Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings (24 page)

Icy fingers suddenly seemed to close around his heart. A cold hand seemed to shove him urgently from behind. It was the wind. The wind … whispering, crying out … warning him?

He was afraid. He was in love with her, and he had tried to make her realize that she was in love with him. But he had been angry, and he had let her go back to Darryl. And to danger?

Oh, you fool, you fool! The voice was his own, mocking him inside his own mind. He had been so determined to be wary of her. After so many years she had returned, and he had been sure she was back for nothing more than what she could drain from the place. But he had been wrong. He knew it in his heart. And if he were to lose her now, life would never be the same again. She had touched him with her wide eyes and her innocence. There had never been anything he could do to prove his own innocence to her, and yet she had loved him anyway, whether she knew it or not.

“Allyssa!” he cried suddenly. His voice carried, echoing in the night. “Allyssa!” What a fool he'd been. Suddenly, and without doubt, he knew that she was in danger. Deadly danger. He started to run.

She came to because of the water.

At first it just delicately touched her cheek where it lay against the stone. It touched her leg, her hip, her ribs, her arm. She managed to open her eyes. Her hand lay sprawled out before her. She saw the water as it rose over her fingers. Rose quickly. She sat up, her head reeling. She pressed her hands to it, trying to remember where she was and how she had come to be here. It was dark. Only the faintest hint of moonlight, seeping in from some distant opening, allowed her to see at all.

The tunnel. She gritted her teeth against the thudding pain in her head. She was in the tunnel. She had followed Darryl here. He had struck her on the head, though apparently he hadn't bothered to tie her up after all. He was a criminal. A handsome, polite, charming, well-dressed criminal.

And he had tried to kill her.

Not only that, he stood a very good chance of succeeding.

The water was rising all around her. It had come up six inches as she had struggled to sit up, and another six as she had tried to clear her head and assess her position. She staggered to her feet, but by the time she reached them, the water came to her knees.

The horror of her situation filled her. The tunnel flooded at high tide. That was the trick to the place. The tunnel ran to the river, and the river led straight to the ocean, and the place flooded every morning and every night at high tide. She didn't know when it had been built, but it was clearly ancient, and she was certain that in the past, the Evigans had helped their political friends and hindered their enemies with it. And now …

She didn't dare think. The water was rising so quickly! It was past her knees. It was cold, frigidly cold. It would numb her soon, keeping her from thinking, keeping her from moving. Oh, yes, she would be taken care of! She would drown, and all that Darryl and Gregory would have to do would be to move her body from the tunnel to the river. Her lungs would be filled with water, and the coroner would rule that hers had been a death by accidental drowning.

The darkness was confusing. She turned, trying to fathom in which direction the family crypt lay. She decided that it was to her left, and she started walking that way.

The water had risen to her hips.

She tried to hurry, but it was almost impossible to move quickly through the icy water. And it was rising, rising.

To her rib cage now. Coming faster in a sudden rush. To her shoulders. She began to swim, urging her frozen limbs to obey the signals from her mind.

Higher, higher …

It rose above her head. She treaded water, taking a deep breath from the airspace above her head, then plunged forward, swimming hard. Breath! She needed another breath! She rose to the surface again. The cold was so fierce. Her limbs didn't want to move. Her mind didn't want to obey. Perhaps it would be easier to give in to the numbing power of the cold. How did one drown? It would be awful. She would be desperate, her lungs burning, her head pounding. She would breathe in, the freezing water would fill her lungs … and she would die.

She made it to the tiny pocket of air at the top of the tunnel. Would that soon fill with water, too? She gasped in a breath, listening to the loud wheezing of her bid for air. She inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again. Oh, no! She had forgotten the direction. In the darkness, in her terror to breathe, she had become confused.…

My hand! Take my hand!

She blinked. Fingers, long, strong fingers, reached out to her. Brian. Not Brian. She didn't know. Someone trying to save her? Someone trying to kill her more swiftly, more mercifully?

The fingers curled around her own. Hard, strong, sure. She felt as if she was sailing through the water. Perhaps this was death. Perhaps this was how one died.

She closed her eyes against the sting of the water. The fingers! She had lost hold of them. She was alone again, scrambling to the surface, seeking air, air.…

Something was in front of her now. A wall. She crawled up against it, gasping, heaving, as she found an inch of air and inhaled deeply. “Help me! Dear Lord, help me!”

Something moved beneath her fingers. She was sinking again, falling, falling into the water. She heard a distant splash.

And felt a touch again. Hard, strong, sure. Arms swept around her. Arms dragged her up. Arms wrapped around her tightly and securely, arms so warm that they would surely never let her go.

A strong kick and surge brought them both up together. She was being dragged up, up. Then she was suddenly on firm ground, the cold stone floor of the crypt. She rolled slightly, still gasping for breath. She had reached the secret exit from the crypt. Looking downward, she could see the slope of the tunnel.

It was completely flooded now, the water lapping into the crypt but rising no higher.

She closed her eyes, feeling those strong arms again. She began to cough, and her eyes opened very wide. Brian. He was drenched from head to toe, his dark hair plastered over his forehead, his sodden sweater clinging to the muscled wall of his chest. His eyes, though, were warm. A burning gold that offered such a ray of heat …

“Oh, Brian!” She threw her arms around him, and he clasped her tightly, rocking her. They were surrounded by the hard wooden coffins and the marble sarcophagi of the family, but nothing seemed eerie or frightening to her now.

Brian rose, sweeping her up in his arms. “I've got to get you warm.”

“How did you know?” she whispered. “How did you find me? How did you know where to come?”

“I don't know,” he told her.

“Oh! You've got to watch out! Darryl did this. He's been smuggling artifacts out of the country. He's been doing it for years and years.”

“And Paddy must have guessed,” Brian mused. They had reached the main entrance to the tomb, and he stopped and stared at her. “You're trembling!” he whispered. He hugged her more closely to him. “My God,” he said huskily, “if I had lost you … My God, what am I doing? I've got to get you warm.” He started up the stairs from the crypt, his eyes still locked with hers.

“I love you, Brian,” she said very softly. She was trembling, with cold, but her voice would have quavered anyway. “I love you,” she whispered again, as he stared at her with a burning gaze.

“How touching! How very touching!”

Brian's gaze flew from hers, and they both stared up the steps at the man who had spoken.

Darryl was there. Waiting for them. With a gun.

Allyssa inhaled sharply. Brian set her down on the lowest step and started up the rest of the way, staring at Darryl. He seemed to be ignoring the gun.

“Brian!” she cried out sharply.

“Stand still, you fool!” Darryl warned him. “I'll shoot you in the blink of an eye—”

“Well, isn't that what you're planning on doing anyway?” Brian asked curtly. He paused for the barest fraction of a second; then he made a flying lunge.

The gun went off.

Allyssa screamed, racing up the stairs to see what was happening. The gun was nowhere in sight, and both men were still alive. They were rolling over one another, knocking into the ancient gravestones, coming to rest beneath the kneeling angel.

“You son of a bitch!” she heard Brian rage to Darryl. She heard the crunch of one blow, then another. There was no contest anymore. Brian was the stronger man to begin with, and he was furious. He dragged Darryl up, then knocked him down again.

It was over. All over …

Except that Darryl hadn't been alone. From her vantage point near the top of the steps, Allyssa could see that Gregory—the ever faithful servant!—was coming silently around the crypt, carrying a long, wicked-looking kitchen knife, intending to sink it into Brian's back before he could turn to defend himself.

“Brian!” she cried out in warning. Her fingers closed over something on the ground. Shaking, she looked at it. It was the marble statuette Darryl had used—twice!—to knock her out. She picked it up, then gasped. Gregory had turned away from Brian when he had heard her call out. And now he was coming toward her.

She threw the little marble statuette with all her strength, catching Gregory in the forehead. He fell backward, right into Brian's arms. Brian snatched the knife from his grasp, then let him fall to the earth with a thud.

Brian looked from Gregory to Allyssa. “Bravo!” he commended her.

She smiled, but she was shaking more and more severely. She was trying to stand, but she was faltering. He swept her up once again. “I've got to take you to the castle. Call the constable. And warm you up,” he said tenderly.

She leaned back in his arms. “Darryl stole the Norman cross,” she told him. “My mother was innocent.”

“I never thought she was guilty.”

“Do you think even Paddy somehow knows now that she was innocent?”

“Yes, I think so.” She leaned back, smiling. It was so comfortable to be held.

Within two hours the constable and his men had come and gone. Brian and Allyssa had done all the explaining they could do. Then Darryl and Gregory had been arrested, and they had done the rest of the explaining. The constable had been a very happy man. “We've been trying to figure this one out for years and years, Miss Evigan. You and Mr. Wilde have done us a tremendous service this night. We knew artifacts were disappearing. We just couldn't begin to fathom how!”

Allyssa hadn't needed to see Darryl again, and she hoped she never would. The constable assured her that her distant cousin would be locked up for a long, long time.

By the time midnight came, she had soaked in a scalding bath, Brian had prepared them both hot toddies with lots of lemon and whiskey and sugar, and she had sipped hers and felt wonderful. Wrapped up in a huge towel, she lay in his arms in her bedroom in the castle, touching his cheek.

“You were wonderful. You came into the depths of the tunnel to find me!” she whispered.

He frowned. “No, you were wonderful, my love. I was frantic! I didn't know where to search. Not until I heard you calling for help behind that false door.”

Allyssa frowned. “But you led me to the door!”

He shook his head.

“But …”

“Let's not discuss the tunnel,” he said firmly. “Let's get back to where we were before we were so rudely interrupted by Darryl and Gregory.”

“Where were we?”

“You were saying that you loved me. Say it again.”

She shook her head.

“You don't love me?”

“I would very much like to hear it from you before I start repeating myself,” she said primly.

“I love you,” he said huskily, kissing her lips, then her forehead, then her nose, then her lips again. “I love you. I think I might have fallen in love with you the moment I first saw you. I don't know. I tried not to. But I do love you. Very much.”

“Oh, Brian, I love you so much! We'll get the castle put in your name. We'll find something to help us survive here, other than the sheep—”

He pressed a finger against her lips. “I don't survive on the sheep,” he told her.

“No?”

“They're awfully pretty on the green hillsides. That's why I keep them. But for a living, I write mystery novels.”

Allyssa started to laugh, then leaned against him. “Well, you aren't after my inheritance, then!”

He shook his head. “Sorry!”

She frowned again. “But, Brian, someone did pick me up—”

He groaned softly. “Let's not argue. I love you, Allyssa. I love you with all my heart. I'm dying for you to marry me, to live with me, to be my wife. You're safe now, and I'll never let you go again.”

She was safe. She was in his arms. And maybe some things didn't matter. Maybe some mysteries were best unsolved.

“Never?” she murmured, trembling slightly, feeling the gold heat of his eyes on her.

“Never,” he promised. “You're still cold!”

“No,” she murmured.

But she was glad she had been trembling, because he was rising over her with a definite sizzle in his eyes.

“I promised to warm you,” he said softly. “And right now I intend to make you very, very warm.”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you!” she whispered again.

“And I love you!”

And then, just as he had promised, he saw to it that she was very, very warm indeed.

EPILOGUE

B
rian and Allyssa could think of no reason to wait for their wedding. They made arrangements with the church, and eight weeks from the day Allyssa had first come to the castle, she and Brian hosted their own wedding reception there. The ceremony had been celebrated in the fourteenth-century chapel in the village, and though they were going to have a number of guests staying at the castle—mainly Allyssa's friends, who had flown over from the States, and a few of Brian's friends and business associates from London—they had chosen to make their home in the cottage.