met his stare. "It's a single sword. I can feel the outline of it."
Tristan's heart plummeted. Centuries ago, he didn't believe in curses. After having lived one for over seven hundred years, he was anxious to see what the tarp enclosed. "Christ, Andrea. Open it."
Lying on her stomach, she leaned over in the freshly dug earth and withdrew a large, leather-wrapped object. She scooted backward in the soil until the thing leveled to the ground. First to her knees, then to her feet she rose, holding the satchel as though her very own babe.
"Bleedin' saints, Tristan. Could it be so?" Stephen asked at his side.
Tristan looked around. All fourteen of his knights encircled him, just as anxious as he to see what the leather pouch revealed.
"Merde," mumbled Jason. "More twisted yew." He crossed himself. Twice.
Andrea lifted her face to Tristan's. "Let's go inside."
Moments later, everyone, Jameson included, huddled around the table while Andrea flicked open a knife and cut the yew vine. Slowly, she lifted the edges of the leather.
Fifteen gasps, followed by fifteen curses, filled the study.
"Damnation, Tristan," Richard said. " 'Tis yours."
"Why was it separated from ours?" Jason asked.
Tristan shook his head. "I vow I don't know." He turned his eyes to meet his love's. "Is there aught wrapped with it?"
Andi's mind spun in a hundred different directions. She heard Tristan ask the question, she heard the medieval male curses in the room. Even Jameson had uttered a soft "merde." But in her own mind, she could hear only one voice.
Kneel. Pray. Behind his eye.
As she ran her fingers lightly over the weapon, it struck her that centuries before, Tristan had gripped the leather-wrapped hilt, had sharpened the steel blade. It made her tingle inside just thinking of it. With ease, she stroked the sapphire stone set inside the hilt.
She gasped. Then she cursed.
Every male in the room snapped his head up.
"What is it?" Tristan asked. He moved to stand beside her, so close she could feel the hair on her arms go rigid from his energy. "Andrea!"
Taking the knife, she carefully wedged the blade tip where the stone met its steel casing. "Behind his eye ..."
Another round of curses filled the room as she worked the sapphire stone from the hilt. It popped out with ease, as though it'd been removed before. As she looked down, she realized why.
Beneath the stone lay a tiny, folded piece of parchment. Her heart slammed against her ribs and her fingers shook.
"Go ahead, love," Tristan urged, leaning his head closer. His lips seemed to brush the skin on her neck. "See what it is."
With a slow, deep breath, Andi opened the ancient parchment. She stared, unblinking, at the crude ink markings. "It's French-Norman," she whispered, scanning the words. The breath in her lungs left in a rush. "Oh God."
She looked up. Every knight in the room stood no more than a foot or two away. They crowded around her, staring, waiting.
"What is it, woman?" Gareth said. "I vow 'tis torture, the waiting."
"Aye, lady, please," Jason said next to her. "I cannot stand it."
She pushed her hair behind her ear. "I ... I can't be sure." She met Tristan's gaze. "It looks like a verse."
"A verse? What sort of verse?" said Richard.
Tristan's dark head bent over the parchment. After a moment, he lifted his eyes to hers. "Read it."
Andi shook her head. "I can read the words, but I can't translate all the words—"
"It matters naught. Just read it," he said in a low voice.
With a deep breath, she nodded. "Okay. Here goes." The room fell silent as she formed the strange, French-Norman words. Five sentences in all. And out of those, only six words were familiar.
Pray. Kneel. Fate. Befall. Silent. Forever.
Andi raised her gaze and looked around, then stared into Tristan's eyes. "What did it mean?"
A look of total defeat fell upon his handsome face. " 'Twas a release from the curse. 'Tis obvious that it does not work."
She blinked. "What do you mean, doesn't work?"
Sweeping the room with his hand, he raised his voice. "Look at my knights, Andrea. Look at me.
We're all still the same." He swiped his arm through hers. "See? We're all still spirits."
Her eyes fell to the old verse. Who'd penned it? God, how bizarre it all was. A month ago, she would have laughed at anyone who'd suggested she believed in curses. How different things had become.
Kneel. Pray.
Andi's head snapped up and she searched Tristan's face. "This is wrong."
He inclined his head. "What?"
Without waiting to explain, she turned, grabbed the sword, and fled the study. "This is all wrong,"
she called over her shoulder. "This has to be read exactly where it was found. Where it was buried.
On purpose."
Tristan ran beside her. "The kirk?"
Fifteen ghostly knights ran beside her as she made her way across the bailey. "The old kirk site."
With a silent prayer, she hoped she was right.
Andi stood on the old kirk site, Tristan on her right, Jameson on her left. Once more, she read the words scribbled on the aged parchment.
Thunder cracked and roared overhead. The sea waves bashed Dreadmoor's base, loud, threatening, deafening. The wind picked up, so brisk that she had to turn her back to the brunt of it. Shielding her eyes, Andi looked first at Jameson, then at Tristan.
"What's happening?" she yelled, searching his face for answers.
His mouth moved, but no words came forth.
Then, as fast as the wind whipped up, it completely died.
Tristan's lips kept moving, forming words with no sound. His face hardened as he looked around.
The other knights all tried to speak, but their voices remained silent.
"Jameson? What's going on?" she asked.
His face paled as he looked from one man to the next. "My lady, I do believe you've reversed the curse."
Before Andi's eyes, the knights, one by one, slowly began to fade into the waning afternoon light.
Her stomach tightened to a painful knot, a queasy feeling settling in, rising to her throat. She didn't think they'd just disappear. "Oh God. No."
Looking from one knight to the other, she helplessly watched as they slowly vanished. Her eyes clashed with Jason, a smile tipping the corner of his boyish mouth.
Sir Richard gave her a low bow. Tears stung her eyes. "Please, no."
Tristan moved closer to her, his big body looming over her like a sheltering tree. Their eyes locked, and she watched as he searched every inch of her face. His hungry gaze lingered on her lips for just a fraction, then moved up with a painful slowness. His face tightened, his jaw clenched, and his silent lips mouthed words she would never get to hear, but would be burned into her memory forever.
Do not forget me.
His body began to blur, the edges dimming, until she could see clear through him. Just before he faded away, he lifted his hand to her jaw, a caress she'd feel only in her dreams.
Then he was gone.
They were all gone.
Turning a slow circle, Andi looked at Dreadmoor's empty bailey in astonishment. It'd happened so fast, she couldn't grasp it, couldn't force herself to believe it. It just couldn't be.
A salty breeze wafted in from the shore, catching on her tongue and lingering there. Seagulls shrieked overhead, echoing like a crying child. She wanted to slump to the ground, but couldn't find the energy to move.
Jameson placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "My lady, please don't weep so. Come now. I'll fix you a nice pot of tea and we'll sit by the fire."
Andi turned her head and stared into Jameson's clear blue eyes. Wrinkles gathered at their corners, but warmth settled onto his aging features. She sniffed. When had she started crying? She hadn't even felt the stream trailing down her cheeks.
Until now.
The tears clung to the back of her throat, burning and making the breath catch in her lungs, forming that eternal lump that no matter how hard you try, you just can't swallow past. Words escaped her, so she nodded and allowed Jameson to grasp her elbow and guide her across the grounds.
Moments later, Jameson had Andi settled in front of the hearth on the sofa, a fire blazing, a pot of tea on the side table. He sat beside her, watching the flames. Neither said a word.
Jameson had to be even more saddened than her, she thought. He'd grown from a toddler to adulthood knowing Tristan. She'd known him for only a short time, and already her heart was breaking in two. She could only imagine how Jameson felt.
Just then, the phone rang. Jameson gave her a grave look. "Drink your tea, lady. I shall return in a moment." With a nod, he excused himself and quit the hall.
A sigh escaped her, and she pulled her knees up and stared into the orange embers. Thoughts of the past several weeks stormed through her mind, of Tristan, his men, and how a terrible crime had been committed over seven centuries before. Fifteen men had lost their lives.
And the killer had gotten completely away with it.
"Miss Kate is on her way over straightaway," Jameson said. He returned to his place beside her. "
'Tis ... overwhelming, my lady."
"Oh, Jameson," she said, her voice cracking. He pulled her to him, and Andi buried her face in his stiff butler's collar and cried. He patted her on the back, but she felt his chest shake, too.
God, in the space of a minute, she'd lost her soul mate. Her heart ached as though being squeezed in a vise. The tears wouldn't stop flowing, and poor Jameson took the brunt of it on the face of his jacket. Still, the sweet man tried his best to console her.
Moments later, Kate walked through the kitchen entrance. She hurried to the sofa. "Oh dear, is it true?" She sat on one side of Andi, her hand giving a comforting squeeze. "There, there, loves, I know it hurts."
Together they sat, quiet at first, until Andi's tears subsided. Kate gave her a warm smile. "Why don't you rest a bit, love? I'll help Edgar whip up a quick supper."
Andi heaved a sigh and nodded. "Are you sure I can't help?" She really didn't feel like doing much of anything, except ... nothing. Her heart was broken. And it hurt like hell.
"Nay, sweet, you go rest. I'll have me daughter bring Heath round in a bit. He'll want to be here, for sure."
With a thankful smile, Andi rose from the sofa. "If you change your mind and need me, just call."
With that, she left Kate and Jameson together and crossed the great hall.
Every step was a painful memory. Across floors Tristan not only grew up on, but roamed as a spirit.
Tapestries his mother and grandmother had stitched reminded her of the great warrior he was. What a sincere and loyal man he was.
He'd been hers for a while ...
At her door, tears began anew. Jason no longer stood guard at her door, Kail would never bellow up the corridor, looking for Tristan ...
Quickly, Andi slipped into her chamber, crawled up on the bed, and cried herself to sleep.
She had no idea how long she slept before a voice pulled her from her dreams.
"Andrea?"
Her eyes flew open. What was Kirk doing here? And was it really Kirk? He stood there, a smile crossing his striking features.
