Linda Needham

by The Wedding Night

  “I can’t.”

  “And you can’t tell me why not, when I can think of a million reasons for us to share our lives, starting with the love we feel for each other. Unrestrained and honorable, passionate, and a hell of a lot of fun. Then there is Anna. Caro. Poppy. Your aunt and our unborn children. Family. And your damned phallus collection.”

  “Jack.” He found her smile and made the most of it, nuzzled her chin and then planted a row of kisses along her jaw.

  “Then, my love, there’s our nightly bath in the same tub. We’ve more duck houses to build for Poppy and riding lessons for Caro, not to mention fending off the sweaty-palmed young men who will soon be courting Anna in the parlor.”

  “She’s only ten.”

  “Oh, love, time goes by so quickly.” He was so reasonable, so plausible in his dreaming. “And of course, stretching out as far as we can see, is our search for the Willowmoon Knot and all that silver. Partners, remember?”

  He might as well have hit her in the stomach. Mairey shoved at his shoulders and sat upright, banging her head against the little window behind her. She tried not to look his way, tried not to care that she had injured his pride once again.

  “All I ask, Mairey, is that you give me one reason why we shouldn’t be married. Do that and I’ll stop asking.”

  He stared at her and waited for the answer she couldn’t speak. So she turned away and watched the lorries go by.

  I can’t marry you, Jack, because I love you far too much.

  The expansion of the British Museum was only eleven years old, and already its storage vaults were bursting at their seams with new artifacts arriving weekly from Egypt and the Orient, the priceless and the profane crammed into every square inch of space that wasn’t used for display.

  With the aid of the Gazetteer, a stiff-nosed curator, and Jack’s Moses-like letters of patent, they were once again in a cool, airless basement, alone with some of the greatest treasures of civilization.

  Mairey had prepared a false set of notes for Jack and had sent him whistling off to a vault around the corner from where she had intended to look.

  If the astonishing theory that she had formed from the Gazetteer was correct, if the Knot had somehow managed to make its way from Yorkshire into the possession of the amateur archaeologist Sir Edmund Larkenfield sometime before 1778, then it might well have been sold to the British Museum in 1810, along with the rest of Larkenfield’s collection of antiquities—which had remained scattered through this warren of rooms, virtually unpacked and uncataloged, for nearly fifty years.

  She had only come this far because of the man in the next room. She had never felt so wicked, or so angry. She loved Jack as she loved her life, and all this deception was beginning to drown her.

  As Mairey studied her own encrypted notes, she was struck by a wave of deceit that made more of those fat tears form in her eyes, made her stomach pitch again with regret.

  Deception.

  She was an expert at it now. She could have gone on the stage, would have been the talk of London with her sleight of hand.

  Deception. Letting Jack believe that they were working toward the same goal, when in actuality she was planning to steal the Knot before he even knew that she had found it.

  Let him go on looking until his hair grayed and his shoulders stooped, and the light in his eyes had dulled. Mairey would be long gone with the Willowmoon, living secretly in her village, where she’d have to exist on the sweet memories of her handsome dragon.

  Yet there was something in all this convoluted deception that she had never considered, probably because finding the Knot had never seemed so possible before: what would happen after she had rescued it, after the disk of silver was tucked safely away in the glade?

  What then?

  A little bell of jangling, implausible joy began to ring in her head. She’d been thinking in all the wrong directions.

  What if she did find the Willowmoon, and what if Jack wasn’t with her at the time? What if he never actually saw it? Then he could never identify the markings, never even know that it had been found. Therefore—and this was the glory-cloud miracle and the happy ending—he could never use the map as a source to the silver.

  A marvelous pantomime was mounting itself in her brain. Gaslights, costumes, lots of singing. And a pair of lovers whose stars might just become uncrossed.

  Let’s say that she opened this random drawer in front of her and found the Willowmoon Knot lying there, winking at her, saying, “Good morning, Miss Faelyn and isn’t it a fine day.” After she picked herself off the floor, all she’d have to do would be to pocket it and say nothing to Jack.

  It would be gone—just like that. As though it had never been a threat.

  Oh, Lord, the Knot would burn like molten lead. But at the end of the day, after pretending to look for it, after combing through the catacombs with Jack, his partner, his love, the mother of all his unborn children would just leave the museum, clinging to his steadfast arm, savoring the weight of the Willowmoon as it jostled against her thigh.

  She would feast on the sunlight as Jack escorted her down the wide stairs and into Great Russell Street. She might even stop him on the steps and kiss the daylights out of him. Yes, she would definitely do that. In fact, she’d make love to him on the way home in the hackney, and then demand that they be married on the spot.

  He’d like that.

  Then when Jack went on another of his treks to Manchester or to one of his mines, she would take a quick day-trip to her village, bury the Knot where it would never be found again, and make it home to Drakestone in time to have dinner with her husband.

  A fairy tale come true! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Once the Willowmoon Knot was discovered, it merely had to vanish without a trace. There was nothing in the Faelyn family pledge that demanded she entomb herself with the Knot like one of the pharaoh’s servants. She didn’t have to hide out like a bandit, because no one would ever know that she’d taken it. Once she had rescued it and its map was removed from public memory, then her job was done.

  And her life with Jack could begin.

  Mairey stood in awe of this pantomime. It was very good.

  It was flawless.

  But only if Jack never ever saw the Willowmoon Knot. That was the trick, the sleight of hand that would make all the difference. Whether she found the Knot here at the British Museum or at the Ashmolean or in Queen Victoria’s stocking drawer, she could never let Jack know about it.

  For that would be the end of it—her dreams and his. The children that they would never have.

  He was as rich as Croesus, contented, titled, and he had no need at all for a silver mine. Once the Knot was safely buried and Mairey was in complete control of its destiny, they could spend years, wonderful years, looking for it together. A hobby. A family game. The Rushford legacy.

  She still couldn’t risk a marriage to him, though; not until she had found and hidden the Knot. Because if she failed, if he should ever see it, then she would have to steal away into the night; she would have to disappear with her sisters and Jack’s children, and retreat to the safety of her village as though she had never existed.

  And that would destroy him completely.

  There was one path to their happiness, and it was up to her to find it—quickly.

  All this heady excitement had winded her. She must remember to breathe more often; she was dizzy again, and not quite right in the stomach.

  But she was certainly well enough to rescue her dragon from his lonely cave.

  Mairey’s notes made no sense to Jack. Hellfire, nothing she’d done in the last six weeks had made any sense to him. He asked daily for her hand, confessed his uncompromising, unconditional love for her.

  And daily he heard, along with a deluge of weeping, “I love you, Jack, but I can’t marry you! I can’t! No matter how often you ask.”

  But the baffling woman consistently followed her refusal by throwing her arms around his neck and m
aking love to his mouth.

  Only last week she had vehemently refused him and then proceeded to seduce him immediately afterward in the greenhouse. She’d pushed him onto a bench, lifted her skirts, unfastened his trousers, and sat down on him.

  Blazes, the memory of her sighing ecstacies still made him hard and quick, even now. And more resolved than ever to prevail. They belonged together, he and Mairey; they deserved a life with the girls and Tattie and all the children that would come from their remarkable union.

  This damned Willowmoon Knot was at the root of all her apprehensions, which made no sense at all. They were after the same thing. His interest was the silver, plain and simple; success brought him privilege and opportunities. His title allowed him to demand action, which was more vital now that he had taken back his search for his sisters.

  But Mairey’s obsession with the Knot had never sat right with him. Disproportional loyalty to her father? A symbol of her independence? Wealth of her own? Pride?

  The only course was to find the blasted thing. The truth would be there in its mysterious knot-work. A truth that Mairey would have to unravel for him.

  The Gazetteer hadn’t specifically cataloged a silver crest of pagan design, or anything named Willow or Moon or Willowcrest, or any derivation thereof. Despite all logic to the contrary, his stubborn, faultless mentor with the silver-flecked eyes seemed to think that the Knot might have at least been here in the museum at one time, and stored with a collection of twelfth-century Scottish plateware.

  He had learned a great deal from Mairey about the fine art of detection, despite the heady distractions of her rose-scented hair when it slipped out of its prison of pins and pencils, despite her earthy laughter and his perpetual state of arousal whenever she was within sniffing distance. He was indeed learning to read through the lines of a text and form a whole image out of its mismatched parts.

  Which was why some boxes labeled. “Larkenfield” had caught his interest when he’d arrived this morning. The Gazetteer listed the man as a collector of ecclesiastical antiquities. The name was memorable to Jack in that Larkenfield had been not only a minor figure in British archaeology during the last century but also a Yorkshireman and a canon of York Minster for fifteen years. Odd that Mairey hadn’t noticed the connection.

  Had Larkenfield been a petty thief? Had he pilfered the storage rooms at the minster close over the years and come up with a collection of long-forgotten antiquities to grace his mantelpiece? Barring that intrigue, Larkenfield might even have purchased the pieces from the diocese.

  Well! A theory! And he’d devised it all on his own!

  Mairey would be quite proud. And best of all, if they found the Knot she’d have no reason not to marry him.

  “God willing, Mairey Faelyn, Sir Larkenfield will bring us together.” Jack tucked Mairey’s confusing notes into his jacket pocket and found her where he’d left her, diligently sifting through fat drawers of wood shavings cushioning singular items of Celtic enamel work.

  “I have a theory, my love.”

  “Jack!” The eyes that found him were feverish with an elation that seemed to have startled her. Despite the breadth of her grin, her cheeks were chalky and her hands were as damp as though she’d just washed them.

  “Have you found the Willowmoon then, Mairey?” He kissed her forehead, fearing that she was ill. “Can we go home and be married?”

  “No, Jack! But—” The woman held the rest of her sentence inside her smile, then hooked his neck with both hands and planted a sultry kiss on his mouth, following it with a dozen more all over his face.

  “Very nice, my love. Very, very nice.” Jack just stood there, enjoying her assault, knowing better than to ask where she’d found such happiness.

  She finished abruptly and stood back to study him, as though she hadn’t seen him in years. She sighed, so blissfully that Jack’s hopes soared.

  “You said you have a theory, Jack? Something to do with the Scottish plateware?”

  “No. With an archaeologist named Larkenfield.”

  “Who?” The question was more a forlorn hooting sound, a baby owl lost in the woods. The chalkiness increased to gray. She sat down hard on a tall stool.

  “That’s it. You’re not well, Mairey.” Jack stooped to pick her up. “We’re going home.”

  “No! I have to stay.” She twisted out of his embrace and pushed away. “I’m just tired, Jack. Tired of everything.” There came the tears again. “I’ll rest while you tell me your theory.”

  “Then sit.” Skeptical, Jack handed her his kerchief and watched her carefully as he detailed Larkenfield’s many possible connections to the Willowmoon, expanding on his earlier theory, puffing out his chest because it all sounded as plausible as any theory they’d followed yet.

  Mairey listened raptly, patiently, as she sat on the stool, her fingers white-knuckled and laced in her lap. She wiped at her brow twice, but by the time he had finished, she looked much improved and was ready with her questions.

  “That’s very good, Jack. Where do you plan to look first? In the Yorkshire registries?”

  “I’ll start in here with you.”

  “Why?”

  “The name Larkenfield, for one. It’s on labels all over these rooms here.”

  “Really! I hadn’t noticed.” She read her way across a shelf of boxes. “Why, you’re right, Jack. Mmm…to save time, why don’t we each take a room, and then we’ll know it’s done.”

  “You’ll be all right in here alone?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Neither have I, love. And you know why.” He kissed her cheek again; satisfied that it was cool and dry. Her mouth was wet and ready for him, and she was tugging him closer, her fingers making inroads through the buttons of his waistcoat.

  If she was going to run hot today, he was going to make damn sure she knew that he was just as hot. He clamped his hands over her backside and pressed her belly against his erection.

  “Jack, you’re—”

  He stopped her hand from slipping between them. “Yes, I am, madam.” He inhaled cool air through his nostrils. “But this is a museum.”

  “I love you, Jack.”

  “Marry me then.”

  Her eyes were awash with those tugging tears again, and he could hardly credit his hearing when she said, “Someday, Jack. With just the right miracle.”

  “Someday?” His heart swelled. He nearly crowed.

  She didn’t say “no.” She said “someday.” Someday could be next month or next Tuesday.

  Jack decided to leave the subject hovering there between them. He tipped her chin to better kiss her, delved deeply, and then left her sighing.

  If she wanted a miracle, he’d give her one.

  As he opened overstuffed drawers and dangerously stacked cabinets full of close-packed effigies and musical instruments made of dried gourds, and well-endowed wooden icons from some warmer clime, he realized that the Larkenfield collection hadn’t been uncrated because it was nothing more than an eccentric’s nest.

  Clay whistles and seedpod rattles and feathered headpieces, all of them musty and inscrutably sorted: by alphabet, or color, or size, he couldn’t tell.

  Unwilling to give up on a perfectly good theory, though he was sorting his way to the bottom of a large trunk, past hefty pieces of stone gargoyles and brass bosses, when his heart took a shuddering leap.

  These things were Celtic! Ha! Definitely Celtic. The serpentine interlacing, the unsubtle patterns of nature that turned and turned back and forth upon each other. Mairey had taught him the elements; he’d even begun to see them in his sleep.

  So there was an order here in Larkenfield’s collection. Ecclesiastical and Celtic. Exactly what might have come out of the catacombs of the minster at York.

  He picked more carefully through the trunk, looking for Mairey’s silver disk. There was k
not-work aplenty, but only in wood and stone and ivory. Thoroughly disappointed, and glad that he hadn’t called Mairey to come look, he repacked the items, nearly forgetting the flat, ironbound coffer that he’d set aside when he’d unpacked the trunk.

  When he lifted it, the coffer rattled with a weighty mass that slid back and forth inside.

  He popped the little hasp and opened the domed lid. More bird’s nests, but used for packing, it seemed. Delicate hummingbird’s nests, by the size and shimmer of the feathers still poking from the intricately woven grasses.

  He lifted the three nests away, expecting more bosses or the myriad cloak clasps that littered the halls of antiquity.

  Indeed, there were two more gold-encrusted cloak clasps. And below them—

  A silver disk, beautifully Celtic. Intricate and undulating with all its asymmetric tendrils, each of which ended in long narrow leaves. The willow. A ridge of chevrons. And the four phases of the moon.

  And if all that hadn’t convinced Jack, hadn’t made his heart race with joy, when he turned the disk over he saw that some long-ago hand had written in equally curvilinear script.

  The Willowmoon Knotte. Source unknowne.

  “Mairey!” He shouted her name and whooped, stuffed the precious knot into his jacket pocket, and the clasps and the nests back into the coffer.

  “Bloody blazes, woman, come quickly!” She ought to be here with him. She ought to have been the one to find it, the first to hold it, to feel its coolness on her palm. This conquest was hers; he was only her grateful, awe-struck apprentice.

  “Mairey!” He listened eagerly for the footfalls that should have come flying into the room already. He couldn’t wait to see the joy light her face when he reached into his pocket and unfolded the Willowmoon to her.

  Bright silver and triumph: that would be the hue of her eyes today. Tonight, they would be the smoky gray of a married woman, or at least a betrothed one.

  He stuffed everything back into the trunk so that no one would be the wiser, fighting the forces of nature that had expanded the contents to twice their original size.

  The Willowmoon Knot. Just a step in the direction of the old Celtic silver mine. But it was the most important step of all.