Kingdom Come (61 page)

She gave him a disbelieving look. “No,” she drew the word out as if outraged.  “Really?”

He snorted.  “Really,” he said. “He comes from generations of legal counsel to the Hages. He thinks he can snoop into all of my business.”

Rory laughed softly as he led her through the red room and into another chamber, this one smaller and more cluttered. It smelled of pipe tobacco and tea.  Rory came to a halt just inside the door, observing the books packed to the ceiling and taking a deep breath of the tobacco smell.  Dan went to the desk that had to be three hundred years old; it was magnificent. Once she noticed the desk, she took a few steps towards it to get a better look.

“Wow,” she murmured. “This desk is amazing. How old is it?”

Dan was digging in drawers, finally pulling out a key ring.  He spoke as he turned to the shelf behind him, jiggled a book, and an entire shelf suddenly slid aside to reveal a wall safe.

“It was built in fourteen seventy,” he replied.

Rory was amazed by both the desk and the hidden wall safe. “I’d have to say that this is seriously the coolest room in the house,” she declared. “Ancient desks and hidden wall safes. It’s so… so Sherlock Holmes. Are the Hounds of the Baskervilles in the next room?”

Dan laughed softly as the safe popped open and he pulled forth a long metal box.  He set the box on the table and pulled up a chair for Rory. She ended up sitting next to him at the desk. 

“No hounds,” he assured her. “At least, not those types. I have a few dogs but they’re house dogs. Anyway, I was hoping to get you alone.  I have many questions.”

She smiled faintly. “No doubt you do,” she said quietly, looking to her lap.

Dan studied her a moment; she was undoubtedly beautiful, which had surprised him. He didn’t know what he had expected, but a drop-dead gorgeous woman hadn’t crossed his mind.  His gaze lingered on her a moment before he moved to the box and, taking a small key from the same key ring that had opened the safe and using it on the box. The lid popped open and Rory looked up from her lap, seeing a yellowed scroll packed carefully in the box.  She couldn’t take her eyes off it, even when Dan set the keys down and looked at her.

“Now,” he lowered his voice.  “I sincerely cannot stress to you the importance of this document to my family, but as an archaeologist, I’m sure you can understand.  This is one of the few family heirlooms we have that no one really talks about. It’s sort of like the Shroud of Turin; only a select few have seen it and it drums up a great mystery for us.  It’s a mystery with your name on it and I would like to know what you know about it.”

Rory stared at the parchment, her mind whirling with truths and deceptions. She didn’t want to lie to the guy, but she wasn’t too keen on telling him the truth. He might not believe her and slam the lid on the box, never to show it to her again. Still, it was worth a shot. She’d come this far so she decided to take a leap of faith. She fixed Dan in the eye.

“Your ancestor, Kieran Hage, wrote this document in the year eleven hundred and ninety three, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And he wrote my name and nationality on it, right?”        Dan nodded. “It would seem so.”

Rory took a deep breath and reached out, putting her soft hand on Dan’s muscular, fuzzy forearm.

“Do you believe that there are things in this world that we can’t explain?” when he cocked his head curiously, she explained. “Like ghosts and UFO’s and stuff like that?”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “There’s no proof of those things.”

“There doesn’t have to be. But do you have faith that things like that are possible?”        

The twinkle was back in his bright green eyes. “Maybe.”

She smiled faintly. “Good,” she whispered. “Because what I’m about to tell you is God’s honest truth. I swear I would never lie; I have no reason to. I’m not crazy and I don’t do drugs.  But before I say anything, I need to ask you a question.”

“What’s that?”

“Is there any record of Kieran having been married?”

Dan nodded. “He was, for about a year.”

“What happened to his wife?”

Dan scratched his head thoughtfully again. “According to family records, she died sometime in the spring of eleven hundred and ninety three, right about the time he wrote this letter.” He cocked his head, confused. “Why? What’s it all about?”

Rory smiled, understanding his confusion. “Do you know how she died?”

He nodded decisively. “Yes,” he replied. “Executed by Prince John right before the prince’s death, although we’re not sure why she was killed. We don’t have records that are that detailed.”

“But Kieran had a journal. Surely he wrote about it in his journal.”

Dan stared at her and Rory swore she could see the color drain from his face.  His expression eventually twisted with great bewilderment. “How in the world would you know that?” he breathed.

“I know that and a lot more. Can I have my letter now, please?”

Dan shook his head, torn between extreme disbelief and, Rory thought, mounting anger. “No,” he said firmly. “Not until you tell me what else you know.”

“I know about the crown of thorns or, as Kieran called it, the diadem of Christ.”

That bit of information caused Dan to bolt out of his seat with shock.  It was as if he was suddenly repulsed by her but more than that, he looked plainly ill. He ended up standing over by the wall safe, staring at Rory with his hands over his mouth. There was a huge amount of shock in his eyes. When he did speak, it came out sounding like a hiss.

“Tell me how you know about that,” he demanded. “No one but the males in my family know about that.  It’s a family secret passed down from earl to earl, never to be revealed to outsiders. That is our treasure and ours alone. How do you know?”

Rory’s gaze moved to the parchment.  “If you let me read my letter, I’ll tell you how I know.”

Dan remained standing a moment longer before reclaiming his seat, somewhat shaken, and pulling the vellum from the steel, fireproof box.  He handed it to Rory without another word.

Rory accepted the parchment, her hands quivering.   She inspected the exterior, the seal, noting that it was Kieran’s personal seal, and the tears began to come. She couldn’t help it.  Carefully, she ran her finger under the wax and popped the ancient seal. The wax remained surprisingly intact.  Very carefully, she unrolled the parchment.

She struggled to blink away the tears because she couldn’t read through all of the water in her eyes.  But seeing the first three words at the top of the parchment had her weeping softly.  She tried not to get salty tears on the ancient material as she absorbed Kieran’s words, his writing, the feel of his parchment in her hands. The more she read, the more evident her surprise became until she suddenly dropped the parchment onto the desk top, sobbing so hard that she could hardly breathe. 

Dan watched her, concerned and baffled, as Rory suddenly reached out and yanked on his hand.

“Where is Kieran buried?” she wept.

Dan was both greatly disturbed and greatly confused.  He instinctively grasped Rory’s hand gently as if to give her comfort because the woman was seriously distressed.

“What?” his bafflement won over. “Why do you…?”

Rory was on her feet.  But her feet wouldn’t support her so she fell to her knees, her hands on Dan’s thighs as if she was begging; begging him to understand her, begging him to do as she asked. Begging a man she had never met before. But nothing in this world had ever meant as much to her as this did.

“Please,” she beseeched him. “Oh, God, please… where is he buried?”

Dan gazed down into her lovely face, finding himself swept up in her fervor whether or not he wanted to be.  He just couldn’t help it. Too much about this situation was bizarre and magical. There was some very small part of him that wanted to believe in the unbelievable, to solve a mystery that had been a part of his family’s history for eight hundred years.

“He’s at Southwell Minster,” he said softly. “They entire family is buried there. Why? What in God’s name does that parchment say?”

Rory was struggling to calm down; deep down, buried beneath the hysteria and tears, her level self told her that she’d never achieve her ends unless she was able to calmly and succinctly explain what needed to happen. And the only person in this world who could make things happen was seated in front of her.  Still on her knees, she reached over to the table and handed him the parchment. 

He took it hesitantly, eyeing her with some trepidation as he did so, but finally settled down and carefully read the secret that his family had guarded for eight hundred years.   By the time he finished reading the parchment, his face was ashen.

“I… I don’t understand,” he looked at her, his bright green eyes wide with astonishment. “What does it all mean?”

Though there were tears still on Rory’s face, she smiled. She couldn’t help it; she suddenly began to laugh, looking up to the heavens as if to thank them for showing her this one final mercy.  It was more than she could have ever hoped for but, given Kieran’s intelligence, she wasn’t surprised. He would stop at nothing to be reunited with her. She grasped one of Dan’s hands tightly.

“It means that if you take me into town and open Sir Kieran’s crypt, I swear to God that you will witness a miracle,” she murmured. “It means that right now, I need for you to trust me.  I know this sounds absolutely crazy and I know that, if I were in your shoes, I would think that I was nuts, but I promise you that I’m not. I promise that everything will explain itself if you’ll just take a very small chance and take me into town to Sir Kieran’s crypt.”

He stared at her, unnerved yet inherently curious. “You want me to open his crypt? I can’t do that!”

Rory nodded patiently. “Yes, you can. You’re the Earl of Newark and you can open your own family’s crypt.” She squeezed his hand, her hazel eyes moist and lovely and pleading. “I can’t tell you how important this is or how this will change the way you view the world. All I can tell you is that I’m begging you to do this for a woman who had a letter written to her eight hundred years ago by your ancestor. Isn’t that enough to convince you that I might be telling the truth?”

Dan just stared at her.  He was, frankly, rather scared by all of this. But it wasn’t enough to dampen the curiosity that was consuming him, the family mystery that was finally going to be solved.  Too much about this circumstance was strange enough to cause him to think he might want to see what she was talking about. Odd clues from an eight hundred year old letter had him seriously considering it. 

He let out a heavy sigh. “All right,” he muttered, standing up and pulling her off the floor. “I’ll take you there. But you tell me one thing and you be perfectly truthful; who are you and why is this letter written to you?”

Rory wiped the moisture away from her eyes, facing Dan with a clear and level head for nearly the first time since their introduction.

“May I ask you a question first?” she ventured, speaking quickly before he could interrupt her. “Do you know the name of Sir Kieran’s wife?”

His brow furrowed as he looked at her, an eyebrow lifting thoughtfully. He let go of her hand and made his way over to one of the innumerable bookshelves in the room and began thumbing through several huge, leather-bound volumes. He finally came to the one he was looking for, pulled it out, and began to thumb through it.  Rory stood on pins and needles, watching him as he slowed in his perusing and came to rest on a particular page.  About half way down the sheet, he found what he was looking for.  He read it back to her.