A Highlander for Christmas (28 page)

Maggie looked behind her. “Fortunately, there don’t appear to be any madmen in backhoes jolting up the drive.” She opened her door and started toward the house, one bag under her arm.

“I’ll take that,” Jared muttered, shifting Max to his other arm.

“Thank you, Jared. Right now I’m too tired to fight.” She frowned. “But maybe in the morning you’ll tell me the
real
reason that police car was waiting down by the bridge.”

Damask roses in cut crystal vases.

What appeared to be genuine Constable landscapes on the wall by the French doors.

Maggie took a long, slow breath. “So you’re not in Kansas anymore,” she whispered to an empty room. She was feeling edgy and she could have told herself it was from the emotional backlash of the last two nights, but Maggie knew the source lay in this ancient home, in the aura that clung to every corner. Even a person with no imagination could feel the weight of history in rooms where kings had plotted and wars had been launched. Here long generations of Draycotts must have dabbled in court intrigues from rooms with secret tunnels for swift escapes.

History
? But why did it feel so familiar?

Maggie sank slowly back into the antique poster bed. Draycott Abbey was compelling, but so far there had been no more strange lapses of awareness.

Wind brushed her neck, and she turned to see a sleek form pacing over the floor. The gray cat moved regally, his amber eyes keen and unblinking.

“I hope I’m not taking your room.” Somehow it seemed perfectly normal to speak to the cat. “Where did you come from?” As if in answer, the French door creaked open, pale curtains floating in a ripple of cold air from the balcony.

The cat stopped beside the bed and stared up at Maggie, as if waiting for an invitation.

“Be my guest.”

The bright eyes blinked. Ears back, the creature jumped onto the silk coverlet, circled once, then sank into a ball.

As a rule, Maggie wasn’t a cat lover, but there was something different about this one. Like the rest of the great house, he seemed keen. Still. Waiting…

Which made
no
sense. She had simply gone too long without a decent rest, and her nerves were in a state of meltdown. That was the only explanation for this odd fantasy she was weaving about a simple cat.

Except that looking into those unblinking amber eyes, Maggie had the definite impression this was far more than a normal cat.

She turned as Jared appeared at the door, barefoot and minus his jacket. To Maggie’s disgust he looked good enough to eat.

“I see you’ve met the abbey’s real lord and master.”

“The cat? He certainly does make himself at home. I hope this wasn’t his room.”

“Every room at the abbey is his, according to Nicholas and Kacey. Good thing that I left Max asleep back in my room. I’ve had enough excitement for one night.” He bent to the bed. “Yes, my big friend, you’re special and you know it, don’t you?”

Gray ears perked forward. A long, liquid meow rippled through the room as Jared worked a hand over the intelligent head.

“I didn’t even hear him come in.” Maggie studied the French doors, still rocking in the wind. “I suppose one of the latches came loose.”

“I’ll
check it.” Jared just kept petting. He looked mesmerized.

Maggie crossed her arms. “So?”

No answer.

“Was there something you needed to see me about?”

“Nothing in particular Just to check if you needed anything.”

“I’ll be fine.” She studied the gleaming silk walls. “But there’s a sort of feeling here. Something I can’t put my finger on.”

“Welcome
to the club.” Jared pushed to his feet with silent grace. “The more you see of the abbey, the tighter it will hold you. No one ever understands all its secrets, not even Nicholas.”

Maggie’s brow rose. “You don’t have to do the haunted manor routine with me.”

“I’m not.” His voice was dead sober.

“Whispers in the corridors? I didn’t like it here before, but that had nothing to do with ghosts or strange lights in deserted wings.”

His eyes narrowed. “What
did
it have to do with?”

Maggie locked her arms across her chest. “Too much beauty. Too much mood and history, I suppose.” She gave a crooked grin. “I’m an artist. Things like that are supposed to set me off.”

“Still no memories?”

She shook her head. Some part of her hoped that the lost memories stayed lost.

“After a while, you might change your mind about this house.” Jared moved to the balcony and peered out into the darkness. Then closed the doors and latched them securely. “Most people come to love it here.” He turned, studying the cat on Maggie’s bed. “So are you staying or going, my friend?”

The cat’s tail flicked once. He looked from Jared to Maggie, and she could have sworn those keen unblinking eyes were searching for the answer to questions she couldn’t even imagine.

When Jared went out, the cat was close behind him. Maggie heard faint bells echo over the dark hills
.
For some reason the sound made her uneasy.

It took longer than it should have to quiet her mind and
slip
free of the house’s spell. As she drifted down into sleep, Maggie swore to control her restless imagination. There would be no more dreams of flying horses against a wild sky.

No more dreams about death and betrayal.

~ ~ ~

Muttering softly, Jared bent forward and tapped a command on his keyboard. In disbelief he watched the screen flicker. This query, like all his others, brought no answers.

All official records declared Daniel Kincade dead of an air mishap over Sumatra. Nothing had changed to call that statement into question. There were no secret financial transactions, no pending legal actions, and no covert attempts to tap into the savings account that Kincade had left for his now-deceased wife.

All was as it should be, at least on the surface.

But Jared had never settled for surface appearances or easy answers. More than once his persistence had nearly gotten him killed.

Beside him the gray cat purred companionably and rubbed his head against the edge of the flickering screen.

“No luck. The bloody man is either dead or he’s a genius at burying himself deep. And his daughter can be almost as irritating.” But far more intriguing, especially when her eyes flashed and her laughter filled a room like sunlight.

The cat gave a low purr, his tail flicking from side to side. Jared slid his hand over the sleek fur.

“I know. She twists me up in knots every time I touch her.” He remembered Maggie’s face when he’d kissed her in the car and the hot, sweet storm of her desire. His body responded instantly to the memories.

But thinking of Maggie made him remember the father who had betrayed her by feigning his death.

“Nobody’s
that
good. If Kincade is alive there’s got to be a record of him somewhere.” Experience had taught Jared that no one lived without resources. If Daniel Kincade was alive, he needed financial assets and human help, and both of those could be traced.

He tapped the keys again, using the passwords to a secure government database, the gift of a high ministry official who owed him a favor for rescuing his son from a messy political situation in Thailand. Once again Jared found no trace of Daniel Kincade.

Frowning, Jared sprawled back against the couch and rubbed the knotted muscles in his neck. Tomorrow he would see what Izzy could do. Possibly he had missed something in his search. If so, Izzy would spot the mistake instantly.

Jared closed his eyes, one hand on his neck, the other on the cat curled at his side. As always, the abbey left his senses humming. With each creak of the stairs and sigh of the wind against a leaded window, he imagined
pacing
feet and restless spirits from a distant age.

Warriors and poets.

Statesmen and fools.

They had all walked the abbey’s silent halls. Even now their secrets lived on, part of the heart of this magnificent old house. At his side the computer screen flickered. The cat purred low and Jared felt himself relax, drifting into sleep. Deep in restless dreams, Jared did not see. Only the great cat saw, amber eyes unblinking on the night.

Over the downs came the faint peal of church bells, low and ineffably sad. The sound made the cat ease to his paws and cross to the window. Unmoving, he stared out into the night.

Waiting…

~ ~ ~

He came as he always did, in a flutter of white lace and black satin. While light swirled above the abbey’s restless moat, the figure gathered shape and form. Around him the scent of roses grew, dense and sweet. Wind swayed the branches climbing over the weathered granite and brushed at the tall French doors.

Adrian Draycott studied his lace-clad arms, then smoothed his waistcoat of black satin. In full, imposing form he paced the balcony.

The clouds shifted. A single beam of moonlight touched the abbey, glinting over the rippling waters of the moat. Somewhere a night creature cried, low and shrill.

The abbey ghost raised his head, listening.

Behind him the curtains flared out. A gray form ghosted onto the balcony.

“So there you are, Gideon. Is aught amiss inside?”

The cat meowed once, eyes unblinking.

“Asleep, is he? Hardly surprising, given the sort of night they’ve both endured.” Adrian rubbed his jaw, white lace agleam. “His sight has grown since last he walked these halls. I only wonder that he cannot feel it himself.”

In one powerful movement, the cat leaped to the ornate rail atop the balcony.

Adrian Draycott, the deceased eighth viscount Draycott, smiled at his companion. “Because he is distracted, you say. When did a beautiful woman ever fail to distract a mortal man?”

The cat’s tail flicked.

“History between them? Far too much, I fear.” The abbey’s brooding guardian stared out over the moat into the black woods to the north. “They would both feel that past now, Gideon. If only they allowed it.”

A meow drifted from the scrolled balcony edge.

“You propose that I should stir those memories? You know the price of interference, my friend. It is nothing to be undertaken lightly—alive or dead.”

Light seemed to flicker deep within the cat’s amber eyes.

“I know well that she already remembers. Aye, but see what pain it brings her. And her pain becomes my pain.”

The abbey ghost stood rigid, elegant as his priceless portrait standing at the foot of the Long Gallery. He leaned over to the balcony, his face cold as the granite walls of the house he had loved so much in mortal life—and even more in death.

Suddenly his hands tightened. “Do you feel it, Gideon? Out there past the Witch’s Pool?”

The cat paced along the balcony. His ears slanted forward.

“Danger,” Adrian whispered. “Always it comes. Old debts must ever be repaid, I fear.”

The cat meowed, shoving against Adrian’s fist.

“Let them try, by heaven. Let them seek an entrance. They’ll rue the cold midnight that they attempt it, as I live and breathe.”

The cat stirred softly on the rail. Beside him Adrian drew a hard breath, then laughed grimly. “As usual, you are entirely correct, my friend; I neither live
nor
breathe. But my power of protection remains. Whoever watches in the night will find their dark games more difficult than they imagine.”

He toyed with the lace at one cuff.

“Yes, perhaps some interference is in order. Nothing crude, of course. Perhaps … a dream or two.” A smile touched his arrogant mouth. “As I recall, the dreams worked well enough before, when that fellow Dickens came to visit. In the height of winter it was.”

The cat’s tail flicked from side to side.

“Of course I remember it was your idea. Yet in three nights he envisioned the greatest story of his career, and he had you to thank for it. I did think the summoning of Christmas Future was a stroke of true genius on my part, however.”