She looked up to make sure she was heading in the right direction…and faltered. Her knight stood tall next to the bike. White tunic, red cross, leather belt…and motorcycle boots. The sight of him blew away her misgivings. “You look fantastic, Sir Knight,” she said with a smile as she handed him her bag.
He took it, but when she tried to withdraw her hand, he held on and brushed a kiss on her knuckles. “My honor,” he replied. “Sir Peter de Bateson at your service, fair maiden.”
For a brief second she recalled his friends’ sarcastic jibes, but the warmth of his lips and the huskiness of his voice dispelled any notion he was mocking her. His smile and the admiration in his eyes were real. She knew she wasn’t pretty. The possibility an attractive man found her appealing brought on a momentary dizziness.
Still smiling, he locked their belongings in the hard-bags, then took her hand. “I think we should see the barns first. They’re hundreds of years old, you know.”
“Yes,” she agreed, surprisingly comfortable with letting him take charge.
“Then the Tudor Gardens, after which I think we’ll need to try out the goodies in the Tea Room.”
The day might turn out all right after all. She bobbed a curtsey. “I’m in your hands, Sir Peter.”
Apparition
Peter and Susie tagged along with the line of visitors trooping through the historic barns. When she stared up in awe into the timber roofing of the late sixteenth century Granary, he was glad the tour had begun there. She’d be gobsmacked when they got to the much older Barley Barn.
Thanks to his research, he knew everything there was to know about the barns, but he held back, content to listen to the guided tour. He could have answered the questions she asked of the guide, but bit his tongue, impressed with the calibre of her probing. Susie was no ordinary waitress.
A warm contentment flowed through him when she took his hand as they exited the structure. “It’s the largest granary in Essex,” he managed.
“Yes, the guide mentioned that,” she replied with a cheeky smile.
“Just wanted to see if you were listening,” he teased. “You’re obviously interested in history.”
She hesitated, but then confessed, “I was enroled in the anthropology degree program at St. George College, but my first love is archaeology. My dream is to get hired on to a world class dig.”
It was the most he’d heard her say at one time and revealed so much of herself, he was humbled she trusted him with her dream, especially after his earlier boorish behavior. “You say was; are you not pursuing your degree?”
“No,” she replied shyly, “I’m pursuing the dig. Idalion, possibly.”
He wanted to know more, but they were about to enter the Wheat Barn built around 1280. “It was originally romanesque,” he told her, suddenly anxious to show off his knowledge. “It’s been altered and repaired several times since it was built. The initials carved into some of the timbers actually belong to workers who added braces during Victoria’s reign.”
“Wow,” she murmured, turning in a circle as she craned her neck to look up into the complex geometric patterns of the timbered roof. “Incredible.”
“It reveals how important these buildings were to the Templars,” he explained. “Such intricate construction was normally reserved for cathedrals.”
“You know,” she whispered, “I’m passionate about digging up lost civilizations, but it’s awesome that this is all still standing for anyone to come and see, despite the fact the Templars were wiped out long ago.”
“Again, a testament to the skill of the builders.”
“You must find this boring,” she remarked as they entered the Barley Barn, but evidently lost her train of thought, overawed as he’d expected by the sheer size and grandeur of the enormous structure.
He’d saved his most brilliant bits of historical trivia until now, but he was suddenly struck dumb. As he stood watching Susie take in the exhibits and absorb the sights and smells of the building, a heart-stopping certainty swept over him—he and the ancient barn were somehow intimately connected. He’d visited briefly at the outset of his research, but it was far beyond that.
“I’ve been here before,” he said hoarsely.
“I’m sure you have,” she replied.
“No, I mean…” He stopped abruptly, not sure what he meant. There were forces at work he didn’t understand. “Tell me again about the knight in your dream,” he said.
Susie thought Peter had gotten over his tantrum about the dream and didn’t appreciate his resurrecting the matter. She was having a good time and resented his attempt to spoil the experience. “It’s not important,” she muttered.
He took her hand and pulled her towards him. They came face to face. His nearness was overwhelming, the intensity in his eyes alarming.
“Yes, it is,” he rasped. “Tell me. You said your knight met de Norrels. Where?”
She balked, still not sure if he was leading her into some elaborate trap. “How should I know?”
Tears welled when he cupped her face in his warm hands. “Close your eyes and try to see him again.”
She shook her head. “He only comes at night.”
“Please.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat when he brushed away an errant tear with his thumb and gently drew her away to a bench in a quiet corner.
He sat with feet apart, head bowed, hands on his knees, seemingly deep in thought. Goosebumps marched up her spine when he turned to look at her. The color had drained from his face.
“Are you sick?” she asked, her concern increasing when she put her hands atop his. “You’re feverish.”
He shook his head and smiled a crooked smile that set her heart racing and caused a recurrence of the damp pantie problem. “I think perhaps I’ve gone a little mad,” he confessed. “I don’t believe in dreams and visions, but I know without a shadow of a doubt de Norrels stood in this very place.”
She struggled to understand. “He was preceptor here. He must have entered the barn.”
He gripped her hands and pierced her with his brown eyes. “It’s what he was carrying that’s important.”
The intense gaze, the firm grip, the hint of awe in his voice, all spoke of sincerity, yet it was impossible a pragmatist would start having visions and change his point of view so suddenly. “I don’t appreciate being made fun of,” she said, trying to pull her hands from his.
“De Norrels hid the accounting logs in this building,” he declared, refusing to let go.
Peter doubted what he’d seen with his own eyes and ardently wished he hadn’t. The fleeting apparition was there, then gone when he’d blinked. At first, he’d assumed the grey-haired Templar bearing a weighty codex was one of the re-enactors employed by the park, but the man had evaporated in a swirl of mist.
He blamed his confusion on his feelings for Susie. She had him in knots. It was impossible he was attracted to a girl with pink hair and slashed jeans who believed in dreams.
It went against the grain of everything he’d put his trust in. Emotions were something he’d learned to control years ago. Cold, hard facts were more reliable and less hurtful.
Yet, he couldn’t rein in his physical need for Susie and he desperately wanted the mistrust in her eyes to disappear. She was an enigma he had to solve. That prospect gave him courage. “I’m not making fun of you, Susie,” he assured her. “Let’s wander round the Tudor Gardens and talk.”
Tightly Wound
The heady perfume of roses in the Tudor Garden bolstered Susie’s courage. She loved flowers, a phenomenon she’d discovered after leaving the bleak Welsh hills. She was floundering in uncharted waters, grateful Peter’s warm hand at least provided an anchor of sorts. She wanted him, of that she was becoming more and more certain, but a relationship based on mistrust would never flourish. If she bared her soul and he thought she was cuckoo, then so be it.
“We need to get one thing straight,” she finally managed. “I am not a
threat to you. I didn’t come here to follow up on research. I came because of the knight who haunts my dreams. He told me about de Norrels. I looked the name up on line and discovered he was Preceptor at Cressing, so I was curious. That’s the extent of what I know about it.”
He led her to an empty bench in the shade. “I believe that now,” he admitted, “but your outburst forced me to investigate de Norrels and I jumped to the conclusion you knew something I didn’t.” He chuckled. “That’s disconcerting for a man who thinks he knows everything.”
“Your presentation was incredible,” she whispered. “You convinced me the treasure no longer exists.”
He tucked a wisp of hair back under her bonnet. “But the knight…”
Expressing feelings had always been hard. Keith had been her only confidant, her hero. Since his death, she’d worn his leather jacket constantly, depending on it to conceal developing female realities. It had morphed into a suit of armor, donned so she could live the life stolen from him. The pub’s revealing medieval costume had forced her to face an inescapable fact—she was no longer a teenager. She’d grown into a woman, with a woman’s desires. Hiding the truth would be a betrayal of the knight. She fixed her eyes on the red cross on Peter’s tunic. “I assume you’ve figured out that I am originally from Wales,” she began.
The sweet kiss he brushed on her knuckles made her nipples tingle and strengthened her resolve.
“The Welsh are a strange lot,” she continued when he laced his fingers with hers.
Staring at the unspoken bond, she hoped the alchemy that had set her heart and body alight had worked its magic on him. “We believe in the power of our dreams, but we tend to be stubborn, and we don’t like being told what to do, so we interpret them in our own unique way.”
By rights, Peter should be feeling very uncomfortable. Boots designed for riding motorcycles definitely weren’t suitable for tramping around ancient monuments in summer heat. Good thing he hadn’t brought the helmet.
He’d hesitated to mention the Tudor Gardens when they first arrived, given that certain flowers always triggered his allergies and the antihistamines were in his flat. But visiting Cressing without touring the Tudor Gardens would be like going to the Tower of London and not seeing the Crown Jewels. Susie’s wide-eyed delight at the profusion of roses, delphiniums and dahlias reassured him he’d made the right decision.
She was an enigma, this girl he’d at first dismissed as a trouble-maker. She lit his body on fire without even trying. In fact she was downright uncomfortable displaying her wares. He suspected she may have been abused. A protective instinct worthy of any Templar knight surged in his chest.
Or perhaps she was still a virgin. That possibility prompted another powerful instinct that had nothing to do with chivalry and everything to do with an inexorable need to be the first to possess her.
She’d jolted him out of his pompous self-righteousness about his research and forced him to consider things from a different point of view.
Now, they sat on a bench in a flower garden and he found himself actually inhaling the scented air, and enjoying it. She was on the verge of telling him about interpreting dreams—a subject that would normally send him running a mile in the opposite direction. Yet, he wanted to hear her thoughts about her nightly knight, and he certainly needed to understand the vision, apparition, intuition…whatever it was that he’d experienced in the Barley Barn.
But a snake lay curled in his belly. No matter what she told him about her knight and de Norrels, he was still convinced the logs no longer existed. He knew something about Cressing she didn’t.
Susie smoothed the folds of the heavy skirt and lifted her feet. “Sandals weren’t a good idea,” she admitted.
Peter shrugged. “Your feet might be dusty, mine are killing me in these boots.”
They laughed together.
He put his arm around her shoulder. “Tell me about Keith,” he said softly.
To passers-by they probably looked like an average young couple sharing the beauty of a lovely garden, but Susie’s life changed in that moment.
She inhaled the intoxicating maleness of a man perceptive enough to cut through the talk of dreams and visions and discern the treacherous rock on which her life had foundered. “He was my twin,” she whispered, fidgeting with the fraying sleeve of her blouse, astounded she had actually been able to speak the words.
Peter made no reply, offered no trite words of condolence, for which she was grateful. He simply pulled her closer and tilted her head onto his shoulder.
The floodgates opened. “We were friends, allies in the ongoing war against our parents. They’re alcoholics by the way.”
He kissed the top of her head. “My father and step-mother aren’t alcoholics,” he said, “but they don’t give a shit. I live off a trust fund my grandparents set up for me.”
His admission floored her. She’d thought he came from a supportive family background. “What happened to your mother?”
“She took off with some guy when I was ten,” he replied.
She snuggled into this kindred soul and snaked an arm around his waist. “I was seventeen when Keith was killed. Looking back, I suppose I half expected it. He took stupid risks, dabbled in drugs, drove like a maniac.”
“He was unhappy.”
She choked back the tears. “We both were, but he left me to deal with our parents alone.”
“He must have trusted you were strong enough to handle it.”
Something that had been tightly wound inside her since Keith’s death snapped. “I never thought of it that way,” she admitted. “It’s the same with dreams. I originally thought the knight was pushing me to prove the treasure exists.”
“And now,” he asked softly.
“He was pushing me to you.”
First Kiss
For years Peter had focussed on one goal—the successful completion of his PhD.
This would lead to a comfortable position at a prestigious university. His standing would eventually attract a suitable mate. They’d marry, buy a obscenely ostentatious house and have children etc., etc.
He held the state of matrimony in low regard and hadn’t expected to be knocked off his feet by a university drop-out with more emotional baggage than he carried—which was saying something.
Suddenly, a whole new world opened up. “Did you say earlier you’d like to join the dig at Idalion?”
“Yes. They’ve uncovered relics from a 6th century civilization there.”
“In Cyprus. Right?”
“Yes.”
“You probably know the Templars owned the entire island of Cyprus at one time? It was the center of their empire for years. They deposed the king so they could control it.”
She tried a sheepish smile. “I remember reading about that briefly during my one quick trip to the library.”
Her confession rocked him. “You turned my life upside down based on one visit to the library?”
“No, the knight did that.”
He smiled with her, but his words rattled around in his brain. He put his hands on her shoulders. “My life isn’t going to be the same after this,” he admitted, “but not because of knights or buried treasure.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with hope, doubt tugging at the corners of her lips. The solution to both was easy. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her.
She held herself rigid for a brief moment, taken by surprise, he supposed, by his invasion. He nibbled her bottom lip and coaxed with his tongue, elated when she opened her mouth and relaxed against him with a whimper.
The perfume of roses, the creamy taste of latte, her willingness to surrender and welcome his tongue filled him with an urge to suckle her tempting breasts. The Gardens were too public, so he pulled off her bonnet and ran his fingers through pink tufts.
The need to breathe and a judgmental ahem from a passer-by broke them apart, but he held her tight in his embrace.
“I think I’ve foun
d my treasure,” he whispered.
Misgivings nagged at Susie. Men weren’t to be trusted. Screw that—life wasn’t to be trusted. However, she wanted Peter and it seemed she’d captured his interest. He said he treasured her. Did that mean love as well as lust?
Faced with a choice of withdrawing to the safety of being a geek cocooned in her dead brother’s clothing, or risking a broken heart, she chose to surrender to female needs. She wanted to be reborn, to fly free.
She suckled Peter’s tongue like a greedy baby, inhaled the woodsy smell of his aftershave, ran her fingers through thick hair, and let him breathe for her. The red cross pressed against her breasts branded her. She belonged to him.
“Susie,” he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers.
She realized he had a full-on view of her breasts and was certain her tingling nipples betrayed her excitement, but she didn’t care. She arched her back, naughtily hoping her nipples might peek over the elastic top of her blouse. “Sir Peter,” she whispered in reply.
“I am no chivalrous knight,” he said hoarsely. “I promised a fancy feast in the Tea Room, but all I can think of is taking you home, unlacing this provocative corset, and having my way with you.”
Nothing sounded more appealing as desire spiralled its way into her womb, but he’d mentioned de Norrels and the logs. “What about the Templar treasure?”
To her surprise he pulled her onto his lap. “If the accounting books were once at Cressing, and I believe they might well have been, they’re not here now.”
Peter had to trust his instincts. She had opened up to him, something he sensed she rarely did with anyone, but it wouldn’t take much to make her retreat back into her protective shell.
“Don’t be angry, or disappointed,” he began. “I have to tell you about the later history of Cressing.”
Knightly Dreams Page 5
