The Golden Cross (61 page)

“He bought this … for me?” I dropped the letter on the coffee table and ran my hand over the rough journal, inhaling the scents of age and dust. If the book had come from a museum, the professor must have paid a high price. Astounding, the thought that he’d do something like that for me.

“I believe,” Taylor’s mouth tipped in a faint smile, “that the professor had begun to think of you as a daughter. He often spoke of you, and he cherished the few notes you sent him about your research.”

The few notes
. I cringed, wishing I’d made more of an effort to stay close to the professor. Months ago when we first met, I had thought him an eccentric old man with a naughty penchant for redheads. Later I’d discovered he was a brilliant history professor with more compassion than the rest of my teachers put together.

Once he learned that the heirs of the Irish princess Cahira O’Connor were linked by a common thread, the professor grew terribly concerned for me. On her deathbed, Cahira begged heaven to allow her descendants to fight for right in the world, and thus far each woman who had inherited her red hair and white streak had also been bequeathed an unusual destiny. Anika of Prague, who lived in the fifteenth century, became a knight and fought against spiritual corruption in the Bohemian Hussite wars. Aidan O’Connor disguised herself as a common sailor to flee the corruption of Dutch Batavia’s wharf and later became a world-famous artist and philanthropist. And Flanna O’Connor …

My mind darted back to the single bit of information I’d gleaned from the World Wide Web: Flanna O’Connor, a nineteenth-century Charleston woman who disguised herself as a soldier and fought in the Civil War at her brother’s side. Commonly known as the Velvet Shadow, she was as well known for her ability to rescue wounded comrades from behind enemy lines as for the singular pale streak which ran through her red hair.

Now I held the Velvet Shadow’s diary. I shivered at the thought, then turned the book and rifled through the pages. Line after line of a flowery script filled the yellowed leaves, the ink faded but still legible.

“I don’t know how complete the journal is.” Taylor tapped his fingers upon his knee in a meditative rhythm. “But surely there’s enough material to get you started. And I must say that I agree with Professor Howard in the notion that you’ve no time to waste. It’s nearly Christmas, with the new year not far behind.” He leaned toward me, his eyes soft with compassion and kindness. “What will you do, Kathleen, if you’re confronted with some great calamity in the near future?”

“Do you really believe I might be?” I gave him an uncertain smile. My heart warmed to think that Taylor Morgan cared, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disconcerted by the knowledge that he feared for my future.

“I don’t know what tomorrow holds,” Taylor said, rubbing a hand over his face, “and neither did the professor. But he had a great instinct for knowing how people would react in a time of trial, and you must admit that Cahira’s heirs rose triumphantly to face their unique challenges.” A faint line deepened between his brows as he sorted through his thoughts. “The professor would never claim to be a fortuneteller, but he often said that each age holds its own trials—each decade, for that matter, suffers from its own troubles. The Vietnam War dominated thinking in the seventies, terrorism influenced the eighties, natural disasters made news in the nineties. The coming decade will hold its own tragedies, and how do we know that you will not find yourself involved in something of vital importance? Professor Howard wanted to be sure you’d be prepared for whatever might come your way as an heir of Cahira O’Connor.”

I lowered my gaze, then tucked my legs under me, making myself comfortable in the wing chair. While Taylor sipped his tea, I opened the journal’s cover and turned a few pages.

The first entry was dated December 24, 1860. A slanting feminine hand had written,

Engrossed in spite of myself, I read on.

T
HE
G
OLDEN
C
ROSS
P
UBLISHED BY
W
ATER
B
ROOK
P
RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

eISBN: 978-0-307-45937-4

Copyright © 1998 by Angela Elwell Hunt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W
ATER
B
ROOK
and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

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