A Highlander for Christmas (2 page)

Something dug at Jared’s chest. There were rules, and hurting a woman broke all of them. “Why?”

“Her father appears to have fallen in with the wrong sort.”

“Let him help her.”

“He disappeared about seven months ago, after an airplane crash in Northern Sumatra. He might have been carrying a fortune in historic jewels at the time.”

To his irritation, Jared felt a pang of curiosity. “None of them were his own, I take it?”

“Most were from the Smithsonian, but a dozen or so were on loan from the royal family’s private collection.”

For a moment the world hazed black before Jared’s eyes. Death felt close enough to touch. Even the high glens and the silver lochs could not hold the darkness at bay. But perhaps death was always close in this bleak, chaotic world. “Why are you so interested in the daughter of a criminal?”

“A
possible
criminal,” Nicholas corrected. “And no matter what the father did, he was brilliant, just as his daughter is. I want her here at the abbey for a project I’m planning.”

“The daughter of a possible criminal? Bad choice, my friend.”

“Too late. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Then maybe you’ll be lucky and she’ll refuse. Either way, I can’t help you, Nicholas.”

“A very sophisticated set of criminals is involved, Jared. From what I’ve picked up in London, the matter goes far beyond simple theft.”

What theft was ever simple? “Drug world involvement?” Jared’s hands locked on the telephone. He knew better than most what rules that world played by. If drugs were involved, all the more reason to refuse his oldest friend, no matter the debt Jared owed him.

“Still too soon to say. If so, they’re fishing far out of their usual waters. That’s never a good sign.”

“What do you expect of me? Surveillance and explosive work are my skills, Nicholas. Nothing of that sort appears to be required here.”

“I need your eyes, Jared. I need your hands, your reasoning power and that damnable Scottish tenacity. I’ll need surveillance, too.”

Frustration slammed down hard. “Sorry, but I can’t.”

“We’ll discuss it when you get here. Kacey has stocked enough salmon for an army, and I’ve put away a stash of very fine single malt whisky. There’ll be no more matchmaking, I promise you.” There was a sound on the other end of the line. “Oh, yes, my daughter has a gift for you.”

Jared closed his eyes, remembering Nicholas’s young daughter, full of life and a thousand questions. But he wanted nothing more to do with their smiling faces and caring eyes. He wasn’t fit for calm, polite society anymore, and he didn’t want people to care for him.

Normalcy terrified him. Maybe a year in a box did that, too.

Nicholas should understand, if anyone could. He had endured his own months of hell in Asia, captive at the hands of a crazed warlord flush with blood money from acres of opium fields. So why was he playing hardball now?

“I
can’t
, Nicholas. You’re not listening to me.”

“Because I don’t hear anything but rubbish. Kinlochewe, MacNeill.” The twelfth viscount Draycott’s voice was curt. “One hour. Look for the blue Rover. No more excuses.”

The phone clicked dead.

Jared scowled at the sleek cell. Damn the man. Damn a world where death struck with relentless frequency and absolutely no fairness.

Slowly he put away the phone and shouldered his knapsack, while the wind drove over the cliffs and seabirds soared above him, clumsy atop the churning silver loch.

Jared could picture Draycott Abbey clearly. The hereditary home of centuries of blue-blooded Draycotts held a legacy dating back to the age of William the Conqueror. The shadowed rooms were heavy with history and a tangible sense of magic. Jared had felt welcome there, even when he couldn’t escape a twitching at his neck and the sense of shadows moving just beyond his vision.

Haunted, so it was said. Even Nicholas didn’t deny the legend. It was said that a surly Draycott ancestor still walked the parapets on moonless nights, warding off danger from his beloved granite walls.

Purest nonsense, of course. Had there been any ghosts wandering about the abbey, Jared would have seen them. But of course that was one secret even Nicholas didn’t know.

Jared looked north to the snowcapped peaks, feeling their great age and vast silence. A cold wind brushed his face like ghostly fingers.

He should have known that coming home would be a mistake. There was nothing to hold him here in this place of dead warriors and forgotten saints. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t forget. The tension never seemed to leave him now.

So he might as well go and lend Nicholas a hand. After all, Jared had nothing else to do. Considering the clarity of his visions, he had only time—and a very little of that—to kill.

~ ~ ~

Draycott Abbey

Sussex, England

Two days later

The fire crackled softly, casting golden light over a row of Italian crystal paperweights and shelves filled with books. Jared waited, unmoving while Nicholas Draycott paced before the study’s high windows. “Will you have a drink? There’s sherry here, or I have whisky if you prefer.”

“Neither, thanks.” Jared waited with impatience for Nicholas to get down to business. He owed his friend that much.

Nicholas finally cleared his throat. “First of all, let me make one thing clear. This has got
nothing
to do with fame.”

“What hasn’t?”

“The Abbey Jewels collection.”

Jared frowned. “Have I missed something? Are you and Kacey going into the necklace business?”

“Hardly.” Nicholas rubbed his jaw. “It’s an idea Kacey and I have had for quite a while now. We want to re-create the pleasure that art has brought to us, and this seemed a good way to begin.”

“By making jewelry?”

Nicholas shook his head impatiently. “We are planning an international art exhibition that would begin here at the abbey, then travel to a dozen venues in England and Europe. The displays will show the history and the magic of metal and stone We want cases that take a design apart, piece by piece, and show how gold is etched and silver forged. There will be photographs of emeralds
in situ
in Colombia and
jadeite
boulders from Afghanistan, showing how the stones are polished, studied, and shaped to final form. These things are part of our heritage, but they are also the heritage of the world. These skills must be shared, studied, and documented before they’re lost to modern technology.” Draycott gave a low laugh. “Does that sound pompous?”

Jared studied his friend over steepled fingers. “It sounds like a remarkably good idea. But I still don’t see how that involves me.”

“We’ve chosen our first artist. She’s an expert in classical metalwork, and her skill is remarkable, especially in view of her age.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed. “And she also happens to be the daughter of a criminal. I believe you mentioned that.”

“A
possible
criminal. No charges were ever brought against her father.”

“Is she under criminal investigation?”

“Not at all.”

“Then what’s the problem? Send out the invitations and get the exhibition on its way.”

Nicholas sighed. “It’s not that easy. For this project to succeed the way Kacey and I envision, we’ll need support at the highest level, both culturally and politically. We’ve gotten commitments from the British Museum, and an American foundation has just given a sizeable pledge of support. Two museums in France have requested the show next year, and the royal family has indicated their interest in participation. Discreetly, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But as we both know, this will mean multiple security clearances. To succeed, every aspect of the project will have to be high profile, and the art world can be damnably cutthroat. The scrutiny will be fierce, and once Maggie Kincade’s connection to her father comes out—” Nicholas made a tight sound of anger. “But she’s the best designer alive. We want
her
.”

Jared could well imagine the result. Security was security, and there was no way Nicholas could hide the truth from the people who made a business of protecting England’s public buildings and the safety of the royal family “What do you want of me?”

“Check the designer
out. I’m certain that she had nothing to do with what happened, but if there’s any hint of criminal involvement, or if she has knowledge about those missing gems…” He bit back an oath. “In that case, I want to know now, before things go any further.”

“And if I find nothing?”

Nicholas picked up a vellum envelope from the desk beside him. “Then I want you to give her this. It’s an invitation to present her designs here as the highlight of our first exhibition.”

“And you trust me to make the decision about her innocence?”

“Without question.” Nicholas held out a folder. “Here’s a photograph and her address. I’ve also put in a background profile and your air ticket to New York.”

“Presumptuous, aren’t you?” Jared glared into the fire. “What makes you so sure that I’ll go?”

“Because you always pay what you consider to be your debts. You’re insufferable when it comes to that streak of honor. I won’t deny that this exhibition is important to Kacey and me, but you’re entirely free to accept or decline as you choose. Of course, this will make all the difference to Maggie Kincade’s career.”

“I’m not interested, Nicholas.” Jared rose to his feet. “I can’t afford to be.”

“Why?”

Jared shoved his hands into his pockets, frowning. “I have my reasons.”

“I’d like to hear them.”

“Damn it, leave it alone.” The words were harsh with suppressed violence.

“I would if I were anyone else. Or if you were anyone else. But as you know, it’s a Draycott trait to be stubborn as sin itself, and I know you too well to be turned away by a little Scottish hostility.”

Jared rubbed his wrists, remembering bamboo handcuffs and wet ropes. He drew an angry breath “I’m not the same, Nicholas. Thailand changed me.”

“Changed you how?”

He wouldn’t leave it alone. Jared hadn’t really expected that he would. Yet how did you begin to explain things from a nightmare, things that most people considered to be part of the twilight realm of science fiction?

Jared rubbed his wrists, choosing his words carefully. “It happened after one of the beatings. They cut a vein, and I bled for quite some time. No one came. It was night and I remember being cold—and then I remember being nothing at all.”

Jared felt a glass pressed against his fingers. Frowning, he downed an inch of superb whisky. It might help him to complete the story he was about to tell.

‘‘
Go on.”

“I died that night, Nicholas. No pulse, no heartbeat. I bled to death on that cement floor and no one knew.”

Dimly he heard the clink of glass and realized that Nicholas was downing his own drink. Perfectly understandable, since it wasn’t a particularly pleasant story to hear.

“God rot their callous souls.” Nicholas touched his shoulder for a moment, and Jared managed—just barely—not to flinch at the contact.

Even in that brief moment of touch he sensed the weight of his friend’s worry, which Nicholas had tried damnably hard to hide for weeks.

Jared closed his eyes, fighting the weight of contact and the rush of bleak images. “You needn’t worry about me so much.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do. You’re afraid I’ll do something drastic, but you don’t need to be.”

Nicholas simply stared. “Have I ever implied such a thing?”

“No.” That was exactly the problem, of course. “You don’t have to say a word, Nicholas. One touch, one brush of the hand, and I know.”

“What are you saying?”

“That I can
feel
things. Mostly by touch or the random brush of fingers. It began that night after I passed out. After I died,” Jared said grimly. “When I came around, I was in a makeshift clinic with a chipped IV line in my arm, and I could sense emotions, feelings and unspoken thoughts. They were simply—
there
.”

Nicholas sank into a chair before the fire. “Sweet heaven above, I had no idea. You seemed distant, aloof. Now I know why. Did you mention this new … ability in your debriefing in London?”

“Why should I? So they could use me as a new lab rat?”

“Perfectly understandable. I just wish you’d told me sooner, Jared. Not that it changes anything.”

“It changes
everything
. I’m barely fit to keep myself company, much less anyone else. Touching another person triggers a storm of chaotic images and emotions that get twisted up with my own until I doubt my own sanity. I’m no good to you, Nicholas. Not for this project or anything else.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Nicholas hesitated, then held out his hand. There was a light of pure, devilish determination in his eyes.

Jared studied the outstretched fingers, aware of his friends’ silent challenge. Then, with a sigh, he gripped those fingers with his own.