The violet-eyed woman tutted at her. “Are you jealous because you are incapable of doing what I can?”
The witch was certainly bang on about that. She, herself, was no enchantress and had no such power, which was why Huld told her “The Story of the Priest.”
“I wish you had tried killing Pierce when you found out about him,” sighed the witch.
“Ah, but I know the rules. If one of the boy’s relations takes his life, then the rule is broken and your plan crumbles.” She positioned herself, ready to run off again. “Perhaps I will locate my descendant instead, kill her, and end this madness.”
“You won’t find her, for I have placed a blind spell over her,” the witch stated. “You will never know who she is.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mara seethed. “I know about him.”
The witch gritted her teeth. “That you do, mare.”
She muttered something under her breath that Mara could not understand, but it most certainly had an effect.
“Ah!” she hollered in agony.
She clutched her midsection and fell sideways, opposite the Viking fighter who collapsed the other way when the Scotsman’s sword was plunged into him. Mara lay on the ground, feeling her insides hardening up. Her skin split apart in several places as sandstone broke through and spread over her entire body. Her eyes tore open, turning her world completely black. Her body became immobile and shrank down in size. It repositioned itself into some sort of pose and froze in place. She could no longer speak, see, or feel anything. Only her hearing remained, which filled her with dread as she listened to the approach of footsteps.
* * *
Freya walked over and picked up the eight-inch statue of the mare in a crouch. “Now, what to do with you? I can’t simply destroy you, for you have a powerful protection over you. I can’t leave you somewhere for just anyone to find, and I certainly do not want you around. You’re going to have to be stored someplace.”
Freya crammed the statue into her bag and strolled out of the never-ending battle of soldiers long since gone.
Plymouth
Autumn, 1838
Mara had been asleep for a long time. There wasn’t much else to do since her imprisonment. A sense that someone had been killed woke her. She soon heard voices.
“It came from the city of Paititi. The City of Gold.”
“The old El Dorado legend, eh?” another voice chimed in.
“Hand it here, Landcross.”
Landcross? she thought. Could it be?
She couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were stone and no longer useful.
“I’m not s’pose to come out of this alive, am I?” Landcross said.
“Smart boy,” the other man with a German accent praised him, “Nein. I needed a good thief, as well as a fall man to blame the crime on. I will break your neck and make it appear you have fallen off the bed. You will be found with items around you and my dagger in your hand.”
She waited a beat before hearing a struggle. A gunshot blasted as someone crashed into something that vibrated the walls.
“Help!” Landcross shouted. “We need help in here!”
She was yanked off whatever she rested on and thrown. The impact did not hurt, but she instantly regained her sight when a bright light flashed. When the light vanished, it took her a moment to discover that she was free from her stone prison.
Mara rose, her bones popping, her muscles sore from being in her crouched position. She breathed in deeply as she stood and looked around. There were two men in a room with her. One was an extremely pale man with red eyes who sat on the floor, gaping up at her. He was the albino she had given nightmares to for years. Then there was the young and handsome Englishman.
“It’s you!” Mara seethed at him.
“Eh?” Pierce Landcross said, confused.
“I do not believe it,” she huffed.
The boy looked at her queerly, as if trying to place where he had seen her before. The shouts of men bellowed from outside the bedroom.
“I will find a way to kill you, Landcross, you little shit!” Mara vowed. “I’ll ruin that bitch’s plans yet!”
With that, she crashed through the window and vanished.
Chapter Sixteen
And There She Was
Archie invited Pierce in and told him to go warm himself by the fire. Pierce peeled off his drenched coat and hung it and his hat on the rack by the front door.
“Care for tea?” Archie offered, still surprised.
“Aye. Cheers, mate.”
Pierce stepped down a pair of steps that led to the large den and headed for the glowing hearth.
The house had a welcoming demeanor about it, despite the gloomy world outside. Firelight lit up the pinewood walls. There was a couch and an armchair across from each other in front of the fireplace, with a coffee table in the center. Large stones framed the hearth, with a shiny new rifle mounted over the mantel. The flooring was well swept and, other than the fire, the place was warmly lit by gas lamps.
He reached toward the fire while crouching over a quilt with children’s toys scattered over it. If his need for warmth weren’t holding him in its bitter grasp, he’d have joined Archie in the kitchen for a chat. The long time spent in the rain that had been more like tiny icy pellets than water had stolen all feeling in his face and hands. The cold made him tense, and his shoulders ached from the strain he’d put on his muscles.
“Pierce Landcross,” Archie said, coming over to the fire. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Funny,” he replied, standing to accept the handkerchief Archie was offering him. “That’s exactly what ol’ Darius asked me.”
“You ran into him?”
“I showed up at his door, thinking you lived at that mansion.”
“And Sir Javan let you go?” Archie asked as Pierce blew his nose.
“Sir Javan?” he noted, his voice nasally with his nose buried in the handkerchief. “He’s been knighted?”
“Shortly after you left.”
Pierce wiped his nose with a sniff. “He failed to mention that. The man must be humbler than I thought.”
He tried handing the handkerchief back to Archie, but he waved it off.
“You keep it.”
Pierce shrugged and tossed the dirty thing into the fire.
“I’m deeply amazed he didn’t murder you on the spot,” Archie added.
Pierce snorted. “Me, too.”
Suddenly, Archie was embracing him strongly. “It’s good to see you, Landcross. I believed we would never meet again.”
“Aye,” Pierce agreed, patting him on the back. “Neither did I.”
Archie stepped away. He looked more or less the same as when Pierce saw him seven years ago. His eyes had matured greatly, and there were mild imprints of wrinkles at the edges. His hair had grown, and he sported a sparse beard and mustache.
“Daddy?” came a small voice from the bottom of the stairs.
“Hugh,” said Archie, going over to the boy. “You’ve awakened from your nap already, son?”
Hugh was a miniature version of his father.
“Got yourself one of your own, eh?” Pierce quipped.
“Aye,” Archie acknowledged, lifting his son up. “He’s nearly four. Eilidh, and his baby sister, Jeneal, are upstairs, sleeping.”
Pierce gaped. “You got both your tykes to sleep at once? We can never get all of ours to nap like that.”
“You and Taisia have children now?” Archie inquired, approaching him while carrying his son.
“Aye. Twins, Joaquin and Galina, and our three-year-old, Lydia.”
“That’s fantastic, Landcross.”
“Landcross?” Hugh repeated. “Daddy, is he the one Auntie Clover writes the books about?”
“Pardon,” Pierce said. “Clover?”
Archie was about to say something when the front door opened. “It’s really beginning to come down out there,” reported a cloaked figure, carrying in a sack. �
��I should have gone to the market and post office much earlier.”
“Clover,” called Archie. “Look who’s here.”
Pierce stepped forward, eyes wide. “You’re bloody Jessamine Fairchild?” he asked bluntly.
“Dammit, Landcross,” Archie complained, “you have a real talent for telling people hello.”
The cloaked figure turned around to face the men.
“Pierce?” uttered a soft, mature sounding voice while a slender hand slid the hood off.
Pierce couldn’t believe what he saw. “Clover? Bloody hell, is that you, lass?”
And there she was, Clover Norwich, no longer the child he knew. As a knobby-kneed ten-year-old, she had been tall for her age. Now, she stood nearly as tall as he. Clover had developed into a strikingly beautiful young thing with piercing dark eyes set in a perfectly shaped face that, at the moment, was expressing utter bewilderment.
“Wh . . . what are you doing here?” she babbled as she approached him with arms outstretched.
Before he knew it, she was embracing him. Apparently, the Norwich lot had a knack for how to sneak in a hug. Her wine-red hair was damp, and her cloak was drenched. He was too amazed at how much a young woman she had become to return the hug. Not to mention, he was stunned to learn she was the one who had been writing his life story.
Thinking about it briefly, it all made sense. Clover had a clear and vivid imagination, which allowed her to be a descriptive storyteller. She was always writing in that journal of hers during their short adventures together, and she had once suggested to Pierce that someone ought to write books about him. Well, that someone had turned out to be her. She, the little girl who had taken pen to paper to chronicle everything he’d spoken about in his life. She also knew all the right people to give aliases to and included some crucial discretion, such as the location of Joaquin’s body. Damn, how did Pierce not put it together sooner?
Clover stepped back and smiled at him greatly. “You have hardly changed a bit.”
“You’ve changed a lot,” Pierce remarked. “So, you’re Jessamine Fairchild?”
“I am,” she admitted, handing the sack over to Archie and the boy. “I bought you the cheese you like, Hugh.”
“Yay!” the lad exclaimed, clapping.
A whistling from the kettle sounded in the kitchen.
Archie put his son down. “I’ll return with the tea in a moment.”
After he left, Clover went to the coat rack while untying the thread of her cloak. “I used a pen name,” she explained. “By the Queen’s request.”
She hung the wet thing up and looked at him. She still wore her mother’s cameo around her neck. “I tried to write the stories as accurately as possible, and even posted ads requesting information from people who knew you. I have gotten a lot of responses, including from Tilly Lincoln.”
“Tilly?” Pierce said. “Did she give you the daguerreotypes of Joaquin, Taisia, and me?”
“She did. I thought adding them to a couple of my books would woo my readers.”
Pierce recalled the time when Taisia, Joaquin, and he had told Tilly all that had happened to them in Edinburgh upon their return to Birmingham. It was almost as if these books were meant to be.
“Maybe the photographs were a mistake, but I truly never believed you’d return,” Clover continued. “I concluded His Cursed Blood with the sentence, ‘Pierce Landcross and his new bride left England, never to be seen or heard from again.’”
“Oh, aye, I read that.”
She approached him again, this time with a worried look. “Are you upset that I’ve been writing about you?”
When Pierce first learned about the series, he’d felt a tad perturbed, but after reading the novels, he’d recognized the genuine emotion displayed on each page. It demonstrated that a caring mind was behind the pen.
“No, lass. You did a bang-up job in capturing my story.”
Her pleased expression was as bright as the sun. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. I was afraid I had bungled up the parts I had to improvise on my own.”
“And you’re still writing them?”
“I wasn’t, but then I received a letter the other week from someone who said she has a great deal to tell about you.”
“She . . . who?”
“She wouldn’t say. Only that she’d send more letters soon. I have been to and from the post office, anxiously waiting for them ever since.” Clover took his hands and held them tightly in hers. “It’s so good to see you again, Pierce.”
He smiled. Despite everything, it was nice to see her and Archie again. “You, too, love.”
The stairs creaked with the weight of someone’s footsteps.
“Who is there?” Eilidh yawned.
In her arms, she held baby Jeneal.
“It’s Pierce!” Clover announced excitedly.
Once she’d rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, Eilidh looked at him more intently. “Pierce? I . . . I don’t believe it.”
She came up to him, expressing astonishment, and gave him a kiss on both cheeks. “How are you? Where’s Taisia? Has she come as well?”
“No. She’s at home with our children.”
“You have children?” Clover asked.
Her tone didn’t indicate jealousy, though he remembered the childhood affection she’d once held for him. What she expressed was excitement. He was certain she was ready to take out her pen and paper.
“Home? Where’s that?” Eilidh questioned.
Pierce switched his attention from Clover to Eilidh.
“Er . . . it’s far. Oi! Arch!” he called, walking toward the kitchen. “What’s the holdup with the tea, eh?”
* * *
They sat in the den by the fire, drinking tea and chatting for a while. Archie, his wife, and his sister took the couch, while Pierce took the armchair. On the quilt, the siblings played with their toys. Some were small automatons.
“Oi, are those ol’ Indigo’s works of art?” Pierce guessed.
“They are, indeed,” Archie confirmed. “We visit him at least once a month. When we do, he always gives Hugh and Jeneal a toy.”
“Our visits are increasing now that he’s gotten so old. Poor thing,” Eilidh explained. “It’s getting harder for him to make his toys with his arthritis and bad eyesight. And he’s there all alone. I wish he had someone around to help him.”
Pierce hated to hear such news about his old friend. “Maybe I’ll visit him on my return trip. See if there’s something I can do.”
“Tell us about what you have been up to,” Archie insisted.
The tea had warmed up his insides, and he had begun regaining feeling everywhere else. Even his damp clothing had dried. In his comfort, Pierce had no qualms about opening up to them.
Pierce told them about everything during his and his family’s time with the Apaches in Mexico. How he’d been roped into becoming a bounty hunter. He spoke fondly about his children and all their little personalities, and after making Clover swear that she would not put it into her books, he told them about the island they lived on. He went on about the reason for his unplanned visit to England, and all that had happened along the way. He hadn’t talked so much in his life.
Nothing but shocked expressions met him, except for Hugh and Jeneal, who were still playing with their toys on the floor.
Finally, Archie blinked. “I’m sorry. Did you say visions?”
“Jailbreak in New Orleans?” asked Clover.
“You have a witch wanting to kill you?” Eilidh joined in.
“Yep. Yes. And, aye,” Pierce answered.
“And you’re traveling to Sherwood Forest to find money your brother hid up here?” Archie wondered. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll run into Locksley?”
“Nah.” Pierce waved off. “Him and I are square. Look.” He slid his fingers over the puncture scars on the side of his neck. “He did this to me at ol’ Indigo’s cottage. Turns out, he didn’t want to kill me, after all. He wanted to turn me into a vam
pire.”
“What?” everyone yelled simultaneously.
“You’re joking?” Archie said, completely stunned.
Seeing their reaction, Pierce realized why Clover wrote her books. Maybe his life was worthy of storytelling. To him, it was just a life. He’d never thought there was anything extraordinary about it except for the other people in it.
“We can give you the money,” Clover offered unexpectedly.
“Pardon?”
“Aye,” Archie agreed. “Between what we inherited when our father died and Clover’s book sales, we have enough.”
Now, it was Pierce’s turned to be shocked. “Five thousand is a lot.”
“We have it.” Eilidh proclaimed.
“I can never repay you.”
Archie chuckled. “Ironic that someone like you would say that.”
“I’m a retired thief,” he pointed out before remembering that he’d stolen from the New Orleans clothing store. “Sort of.”
“I’ll pay it, Pierce,” said Clover. “Consider it your cut of the profits from the book sales.”
What luck! Pierce could get the money and be back in Le Havre much sooner than he’d thought. His scalp prickled with excitement. “Bloody hell. Cheers, lass.”
They made a place for Pierce in one of the guest bedrooms, and for the first time in months, he slept soundly through the night.
* * *
A knock brought him out of his slumber. He slowly opened his eyes and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of them.
“Hold on. I’m coming,” Eilidh grunted from downstairs. The hinges creaked opened. “Yes?”
The Forgotten Story Page 15
