Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 60

She shrugged. “How?”
“You, my sweet wife, talked about it when you were poisoned. Worried and fretted and tried to find it—”
“But I only just remembered.”
“Your sleeping mind remembered sooner.”
“But how did you get it?”
It was Grimm who told her. “The Lady Comyn saw it fall from your hand the night she claims you arrived.”
“But how—”
“Lady Comyn entrusted it to me after the wedding. I gave it to the Hawk.”
“She admitted that you’re not her blood daughter. I can see no reason why she would lie on that score.” Unless Comyn keep is suffering some strange contagious madness, he thought grimly. “Will it truly take you back to wherever you came from?” the Hawk asked carefully.
“I think so. As far as I can tell, it’s what brought me here,” she said, her gaze cast upon the cobbled walkway.
“And your plan was to get it and go home, lass? You planned to slip from Dalkeith, by yourself?”
“No! With your mother, Hawk!” she snapped absurdly. “Of course by myself!”
“So you were going to go to Comyn keep to get this chess piece and try to go back to wherever you came from? That was your plan this evening?” She missed the warning in his careful tone.
“Yes, Hawk. I admit it. All right? I was going to try. I’m not certain it will work, but it’s the last thing I had in my hand before I ended up here, and legend says the chess set is cursed. It’s the only thing I can think of that might have done it. If it brought me here, it might just take me back.”
The Hawk smiled coolly. He turned the queen in his hand, studying it carefully. “Viking,” he mused. “Beautiful piece. Well worked and well preserved.”
“Do you believe me now, Hawk?” She needed to know. “That I really am from the future?”
“Suffice it to say—I don’t believe in taking any chances.” He still didn’t quite believe, but infinitely better safe than sorry.
He turned sharply on his heel and stalked off toward the gardens. “Bring her, Grimm,” he called over his shoulder, almost as an afterthought.
But Grimm didn’t have to take her anywhere. A thousand warning bells clanged in her head, and she raced off behind him to catch up. His careful tone, his steely demeanor, his questions. He’d been neatly tying things down to the absolute letter. The Hawk was not a man lacking intellect and purpose. She only hoped she misunderstood his purpose now.
“Hawk!” she cried.
Hawk’s shoulders tightened. He was beyond anger at this moment, he had slipped into the realm of icy resolve. He knew what he had to do as he broke into a run through the gardens, across the bailey, in the blushing Scottish morn. Until it was done, he couldn’t afford to let her touch him, to put her sweet hands on his shoulders and beg. I’ll take no chances where my wife is concerned.
“Wait!” Adrienne broke into a run, fear gripping her heart as she realized he was making a beeline for the northern edge of the bailey, where the forge was burning brightly.
“No, Hawk!” she screamed as he melted into the gardens.
Her feet flew as she plunged through the lush greenery, racing over the beds of anemones and purple iris. She leapt the low stone walls and pushed thorny rose branches from her face, tearing the soft palms of her hands until she erupted from the gardens only to see him a dozen lengths ahead of her.
Gasping for breath, she called on every ounce of fleet-footed strength she had. If she made it at all, it would be close—too close.
From a window high above, Lydia watched the scene unfold.
Pushing against the pain of her unwilling muscles, Adrienne desperately tried to catch up to Hawk, but it was too late—he already stood next to Adam near the brightly glowing embers.
Gasping, she lunged forward just as Grimm’s hand closed upon her cape. He yanked hard on the fabric, pulling her backward. The cape ripped and she fell, crying out as she tumbled to the ground. “Hawk, don’t!”
“Destroy this,” Hawk commanded Adam.
“No!” Adrienne screamed.
Adam cast a momentary eye upon the felled beauty. “It would seem the lady feels otherwise.”
“I didn’t ask you to think, Adam Black, and I don’t give a bloody damn what the lady thinks.”
Adam smiled impishly. “I take it you have failed to jess the falcon, Lord Hawk?”
“Burn it, smithy. Lest I satisfy myself by incinerating you, rather than the queen.”