“You came for me,” she said, a sob in her voice. “However did you manage it?”
“Part bloodhound, I guess. You didn’t leave much of a trail.” He ran a bruised-knuckled hand over her head and pressed a kiss to her temple. “There’s no time to lose. He won’t be out long. Let’s get out of here.”
“Not until we find what we came for. We need the key.” She knelt and found it in the dirt next to Sir Malcolm’s inert body. Then she scooped up the red silk. “Tie him up.”
“Wish this was sturdier stuff,” Jacob complained as he jerked Sir Malcolm’s hands behind him. “Did you find the manuscript?”
“I think so.” She shoved the key into the locked drawer and gave it a quick turn. Then she yanked open the drawer with enough force to pull the whole thing from the desk. Nestled in its oak cradle, there was an illuminated codex missing its front cover. The same sort of writhing beasts drawn in the margins of her half danced along the edges of these sheaves.
She removed the codex from the drawer and spread it carefully on top of the desk to inspect it. The bindings, frayed at the edges, were identical to her portion of the work. The same florid hand had lettered the pages.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “This is definitely it.”
“Give me your stockings,” Jacob demanded.
“What?” Her head jerked up in surprise. In her elation over her discovery she’d almost forgotten everything else.
“We need something to gag Ravenwood so he can’t call for help right away and I want to bind his feet as well,” Jacob said. “It may take us longer than we’d like to escape this place. We need all the time we can get.”
She toed off her slippers and unrolled her stockings without another word. In a few moments, she and Jacob were stealing back down the dark tunnel toward the large vaulted chamber. She pulled both her arms inside her robe to clutch the manuscript tight to her chest, hiding it from any eyes that might not be glazed with the drugging smoke.
The cloying incense had fingered its way down the corridor. Jacob cinched her close and kissed her before they passed through the arched doorway. His kiss was rough, demanding, and he pulled away from her with a growling curse. His kisses were usually kinder, though no less stirring than this primitive one. He was as affected by the incense as she.
“Stay close,” he ordered. “Don’t stop. And everything will be fine.”
Fine? How on earth could everything be fine?
They had to slip unnoticed through the riotous Order without succumbing to the incense fumes, escape through the antechamber and long tunnel, and back through the dark house on Ivy Lane before Sir Malcolm raised an alarm. Then somehow, if they managed that astounding feat, they still had to make their way back to Lord Kilmaine’s house before anyone discovered she was missing.
Fine
was as unlikely an outcome as finding a virgin in the next room.
C
HAPTER
21
M
alcolm swam through the blackness, straining toward consciousness. Once he escaped the sucking darkness, he found himself bound and gagged, lying across the mosaic that celebrated the Horned One.
This was not part of his plan.
He’d intended to make Lady Cambourne his newest consort, to bend her to his will in all things, the better to monitor her progress in finding the last dagger.
Where the hell had Preston come from?
When Malcolm observed the lady in his gazing ball prior to sending the coach to collect her, he hadn’t seen Jacob Preston anywhere near her all evening. Obviously, the man had some power than enabled him to evade Malcolm’s notice.
He worked at the silk binding his hands and finally managed to free himself. Malcolm spat out the gag and cursed Preston to the ninth circle of Hell as he untied his feet. He’d have to destroy the red silk since it had been used to subdue him, but he decided to pocket Lady Cambourne’s stockings. They could come in handy. Who knew when a rite might call for a token, a thing belonging to the one he wished to influence?
He glanced at his desk and realized the codex was gone. It was just as well. He’d meant for her to have it in any case. He simply wanted more in exchange for it than a lop-sided bout of fisticuffs.
Malcolm rubbed his temple and winced at the painful lump forming. It grated his pride that Preston had laid him low, but in the long view of things, it was an acceptable trade. What was a blow or two compared to reviving the land of Albion, the ancient Celtic world that had disintegrated into Victoria’s England? In the reborn Albion, the Druid who wielded the Staff of Merlin would rule in secret, turning the hearts of princes as easily as a man diverts the flow of water from a tap. Wealth and robust health, and preternatural long life to enjoy them both, would be his.
Yes, a bruised temple was a fair swap.
He didn’t think Preston and Lady Cambourne had been gone very long. If he raised an alarm now, his followers would probably catch them.
Which wouldn’t do at all.
He stooped to pull a book from the bottom shelf of his bookcase and checked inside the false cover. Within the innocuous-sounding
Maypoles and Other Phallic Symbology
, the precious volume that explained the mysteries of the Staff of Merlin was still hidden there. If Lady Cambourne had nicked that one, he would have sent his hounds after her immediately.
“He who binds cannot be he who finds,” Malcolm quoted. If he hoped to wield the staff of power, he couldn’t be the one who located the scattered daggers. He must only receive them from the finder’s hand or their magic would be nullified.
Malcolm was ever conscious of an entity, a Watchful Eye was how he thought of it, which was trained on him with vigilance which did not sleep. The Eye made sure he did everything according to plan. The powers that governed the daggers’ unique properties would not be mocked. According to the text of the
Staff of Merlin
volume, the binder might aid the finder obliquely, but couldn’t make the task so easy it was obvious he was controlling events.
The powers were difficult to predict. It was best not to irk them.
He’d intended to give Lady C. the damaged codex after he humbled her by taking her roughly and in every imaginable way. But in retrospect, it was probably fortuitous that Lady C. had stolen the manuscript instead. That way, the powers would reckon he was definitely not part of the “finding.”
He’d give Lady C. and Preston another few minutes to get away. Then he’d reappear in the vaulted temple and send his minions flying after them. May as well let Lady Cambourne, and the watchful powers, believe she acted independently and wasn’t actually doing Malcolm’s bidding unaware.
It would make the binding all the sweeter once he possessed the daggers. He’d refashion them into the staff using the prescribed method, amassing all its power for himself.
And then to seal his covenant with the Watchful Eye, he’d bathe the newly formed magic rod in the finder’s blood.
Ancient tradition,
Malcolm mused,
was a lovely thing indeed.
The incense was even stronger now. With each breath, Jacob lost the will to press forward. Why were they there? Who were all these naked people? And most importantly, why was Julianne still clothed?
His hand on the small of her back sent a riot of sensations rippling up his arm. Even through the layers of her robe and clothing, the dip of her waist called to him. The rounded mound of her belly, the curve of her bum, the soft, secret folds between her legs—all her delights flashed through his mind. He ached to rip off the crude fabric hiding her beauties and worship every bit of her with his body.
Everywhere he looked, couples were locked in poses of the “two-backed beast.” They strained against each other in search of the oblivion only mindless rutting gives.
He and Julianne should be doing the same. Jacob swung her around and pinned her to the curved outer wall. He devoured her mouth with fierce hunger and she answered his kiss with her own nips and groans. When he pressed his hard groin against her, she melted into him with little “oh’s” and “yes, there” and “now, please, now.”
He parted her robe and reached in to claim one of her breasts. She arched into his hand, lifting her lithe arms to drape them around his shoulders. Something dropped between them and landed on his boot. He almost kicked it aside, but he made the mistake of looking down at it. His brain refused to make sense of it at first. Then its significance burst in his mind like a sunrise.
The manuscript.
“Don’t stop,” Julianne urged.
She pressed fevered kisses on his neck and suckled his earlobe. His eyes rolled back in his head for a blink or two. Then with supreme effort he pushed himself away from her and bent to pick up the codex.
“It’s the incense,” he said hoarsely. “We can’t tarry here.”
“Don’t you want me?” She sidled close and rocked her pelvis against him. “Oh, Jacob. I need ... I want you so. Just let me kiss you and ...” She dropped to her knees before him and parted his robe. Her blessed hands worked the buttons at his waist and caressed his erect length through his flannel trousers.
To be so accepted, so desired ... not only did his body respond with an intensity he’d never known, his heart constricted with a flood of emotions that threatened to swamp him. Love and lust and longing tangled into a pulsing knot that lodged in his chest.
He’d never thought a man could die of a cockstand, but he was tempted to revise that opinion. He was primed and ready and if she so much as touched him with her bare hand, let alone her mouth, he’d spill his seed.
And even if she didn’t, he might come anyway simply on the strength of imagining her sweet lips and tongue wrapped around his cock.
Or he might go mad.
The incense wove a song of lust in his head. A song of taking, of animal heat and single-minded selfishness. In another few heartbeats, he’d lose his humanity completely and become a rutting beast. He had to get them out of there while he was still himself.
“I want you too
.” God, what an understatement!
“But not here.” He yanked her to her feet and grasped her elbow to propel her along the outer wall. She made incoherent little sounds of protest, but he ignored her.
A bellow like a bull being butchered alive made him stop. He glanced over his shoulder to see Sir Malcolm emerge from his enclave, fire all but sparking from the slits of his golden domino.
“Intruders have invaded Albion! A man and a woman,” he thundered as he pointed toward the exit door directly across the circular space from him. “They can’t have gone far, my friends. After them.”
The door was still a quarter of the way around the circular room from Jacob and Julianne. There was no chance for them to leave the way they’d come.
“Time to go,” Jacob said and dragged Julianne down the nearest archway and into the dark corridor he’d wandered earlier. Stooped low, he pulled Julianne along. He heard a chorus of shouts behind them, punctuated with the sound of ripping cloth as the members of the order struggled back into their robes. The slap of countless feet on ancient tiles thundered in the room behind them.
Fortunately, no one followed them down the dark tunnel, but Jacob couldn’t trust that happy state would continue. Another shout and series of curses revealed someone had discovered how he’d nearly dismantled the door by removing its hinge pins. Until they unlocked it and let it fall from the jamb, the stampede of people trying to catch him and Julianne would have to slip into the anteroom one body at a time.
Which meant someone might decide to give up on the obvious escape route and try the tunnel they were actually in.
“Where are we going?” Julianne’s voice was a piteous bleat, like a lost child.
Jacob covered her mouth with his palm. “We are going to church,” he whispered, “so you must be very quiet.”
He felt her nod and they moved forward toward the faint light at the end of the tunnel. With each step, the air grew less tinged with incense and more touched with the moldering damp of the crypt.
It was a trade Jacob was willing to make. His body settled and his mind cleared with every breath.
Julianne had found the other half of the manuscript. He’d found Julianne. Now he only had to keep them both safe.
When they reached the end of the tunnel, he knelt and gave the grate a hard yank, ignoring the pain from the touch of cold iron that shot up both his arms and clawed the base of his brain. The crumbling mortar around the grill gave way and Jacob pulled it free to open a hole into the crypt.
“Take off your crinoline and the robe,” he said as he shrugged out of his black fabric. She’d never wiggle through the opening with those hoops and they might as well dispose of the costumes that marked them as attendees of Sir Malcolm’s unholy rites.
She complied without complaint and shimmied through the hole in the wall, her long skirts dragging behind her. Jacob shoved the manuscript after her, then followed, barely able to squeeze his shoulders through.
When he stood on the other side, Julianne was dusting off the manuscript with her handkerchief, ignoring the fact that her clothes were covered with dirt. Most women would be frantic over the bedraggled state of their ensemble. Julianne’s attention was focused on the ancient text she’d come for.
She was a wonder.
“How many countesses could do what you just did?” he asked in admiration.
“How many would have to, you mean?” Her eyes flashed at him. “Or how many would? Jacob, I ask your pardon. I behaved abominably in there. Cheaply.”
Her voice echoed around the crypt, bouncing off the lime-washed walls.
“No, you didn’t,” he whispered, “but let’s talk about it someplace else. Sound carries in these underground spaces. We don’t want anyone following our voices this way.”
They mounted the curving staircase that led to the sanctuary above. Though the crypt had been lit by a single gas lamp, banks of lit candles were scattered around the cross-shaped cathedral, little islands of light in a silent sea of darkness. They heard no footsteps in the cavernous space but their own.
“St. Paul’s is unlocked,” she whispered. “We should be able to slip through the church yard unremarked.”
“In a bit.” Jacob settled into a pew and pulled her down beside him. “Sir Malcolm’s hordes may have made it to the street by now and Ivy Lane isn’t far. We should wait here for a while and let them disperse.”
She laid the manuscript across her lap, gripping it as if it were a shield.
“You didn’t behave abominably. Or cheaply,” Jacob said. “In fact, in another place and time, I would totally applaud your behavior.”
She slanted a tight-lipped look at him. “That doesn’t help. The fact remains if you hadn’t insisted we leave, I wouldn’t have had the strength to.”
“We were both affected by that incense, but beyond that, I don’t see why you’re unhappy. We’ve tumbled into bed often enough that there’s no denying we want each other, whether we’re under the influence of an aphrodisiac or not.”
“But I should have been able to control myself and, well, this is not the place to discuss it,” she said, glancing primly around the empty cathedral. In the silence that followed, the shush of air currents and the sense of an unseen Presence made it seem much less empty.
“Do you really think the Almighty is surprised by the urges of His creatures?” Jacob asked.
“Jacob!” She must have spoken louder than she’d intended because she clamped a hand over her mouth to hush herself.
“The thing is, I believe we passed something of a test this night,” Jacob said. “We wanted each other pretty badly in that vaulted chamber, but I also knew you wanted the manuscript. So I put what you wanted first.”