The Forgiven Duke (A Forgotten Castles Novel) (14 page)

Seeing Alexandria’s face, he buried his face into his hands. Her dark hair that came alive in the sun when she’d pulled back the hood of her crimson cloak, the sunshine lighting up her face. Blue eyes in a face of creamy skin with a blush of pink on her cheeks where the wind had whipped color into them. Lovely, but more . . . It was as if he knew her spirit and it matched his. The rib taken from
his
side.

It hurts to think of her. And with him!
Pain like he’d never experienced slashed through him as he saw John’s face, his arm around her, his head leaning down toward her. It was all Gabriel could do not to commandeer a ship and sail back to Iceland to fetch her himself. But if he did that, the regent would have his neck. Gabriel had no choice but to wait for the regent’s soldiers to bring her back.

Lord, bring her safely to me, I beg You. I will guard her with my life. You know that I will.

With a burst of frustration, he expelled a breath, stood, and walked quickly out of the church. He plunged down the walkway in the soundless, pouring rain. He was soaked through in minutes. Looking about, he noted a public house up the street and hurried toward it. He could sit by a fire to dry out, get something warm to drink, and hire a carriage from there.

As he crossed the street, sudden arms grasped him from behind and yanked him into a dark side street. Gabriel grunted as a heavy object came down on his shoulder, but he was able to spin around and free himself from the hold.

He looked into the face of a dark-skinned man with black hair and a mustache that curled up on either side. He was tall, an inch taller than Gabriel, but thin and wiry. The other man with him was short and squat, swaying from side to side with a leering smile—he was holding a pistol.

Gabriel backed away, reaching for his short sword he always wore at his waist. The tall man was speaking, but of course Gabriel couldn’t make it out. He only knew one thing for certain—they appeared Spanish, and two Spaniards had been following Alexandria; Montague had told him all about them. This could be them. It had to be. And if that was the case, they wouldn’t want to kill him. They would want to know what he knew about the manuscript . . . and they would want to know where Alexandria was, if they didn’t have her already.

He reasoned through this in seconds and then charged the short man, thinking he wouldn’t shoot and the tactic would surprise them. He was more nimble than Gabriel thought. The little man scurried back and climbed onto a ledge protruding from a storefront. Gabriel stretched up and slashed his sword against the man’s legs. He threw back his head in agony and dropped the pistol. Gabriel kicked it, spinning it like a gleaming black top down the street.

Gabriel turned just as the thrust of the tall man’s blade came within an inch of his chest. He parried the move in defense, stepping closer to counter the attack. The Spaniard’s sword was longer, thinner, and after a few movements, Gabriel knew that he was fighting an accomplished swordsman. If only he could hear what the fat man behind him was doing, but he dared not look around.

The cold rain made the street slippery as they rushed back and forth, parry and riposte, slash and stab. He just avoided a slash across his forward thigh and then leaned in with a mighty thrust. The Spaniard’s sword flashed like the lightning around them. Deflecting it, Gabriel panted, starting to panic. Thank God he had kept up with his practices, but the fact that he couldn’t hear was a definite disadvantage. Where was the other man?

Just as he thought it, he felt something crash across the back of his skull.

Oh no.

His eyes rolled back into his head and darkness closed in.

GABRIEL DREAMED HE HEARD MUSIC.

The most beautiful opera he could ever imagine. Sweeping notes trilled in and out with sound as if they were breathing, as if alive, seeming heaven-born in their perfect accord with each other. Harmonious sounds. Yes, that was it. He drifted in that place . . . floating and peaceful . . . drifted there forever it seemed.

Eons later, his eyes moved against the black wall of his eyelids as a wave of searing pain jolted him into shadowy awareness. A throb of heat burned from the top of his head down to his chest, down farther where his stomach rolled in rebellion. He turned to his side and emptied the contents of his stomach, sweat breaking out over his whole body. He lay back down, gasping for air, some part of him realizing that had he not crept from unconsciousness for the event, he would have never woken up.

My God, do not forsake me.
Jesus’ words rang through his being until he settled back into the darkness.

Next when he awoke it was to a hard tapping on his shoulder. He turned his head away, wishing for sleep and silence forever, but the tapping turned to shoving so he opened his eyes. Flashes of light streaked across his vision. He closed his eyes against it but was roughly shoved again. He yelled out and pushed the hand away, opening his eyes and peering through the dim light.

A slovenly, dark-looking man stared down at him. His lips said something beneath the thick growth of hair, but Gabriel couldn’t begin to make it out. The man held out a tin cup and shook it at him. Gabriel was to drink, was he? He understood that much.

Lifting his head made his vision swim. The dull ache in the back of his head pulsed with his heartbeat. Ah yes, the fight. It was coming back to him. He blinked heavily as his hand shook, spilling water across whatever it was that was covering him. The bludgeon to the head. That explained the feeling that his skull was cracked. But where was he?

The tilting of the room combined with the familiar nausea jogged his senses toward the answer. A ship. Dear God, save him; he must be on a Spanish ship.

He took a sip of the water tasting the cool, clear goodness. Well, at least they wanted him alive. They wouldn’t go to the trouble of waking him to drink if they didn’t. Little good that it would do him, what with being unable to keep anything down. He should warn them of his impending doom, should they not locate some ginger.

“Terrible seasickness. Ginger root, if you have it.”

He could almost see the man’s scowl beneath the heavy, black beard, but Gabriel shut his eyes and tuned him out. He was too tired to care if they found it or not.

All through the night, great waves crashed against the ship, causing it to dip into deep troughs and then rise, as if taking off for flight onto the swell of a wave. Gabriel sweated it out with fingers gripping the side of his cot and teeth clenched together. He clung to sanity against the constant heaving of his stomach and prayed for it to end. But it did not end. It went on for hours and hours and hours.

In the morning, the stillness felt like he’d stepped into another world. He woke with a start and sat up. Were they still here or in some heavenly place and hadn’t realized it yet? With shaking legs like a newborn calf, he stumbled from his room and up the ladder to the deck. As soon as a sailor saw him, there was a great commotion, men running toward him.

Before he had time to make it to the railing, seeing sea all around him, he was tackled from behind and taken down to the planks of the deck. Three men attacked him, pummeling him and holding him down. His head reeled anew as they tied his hands and hefted him up, stretching him from limb to limb as they carried him back to his cot and threw him on it.

He curled onto his side, hands tied behind his back, the aching of his shoulders just beginning, and watched them leave.

This time they locked him inside.

Chapter Fifteen

T
hey traveled east from Svein’s hometown of Reykjahlið. Svein stayed behind with his family, giving Alex and John strict instructions for the route to Helgustadir and the crystal mines that lay in the southeastern fjords on the coast of Iceland.

They crossed mountainous land, the rocky soil rich orange where the snow was sparse. Every few miles they saw various sizes of volcanoes and pseudovolcanoes with their round, crater tops and pools of snow in the centers, others filled with the bluest water Alex had ever seen.

And then there were the boiling, bubbling mud pools and steaming mud pots Svein warned against, where they had to dismount and carefully tread across this liquid world with its thin earthen crust, like tiptoeing across a bubbling pot of soup by treading on floating dumplings. She inhaled and closed her eyes, her face against the wind, basking in this alien land that sparked strange currents of disquiet and excitement through her veins.

By noon, the road turned south and the landscape flattened into a rocky ice desert. It looked like what she imagined the face of the moon to be like, but she didn’t say that to John. They maintained a mutual silence through this extraordinary world as if by unspoken agreement that mere words would ruin the magical quality, that they wouldn’t be able to hear the land speak to them unless they were still and silent inside.

As the day waned into afternoon, the land changed again, became greener the farther south they went. Alex could begin to smell the sea in the air. They passed homesteads, as they were called here, farms with sheep and horses mostly since the land was poorly suited for crops. The volcanic mountains were ever in the distance before and behind them. They crossed little trickling steams and a rushing river, pausing to see cliffs where waterfalls gushed over the tops, spraying clear droplets toward them.

It was growing dark when they finally came to the little town of Reyðarfjörður, where Svein had told them to stay for the night. In the morning, they would track down the people of the Helgustadir Mine and ask questions about Augusto and the famous crystal. But now both she and her little horse were near exhaustion. Alex’s stomach growled in anticipation as they trotted down the street and saw the inn Svein had mentioned. It would be good to get out of the constant wind for a hot meal to warm their insides.

“Here it is.” John’s voice sounded strange and clipped after hearing nothing but the moaning wind for the first time in hours. Alex glanced over at him. “Are you as tired as I am? I’m not sure I can swing my leg around to dismount from this horse.”

John chuckled. “We should find a hot springs to soothe the aches from our bodies. Wait there and I will come and help you down.”

Alex did as he instructed and waited until he dismounted and looped his horse’s reins around a post before coming over and pulling her down into his arms. She tottered a moment, adjusting to straightening her legs after so many hours in the saddle, clinging to his shoulders and laughing at herself. “My legs don’t seem to want to come together.”

John looked to be choking off a laugh. “Let’s get you some dinner and find someone to take care of the horses, shall we?”

They went into the inn and spoke with a jolly-faced fellow who nodded and assured them of providing everything they needed. “Sit yourselves down here now.” He directed them to a low table in the common room. “And my wife, Heidi, will bring out some food. Did you come by ship?”

“Originally we came by ship to Reykjavik, but we’ve been in Iceland for a fortnight and have most recently traveled overland from Dimmu borgir.”

“Oh, you saw the Black Castles, did you? I’ve not been there in an age. Sightseeing on our island, are you? A newly wedded couple, I’m guessing. On a wedding trip?”

Alex blushed, not sure what to say. The man was certainly nosy.

John winked at him. “She has always had an interest in Iceland, haven’t you, love?”

“Uh, yes, and a recent interest in the famous Icelandic crystals. We’ve come to see the mine.”

“Oh, the crystals now?” The man beamed. “I know just the man to see about that. I will take you to him in the morning.”

“Thank you, Mr. . . . ?”

He stretched out a meaty hand to each of them. “Johannes Kristinsson, pleased to meet you.”

“We are Lord and Lady Lemon of Dublin. I am John Lemon.”

Alex frowned but didn’t say anything to correct him. He was going along all too easily with the man’s misconception that they were married, and she wasn’t sure why. They had told the truth in Reykjavik. The thought that all of this dishonesty was going to get her into trouble pounded like a little hammer against her temples. And John was worse than she was. He didn’t even seem to feel guilty over it.

A slight woman with thin blond braids came forward and introduced herself as Heidi, then brought out a meal of fish and potatoes with thick slices of hearty rye bread. After only a few bites, Alex had to fight off the urge to nod off over her plate, exhaustion overcoming her as the warm food settled in her stomach.

John leaned over and chuckled in her ear. “We had best get you to bed before you land face-first in your fish.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, nodding.

They were shown to a small room with hardly enough space for the bed and one chest of drawers. Alex plopped down on the soft pallet and fell back against the pillow. “Here, let’s at least take off your shoes,” she heard John say over her.

She drifted off to sleep with the sound of them hitting the floor with a distant thud. She felt John lift the blanket over her and tuck it under her chin.
Such a nice man
, she thought as he kissed her good night on the forehead.

THE NEXT MORNING, SHE OPENED
her eyes to the smell of bread fresh from the oven and coffee in the air. Coffee? She’d not had coffee in an age. Her stomach rumbled as she turned her head and saw John, turned toward her, still asleep and lying right beside her. Goodness gracious, they’d slept the night through in the same bed together!

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked back down at him. With his hand curled under one cheek, he looked boyishly sweet, younger than his thirty-some years. She started to lean toward him to give his cheek a kiss to wake him and then reared back. Thoughts like that would only get her into trouble.

Instead, she eased from the bed, slipped on her shoes, and crept out the door. Perhaps she could attend to her morning routine somewhere else. Heidi had been shy but helpful the night before. Perhaps Alex could borrow a brush and some soap to wash her face in another part of the inn. At least she wouldn’t be here beside him when John awoke. Knowing John, he would try to take some liberties.