Christmas at Draycott Abbey

Ian Sinclair stood in the darkness, watching rain hammer at the French doors and the ancient granite bridge. Tonight the abbey was quiet. There was no laughter from the Viscount Draycott and his family. The broad front doors were decorated with a single small wreath. Inside all was deserted and dark with no glittering social events or charity gatherings.

Tonight there were only shadows. Only silence and a sense of history so strong it was almost physical. This was how Ian preferred the old abbey.

Lightning tore at the sky, outlining the great oak and the home wood beyond. Wind lashed at the old casement windows as the storm's fury grew. Odd weather for December, Ian thought. There had already been flooding reported near Winchelsea and Rye. But no snow.

Very odd.

Suddenly the dog near his chair sat up. Dark ears pricked back as the big animal stared out into the night. Then the dog shot upright, racing forward to press against the glass doors.

"What is it, Churchill? What do you hear?"

Ian stood up slowly and rubbed his leg. Was it more terrorists?

More people from one of a thousand missions he had carried out for the government over the past ten years?

The tall man by the fire closed his eyes. He was twenty-nine, damn it. He was getting too old to run down assassins and jump off roofs. The last mission in Paris had proved that.

The big brown dog turned and then sat down, body rigid. He was well trained, experienced from long years working with Ian. And that single movement meant only one thing.

Danger.

Ian's face was grim as he slid his Beretta into his holster and went to calm the dog at the door.

No one was expected here at the abbey. No visitors or deliveries of any sort.

As he smoothed his dog's lean, angular head, Ian sensed the keen intelligence and the need to hunt.

Ian understood that need too. Sometimes, when the madness came in the late hours and the dark memories piled up, he too needed to hunt. Only the feel of the cold night air and the pounding of his blood would help him forget…

So they would hunt tonight.

“Go. Find them,” Ian ordered, throwing open the door. "I'll be right behind you."

The dog bounded out in one powerful leap.

Ian stood for long moments, studying the distant woods. Was there a light, up near the Witch's Pool?

He pulled on his old tweed coat, feeling a sharp stab of warning. Wind swirled through the room and the firelight jumped dizzily behind him. His eyes hardened as another light brushed the darkness on the high ridge beyond the moat.

He prayed that the hunting would be good this night….

They were holding her in the back seat. Two men to her right. Two men in front, close enough to grab her.

The ties at her wrists had been hard to remove, but the metal file hidden in her zipper had done the job. Now her nails were broken and bleeding. But Clair Haywood forced away all thoughts of pain.

Right now pain was good. It meant she was still alive.

Lightning cut a violent path in front of the car. The driver turned sharply, leaning forward as the first drops of rain hammered at the windshield.

Clair knew this area. She had seen it in all the guidebooks. She remembered the rolling hills and the wooded ridges above the levels near the sea. But those memories belonged to a different life—a million years and a lifetime ago, before her sister had been killed.

Before the cascade of betrayals.

Before she had taken a dangerous job with men who knew no honor.

The government had promised her identity was impregnable. A simple kitchen worker in a crowded private hotel, no one would scrutinize her.

But someone had, soon after her arrival. And Clair was nearly certain that there had to be a traitor somewhere in the government’s security team. She had almost picked up the nervous whispering of the bodyguards as she stood outside on the patio, pretending to smoke but actually observing license plates of the line of black Range Rovers parked in anticipation of the meeting inside.

One of the men had been flanked by four bodyguards. Clair had tried to see his face. He had noticed her attention, gesturing his bodyguards toward her in a single, cold gesture.

But they had not pursued her. She had prayed it meant nothing.

Before dawn they had come to her room. They had carried her, drugged and bound, from house to house for days, until Clair lost track of time.

But they had stopped the drugs the day before. That told her they needed her clearheaded and open to pain—ready to talk under torture.

And when they removed her blindfold briefly, she knew it was the truth. If they let her see their faces, she wasn’t going to come back from wherever they took her next.

Sitting tensely in the cramped car, listening to the rain, Clair sat up straighter. She refused to give in to fear or pain. This was her gift for Nina, the beautiful, innocent sister whom they had destroyed and tossed away once they were finished with their pleasures.

They would pay for that. And they would harm no other women. Clair would see to that, no matter how much it cost her.

The man in the front seat lit a cigarette.

Stupid
, she thought. The flame would ruin his night vision. And it was the one small gift she had waited for. She had already eased open the door lock during stolen seconds of the long drive. The car wheels skidded, taking the turn too fast, skidding on the narrow uneven road.

As lightning cracked, she hit the door with her shoulder, kicked back at the unprepared guard beside her and then vaulted out through the rain into the night.

Rain pelted at her face. Brushes crawled and scraped at her wet skin. But she forced her way forward, pushing through the mud, upward in the darkness.

Up the slope angry voices called out curses in three languages. Car lights shifted, flying over the muddy ground. Clair ducked, finding cover behind a dead rose bush. A line of stones hid her progress as she stumbled forward, biting her lips against a sob as pain shot through her bare feet and legs. She would have only one chance at escape. If they found her, she had no doubt they would kill her.

And it would not be fast and easy. It was not their way.

Her breath caught and she fell flat.
There
. Behind the rocks she saw a man’s shape.

It was
him
.

Nina’s lover.

Nina’s cold betrayer. The handsome, well respected man whose identity she had come to unveil.

As pain pelted against her frozen body, Clair could only pray she was not too late.

Ian strode along the great drive, his face to the wind. Churchill was scouting the trees at the edge of the abbey’s woods, eager and silent. Ian followed, watching for footprints or signs of intrusion.

So far there was nothing.

And the rain was growing harder. Wind tossed the great oak. Soon every footprint would be swept away in the mud.

Grimly, the royal protection officer turned up his collar, feeling adrenaline burn in his blood. Standing on the hill, he let the night swallow him, let the small sounds drop into his consciousness as he awaited any sign…that should not be there.

Somewhere a bird cried sharply.

Clouds parted and revealed a ragged moon. Then darkness fell over the abbey once more.

And man and dog hunted.

Too close
, she thought wildly.

But she had to stop no matter how they harried her. She couldn’t keep up the killing pace. Her lungs were ready to burst, her heart hammering. It was partly the remains of the drugs they had given her. And partly it was her forced captivity and immobility over the long weeks.

Clair flinched as another silenced bullet raced past her. This time the bullets struck stone, sharp fragments spraying her wrist. One cut deep into her forehead.

She ran.

The storm’s fury grew. They tracked her, merciless and silent, waiting for every burst of lightning to trace her against the darkness.

Farmland gave way to green lawns. Expensive estates. The kind of houses that Clair had always loved, rich with history, veiled in magic and the memories of power long gone.

History had been her passion and her profession until the terrible news of Nina’s death two years earlier. There was violence in history. Cunning, betrayal and cruel deception.

Clair never expected to find those things invading her own prosaic life as a teacher in a small community college in Maine.

Another bullet.

This one tore along her knee. Grimacing, she twisted sideways, throwing her body down a narrow slope and into a deep circle of high bushes. The sharp burn of thorns made her want to scream out in pain. The sharp barbs dug deep, but they hid her well. Her pursuers would not look for her here.

She heard the hammer of footsteps in the mud. Angry voices followed the flash of lights that bounced up the slope and across the dark tangle where she hid.

Her heart seemed to explode. Her fingers shook. She didn’t move, though the pain in her forehead hammered like a hollow drum. Maybe the bullet fragment had been more than a scratch. For long moments the night blurred. The air seemed to weigh her down. The sky flashed to gray.

Dizziness left Clair weak and nauseous. She drove her nails into her palms to hold back a moan.

A man’s tall shape stopped just outside the brushes. If he turned his flashlight now, he would see her. No escape.

She saw the flash of a cigarette. She knew the outline of that arrogant, perfect nose outlined in the flame. Nina’s lover.

Nina’s killer.

“Not here. Try back up the slope.” The voice was clipped, cool and arrogant in the way the English did best. “If you lose her, I will shoot you.”

The cigarette glowed, cupped in his hand against the rain. He looked up the hill, inches from Clair’s shivering, sodden body.

And then he walked back the way he had come.

She didn’t move, couldn’t move. It took her ten minutes to calm her ragged breath.

Another ten minutes to convince herself that they were finally gone and it wasn’t another one of their clever traps.

Blood trickled in her eyes and down her forehead as she forced her shaking legs to move. Clumsy, she stood up and pushed through the thorns, too frozen and tired to feel the pain as they dug into her legs. Dizzy and weak, she forced her steps forward.

The slope changed, rising gently. In the distance Clair saw the canopy of a great oak. She crossed a high stone wall, pulling herself up with bloody fingers. And then she stopped, studying the rolling lawns before her.

Impossible…and yet this place felt familiar in some strange way. Probably from the English history volumes and guidebooks she had devoured before her first innocent trip to England five years before.

No hope in remembering that calm, normal life.

It was gone forever.

Through the rain she saw light. The flickering shape called to her, and her hands reached out almost as if she knew the path. Yes, a rock here. The brush of an old oak tree, comforting and dry beneath the hammering rain.

And without knowing how, Clair imagined the sweep of a silver moat. Somehow she knew it would stretch just beyond the hill, pristine and restless in the rain.

And there would be swans. Seven of them.

Pain shot through her temple. She closed her eyes, groaning at the sticky trail of blood from her forehead. Dizziness made her bend double, coughing.

The light flickered again. A lantern seemed to burn against the night, calling to her.

Safe haven. We’ve been waiting for you.

I’m coming
, Clair wanted to call out. Her hands moved, but the words blocked, caught in her throat. Her bare feet hit the mud and she fell sideways.

After that was only darkness.

The dog found her first.

Churchill stood alertly at the top of the woods, signaling her presence in rigid silence. And the figure on the grass was indeed a
her
, Ian saw. Slim white legs lay sprawled sideways. He frowned at the dark marks of blood covering the pale skin.

Why in God’s name was a woman out here alone in the rain? And why only half dressed?

Suspicion made him scowl. Another trick? Was she a clever intruder, caught in the storm? All of that was possible.

Ian strode over the slippery grass, his face as hard as the rocks around him. He opened one hand on the dog’s head, giving soft praise for tracking well done. The dog’s tail banged against his leg, but he did not move, too well trained to leave his prey.

The scent of the hunt was on them both now. The slim legs made Ian blink, feeling a stab of desire.

He bit back an oath. Not desire. He had not felt passion in months. But the strange emotion stirred his blood. Desire along with something else. Something deeper, raw and protective.

And God knows he hadn’t been protective of anything for years.

He couldn’t allow himself to have any kind of private life with the job he held. And he wouldn’t allow himself to feel any emotion now.

Grimly, Ian leaned over the woman, holding up a small light. Her eyes were closed. Blood matted her hair, in a dark stain that stretched over her cheek and her neck. If this was an act, it was superb, he decided. But bloodstains were simple. So were superficial cuts.

He lifted her hand, focused on her pulse. The beat was wild, but steady. No act there.

He raised a lid. Pupils dilated. Definitely signs of trauma.

Rain struck his face, pounding over her motionless body as he considered his options. The practical thing to do was to call her in. He could have the local police come and deal with her.

But somehow Ian couldn’t be sane and practical. The storm was pounding hard. She still hadn’t moved. She would be freezing. If he left her here much longer.…

Hell.

Gritting his teeth, he shrugged off his coat and wrapped her wet body carefully. In one powerful movement he lifted her over his shoulder and turned back into the rain. As he walked, she began to struggle, muttering incoherently. The words were choked, but he recognized the name of a small town near the coast. After that she whispered what could have been a phone number. Or maybe a license plate. Or it might have no meaning at all.

But Ian was taking no chances. As soon as he got to the abbey, he would phone his contact in London and have her checked out thoroughly. Unfortunately, he had found no handbag or pockets with anything to help him determine who she was or why she was here.

Ian’s leg throbbed as he climbed the wet slope. Strangely, the woman didn’t feel heavy. In fact she seemed to fit his arms perfectly, as if she belonged there. The thought left him frowning.

Lightening burst overhead. In the phantom glow, Ian looked down and saw an odd silver scar on her neck, just beneath her hair. It looked like a dense rose, half open, with petals cascading downward. For some reason he couldn’t take his eyes away from it.

Somehow he had known it would be there, hidden just under her hair.

Up the hill, Churchill whined. Over the roar of the storm Ian heard a low cough of motors. He glanced back through the rain, but saw nothing. Did he only imagine the distant hum of a car motor, muffled in the wind?

What he did
not
imagine was the sense of warning that stabbed along his spine.