Listening for any sound that would warn her that the assassin had found the hidden doorway, Kendra attempted to hurry up the stairwell. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t climb the narrow, twisting stairs fast enough. The darkness was too absolute. She couldn’t even see her hands as they reached out to slide against the stairwell’s cold, damp walls. One wrong move, and she’d fall, probably breaking her neck.
Would that be better than a bullet in the head?
She could hear her breath, coming in and out in fast pants. Her skin was oily with her own sweat, and there was a sour taste filling her mouth. Fear.
Her heart raced as she climbed upward, spiraled around. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic, like there was an enormous pressure on her chest, crushing her. How many more steps?
The air around her seemed to crackle with static electricity, and then suddenly the temperature plunged about twenty degrees. Even as her teeth began to chatter, and she struggled to make sense of that oddity, a wave of dizziness hit her, knocking her down a step.
Panic clawed like a trapped beast inside her chest, and stunningly, she felt pain. Like she was on fire. Her flesh was burning, the epidermis peeling away, layer by layer, exposing the subcutaneous tissue, then the stringy cords of muscle beneath, until that, too, was stripped, leaving only bone.
Screaming—surely, she must be screaming, even though she couldn’t hear anything beyond the deafening roar in her ears—she fought against the squeezing darkness that was suddenly more solid, more substantial than she.
Oh, God . . .
She was caught in a sickening vertigo, around and around. Her skin melted like wax, then re-formed, reshaped, before dissolving again in a terrible spike of pain that was all-consuming. She no longer knew if the air was cold or hot, but she had the sensation that it was whipping across her face, slicing her like razor blades.
Then as abruptly as the phenomenon began, it was over. The agonizing pain vanished. Awareness came flooding back. She could feel the cold stone steps beneath her. The wetness of tears on her face. She was, she realized, curled into a fetal position.
Choking back a sob, she straightened and staggered to her feet. The darkness was no longer absolute. She could see her hands out in front of her, like white moths in the darkness, and knew an almost giddy relief. She hadn’t disappeared after all.
Still, she couldn’t shake the panic. What if the crazy darkness came back? What if the pain came back? What if, what if, what if . . . ?
She had to move. Up the stairs, to safety. Except . . .
Deep in her primordial brain she knew that whatever the hell she’d just encountered was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. It was crazy. Irrational. She knew that, too, but still, she couldn’t bring herself to go up. She’d have rather dealt with a thousand assassins than plunge back into that icy darkness.
Shuddering, she threw herself forward . . . and downward. With a ragged gasp, she launched herself at the closed door, banging her hands hysterically against the panel.
It was mere seconds, but it felt like hours before the door opened. Off balance, Kendra caught the surprised looks of the two men standing on the other side of the door. Then she was falling. Pain—natural this time—lanced upward from her knees as they hit the floor.
“Help . . . me . . .” she managed, her voice a croak. Then she collapsed completely, falling flat on her face.
7
1815
“Good God! Is she dead?”
Kendra felt hands on her shoulders, lifting, shifting. Pain rolled through her, followed by greasy nausea. Christ, her head hurt. She had a momentary, dizzying sensation of déjà vu as her eyes fluttered open. Above her, a man’s face scowled down at her. Forest green eyes, fierce between spiky black lashes, beneath slashing black brows. She got the impression of sculpted cheekbones, a straight nose, a sensual twist of mouth, and square jaw that had a shallow dent in the chin before he moved away.
“She’s alive,” she heard the man murmur wryly.
“Thank God.” That was said with a sigh of relief. Another face popped into her line of vision, far different from the other one. This man was older, late fifties, give or take, with a longish face, a rather bold nose, graying blond hair, and concerned pale blue eyes. “How is she, Alec?”
“I’m not an apothecary. Why don’t you ask her? She appears to be awake.”
The older man frowned. “Who is she? What was she doing in the passageway? What’s your name, miss?”
Kendra blinked, lifting a hand to her aching head. What the hell had happened?
“Kendra,” she whispered. “Kendra Donovan.”
“What did she say?” That was from the good-looking, younger man.
“She said her name is Kendra Donovan.” Kendra found her hand captured, gently stroked. “What happened, my dear? Alec, bring her something to drink.”
There was a pause. Then a sigh, more irritable than angry. “Bloody hell.”
Again, Kendra felt hands sliding awkwardly around her shoulders, lifting her into more of a sitting position. She stifled a groan as the movement sent more rockets exploding inside her head. Her body shuddered violently. Had she been shot again . . . ?
“Here, my dear. Drink this.”
It was an effort, but she reached for the glass. Her fingers actually brushed the heavy lead crystal before she focused on the ruby liquid. Memory rushed back and her whole body jerked in horror. Her hand hit the glass in a reflexive action that sent it teetering out of the older man’s hands. Its contents splashed, blood red against his white cravat and shirt, before tumbling with a spray of droplets to the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” Kendra jackknifed into a sitting position, staring at the stain in shock. Her heart leapt into her throat, pounding.
“Good God, what’s wrong with the girl?” the older man asked, bewildered.
“Mayhap a strong aversion to drink?”
“Do not be amusing, Alec. She’s trembling. She’s obviously been ill. Look at her hair.”
God, were they Stark Productions people? Kendra wondered frantically. She scrambled to her feet, her gaze swinging wildly around the room. A part of her accepted and understood that the footman with the silencer had disappeared. If she’d fulfilled her mission and given Sir Jeremy the ricin-laced claret, she would’ve disappeared, too. But what of Greene? He was dead. She was sure of it.
So where was the body?
Even as her eyes locked on the spot where the body had fallen, it began to dawn on her that there was something different about the room. The furniture seemed different, not only in appearance, but placement. Hadn’t the sofa been positioned opposite the fireplace? Her confusion deepened when she realized that someone had lit a cozy fire in the fireplace, orange-yellow flames licking with a greedy pop and crackle against thick logs. Jesus Christ, how long have I been unconscious?
Her chest tightened as a fresh wave of panic crashed through her. She didn’t really remember losing consciousness at all. She remembered the excruciating pain that seemed to peel the skin away from her bones. She remembered the crazy darkness. The dizziness. But she hadn’t actually passed out, had she?
“My dear . . . ?”
She swung around to face the older man. He was dressed in a style similar to Sir Jeremy, except his jacket was a dark brown velvet. His shirt and neck cloth now carried the stain of wine. Her eyes darkened as she stared at it, remembering how the blood had bloomed on Greene’s shirt in much the same way. Where was he? A dead man couldn’t just vanish!
“Alec, she looks like she’s going to faint again!”
“What do you want me to do about it? I don’t have any vinaigrette on hand.” Like the older man, this one had an upper-class British accent, although Kendra thought he looked, with his olive complexion and dark hair, more Italian or Spanish than English. Unlike the other man, he sounded dismissive.
He’d taken up a position by the fireplace, leaning languidly against the mantel. Yet Kendra got
the impression that his pose was deceptive. His eyes remained sharp as he watched her, and there was a certain tension in the lean six-foot frame that made her return his regard with an equal dose of wariness.
Kendra dragged her eyes away from the intensity of his. “I’m not going to faint.” A moment later, however, she wondered if that was true when her gaze fell on the candles flickering on the wall sconces, and she suffered another serious case of vertigo.
“My dear, perhaps you should sit . . .” The older man was speaking again, but she barely heard him through the dull roar in her ears. Candles . . .
Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the myriad candles flickering throughout the room. “How . . . ?” she wondered, and stepped toward the candelabra adorning the desk, the long tapers lit with more than a dozen dancing flames. “Candles,” she whispered, reaching out even as her mind rebelled at what she was seeing. Impossible . . .
“What is she about?” the older man said.
“The odd creature appears fascinated by your candles, Duke.”
She ignored the dry voice, too caught up in the mystery before her. How could somebody have replaced the cleverly designed electric bulbs with candles within the space of a few minutes? More importantly, why would anyone do it? It made no sense.
But there they were. They were real. Christ, she could feel the heat against her fingertips.
Suddenly she whirled around, and either instinct or fear propelled her forward to the fireplace. The green-eyed man straightened as she approached, gaze narrowing when she lifted her hands to touch the pristine mantel. It’s not possible, she thought again. Her fingers shook as she traced the grooves cut into the unblemished marble. Closing her eyes, she could see the spray of stone chips from when the bullet scored the surface. Goddamnit, she hadn’t imagined that! So . . . was she imagining this now? she wondered wildly, opening her eyes to meet the younger man’s suspicious gaze.
“Miss Donovan, pray, sit down,” the older man—Duke—urged. “You’re not quite steady on your feet. Alec, we ought to ring for Mrs. Danbury.”
“I, on the other hand, think you ought to ring for Mr. Kimble to inquire after this girl’s character.”
“She’s ill, Alec. Anyone can see it.”
For the first time in her life, Kendra felt as though her wits had completely deserted her. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what she was seeing in front of her and link it to the reality of what she knew. Her breath hitched and seemed to shudder to a stop when her eyes fell on the two large Chinese vases. Not one, but two . . .
“It isn’t possible . . .” she whispered, and her voice sounded faint and tinny to her own ears. It was as though she was walking underwater as she moved toward the vases, toward the vase that should not have been there. It had been shattered by the assassin’s bullet, she knew it. She’d seen it with her own goddamn eyes! And yet the vase was standing before her, whole and unmarred.
She reached out to the porcelain, wanting—no, needing—to touch the smooth, glazed surface, to ascertain that it was not some bizarre figment of her imagination, but a hand snaked out to close over her wrist, preventing her fingertips from connecting. Shocked by the unexpected contact, her eyes flew to the man called Alec. She hadn’t heard him move, but he was beside her now, his fingers on her wrist. His grasp wasn’t punishing, but neither would she easily be able to break it.
“That is a very expensive, very rare vase, Miss Donovan, which you are about to paw.” His voice was a low warning. “It’s from the Ming Dynasty, which I don’t expect you to understand. However, I can assure you, His Grace, as benevolent as he may be, would take a very dim view of having one of his heirlooms broken by careless hands.”
For a second, Kendra could only gape at him, trying to organize her jumbled thoughts. Who didn’t know the Ming Dynasty, asshole? she wanted to say, but couldn’t formulate the words, even as her thoughts zipped off in another direction. Had someone replaced the vase, just as they had the lightbulbs? Stolen the body? That didn’t make any sense.
This couldn’t be real. It was an illusion. A trick of some kind.
Yet those strong and elegant fingers wrapped around her wrist felt real. The man attached to those fingers looked real.
She struggled against the coils of slippery fear that threatened to drag her under. Instinctively, she jerked against the man’s viselike grip, but he only tightened his fingers. Suddenly both frightened and furious, she glared at him. “Let go, you son of a bitch. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but I can still break your arm if I have to.”
It was surprise—she saw it flash in the green eyes—as much as anything that loosened his grip, allowing her to snatch back her hand. Before he could retaliate, the older man was beside her, taking her arm and gently steering her to the sofa. “Here, now, you poor child. Sit down. She’s shaking, Alec.” His tone was reproachful.
“I . . . I wouldn’t break the damn vase,” Kendra muttered, sitting. She was shaking, she realized. And she was cold, so cold. Her teeth would be chattering any second.
“Of course not.”
“For God’s sake, Duke—it’s a Ming. It’s over two hundred years old! A face, no matter how comely, isn’t worth losing such a treasure. She is a servant—and, I suspect, a thief.”
“Alec!”
“Lady’s maid,” Kendra corrected automatically, and scowled at the green-eyed man. “I was hired as a lady’s maid.”
“Which Lady?”
“What?”
“For which Lady are you attending?”
“I . . .” She frowned. It had only been a role, but she’d been given a name. “Claire . . . or Clara.” God, she couldn’t think!
He slanted the other man a look. “She doesn’t even know who she’s been attending.”
“And you don’t even know your Ming Dynasty,” she shot back, and felt the heat of anger warm over the core of ice developing inside her. It felt good. “Two hundred years old. More like over five hundred years old! The Ming Dynasty was from 1368 a.d. to 1644 A.D. That particular vase appears to be from the Jiajing Empire . . .” Her words trailed away when she realized that both men were staring at her like she’d grown two heads. Oh, God, she was babbling. She needed to get out of here.
“Who are you?” The younger man snapped out the question. “You’re not English.”
It was too late to pretend to be Marie Boulanger. “I’m from the United States.”
“A bloody American.” He sounded contemptuous.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Alec, the war’s over,” the older man sighed. “The Treaty of Ghent was signed months ago.”
Kendra blinked. “Oh, my God, you guys are taking your roles a bit too seriously, aren’t you?” The realization almost made her laugh. The only thing preventing her was the cold dread whispering uneasily up her spine.
“Roles?”
The older man seemed genuinely baffled. Kendra clasped her hands together on her knees until the knuckles turned bone-white. She drew in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but enough is enough. I need to leave . . .” Where was the damn body? she wondered again. “I need to leave.”
“You need to rest, Miss Donovan. Alec, could you please ring for Mrs. Danbury?”
“Duke, the chit says she wants to leave—”
“And I say she is too ill to leave.” Up until that moment, Kendra would have sworn the younger man was in charge. But the steely note in the older man’s voice had her hastily revising her earlier opinion. She slid a look at the other guy, who met her gaze with a scowl. But he didn’t protest his friend’s edict, striding toward the door. He pulled a cord in the wall, turning around to stare grimly back at her.
“Mrs. Danbury will take care of you, my dear.”
Kendra switched her gaze to the man called Duke. “This is a joke, right? You’re going to tell me this is all a joke.”
There was a concerned frown behind his blue eyes. “I’m afraid I fail to see the humor,
Miss Donovan.”
Dammit, she’d known he was going say that. She shivered, because she was beginning to think the unthinkable, imagine the unimaginable. It was only when her fingers touched something smooth that she realized Duke was pressing a glass into her hand. He smiled. “You look like you need a restorative.”
“And if you maintain your aversion to claret, please refrain from pouring it on His Grace,” Alec said dryly. “That would be a waste of an excellent vintage.”
Kendra ignored him, looking instead at the older gentleman.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and this time she lifted the glass to her lips and drank. If it was poisoned . . . well, that would almost be preferable to this crazy situation, she decided. At least she’d understand it.
The claret burned smoothly down her throat. It tastes real, was all she could think as she sipped, and tried not to let her eyes dart to the candles that shouldn’t be there, to the fireplace that should have a crater in it from the bullet, the vase that should be lying in shards.
“What were you doing in the passageway, Miss Donovan?” Alec demanded abruptly. He walked over to the decanter, poured himself another glass of claret. “If you are, as you claim, a lady’s maid, pray, what were you doing in there?”
“I . . .” What could she say? Her stomach churned, and she had a momentary regret over drinking the claret. Not because it was poisoned, but because she thought she might disgrace herself by throwing up.
It was this damned situation. She didn’t understand it. What was going on? Mind games? An illusion? A delusion? The last thought made her go cold with fear.
She glanced at the older man, but any hope that he’d rescue her from his friend’s inquisition disappeared when she saw the interested light in the blue-gray eyes. What could she tell him? Nothing that made sense. In fact, the less said, the better. At least until she figured out what the hell was going on.
“I . . . got lost.”
Alec snorted derisively, making no attempt to hide his disbelief. Duke’s eyes sharpened, almost imperceptibly. He didn’t believe her, either. She couldn’t blame them.
A Murder in Time Page 8
