Awaken the Curse Read online

  He couldn’t remember what he’d said or what she’d answered, but her voice and the tone and the way she looked at him—no one had ever looked at him that way. Not a scapegrace second son with holes in his pockets and a scholar’s bent.

  Bloody hell, none had looked on him that way since. As if she saw straight through him to who he was and even more—who he could be. It had been pride inducing and damned frightening all at the same time. He’d lost his heart to her in that moment. And in the months following, his very soul.

  And as she threaded her hands in his hair, his whispered name like a ragged prayer on her lips, he knew he was very much in danger of falling again.

  “James,” she whimpered again.

  Liquid fire shot through his body. He rained kisses upon her face, her neck, the spot behind her ear. Skimmed her sides, feeling the shudder of every curve and contour beneath her gown. He wanted to press his mark upon her. Bind her to him with desire.

  “We can’t,” she said even as she arched closer, small sounds of pleasure arousing him further. The bed was close. A step away. Blankets and pillows, an unfulfilled need consuming them both.

  “A terrible idea. We’ll regret it.” He backed her against the bed until she dropped upon it, her hands caressing his chest, his stomach, her eyes like stars. He knelt, bringing them face-to-face, tracing the way her hair curled riotously against her cheeks, the upturned tilt of her nose, her mouth swollen with his kisses. “But I’ve never wanted to regret anything so much in my life.”

  He dragged her gown free of her shoulders so that it hung at her waist and began untying the ribbons of her chemise. Every second he expected her to stop him with a slap to the face, but he would relish these moments while he could and worry over repercussions later. Leaning forward, he tongued her breast, the flesh hot, the skin like silk. She gasped, her body like a coiled spring. She was ready for him, as wild for it as he was. He cradled her in his arms, taking his time as he unwrapped her like a precious treasure. Each new exposure of flesh needing his touch, his caress, his lips. She smiled up at him, half-sorrowful, half-trusting.

  And he stopped. Unable to continue. Hating himself.

  “James?” she said, confusion replacing her joy.

  “Katherine, I—”

  “Miss Lacey! Come quick!” Enid’s shout cut through the moment like a damascened blade.

  Katherine’s eyes seemed to focus, her body stiffening, her expression hardening to one he had never hoped to see—shame.

  “Coming, Enid!” she called, throwing herself from his bed, pulling herself together. Bundling her hair back into a hasty bun. Checking herself in his tiny mirror. “I’ll be right there!”

  He made no move to hold her or speak to her. Instead he followed slowly, pulling on his shirt. Splashing cold water over his face. Dragging in a few restorative gulps of air.

  He came down the stairs to excited voices from the professor’s study.

  “I don’t understand,” Katherine asked. “Who could have done this?”

  “I found it like this when I came in to lay the evening fire, miss. And the window open.”

  “What’s happened?” James asked.

  Both women jumped, Enid ducking away to make way for him at the door. He peered into the room, seeing a blizzard of papers and turned-over drawers, as if the study had been torn apart in a frantic search.

  Wrapping a hand around the amulet, he began to suspect exactly what they’d come for.

  * * *

  While James sat at her father’s desk reorganizing scattered pages of notes, Katherine sought to armor herself against further temptation, gaze locked on her cup of tea and off the width of his shoulders, the calm strength in his face.

  She ran a finger around the rim of her cup, staring into the murky brew as if she might read her future among the milk and sugar—a home of her own, children, a husband. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she squinted, all she saw was her own distorted image. She gave a sharp snort of laughter at her own foolishness. James had never offered any of these things. Not then. Not now. And all the wishing in the world would never change that simple fact.

  But what would have happened if Enid hadn’t interrupted? Would she really have given in to James’s persuasions and her own desires? For five long years, she’d taken virtuous and obedient to new heights. And yet a mere forty-eight hours in James’s company and she felt her passivity shedding away like an old outgrown skin. As if she couldn’t hide the truth from the one man who had always known her better than she knew herself.

  “Tell me about Cade,” he said.

  A safe topic. One that steered them away from treacherous ground like stolen kisses and passionate memories that had become all too real, all too easily. She could almost be grateful to her mysterious housebreaker for interrupting them before she made the ultimate humiliating error in judgment. All right, the second ultimate humiliating error—but who was counting?

  “He and Enid came with the house. He’s been very helpful in assisting Father with his interviews. The locals are much more willing to talk to one of their own than an outsider, especially about the nightwalkers.”

  James picked up a notebook, riffled through it. “And yet, when I asked Cade about them, he all but told me I was crazy to believe in faerie tales.”

  “Cade can’t be involved. It doesn’t make sense. Why help Father if he doesn’t want him to learn anything? And Cade hasn’t been here all day. He couldn’t have been the one to search the study.”

  “But he could have taken those shots at us in the clearing.”

  “Perhaps,” she acknowledged, “but I still don’t believe it. Father and I wouldn’t have made it through the winter without his help. If we’re looking for suspects, I’d look to Monsieur d’Espe. He was nearby, and you said yourself he’s ruthless when he’s after a prize.”

  “But the tracks I followed were clearly those of a man on foot,” James argued. “Besides which, it sounds as if d’Espe’s dealing with his own disruptions.”

  “True. He even accused Father of sabotage. Said he sprang three of his mantraps and damaged the only bridge over the river. Since then, the chevalier’s had to travel two hours downstream to the ford.”

  “So we’re right back at the beginning with just as many questions and no answers.” James turned back to the upended drawers with a shake of his head. “What if they weren’t looking for something belonging to your father? What if they were looking for something of mine?” He drew her eye to the silver disk, holding it up so the light rippled over its surface like oil upon water.

  “The amulet?”

  He gave a half shrug. “It makes sense.”

  “Then why didn’t they search your chambers? Why the study?”

  “Perhaps there wasn’t time. Perhaps Enid was upstairs cleaning and they couldn’t risk being seen. Perhaps they assumed I’d leave anything relating to the obelisk down here with the material your father’s already gathered. There could be any number of reasons.”

  “I’ll concede that point, but the obelisk has four slots. Why go to all this trouble for just one of the disks?”

  “Maybe our suspect already has the other three.”

  “Maybe.” And just maybe keeping James focused on the mystery of the Imnada’s obelisk would make him too busy to pay attention to her. It would work. It had to work. Her willpower couldn’t withstand another silken assault. She’d collapse like a house of cards.

  Pushing aside her tea, she lifted her head, determination firming her chin, though she couldn’t quite disguise the tremble in her fingers when she met his gold-flecked gaze. “Father believes the obelisk is a tomb marker.”

  James had been leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, staring into the rafters. But at her words, he sat up, concentration giving his face a severity it didn’t normally wear. “But the Imnada didn’t bury their dead. They burned them,” he said, a brow cocked in question, but that was far better than the keen-edged intensity of earlie
r that fluttered her stomach and made her forget every resolution she’d ever made about men in general and James Farraday in particular.

  “Not all of them,” she answered, her voice growing stronger. “According to the legends Father’s collected in the last weeks, those guilty of crimes against the clan would be put to death, then buried with a stake through the heart to bind them to the earth. It was seen as a final insult and an eternal punishment.”

  “Bloodthirsty, vengeful bunch, weren’t they?”

  “That’s why Father was so intrigued. What kind of criminal would warrant such a monument?”

  “And if that’s the case, what part do the disks play?” He paused in his reading of a stray page lined with her father’s messy handwriting. His expression hardened to one of implacable determination.“I don’t want you going out alone, Katherine. Not until I know where the threat lies.”

  Wait a moment. Turning his attention to the obelisk was one thing. Shoving her completely out of the picture was quite another. “You mean until we know,” she clarified. “I won’t be frightened away, James, and I won’t be told what I will or will not do. My father has disappeared. I have a right to help.”

  “Does your pigheaded attitude extend to anyone who orders you about or just me?”

  She offered him a buttery smile. “You’re a special case.”

  “Glad to know you rate me as special.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “No?” he asked, his expression completely earnest and completely heart-stopping. “What did you mean?”

  Back came the horrid fluttering, but this time it was accompanied by a flush of heat spreading along her limbs and a deep pulsing between her legs. She stood in a ruffle of skirts. “I’ll send for Cade. We can put our questions to him and discover if he has any more news of Father.”

  She crossed to the door, pulling it open to find Enid just outside, her wrinkled face pulled into her usual scowl. “Come to tell ye Cade’s not back yet, miss. Nor am I thinking we’ll see him before morning.”

  “Why not?” James asked.

  “The mists have come down across the valley, milord. There’s no finding your way through them. Not when they lie so thick.” She turned to Katherine for reinforcement. “You know that, miss.”

  James went to the window, pushing aside the curtain. Beyond the glass all was a swirl of damp that settled over the house like a shroud. “Surely it’s not so bad.”

  “No, I’m afraid she’s right,” Katherine confirmed. “These mists are infamous. People go missing and perish in the mountains or wind up miles from where they thought they were. Cade will have to wait until it lifts. Thank you, Enid.”

  After Enid’s departure, James continued to stare out into the night, a pensive frown drawing his brows together.

  “Do you think Monsieur d’Espe seeks the disk so he can open the tomb?” Katherine asked.

  James dropped the curtain with a shake of his head. “Could be. Or perhaps someone else doesn’t want it opened—ever.”

  Chapter 3

  James squinted against the morning sun glittering across the snow. All trace of the mist had evaporated but for remnants hanging wispy round the chimney tops. The snow underfoot squeaked with every step and the air held a mind-sharpening chill that stung his cheeks.

  Katherine was already at the stable waiting for him. She wore an old coat of her father’s, a great woolen thing with a fur collar that draped all the way to her scuffed boots. With her hair stuffed under a hat and her hands encased in knitted mittens, she was as far as one could get from the bejeweled damsels flitting through London’s salons and ballrooms. And James would gladly have peeled off every bundled layer to the peach-soft perfumed skin he knew lay beneath.

  “You weren’t planning to sneak off without me, were you?” she asked with a smug arch of her brows.

  Of course, there was much to be said for those London damsels. For starters, they didn’t talk back. “That was the general idea. I don’t think it’s wise for you to be out there, Katherine. What if the shooter returns?”

  She smiled. “I’m far ahead of you. Cade returned early this morning. I’ve instructed him to accompany us. If he’s guilty, better to keep him close. And if he’s innocent, he’s another set of eyes and another weapon in case we need it.”

  Stubborn, but he had to admit, damn clever.

  “Any news of the professor?” he asked, hoisting the pack he carried farther up on his shoulder.

  The smile faded and she bit her lip, her gaze slanting away as she shook her head. “Nothing yet, though Cade said there are a few places still cut off by the snow. Father might be caught wherever he is until the passes are clear.”

  “Are ye ready, Miss Lacey?” Cade led a shaggy mountain pony from the stable, supplies already strapped to its back. “We’ll not want to waste any time.” He cast a weather eye to the gray clouds. “Could be rough later, and it’s never smart to be caught out after dark.”

  “Nightwalkers?” James ventured, studying the man for signs of guilt.

  Cade’s gaze sharpened with a strange gleam. “Not all dangers up here are otherworldly, milord. Loosened snowpack, hidden clefts and gorges, obscured trails. It takes only one wrong step to get into trouble when the snow is flying.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened to Professor Lacey?”

  “More likely than a bunch of ghosts carting him away. No, milord, I warned the professor the day he ventured out. Told him we were in for a blow, but he was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. Nor would he wait for me when I offered to go with him. Said he needed to check on a hunch at the obelisk.”

  “And disappeared the same day. How convenient.”

  Cade stiffened, brows drawn into a scowl, mouth firmed to a bullish line. “Are you accusing me, milord?”

  “Just speculating with the clues given.”

  “Why would I want the professor to disappear? You tell me that. I’ve spent days and nights traveling over the mountain in search of him.”

  James gave a lift of his shoulders, his coat sliding open to reveal his holstered pistol. “Yes, but how hard did you look?”

  * * *

  Like an enormous sundial, the obelisk cast a long, knifelike shadow over the snow, ticking off the impatient hours that Katherine had spent observing it. James stood at its eastern face, fingers running back and forth over the worn runes etched up and down its length, checking his findings against notes in a battered ledger. What he hoped to discover was completely beyond her. Father had said the ancient symbols were too faded, their meaning unknowable, but that didn’t seem to hinder James, who’d done little more than grunt in her direction since they’d arrived. Not that she was complaining. After all, that had been her plan: to turn his attention elsewhere to give her common sense a little breathing room. Unfortunately, her common sense was not cooperating. Instead, it plagued her with impossible ideas.

  That part of her life had ended. She was definitely older. Hopefully wiser. Though one wouldn’t know it by her actions last night. Her complete mortification was only alleviated by the fact that James hadn’t alluded to it once—not one leading comment or a single sly dig. Part of her attributed it to chivalrous consideration, while the louder and more cynical side chalked it up to rakish indifference. But did it matter so long as he bit his tongue? No. She did not care. It would not happen again.

  She would be strong.

  She would be firm.

  She would not in any way, shape, or form melt like hot butter at the first hint of his devilish care-for-nothing smile.

  Forcing her mind into more suitable and less stomach-swooping channels, she directed a furtive glance toward Cade, who walked the clearing like a sentinel, musket held loosely in his arms. Rather than calming her nerves, his morose, simmering presence tightened the muscles in Katherine’s back. Had he been the one to shoot at them yesterday? Did he know more about Father’s disappearance than he let on? Should she have sent him out again today rathe
r than keeping him close in case of trouble? Questions dogged her as she scanned the ground, half-expecting, half-dreading to find another of Father’s buttons or perhaps a handkerchief, a pen nib, a sheet of paper. A trail left like bread crumbs that would lead her to her father.

  The wind plucked at her heavy skirts, the sky above gunmetal gray. Cade had predicted more snow by nightfall, but already a few flakes dusted her shoulders. They needed to start for home soon if they didn’t want to get caught out on the mountain in a storm.

  “I knew it.” James’s voice freed her from the dragging anchor of her thoughts. “The answer was there all along.”

  “Which is?” She retraced her steps to the obelisk, where James was madly flipping pages back and forth.

  “Time and weather have all but erased the markings, but from what I can decipher, your father was right. The obelisk is a tomb marker. And not just any tomb. If my hunch is correct, this tomb belongs to the ancient Imnada chieftain Lucan himself.”

  “King Arthur’s betrayer? I don’t believe it.” Yet Katherine eyed the tall weathered stone with trepidation, as if saying the treacherous chieftain’s name out loud had awoken some evil presence within the granite heart. It seemed to take on a new and ominous quality. A watching silence. “How can you be certain?”

  “It was your question about the criminal’s grave that gave me the clue. After that, it was a reconciliation of your father’s notes and my own research.”

  A grim-faced Cade approached, his musket gripped loosely at his side. “That old trail marker, a monument to a warlord? You’re as fanciful as the professor.”

  James shot the man a dark scowl. “Is that what you think this is? A signpost? Out here in an overgrown clearing in the middle of nowhere?”

  Cade’s hands tightened on the musket. “These mountains may be home to naught but sheepherders now, but not always. In ages past, the men and women who made their lives in the shadow of these crags spilled much blood to keep intruders out.”

  “Which only cements my theory. This place was a perfect retreat for Imnada fleeing the slaughters sparked by King Arthur’s death.” James reached up to run his hands over the worn and mossy symbols. “The runes tell the story. This is the sign for treasure, and here is the crescent mark of the Imnada. What the people around here quaintly call nightwalkers.”