City of Jasmine (33 page)

“I think she would like that, Arthur,” I said. He flapped a little, but his expression was solemn.

“I think talking to birds is a sign of incipient mental breakdown,” drawled a bored, high-pitched male voice.

I turned to see another passenger approaching. He wore an eyepatch and walked with a stick and his hair was entirely white although his skin was remarkably firm for a man so old. He carried a battered attaché case in his free hand.

“And what if the bird is a better conversationalist than the other passengers?” I retorted.

“Then you ought not to be travelling alone, dear lady. I think you need to be under someone’s care.”

From under the bushy white eyebrows, the eye that stared at me was a brilliant forget-me-not blue.

“I think I can take care of myself,” I replied.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” he answered softly, dropping the affected voice.

I swallowed hard against the tight knot of joy in my throat. “Have you really lost an eye or is that part of the disguise?”

He glanced around, then flipped up the eyepatch, winking.

“The limp is real, though. Bullet to the thigh at Maysalun,” he said with a rueful grimace.

“You’re getting too old for that sort of thing,” I told him. “I read about the battle in the newspapers. I’m sorry.”

He smiled thinly. “No more than I am. They had a chance, you know.”

“I know. How is Hamid? And Rashid? And Aysha, and oh, all of them!”

“They’re well. They send their regards. Hamid is philosophical about the whole mess. He says change is slow in the desert, but it will come in time.”

“Have you finished there?” I asked. “Really finished?”

“I have,” he said, his expression resigned. “The French got their way this time, and the powers-that-be will go back to the conference tables and draw the maps again and make new kings. But they shouldn’t. And I’ve lost the taste for meddling in other men’s wars.” His tone was light, but there was a dark edge of bitterness to his words. He would regret much of what had happened there for the rest of his life, I had little doubt.

“So since I last saw you, you’ve been in a war and got yourself shot. Perhaps you’re the one who needs a keeper.”

“Yes, I think I do. Tell me, where are we bound?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I haven’t the faintest. I caught up with you just as you were boarding at Portsmouth and barely made it onto the ship myself.”

“And it’s taken you a fortnight to find me? It isn’t that large a ship, you know.”

His expression was grave. “I thought you might like a little time to yourself.”

“You mean you had second thoughts.”

“Well, it did occur to me I might not be welcomed with entirely open arms.”

I tipped my head. “I ought to pitch you overboard. You promised me the True Cross and all I got was a wrecked plane and a decrepit parrot for my troubles.”

“And the heart of the Cross,” he said blandly.

I blinked. “What the devil to you mean? Gabriel—”

He held up a finger. “Colonel Clutterbuck, please. That’s my current alias.”

“Clutterbuck? I will call you no such thing. It’s absurd.”

He huffed a sigh. “Is that any way to talk to a veteran of the Crimean War?”

“Gabriel, all the veterans of the Crimean War died decades ago. Now, what do you mean I have the heart of the Cross?”

He grinned. “I told you I took it from the Cross when I first discovered the thing. It shows a decided lack of curiosity on your part that you never asked where I stashed it.”

He paused, waiting, and I stamped my foot. “Don’t play games, you maddening man. Where is it?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, very well, but you’re a disappointment to me, you really are. I would have thought you’d have discovered it ages ago.”

He put down the attaché case and bent over Arthur’s cage, unscrewing the gaudy finial. The thing was in three parts, and he deftly freed the top and bottom bits leaving a centre-piece with a cavity of sorts. He gestured for me to hold out my hands and as I did so, he upended the middle bit. For one agonising moment, nothing happened. Then, with an audible sigh, the thing slid free and into my hands, a single enormous piece of crystal. Embedded within was a piece of wood the size of a man’s hand. It was jagged at the edges, and deep within the grain of the wood was a dark stain. Blood? Rust from a nail that had been forged in a blacksmith’s fire in Jerusalem?

I could scarcely hold it steady, my nerves were rattling so badly. Here in my hands was the single most valuable thing I had ever seen, would ever see. And Gabriel had risked his life to give it to me.

“It’s yours,” he said. His voice was quiet, almost reverent. “I will write a letter as to its provenance and I will detail everything that happened. There will be doubters, of course, but I think you should be able to convince quite a few people as to its authenticity. And when you have, it will be easy enough to find a buyer. My word isn’t worth much,” he added with a wry smile, “but you could get corroboration from Gethsemane and Herr Doktor Schickfuss if you needed.”

I did not take my eyes off the heart of the Cross. “I can’t use your testimony. You are a ghost, remember?”

He shrugged. “I will come clean and tell the whole story. It will be a nightmare, of course, particularly once my parents get hold of me. And there will most likely be a bit of detention involved, but no matter.”

“
Detention
is a nice word for prison,” I reminded him, watching the setting sun brighten the gold setting of the crystal.

“Only until we get it all sorted,” he assured me. “The government won’t want me spilling my guts about what we got up to during the war. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

I finally looked at him. “After you killed John Halliday? I hardly think so.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t kill him, pet. He got damned lucky. He was picked up by a caravan less than a mile from where he landed while I had to walk all the bloody way out of the Badiyat ash-Sham. I tracked him down in Baghdad. He was hiding out in some filthy hovel in a room he rented under an assumed name.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

His solemn gaze never left mine. “No, I didn’t. Now, I’m not saying I left him without a few bumps and bruises. After all, I owed him a little,” he added, widening his eyes innocently. “But I didn’t kill him. I decided that would have been unsporting. Besides, I may no longer work for the Vespiary, but I didn’t want them dragged into any of this. They’ve enough troubles without arranging favours for me. It was simpler just to take what I went for and leave him alive.”

My heart began to drum in my chest, a slow, heavy rhythm. “Gabriel, did you find—”

He lifted a brow. “Did I find? Oh, you mean this?” He reached into his attaché case and drew out a familiar goatskin bundle—a little the worse for wear after all of its travels. Gabriel had the instincts of a showman. He unwrapped it slowly, drawing out the anticipation as I peered over his shoulder.

At last, he folded back the final layer of the wrappings and lifted the Cross. I saw a flash of gold and jewels, but before I could look at it properly, he took a moment to restore the heart to its home, fitting the crystal into the open setting at the centre of the Cross. Carefully, he handed it to me.

I looked down at the relic in my hands. It was a piece of history, the wood that been part of the most famous execution in all of the world, stained with what might well be the blood of Christ. This relic had passed through the hands of kings and bishops; it had been carried in triumph before armies and witnessed the passing of ages. It was the single holiest artefact in all of Christendom, and it was mine.

And without hesitating, I took a deep breath and raised my arm to fling it overboard. The last flash of the setting sun sparked off the crystal and the gold and it seemed to catch fire as it arced, destined for the cool green waters below.

At the last possible second, Gabriel vaulted to the rail, catching it in his fingertips. He turned and stared at me in astonishment.

“You were going to throw it away,” he said, his expression one of shocked bewilderment. “I’ve never seen anything so daft in my entire life. What the devil were you thinking?”

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his open mouth until he pulled back.

“I don’t understand,” he began. I looped my arms around his neck.

“I don’t want your relics. I want you.”

“But—”

I put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “Gabriel, you wanted me to have the Cross as atonement for what you did to me. It’s just a way to buy me back. But I forgive you. Without the Cross, without the money or the fame it would bring. And I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know that when I am with you for the rest of our lives, it is because I choose to be.”

He pushed my finger gently aside. “What shall we do with it?”

I thought a moment then grinned. “I think we ought to pack it up and send it to Tarquin March to deal with. He’s the one who got you into this business. He owes me a favour.”

He bent his head to kiss me, and when he finished, I was as dizzy as if I’d just pulled a barrel roll. “I know you said you were chaste during those five years, but I have to wonder,” I murmured, fitting my head to the hollow of his shoulder. “I don’t remember your technique ever being quite so, so—”

“Quite,” he said dryly. “Perhaps I’m simply inspired. I’ve never had a woman give up a priceless treasure for me before.”

“This is where I ought to tell you that the priceless treasure is
you.
I shan’t, of course. It’s far too sentimental and I don’t want you to get a big head.” We stood there some time, watching the purple light of the evening change to a deep violet as the first stars began to appear.

Gabriel’s voice rumbled in his chest. “By the way, where exactly are we going? I booked through and the ticket said Australia.”

“That’s just where we change ships,” I informed him. “Our final destination is the Cook Islands. Nothing but white sand beaches and deep blue sea and lovely people who don’t care who Evangeline and Gabriel Starke are at all. I rented us a cottage right on the beach for the rest of the year. We’ll have nothing to do but swim and sun ourselves and plan the book I mean to write.”

“You’re writing a book? On what?”

“Ethnography,” I told him, relishing his groan of despair. “You might not think stories and people are important but I do. I’ve brought a trunkful of books to begin my studies and whatever I don’t already know, you can help me with.”

“You were awfully sure I’d find you.”

I turned my face to the east and the first star that shimmered on the horizon. He held my hand, and it was the hand of the man I had married, lost and found again in the Badiyat ash-Sham, the fabled land of camels and caravans that lies just beyond the walls of the city of jasmine.

To live with him would be a very great adventure indeed.

* * * * *

Acknowledgments

The word that comes to mind when I write acknowledgments is always
“generosity.”
The people I am fortunate enough to know and name here are among the most generous and gracious I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I am humbled to know them.

Tremendous thanks:

To the entire Harlequin MIRA team—art, sales, PR, marketing, editorial, digital and all their supporting staff. I am, as ever, entirely grateful for all that they do. Particular thanks to Margaret Marbury, Michael Rehder and Leonore Waldrip for making all of this hard work so much fun.

To Tara Parsons for shepherding this project with as much care and enthusiasm as if it had been hers from the start. This is only the beginning....

To Pam Hopkins, agent and friend, for taking me under her wing and providing endlessly patient support and laughs.

To the brilliant and generous Susanna Kearsley for providing research links, and the ever-lovely Jayne Hoogenberk for patiently explaining how to find them.

To Ava Miles for research support.

To my family—my parents, my beloved, my child. They are my past, my present and my future.

And to a kindly spirit halfway across the world—a person whose name I do not know but who generously shared her language with me.
Shukran,
and I hope that peace comes soon to you and yours.

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CITY OF JASMINE

Deanna Raybourn

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