What the Dashing Duke Deserves (Lords of Happenstance, #3)

by Sandra Sookoo

  “Why not Juliana? I’d much rather she remains ahead for safety,” the duke argued.

  Andrew snorted. “Oh, it doesn’t matter where the two of you are. Safety is not guaranteed. Not anymore after your little stunt back there.” When neither of them moved, he yanked again at Juliana’s hair. This time the pain was too much and tears fell to her cheeks. “If you don’t move, Lord Litton, I won’t hesitate to put a ball through her.” So saying, he jammed the nose of the pistol into Juliana’s ribcage.

  When she cried out, he merely laughed. “Using me as collateral? To what purpose? I’m nothing to the duke.” That had to be the truth, for he’d not said anything about love. Yes, he held affection for her and desire, of course, but he hadn’t made a declaration, but oh, she’d felt close to him after unburdening her soul and being held so tenderly.

  “I rather doubt that. It would seem you haven’t learned much of anything away from England.” But he didn’t elaborate. He landed his gaze on Crispin. “Move. I’ll tell you when to stop.” He prodded the duke with the nose of his pistol. Then he told her to grab a lantern, while he did the same.

  Each step tried her patience. Since he couldn’t hold a lamp as well as her hair, he’d relaxed in that regard, but the sharp sting of the pistol at her ribcage was an ever-present reminder that he was dangerous. And poor Crispin. Trembles fell down her spine when she looked at him and his droopy shoulder. The agony he must feel! Once again, she’d put someone she cared about into the drink.

  Perhaps if she kept Andrew talking, she would come upon something useful in his narrative. “Why do you want the staff if not to conquer the world?”

  “That is merely a legend.” A slight growl echoed in his surly tone.

  “Yet you don’t believe in its alleged powers.”

  “Stupid chatter.” He jabbed the gun harder into her side. “I want the jewel that sits atop it.”

  “We don’t have the jewel.” For that matter, she still didn’t know exactly what type of gem it was.

  “You will. It is in the burial chamber, and imagine my surprise when I located that final resting place in this tomb, and it belongs to that pompous idiot Archewyne.” His bark of laughter didn’t hold any mirth. “Those nodcocks in charge of firmans in this blighted country wouldn’t allow me into the tomb without the earl’s permission. Of course, that couldn’t happen without me explaining why, so I found my own way in.”

  “Yet you haven’t reached the burial chamber.”

  “As I said, I suspect it’s a trap.” He shrugged. “Why should I risk my own life when I can use the two of you? Saves me the trouble of murdering you after I have the jewel.”

  “It’s in the room you’re sending us to?”

  “Not exactly. That room guards the burial chamber.”

  Ahead of them, a wheezing sort of sound came from Crispin. Was he attempting a laugh? “How can you even know that? It’s mere speculation at this point.”

  Andrew kicked and caught the duke in the small of his back. Crispin stumbled forward a few steps but kept his footing by some miracle. “The former director of the antiquities museum told me, under duress as it were.”

  “No.” Juliana shook her head as another wave of sadness welled within her. “You killed him.” It wasn’t a question. “I knew it.”

  “I did.” The smug bastard sounded pleased as punch. “The man had a piece of papyrus that told of the wonders included in this burial chamber. It was the one thing he guarded with his life, but stupidly, he told your father.” He cast a glance at her that brimmed with malice. “Or rather the man masquerading as your father. I couldn’t have him blabbing that information to you or the fair duke there, so I framed him for murder and told him that if he breathed so much as a word to you, I’d kill you too.”

  “He was protecting me this whole time,” she whispered to herself, and when she slowed her steps, Andrew prodded her with the nose of his pistol. Tears blurred her vision. No wonder he hadn’t put up a fight when the accusations hit. She wrenched away from the peer. “You are a vile excuse of a man. Do you know that?”

  Both Crispin and Andrew laughed, though the sound the duke made was a bit pathetic.

  “I have good reasons for what I’ve done.” A muscle in his cheek ticked. He said nothing else.

  “Does that mean you don’t plan to share your asinine motivation?” If there was a snippiness to her tone, it was justified.

  When Andrew remained silent, Crispin stepped in. “Men like him are nothing but cowards, Juliana. It matters not his excuse or his reason. He is a murderer and a criminal.”

  “You don’t know anything about me!” Lord Ramsay shoved his lantern into her hand. Seconds later, he attacked the duke and they both fell to the stone floor. Ignoring Crispin’s cry of pain when he landed on his back, and in essence his hands, Andrew delivered a punch to Crispin’s chin. He glared down at the other man, his face twisted and gruesome in the jumping lantern light. “I need that stone.”

  “Andrew, stop,” Juliana implored as she approached the men. “Can you not see you’ve already bested him? He’s not a threat.” She set the lanterns on the ground near Crispin’s prone form. When she kneeled beside him, the peer pointed the pistol at her head as he stood. She ignored his posturing. If he’d wished to kill her, he would have done it already. Until they reached the burial chamber, he needed them both. “Crispin, can you hear me?” She brushed the wayward lock of hair from his pale, damp forehead.

  His eyes fluttered open. Pain filtered through his gaze. “I’m down, but I’m not dead to the world yet.” A groan escaped him. “Help me up. I won’t ask him for anything.”

  “Why are you so obstinate?” she whispered and helped him into a sitting position.

  “The same reason you’re so stubbornly determined,” he shot back. A pain-filled laugh left his throat, and he groaned again when she awkwardly tugged him to his feet.

  The fact he never complained about his plight or what he felt impressed her. At times, agents were forced to survive horrible situations without giving away their identity. She had much to learn, and there was no one better to study than him. “Lean on me for a moment.” Then she turned her head and glared at Andrew. “I refuse to go any farther until you tell me why you want that jewel.”

  She had either called his bluff or made her last stand. It didn’t matter, not when Crispin remained standing and his heavier weight sagged against her as she threaded her arm beneath his good shoulder and supported his waist.

  Andrew shoved his pistol into the holster on his belt. “I told you that my sister is dying.”

  “Yes.” What did one have to do with the other? “How does the jewel help?”

  “It contains the Elixir of Life. Some scholars theorize the heart of that gem contains a few precious drops of God’s own tears. It will heal any wound or ailment, perhaps provide everlasting life.”

  “Which is why it’s called the Staff of the Gods.” She couldn’t keep the awe from her voice. Perhaps that was the true power of the gods. “How extraordinary.”

  Crispin snorted. “If that is the case, you would squander such a valuable artifact on your sister?”

  She didn’t know if he’d said that in order to further provoke Lord Ramsay or if he truly wanted to know, but it wasn’t well done of him.

  “I would do anything within my power to heal her.” Andrew glared. “That’s why I want the staff, and that’s why I need the jewel.” For a brief moment, vulnerability reflected in his dark eyes, gone with his next blink. “My sister is all I have left in this world.”

  Juliana shook her head. “You think the staff itself is legend, but the mystic properties of a jewel you believe?” It made no sense. However, if either was true, that relic was dangerous, and in the wrong hands, disastrous. She had to keep it from him, dying sister or not.

  “It’s what I’m choosing to know as fact.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you plan to do with the staff? The gold alone is beyond priceless
, not to mention it’s a true relic of both Egyptian and Hebrew history.”

  “Sell it to the highest bidder.” He shrugged. “If despots wish to own it, they can pay the price. Then I’ll take my sister somewhere in the world with a pleasing, year-round climate where she’ll thrive.”

  “Her husband won’t protest?” Surely the woman was married.

  “He’s an ancient baron with one foot firmly in the grave. He will not care.” Andrew yanked one of the lanterns from the floor. “The director’s papyrus told the story of how Moses took the jewel from the slave who spirited it away after he broke the staff. He carried it to this tomb in what I think was the last effort of a royal son who had a guilty conscience.”

  “For what? His intentions of leaving Egypt?” Crispin blew out a breath. Sweat glistened on his upper lip, a testament to his trauma. “That is a known fact. Moses did leave Egypt. The rest is history, according to the Bible, if you’re using that as your definitive proof. Why would he come back here, to the burial tomb of his mother, the woman he’d disappointed, the woman who would have put him on the throne of a united Egypt? Surely he wouldn’t wish to return to her bosom on the off chance she might try to sway him into changing his mind.”

  Juliana gasped. “He came back for love.”

  Both men scoffed.

  Crispin spoke before Andrew could. “Perhaps he wanted to say goodbye or to mend the rift so it wouldn’t weigh on his conscience? If he’d found God, wasn’t it his duty to forgive?”

  “You are both wrong.” Juliana turned to catch Crispin’s gaze. This wasn’t a moment she wanted to share with Andrew, the louse, but there was nothing for it. “Now the relief at the entrance of the tomb makes sense.” She smiled, and for a brief moment, his eyes cleared and sparkled like they used to. “Moses was promised to Queen Hatshepsut’s daughter, Princess Neferure. They were engaged despite the vast differences in their ages—nearly twenty years I’d estimate—and when he left Egypt, he’d intended to take her with him. Perhaps he wished to convert her to his newfound religion.”

  Again, both men protested the theory.

  She shook her head. “Allow me to continue. He was a high-ranking advisor at court. She was no doubt an innocent young lady, probably not more than eighteen with stars in her eyes for the mysterious Moses, the lauded prince of her mother’s, gifted by the gods. It was only natural they would wed, for their alliance would have strengthened the queen’s reign and ensure her dictates would live on. But then Moses intersected with God. His whole life and viewpoints changed, clashed with everything he’d learned while at the court of the pharaoh, but that wouldn’t have altered his heart or how he felt about his intended.”

  “So why come to this tomb?” Crispin asked, slumping more firmly against her. “This is where her—their—mother was buried.”

  “No.” Andrew interrupted, as if they sat around a drawing room instead of skated about the intrigue of a tomb’s passageway. “All evidence I was able to translate from the papyrus says this tomb might have begun as a resting place for the queen, but it needed to be used for her daughter.”

  “Because the princess was either dying or she’d just expired.” Juliana glanced at him as excitement built in her chest. “Moses had the jewel with the Elixir of Life, and he wished to use it on her. I’m quite certain he loved her. If I could find tomb reliefs justifying that fact...” She cleared her throat. “Bringing her back to life would be his one last gift to the woman he adored, but who had refused to leave the land of her birth with him.”

  “If I may continue to play devil’s advocate here,” Crispin interrupted with a fair amount of sarcasm in his tone. “If what you say is correct and Moses brought the jewel with the elixir in it to try and save the princess, why didn’t it work? There are too many records of the period that say she truly did die early and she had no children. Nor did she marry.”

  Sometimes men had no romantic bones in their body. She blew out a breath, almost forgetting for one moment that she and he were essentially prisoners. “She died of a broken heart. Perhaps they argued, or she tried to persuade him to stay. The man she was to marry threw her over out of religious fervor, to follow a whole different culture and a single god.” Her grin was one of victory. “Beyond that, she probably felt that she’d disappointed her mother. Try living up to that ego. What had she to live for after that?”

  The three of them glanced at each other in the flickering shadows. Would they ever know the real truth of what had occurred in those ancient lives?

  Then Andrew shook his head and seemed to remember where he was. “Stupid woman.” His sneer was back in place. “Stop thinking with your emotions and use your head. People don’t die of broken hearts. The girl was struck down by a disease brought about by inbreeding. That was most common in royal families.” Once more he drew his pistol. “No more talking. We have work to do.” He shoved at her shoulder. “Move.”

  At least he’d let her walk at Crispin’s side and support him. Too much longer and the duke would pass out from the pain. Once he wasn’t of use to Andrew’s cause, what would become of him?

  Juliana tamped down the panic rising in her throat. She had to be strong and bide her time. If she wished to redeem herself, she couldn’t let terror defeat her.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The passageway wasn’t as long as the downward sloping one, but the fact they were so far underground, beneath the hills and cliffs of the King’s Valley, staggered Juliana’s mind. How the ancient Egyptians had managed to accomplish even part of the feat amazed her. All too soon, they reached the room Lord Ramsay had mentioned, and on the stone surrounding the rectangular-cut doorway, reliefs had been painted.

  When he attempted to force her and Crispin into the room, she dug in her heels—literally. “Stop it this instant. I wish to take a closer look at the reliefs.”

  “What does it matter? You’ll have more than enough time after we reach the burial chamber, and I retrieve that jewel,” Andrew groused. He reached for the pistol on his hip.

  “So help me, Andrew, if you draw that gun one more time, I will beat you senseless with my shoe.” She straightened her spine. “You’ve already rendered the duke nearly useless.”

  “Oh, thanks for that. I was just beginning to build my confidence back,” Crispin interjected with a fair amount of sarcasm, but the pain in his tone was unmistakable.

  “I’m sorry.” Then she turned her attention to the reliefs, traced a couple with her fingertip. “They are amazing.” Her heart throbbed with sympathy. “Here is Queen Hatshepsut, but she is weeping and there are priests around her.” She pointed to the pictures. The white tunics of the priests stood in stark contrast to the oranges and reds used in other aspects of the relief. The gold of the queen’s crown seemed as fresh as if it had been painted yesterday.

  Crispin leaned his good shoulder against the other side of the doorway as he examined the paintings on that side. “Moses is reflected in this one. He, too, seems to be overcome with emotion. Again, the golden halo is around his head. Oh, and look down below.” He indicated a painting near the floor with a nudge of his chin. “I assume that is the Princess Neferure. She has her hands pressed over her heart.”

  She joined him, kneeled to better examine the painting while Andrew stood behind and held a lantern aloft. “The princess is crying.” Juliana couldn’t help her grin. “You see? I know the two of them were in love but star-crossed!”

  Both men groaned.

  Then Andrew pulled out his pistol despite her warning. He leveled it at Crispin’s head. “Enough of this. As I said, this room is the outer sanctuary before the burial chamber. We’ll have only one chance if a trap is triggered. I trust the two of you are as intelligent as you think you are.”

  She glanced at Crispin and then back to Andrew. “Have you reconnoitered the room to form a theory of what is waiting?”

  “Of course I have,” he replied in frosty tones. “There is a rectangular-shaped dais or table in the middle of t
he room. Embedded in three walls are what appear to be windows with ledges, if we weren’t underground. The walls themselves are covered with reliefs, as is the floor. I didn’t dare enter to examine anything.”

  “Why not?” The duke pushed himself upright, wincing as he did so. “What is it you fear?”

  Andrew grabbed hold of Crispin’s good arm and yanked him over until they stood in the doorway. “Do you not see the floor littered with mummified remains? That has to mean something.” He shook the arm for emphasis. “A deterrent to thieves. No one has been able to pass this room.”

  Curious, Juliana crowded the doorway as well. From what little she could see in the golden arc of lantern light, he’d been correct. “Based on the clothing on the remains, there have been other men down here throughout the centuries.” And that was all the overwhelming evidence they needed as to another tomb entrance, perhaps one that didn’t feature traps.

  Drat it all.

  Despite the anxiety clawing at her stomach, she nodded. “If we are to do this, you’ll need to untie the duke’s hands. I simply won’t be able to solve a puzzle by myself. And quite frankly, I’ll want your help as well. I rather doubt this will be a one-man operation.”

  For long moments she stared at him, this man she’d found solace in during her first lonely and grief-numb months in Cairo. Then, he nodded and re-holstered his pistol.

  “Agreed, but the second he tries to play the hero, I’ll put a ball through his head. I don’t require his assistance past this room, and you certainly don’t need him for anything else, not when you can have me.” He swiftly moved behind Crispin and worked at the bonds.

  Juliana frowned. “You would take me back if given the chance?” This again. Had he truly carried a torch for her? Could she use that to her advantage?

  “Perhaps, given the right circumstances.” He shrugged and when he tugged the rope from Crispin’s wrists, the duke uttered a sound between a sigh and a groan.