And in her eyes Ram saw first wariness, confusion, then a touch of fear, yet a deeper instinct told him Penelope Hamilton had wounds far harsher than the scars marring his back. She was an actress, schooled in the art of assuming an artificial demeanor, and she used the talent when it suited her purposes, a shelter, yet the longer he knew her, the more of her true self he unearthed from beneath her pretty package. He wanted all of this, a complicated woman, and 'twould take a strong and patient man to weather the journey into her trust. Fate and time, he realized, had given him the challenge of his heart.
Oblivious to the exchange, Sebastian Bailey stared at O'Keefe, his heart pounding wildly, and he wasn't certain the
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ancient muscle could take the excitement if this man was truly the one his company had been looking for—since 1789.
Bailey dragged his gaze to the envelopes he held. Only two other Lloyds agents knew about these particular deliveries and only four before him. The handing over of the Blackwell assignment was a reverent duty, like the passing of a torch or a family sword to a new heir. Yet it was also a well-worn joke; one would sooner see hell freeze than live long enough to bestow the Blackwell legacy on Ramsey O'Keefe. The contents of both claims had always been sealed and since 1955, Sebastian had been the keeper. Until today. His hands shook as he set the letters on the polished surface and cleared his throat.
"I will dispense with my business with Miss Hamilton first, if you don't mind." Without waiting, he slid one envelope across the desk. Penny reached for it slowly. Her hands trembled. She didn't take it.
Ramsey straightened, frowning atween the aged missive and her. "Penelope?" Her cool composure slipped, as if she'd crumbled into dust at the slightest touch.
Sebastian's heart went out to the woman, knowing she'd recently lost a dear friend and couldn't possibly be prepared for his intrusion.' 'Lloyds has been holding this since the 1830s, Miss Hamilton, though I've yet to fathom the circumstances behind it." The benefactors' instructions were specific; a single letter to be opened on June 16 of this year, oddly three days after the gymnast disappeared, its contents followed in detail. Bailey had done just that, despite his surprise at finding a one hundred fifty-eight-year-old piece of wax sealed paper to be given to this particular woman. "Did your family know the Blackwells?"
Ramsey felt his legs buckle beneath him and he grabbed the back of her chair for support. His breath locked as he waited for her to answer.
"No." Penny jerked her hand back. "They didn't."
'How odd," Bailey said, flipping open a broad leather bound book. The dingy paper crackled with age as he turned to a marked page, running his finger down the script. "Our records, even back then, were very precise. Yes, T. Blackwell, cosigned
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by D. Blackwell. The delivery was very specific." God, even the faded address was correct. He looked at her over the rim of his glasses. "Has your family lived in this house long?"
"I bought it, ten years ago." She didn't want to go through this, not again, not the questions and heartache. Lloyds was wrong. She was no one, really. Penelope Hamilton was someone she made up to wear. And locked herself inside.
Sebastian nodded, sliding the ledger toward her as he held out a pen. Her vision blurred as she lifted from the chair enough to pen her signature and accept the envelope, then dropped into the leather seat. She stared at the aged paper, trembling.
Her name was neatly scripted across the outside.
"Penny?" Anthony called softly, taking a step, his gaze bouncing between Penelope to Ramsey. What the hell was going on? Penny was on the verge of a scream, he was sure, and Ramsey, my God, the man was positively ashen.
"It's Tess's handwriting," came in a strangled murmur. She'd recognize it anywhere.
Please, no. No!
Her fingers tightened, and she wanted so desperately for this to be a joke, a horrible mix-up, the crushing reminder of what she'd done to Tess almost too much to bear. "This is impossible," she hissed, staring at the folded parchment. "She couldn't have sent this." Then open it, she reasoned sanely, and broke -the Lloyds wax seal, peering inside. She frowned, lifting out a strip of black grosgrain ribbon. From the end, a single antique skeleton key twisted and turned in the lamp light.
She looked up, totally confused. "Mister Bailey?"
"A crate will be delivered to you this evening," he read from his instructions. "I imagine its contents has something to do with that." He nodded to the key. Sebastian Bailey had seen the crate only once when he assumed the torch, to be certain all was intact. More than he knew was wise, he wanted to see inside these acquisitions, but that was a specification of the bequeathal; no one but Penelope Hamilton and Ramsey O'Keefe were privy to their contents.
Suddenly Bailey's eyes shitted up and to the left of her, and Penny, following his gaze, twisted in her chair to look up at
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Ramsey. Her heart collapsed at his stricken expression. He wasn't seeing her, his stare blank, his hand bloodless where he gripped the chair back. He looked as if the life were ripped from him.
"My God, Ramsey, what is it?"
No answer. Penny glanced to Tony, yet he responded with a shake of his head, warning her back, and she felt helpless. He's miles away from here, she thought, staring into his empty eyes and Ramsey felt trapped, his world blunted by unexpected
pain.
They were dead. All of them; Dane, Tess, Duncan, Cameron, his mates. It scraped at a rawness inside Ramsey, a realization he'd pushed aside to immediate survival. But his time had found him, making him remember and want and mourn. All that was of the Continental Marine was naught but bones and decaying ash, his life, his past, erased. He felt abandoned. 'Twas childish he knew, for the choice to leap was his own, yet whilst he gloried that Dane and Tess had not forgotten him, he cursed them for renting the wounds of memory. By God, he needed to know what happened to them! Although Tess had a notion that he'd travel forward through the curtain of time, what could they have possibly endowed to him? Aught he left behind was of little consequence, yet they'd gone to such pains to see something delivered into his hands.
Ramsey heard the whisper of his name and blinked, turning his head and finding Penelope standing a few inches away, her lovely green eyes etched with confusion. 'Twas Tess she had been searching for in the Caribbean, Tess she mourned. Ahh, love, do not grieve, he wanted to tell her. Tess lived like no other. She lived only for love.
But Penelope wouldn't believe 'twas so, not until she realized her Tess was the Lloyds of London Blackwell.
By the blood of Triton, he wished he could tell her the whole of it, but she would never accept that he'd traveled two hundred years forward in time—not until she believed Tess had traveled backwards. As his gaze roamed her features, he was impatient for her to recognize the twist of fate that brought him to her.
Tess stole for her, he remembered suddenly. Ah, love, what
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was so horrible that you allowed her to risk her life? Merciful Jesus, what guilt she must be suffering over Tess's disappearance, he sympathized, and searched his memory for Tess's exact words the day she confessed to being a midnight thief.
Sloane was about to give some damaging material on my friend Penny to the newspapers. Pen asked me to get it back. It was hers anyway. Hell, Sloane even told me where to find the packet. Incriminating material. Blackmail. And 'twas staged. Tess was meant to be caught in the act and killed. Ramsey didn't believe for a moment that Penelope had anything to do with the threat to Tess's life, but was she even aware that the evidence against her was packaged with a cache of rare colored diamonds?
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
He heard the fear in her tone and forced the tension from his features, smiling broadly, "I cannot help it, love. 'Tis the way God made me mug."
Her body relaxed and without thought he slid his arm about her waist. He pressed a tender-swe
et kiss to her startled lips.
I have traveled to Tess's century, he realized with tremendous pleasure. And in his arms was the dearest person in her life, save Dane.
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Chapter 18
Penny wasn't fooled by that blinding smile, and her frown said as much. "What happened to you just then?"
"I realized my good fortune, lass."
Off to the right Anthony snickered, yet the sadness she'd seen in Ramsey's eyes was unmistakable and she tried to recall their last moments of conversation and discover the source.
He didn't give her the chance and over the top of her head spoke to Bailey. "Blackwell?" Ram said, while urging her into her seat. "As in the Coral Key Blackwells?" Ram thought to play with the little knowledge he possessed to get out of this situation, for he could not easily explain away his shock.
Penny was still frowning at him when he settled into the seat aside her and casually enfolded her hand. The motion was presumptuous on his part, she thought, staring down at their clasped hands, thinking that it felt natural but looked startlingly foreign. She never allowed anyone to touch her as much as she had him, yet as she decided he was taking too much for granted, the warmth of his palm seeped into her skin.
Nothing should feel this comforting, she thought, threading her fingers with his. And cursing her vulnerability.
"The Blackwells started this town a couple hundred years
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go, right?" Anthony said into her thoughts. "I understood they were all deceased."
Inwardly Ramsey flinched.
"Apparently not," Penny said. "How else would all this," she gestured between the papers and the key she held, "be delivered if the premium hadn't been maintained?" She sank deeper into the chair, the black ribbon wrapped around her index finger. "I don't know these people," she pointed out again. "Why would they leave a crate for me?"
Bailey met her confused gaze, helpless himself, for he'd no clue as to how or why the Blackwells endowed a stranger not yet born when the claim was set. Regardless, he could neither reveal that the benefactor had seen to the provision of funds, at eighteenth century rates held in trust, in anticipation of the extinction of the Blackwell clan. Which was apparently the case now.
"I'm forbidden to speak on the matter. Explicit orders, you know." He dismissed any further questions as he addressed Ramsey. "Your full name, sir?"
"Ramsey Malachai Gamaliel O'Keefe."
Bailey's pale eyes flared and he glanced down at the antique ledger. "And you were born where?"
"Lexinglon, Massachusetts."
Sebastian Bailey stood, tugging at his vest. "I must ask all but Mister O'Keefe to leave now."
"Damn me," Anthony muttered, exiting the room like a freshly-punished child. "Rats."
Ramsey offered no protest, though Penelope stood immediately to leave. She looked a bit offended, he realized, coming to his feet afore her. Yet to allow her to witness aught Bailey possessed, which no doubt was a least two hundred years old, would only serve to confuse her. Ram knew he must conceal this transaction from her, til she at least, opened the crate from Tess,
"I have my orders. Please, Miss Hamilton." The last was business-like terse.
And still Penny hesitated, the envelope and key clenched in her fist as she stole a glance at the wax sealed envelopes on
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the desk. Old, like hers, yet she couldn't make any further comparison because they were turned face down.
She met Ramsey's gaze, searching. Who was this man? He had no identification, no records, and according to Tony's data search, Ramsey O'Keefe did not exist, never had. But he was here, eager to proceed with business and throwing a wrench in her life. She supposed she should forget her curiosity. But the way he talked, his gallant behavior, the way he arrived in her life, kept her mind turning back to who he really was.
/ have laid in your arms and still you are a stranger to me.
If he could not prove who he was, then how can Lloyds of London fulfill its obviously strict obligations? And was his endowment from a mysterious Blackwell, too, she wondered, finally turning away, though no one had so much as implied it. As she grasped the door knob, the brittle vellum slipped from her fingers and she bent to retrieve it, her gaze locking on the handwriting again, precise, even. Tess's. A chill climbed her spine, even as she denied the crazy notion, and she looked inside the seldom used study, her gaze meeting Ramsey's dark sable eyes across the room.
Will Tess ever be dead to me as long as you are near?
Ramsey held her gaze as she gently closed the door, yet he continued to stare at the sealed wood as Bailey came around the desk and grasped his hand, shaking it firmly.
"I cannot tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you," he gushed, then managed to contain his excitement. "Please." He indicated the chair, then moved behind the desk, dropping into his own.
Ramsey was still trying to fathom the look in Penelope's eyes as he took his seat, resting his ankle across his knee. "What have you tor me, man?"
Bailey broke open the first sealed envelope and slipped the document free. He read, the quiet making Ramsey fidget.
"Remove your shirt, please," he said without looking up.
' 'Surely you cannot be serious?''
Sebastian peered over the rim of his glasses. "Forgive me, sir, but I've orders to match a description."
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Angrily, Ramsey flipped the buttons of his shirt, then stood and stripped it from his torso.
Bailey was amazed at the sheer size of the man while he silently marked off the man's hair and eye color, two thin slashing scars on his arm, plus a neat smooth circle on his shoulder, as his detailed list indicated. "Turn around, please."
Ram ground his teeth. 'Twas bleedin' humiliating and he knew what the man was searching for, yet remained motionless, damning Dane to the pits of hell, for his mates were the only people, save Penelope, who knew of these old wounds.
Up until this moment Sebastian never expected anything so horrifying would mark the man. His gaze moved over the pale crisscross slashes at the base of his spine to Ramsey's upper right shoulder. Sebastian rose up slightly, squinting to see the jagged star-shaped flesh.
"Thank you, Mister O'Keefe, you may dress."
Ram did, quickly, his eyes narrow as he stuffed the shirt tail in his trousers, then dropped into the chair.
Sebastian noticed the banked anger and felt obliged to say, "I apologize for all the cloak and dagger, but the benefactors insisted. Since this," he cracked the wax stamp, "is the second of three, I'm obligated to inform you that if you answer incorrectly to any of the questions, I will stop and say no more."
Ramsey nodded, anticipation making his palms sweat. He didn't doubt for a moment that Tess had enjoyed preparing this. Had. Swift pain scored through his chest again and he stared numbly at the desk littered with papers. This is all he would have of his friends, his past, save the coins and the possession he'd taken through the barrier of time.
Oblivious, Bailey unfolded the parchment. He couldn't possibly know these, he thought, then read again. "What was the name of the American ship anchored in the Caribbean harbor on the night of June 30, 1789?"
"The Barstow," Ram said almost absently. "A captured American sloop,"
Sebastian inhaled sharply, his gaze flashing up.
''Who sat to the right of Captain Blackwell at dinner the •evious evening?" His tone dared him to fail.
Ram's eyes narrowed in concentration, imagining the set table aboard the Sea Witch. "First mate to the Triton's Will, David Cameron." He would be captain now—then—ahh, bloody hell! Ram shifted in his seat and Bailey studied him for a moment before proceeding.
"Who captained the warship Chatam?"
Ram's lips twisted in a cruel smile. "Bennet." The one word held a wealth of revulsion.
Sebastian dropped the paper and sat back, withdrawing a
handkerchief and blotting his upper lip. He still couldn't believe it.
"Is there a problem, man?"
"No, no." He tugged at his neck tie. "But I confess, Mister O'Keefe, I never imagined to open these letters, at least not in my lifetime." Was he a relative? The Blackwells arranged this elaborate delivery, yet if it had been some eccentric notion to make certain a relative kept family possessions, that didn't explain how O'Keefe knew those answers. Unless the letters were copied and he knew them for an heirloom he might possess. How could anyone, two hundred years ago, know he would be here to accept it? And the physical description was far too accurate to be explainable. Sebastian knew, without a doubt, that the contents of those letters had never been opened. In fact, they hadn't been out of their original strong box until the British consulate phoned him yesterday. More confused than he'd been in years, Bailey reached for the third envelope and broke the seal.
"Where did you meet—" Sebastian's gaze shifted rapidly between the letter and the man, then back.
"Continue, Mister Bailey," Ram said softly, encouragingly, "We have come too far to hesitate now."
"Where did you meet Captain Dane Blackwell?"
Ram's lips twitched with the memory. "I believe 'twas during an altercation in a tavern."
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