A gusty breeze with a hint of fall plucked leaves from the treetops and flung them to the ground. Dark clouds had drifted in from the sea and it appeared the day would become depressingly overcast. Amanda wondered if that were only at Wicklow, for it seemed suddenly as if a cloud of gloom had descended over the house and would never leave.
As she heard Ryne’s voice, she felt the gloom in her heart as well.
“Why?” She touched her fingers to her lips. “Why, Ryne?”
“To tell you what I should have said weeks ago.” He sighed. “That I love you. That I want you to be my wife for that reason and no other.” He knelt beside her and took her hand. “I swear to you, Amanda, the gold doesn’t matter to me. I’ll sign an agreement disclaiming any right to Wicklow or the gold.”
Her heart began to hammer wildly and she could not speak for a moment. Ryne loved her. She had wished for it, longed for it to be so, and now he was at her side proclaiming that it was true. She wanted to cry out: Yes, yes . . . but suddenly that image of him kissing Trudy sped into her mind.
He frowned. “Now I do not need to ask your thoughts. You are thinking of Trudy. You saw us together.”
“I did,” she answered softly, dropping her eyes. “What of Trudy?”
Ryne got to his feet and brushed the dust from his breeches.
“Trudy is a child. I did not mislead her.”
Amanda’s eyes dimmed. “She cares for you, I believe. It is apparent in her face when she is near you.”
He laughed and lowered his voice. “She does not care for me now. I explained to her last night that my heart lies elsewhere.” Amanda looked at him unbelievingly and he exhaled a weary sigh. “She understands.”
Did she? Did a woman ever understand if the man she loved did not return that affection? Amanda remembered the drawn face and dark circles under Trudy’s eyes. Were they from tears shed over Ryne and not the result of exhaustion? Another thought pricked her mind and she had to ask for that explanation too.
“Who was the woman at the theater, Ryne?”
He laughed again. “I see that I am about to be plagued with a jealous woman. She is the wife of the man I was to see in Richmond. But business brought him to Williamsburg, so my plans were changed.”
“I did not see another man with you at the theater.”
“He was detained, and rather than have Ruth miss the start of the performance, he asked that I escort her. Later he joined us. So you see, love, I am innocent on all counts.”
“Of many things perhaps, but never entirely innocent, I think,” she said with a smile.
He half-smiled in return. “I admit I have been a bloody beast where you are concerned. But having a little sprite of a girl bite into my heart when I was determined to despise her was more than I could bear. I wanted to make you miserable but only succeeded in doing the same for myself.” Impatiently he swept a lock of hair from his forehead. “I have asked you twice before, and in the worst of ways, to be my wife. This time, Amanda, I pray you will not refuse. Will you wed me?”
Amanda was intensely uncomfortable. She could not say yes to Ryne without telling him about Gardner. They were brothers, and if she were to be Ryne’s wife he should know the things Gardner had done. She raised her troubled eyes to Ryne and with a trembling voice related all that had happened, through to Cecil Baldwin’s ending of the matter.
A tic started in Ryne’s cheek and his eyes turned nearly black with anger. For several minutes after she had finished, he said nothing. She was surprised, when finally he spoke, that his voice was calm and steady.
“Do you love me, Amanda?”
“I do,” she replied.
“You will wed me?” He took her hands and lifted her to her feet.
“Yes,” she answered softly. The outpouring of emotions she felt astonished her. Amanda laid her head against Ryne’s chest and looped her arms around his waist. As his arms circled her in return, she felt a soothing warmth engulf her.
She was safe at last with the man she loved.
Ryne brushed his lips against her hair. “Amanda, I have to ride to Williamsburg.”
She drew away from him suddenly, finding her tranquility short-lived.
“Not to see Gardner? Ryne, you must not. Cecil Baldwin promised there would be no more—”
Ryne silenced her by placing a finger softly against her lips.
“He is my brother, Amanda. I have to see him, and not just for this reason. There is another matter long left festering between us and I think now is the time for that one to be settled as well.”
“Ryne, please do not go.”
He kissed her then, slowly, deeply, and once again all her fears vanished. When his lips left hers she made no more argument against him.
“Take care, my love,” she whispered as he rode away. Amanda felt painfully torn between the love singing in her heart and the worry that Ryne’s inflammable temper would be too harsh against his brother. Finally she eased her mind with the thought it was best she put her trust in Ryne and believe he would do what was best for all.
Amanda returned to the house. Had she not been consumed with thoughts of Ryne, she might have noticed immediately that the atmosphere inside had changed. There was an incredible stillness and yet her skin prickled and stung as if she had been touched by a nettle. She thought she heard a soft mournful voice calling her name and giving her a warning. But that was preposterous. She knew who the whisperer was. And he was not here. She had seen him ride away.
A peculiar feeling of fear slid over Amanda. The whisper came again. She was certain she heard it this time. The sound came from near the Turkish King. Just for a moment she had the insane notion it was he calling to her. But the thought passed quickly when she heard a stronger voice, a decidedly human one, from the drawing room. She must learn to control her imagination now that there was no longer a real danger.
“I don’t care,” Trudy said again.
Amanda looked in the doorway and found Emma beckoning to her.
“Do come in for a moment, child. Trudy and I found we could not nap after all and came down where the light is better for my needlework.”
Only half-listening, Amanda turned into the drawing room, where she saw Trudy looking dejectedly out the window. But the girl politely turned and smiled as Amanda entered.
“I am sure I would find it difficult to rest too,” Amanda remarked.
Emma stopped in mid-stride and stared at Amanda.
“Goodness, child, your face is flushed. Is something . . . ? No, let me guess. It is something good, is it not? You must tell us your news.”
Amanda hesitated. She hated to add any more to Trudy’s pain; but Emma had caught her hand, and her beaming curiosity would not be denied.
“Ryne and I are to be married,” Amanda said in a soft clear voice.
“Married! That is splendid,” Emma said exuberantly. “He is a fine catch, that one,” she chattered on. “A fall wedding, I hope. You must let up help with the planning.”
“Yes, of course,” Amanda said. Trudy seemed to be clinging to the mantel for support. Ryne had been terribly wrong to think her unaffected by his attention. Amanda’s heart went out to the girl. It seemed quite cruel that she had to learn of the marriage when her own feelings for Ryne were still unsettled.
“We must have a little celebration now, Amanda. Some sherry perhaps, and then you can rest. I see that you need it. You are very excited, as well you should be. Trudy.”
She motioned to her niece. “You pour the sherry.”
“Yes, Aunt Emma,” Trudy answered, and seemed to recover her composure as she looked at Amanda. “We must celebrate.”
“Amanda, sit here.” Emma led Amanda to a plump chair near the fireplace. “This is something of a surprise to everyone, you know. We really did not suspect . . .”
***
Amanda’s eyelids slipped down slowly as her hand went limp against the arm of the chair. She was hearing the warning voice again. This time it seemed to come from within her head. A slight smile flickered on her lips. It was ridiculous that a single glass of wine could make her so drowsy and delirious. But she felt herself giving way to a euphoric lassitude, which was strange, because she had really been too stimulated even to think of sleep.
The gargoyle faces were all around her. There were too many of them in this room. Too many, and all of them calling her name. Perhaps Jubal Wicklow had been a little mad. Perhaps he had killed Evelyn in a fit of jealousy. Poisoned her perhaps, and buried her where she would never be found. She felt a gush of air cold as ice sweep the room. It startled her but her body made no response. Emma did, though. And Trudy too. They were looking at each other as if they had been suddenly stricken by fear. But it lasted only a moment.
Seeing Emma across the room, Amanda tried to speak but found her tongue had grown thick and heavy. No words came. The only sound was the clinking of her glass as it shattered on the hardwood floor.
The bumping roused her a little. She was being dragged roughly through the hall. She saw that great terrible face of the Turkish King glaring down as her eyes flickered open for a moment. Someone was talking from far away. She thought at first it might be Ezra, but how could it be? His neck had been wrung. The voice was so strange and distant . . . it must be the king . . . telling her she should never have come to Wicklow.
Amanda drifted in and out of consciousness and then she was being bumped and bruised as she was hauled down a long set of steps.
“Hush, I tell you,” the voice was saying. “She won’t be hurt. He just means to make her sign the papers. When Wicklow is his, he will let her go.”
A musty smell of dampness flooded her nostrils. The air was cool but thick, almost as if she had been eased into a dark pool of water and was sinking slowly toward the bottomless depths. She moaned helplessly as she sank further into that silent, encompassing blackness.
***
The scuffling sound was dreadfully near. Amanda stiffened with fright as her eyes opened to a terrible darkness. She had the feeling of being in a large room, but there could be none at Wicklow where the floor was made of rough-hewn stone such as that on which she lay. She scrambled to her feet, but not without feeling the ache of those bruises acquired as she was dragged to this dark prison.
Her head throbbed and her thoughts were like so many loose feathers floating in shadows. She could not even be sure who her captors had been, nor could she begin to fathom where they had taken her. Gradually, as she leaned her weight against the cold stone wall and rubbed her temples, some fragments of her memory came together.
When Wicklow is his, he will let her go. The voices shouted in her mind. Ezra had said, “When Wicklow is mine.” But whom did he mean? She rubbed her head. She had been drugged, but by whom? Emma and Trudy? Or were they victims just as she was? Were they too somewhere in this dark room and still unconscious?
“Emma. Trudy,” she cried hoarsely. “Are you there?”
Her words echoed and came back in an eerie mocking way. She tried again and got no answer. Her throat was parched and aching. Hours must have passed since she had been put in this place. She felt a pang of hunger gnawing at her stomach. Someone would come soon. Someone who wanted her to sign a paper. She had not been left to die. She must not even think that. If she did, she would go mad all alone in this black, black room.
She sank back to the floor. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait until her jailer came and let her out. Gardner, she supposed. He had not gone back to Williamsburg. He had only ridden out of sight and had returned when he saw Ryne gone. But how had he gotten Emma and Trudy to help him if that was how it had happened? She tried to remember those last moments in the drawing room. Trudy had poured the sherry.
A dreadful thought crept into Amanda’s mind. If Trudy had drugged her, she would have done it for Ryne, not Gardner. Ryne, Ryne, Ryne. His name came swirling through her brain and she heard herself saying in a faint, faint voice, “Please don’t let it be Ryne.”
She must have sat there another hour slumped against the wall, thinking that someone would come at any moment. By the end of that time her alarm had overcome all the assurances she could make, and she conceded it was possible no one would come. A crushing fear twisted around her heart. There was no end to it, no end to the fear that she had been left to die. But she would not. She would escape. She must not let the horrible darkness make her a docile caged animal who sat awaiting doom.
Cautiously at first, and then with a frantic urgency, she felt her way around the stone walls, searching them with her hands for an opening or a step that might lead out. She counted the corners of the room as she felt the joining of the stones that formed each one. The room was not nearly so large as she had imagined. It was square, or closely so, and the fourth corner she came to confirmed her fear that the door through which she must have been carried was made of the same stone as the walls and impossible to distinguish in the hostile darkness.
It was also in that corner that she found the bones, the small skull, and what must have been the powdery remnants of a dress. She knew it was Evelyn Wicklow because the heart pendant was there and even in the darkness she could recognize the shape. Evelyn Wicklow had died in this dungeon, and Amanda Fairfax would too.
Convulsive sobs shook her body as she clawed at the rough wall. Tears streamed hot and burning down her cheeks. The foul odor, the stickiness of the floor, the darkness like a wet black cloth smothering the air from her lungs seemed to surge and grow and consume her. She screamed and screamed until her voice died away in faint agony. This room was her tomb, her coffin. She would never be found. She would die here beside Evelyn Wicklow’s bones, not even knowing with certainty who had decided her death.
The echo of her screams ceased but the silence did not return. Above her she could hear the flapping of wings and the shrill animal shrieks of bats disturbed by her voice. One swooped close to her face in the darkness and she shrank down to the floor to avoid it. Were they carnivores? Would they eat her flesh when she was dead? Amanda sobbed anew at the horror of it. There must be dozens of them up there clinging to the ceiling, and each cry she made stirred them to flight.
But suddenly her fear turned to faint hope. She was driving the bats out, and that meant that somewhere above was an opening through which they came and went.
She shouted once and then listened for the sound of the shrieks and flapping wings as the bats took flight. After several more shouts she was able to tell by the sounds the direction of their flight. The opening was not far from where she stood, but high above her reach. She did not lose another moment searching for a foothold on the rough stone. She might never leave this room, certainly not alive, unless she could reach that opening.
It was a treacherous gamble, and she fell more than once, each time starting over until her hands were scraped raw from the ordeal. But at last she was above the wall of stone and could feel the opening. It was at that point that she first realized she was deep underground, imprisoned in a shored-up cave that might have become her grave.
Half an hour later she had squirmed and struggled through the narrow tunnel and could see ahead a little golden leaf of light that meant freedom. If only Evelyn Wicklow could have climbed up, she might have gotten out too.
That last part of the tunnel was the narrowest, and it was only by willing herself through that she was able to squeeze out of what was little more than a slit in the rocks. Amanda collapsed there, struggling for breath, dirty, her gown torn and covered with filth, her face smeared with sweat and soil, shoes lost, and hands swollen and bleeding.
The sun was setting, and had she been a few minutes later in her escape there would have been no ray of light to let her know she was nearing the end of that dreadful tunnel. Amanda looked around to get her bearings. The Wicklow cemetery was not far away. She could see the rising tombstones silhouetted against the blood-red sky. Among them was a sinister figure of a man wielding a shovel and digging beneath Jubal Wicklow’s stone.
Her horror was no less than when she had found herself imprisoned beneath the earth. That man could be no other than her captor, and though she could not tell who he was with the light fast fading away, she knew that she was still in great danger if he should see her. She shrank back to the rocks and crawled away. Her hope was to reach the stables and saddle a horse without being seen. Only if she could reach Williamsburg and tell her story to the authorities could she hope to be safe.
Amanda paused at the stable door, afraid now of everyone. For who could be harmless if you did not know your enemy? From within she heard the nicker of a horse and the sound of harness being hooked up.
A voice she knew and had hoped to hear was speaking.
“Go, man. Go to Gardner. You know what to say. Do not lose a minute. Time is short. Now, go. Go!” he shouted.
“Aye, sir,” Groom’s voice came back. “You can depend on me.”
Amanda ran for the cover of the trees beside the stable and then slipped into the hedge garden behind Wicklow. A moment later the door was thrust open and the wagon rattled out. Groom snapping his whip over the horses’ heads and Gussie beside him holding tightly to the seat. The horses threw up a cloud of dust as they gained speed and clattered down the lane.
Amanda ran into the darkness and a few minutes later found herself inside Wicklow, almost without knowing it. They were all involved, all intent on her death. She was conscious of a chill that ran along her spine. What a diabolical plan they had set against her. With a sudden whimpering cry she ran to the stairs, not knowing where she went or why. But a groan from the drawing room stopped her abruptly. She turned back, and with sickening terror gripping her, peered inside.
“Emma!” she shouted. The woman was bound and gagged and tied to a chair pushed into a corner of the room. “Who did this?” she asked as she hurried to Emma’s side. Hastily Amanda pulled the gag from the struggling woman’s mouth.
“Untie my hands,” Emma croaked. “Hurry.”
Amanda fought with those knots, but her sore hands were slow to loosen the tight bonds. She was just pulling the last of them free when a heavy step sounded behind her and Ryne’s voice came in a growl.
“Stop!” he demanded. He had a pistol leveled at the women and the hammer already pulled back in a threat of death.
Emma screamed and cowered behind the chair. The look on Ryne’s face was pure black rage.
“No, Ryne, don’t!” Amanda cried as stark, glittering fear shone in her eyes.
“My God.” His livid face paled as he saw that the dirty, ragged creature before him was Amanda. “You look like you’ve been buried alive.” The pistol dropped to his side. A snarl issued from Emma Jones’s teeth as she suddenly hurled her weight into Amanda. The unexpected blow sent Amanda crashing into Ryne and sent him reeling backward. The pistol he held fired and the bullet buried itself in a table behind Amanda.
The moment was all the leeway Emma Jones needed to dart past him. An instant later the heavy front door slammed behind her.
“Emma, come back!” Amanda cried desperately.
“Let her go,” came Ryne’s caressing voice. He moved to Amanda where she lay on the floor. His arms closed gently around her. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Amanda fell against him, holding, clinging, loving as she gave way to exhaustion. She was only just beginning to understand a little of what had happened. It didn’t matter much. Nothing did but that her world had come back alive and Ryne was here where he ought always to be, locked in her arms.
She awoke before daylight. The rose bedroom was lit with a dozen candles. Ryne had not wanted her to wake up in darkness. He was there beside her where he had waited all through the night. Gussie was in the room too, fussing around and cleaning, but she waited until Amanda’s eyes were fully open to start her grumbling.
“Never liked the woman,” she mumbled. “Neither one of them. Should have kept a closer eye. You too.” She pointed an accusing finger at Ryne.
He nodded but his eyes never left Amanda’s face. A loving glow had settled in them and Amanda hoped never to see it leave. A smile trembled over her lips as she reached for his hands.
“It was . . .”
“Cecil Baldwin. He wanted the gold and Wicklow. Most of all he wanted this.” Ryne held the ruby pendant so that the candlelight caught and glowed in the facets. The beauty of the stone was breathtaking. Amanda could almost understand why Cecil had acted as he did. But how could he have known the Heart of Happiness was still at Wicklow?
“Why? He was wealthy.”
“Wealthy yes, but obsessed. He told us his history. The name given him at his birth in England was John Cecil Mott. Later he took his mother’s name and came to Virginia.”
“John,” Amanda said. “Jubal wrote of a man named John. He wanted to kill him but Evelyn would not allow it.”
“A pity she did not let him. John Mott, Cecil’s father, was the man who killed Jubal, and he was probably responsible for Evelyn’s death too. Cecil was only a lad when his father came here to challenge Jubal Wicklow. John and Jubal had quarreled over who owned the ruby. Later there was more bad blood between them when Jubal eloped with John’s fiancée—Evelyn.”
“So it was jealousy and greed which cost their lives?”
“So it seems. But before John Mott left his son he instilled the same degree of hatred and vengeance in him. For years John apparently hired people to spy on the couple and send him reports. John never returned and in time Cecil concluded he was dead, probably at Jubal’s hand. Cecil knew his father had not gotten away with the ruby or the gold or he would have come back. He spent years finding a way to have Wicklow. He knew Mother had left the house to you and believed it would be easy to convince you to sell. I am not certain now he had no hand in Mother’s and Sarah’s death. He had proposed to Mother once and been refused. He might have been in England at the time they died.”
Amanda shivered. “And then I thwarted his plan.”
“Yes. So he tried to frighten you away. And then, when he was no closer to getting what he wanted and it appeared I would have a claim to Wicklow as well, he became desperate—no, mad. There is truly no explanation but that he was mad, just as John Mott must have been.”
“It is horrible what John Mott did to Evelyn and Jubal. They were deeply in love.”
“And horrible what Cecil would have done to you.” He paused. “You would be proud of Gardner,” he added. “He broke into Cecil Baldwin’s office and uncovered the documents that proved his guilt. It seems John Mott kept a journal and had a set of plans to Wicklow. He left both with his son. They must have fanned Cecil’s hatred all these years.”
Amanda dropped her eyes in shame. “I blamed Gardner. He was so nervous and strange that last night here. I was convinced he was guilty.”
Ryne laughed. “He was nervous. He had just learned he was to be a father. He and Ariel are to be wed. You can be glad you did not accept his proposal, my sweet. And don’t forget, I warned you my brother was no more a gentleman than I. And remember too that you blamed me before him. You thought me the devil’s agent.”
She laughed. “I am not sure I was wrong.”
“Careful, sweet,” he warned. “I may want to prove you right.”
Amanda blushed even though they were speaking below Gussie’s level of hearing. She quickly switched to another topic.
“Why did Emma run and where is Trudy?” she asked.
He smiled. “You must have guessed they were working with Cecil. I had suspected them for some time. I think we will find they were responsible for the disappearance of the jewelry and many of the frightening things that happened to you. The blood, putting the pillow over your face, attacking you in Evelyn’s sitting room—there is a secret passage from there.” He shook his head. “Cecil killed Ezra. He heard the parrot repeat something he had said to Emma and feared the bird would give him away. He was in the hall before you came and stepped out to knock as if he were just arriving.”
“It is too horrible,” Amanda said sadly.
“Yes. And today Emma wanted to warn Cecil that I knew about him. She let me ride away and then drugged you. He was nearby, I believe.”
“In the graveyard,” she said quickly. “I saw a man there digging.”
Ryne sighed. “I suppose he couldn’t wait until things were quieted down to start searching for the ruby. We caught him on the road. I have had a long talk with him while you slept. The old fool.”
“But Trudy . . .” She frowned. “I suppose you are going to tell me you courted Trudy because you were suspicious of her.”
Ryne laughed heartily. “You do not doubt that, do you, love? She did let slip, in fact, that she expected to come into a fortune soon. I believe she hoped it would make her more attractive to me.”
“She was such an innocent,” Amanda said sadly. “She must have become frightened and run away when Emma drugged me.”
Ryne scowled. “Trudy, my dear, donned a wig and your riding habit and had Emma order your horse saddled after you were locked away. Groom watched her ride off, thinking it was you. Cecil would have claimed you had decided to go back to London and leave Wicklow in his care. Eventually I suppose he would have claimed to have bought the house from you.”
“Then it was Trudy who impersonated me in Williamsburg and claimed the emeralds.” A melancholy frown furrowed her brow. “I wonder if we will ever recover them.”
“There was no sign of them in Cecil’s house. I think he must have sold them right away. He’d have done it for spite. He had been taking valuables from Wicklow, the chess set among them, and selling them since my mother died. But when I came to stay after my lodge burned, he had to stop. He could have waited a little while until I left, but when you came to stay his scheme was ruined.” He took Amanda’s hand and held it gently. “I think at first he only meant to frighten you into selling. But when Emma learned you and I were to be wed, she decided something had to be done immediately.”
“She acted quickly, to be sure. She must have been listening when you proposed. She had it all planned when I came in.” Amanda shook her head woodenly. “How wicked she was.”
“And when I came back she told me you were gone. Gave me a note from you saying it was all a mistake, that you were going back to London.”
“You didn’t believe it,” she whispered, bringing his hand to her lips and kissing it softly.
“I had talked to Gardner and the story he told was not the same as you related to me. Besides that, I knew you loved me.”
“I do, Ryne. I do. With all the love that is in me.”
Later they would learn Trudy had returned to Williamsburg and confessed her part in the crime. She could not, she said, live with the thought of Amanda imprisoned in that dark dungeon and she did not believe Cecil Baldwin’s promise that Amanda would be let go once she had signed the deed to Wicklow over to him. All three had been jailed in Williamsburg and would be held there until their case came to trial. A long imprisonment afterwards was a certainty.
The greatest shock, perhaps, would be learning that Trudy was Cecil’s illegitimate daughter and had been forced into her part in the scheme by the threatened loss of her livelihood.
From his father’s records Cecil knew of the secret rooms in the cellars at Wicklow and of a tunnel from the river, one Amanda and Ryne had explored.
“I believe John Mott must have locked Evelyn Wicklow in the cellar after he shot Jubal. He meant to come back for her or he would not have left the ruby,” Amanda suggested to Ryne.
He nodded. “You are likely right. Cecil found his father’s bones in one of the tunnels. John must have died of his wound while looking for the gold. And Evelyn—”
“Waited. Waited for someone to find her.”
“And Cecil would have made history repeat. But he would not have found the ruby. He did not know it was in the room he meant to be your tomb.” Ryne swore. “Bloody fool! He’d never have found the gold either. I don’t believe it was ever here. It was probably spent long ago.”
She gazed at him thoughtfully. The sun was rising over Wicklow and she watched the bright beads of light filter in the window. Some power—Ryne, his love for her—had chased the oppressive night out of Wicklow and she would never again be frightened inside its walls. He was her guardian just as that gigantic wooden statue had been Jubal Wicklow’s.
Suddenly she sat up in the bed. “There is gold1” she cried. “There is! I know the place.”
Amanda donned a robe as quickly as possible and led Ryne to the landing beside the Turkish King. Gussie followed, protesting that Amanda had no business being out of bed.
“You must watch it,” Amanda said, pointing to the pattern of stars the sunlight made on the slate floor as it spilled in through the grille pattern of the round windows. “Scattered stars flee the sun. Behold the secret of the mystic one,” she repeated the lines of the poem softly.
Gussie shook her head in bewilderment but Ryne stood patiently with his arm around her, watching as the spattered circles joined and climbed to shine brightly on the king’s face.
“It is there, I think. Inside the head. He is the guardian. Ezra knew,” she added sadly. “He must have told us hundreds of times.”
“Really, Amanda. Come back to bed. You are lightheaded to think . . .”
“No, Ryne,” she answered excitedly. “It is here. I know it. Watch him. When the light strikes his eyes, press them in.”
Ryne did as she said, mostly to humor her. He was worried that the shock had affected her badly. When the king’s head opened up and gold coins spilled out of a rotted bag, he shouted his surprise. The hall was littered with gold, streaming and glistening in the morning sun.
“How did you know?” he asked incredulously.
“Something told me.”
“Something?”
“Someone. Jubal. He has been here all along looking for Evelyn. Whispering her name and sometimes mine. He tried to warn me.”
She went down the stairs with Ryne and picked up a handful of the shiny coins. Somehow Amanda knew Jubal would not mind her having them or the ruby, not now that he had found his Evelyn again. She suspected too she would not hear the whispers anymore.
***
The fragrant water in the marble bath lapped at Amanda’s shoulders. She felt as if she were really in the lovely mosaic garden pictured on the wall and was more tranquil and peaceful than ever in her life.
But it was with a serious face that she looked at Ryne. “I suppose you will not object to taking a rich wife?”
Ryne laughed lustily. “Not if you do not object to a rich husband.”
Amanda gave him a pained glance. “I thought you had lost your money.”
He grinned. “I could match your fortune twice over, my sweet.”
Amanda, her lips pouted, splashed a handful of scented water on his chest.
“Liar. You told me you could not even afford to let a room. I suppose Gardner has wealth too.”
“Enough that he would not have to weasel trinkets from a poor little sprite.”
“But I heard him arguing over a debt he could not pay,” she responded.
“The debt was that of a workman. He interceded to protect the man,” Ryne told her and ended the last of her worries.
She leaned lazily against the edge of the marble tub and let the warm water cover her to her neck.
“Why did you tell me you had no money?”
He cupped her breasts and brought the rose-crested peaks above the surface of the water as he gave her a taunting look.
“You would not have let me stay at Wicklow otherwise.”
“Oh, you!” she stammered. “I believe you are a worse schemer than Cecil Baldwin.”
“And I believe, my lovely lass, that you should let me give you another scrub. I would have sworn until last night a woman could not wear so much dirt and still stand.”
“Do what you must,” she whispered as he covered her with the perfumed lather of jasmine-scented soap.
Her body tingled with delight that gave way to abandon as his caresses grew more and more intimate. She would never tire of his touch or of the power he had to make her forget anything beyond his nearness. She sighed and joined his play as he bathed her with rapture, knowing and loving every satiny part of her. And when they were both sated, she clung to him, still enjoying the glow of their passion.
“Amanda,” he whispered, his lips making a soft, warm ripple of air at her ear. “Will you do a special thing for me?”
She sighed. What could she refuse him, this man who had saved her from a horrible fate? This man who had taught her the bliss of a lover’s touch and shown her the wondrous dimensions of passion.
“Anything, love.” Her eyes shone like oceans of green lit with starlight. She kissed his lips, his throat, her hands sweeping in slow delight over his naked flesh.
“Come with me, love, to Greylock Chapel.” He was on his feet, a sardonic grin spreading over his lips. “There is a wedding we must attend.”
“Gardner’s?”
“No, love.” He pulled her to her feet, the blue heat of his eyes savoring her soft curves and shimmering damp skin. “Ours.”