Her Dark Knight (21 page)

“What have you done?” she whispered.

Lucien looked her up and down boldly. “Nothing. Yet. You have heard, of course, of what is happening in Paris.” He shook his head and tsked. “It’s a shame that the Templar leader does not cooperate. But that is the way with such men, eh?” He put his hands behind him and rocked back on his heels. “Your poor fool of a husband is trying in vain to free the Grand Knight but I see in which direction the winds are blowing.”

Madelaine’s breathing grew rapid. She wanted to shout at Lucien to be quiet because she knew what he was going to say next.

“The other lords see it too. Only your husband is the blind one. Fool. I fear Count Flandres will soon fall out of favor and even your connection to King Philip will not save him.”

It was beginning to make sense now. Lucien wrote to Philip of the count’s defection. Or what Philip would determine as his defection. Her husband was as good as dead.

“When Philip discovers your so-called loyalty, you want to be rewarded.” She shuddered to think what the reward would be. It was well known priests turned a blind eye to their vows of chastity. Many were raising illegitimate children and had numerous mistresses, while the church stood by doing nothing.

Her death wasn’t what Lucien wanted. He wanted her. He wanted what he’d been denied when Christien barged into the bedchamber the last time. He wanted revenge and she feared even her cousin wouldn’t stop him.

Lucien laughed. “You value yourself too much, Countess.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his dirty knuckles. “Although you would be a just reward. One I may take along with the other.”

Madelaine forced herself to meet the bottomless depth of his soulless eyes. “Other?”

Lucien smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. “What I will receive goes far beyond the pleasures of the flesh, my lady. I need merely take what Philip wants.”

Madelaine licked suddenly dry lips. “The Templar treasure,” she whispered.

Lucien touched the tip of her nose, an indulgent smile on his disgusting face. “The lady is smarter than she pretends to be. You are correct. The Templar treasure. And do you know what the Templar treasure is, Countess?”

She shook her head.

“Conquest, war, famine and death.”

Madelaine drew in a stunned breath. He was speaking of the Book of Revelation. ’Twas one of his favorite books of the Bible to read from at dinner and Madelaine knew most of it by heart now.

Lucien grinned. “I see you know what I speak of.
The
book, my countess. The one with the seven seals. The Templars have it and I will retrieve it from them.” He leaned forward as if imparting a great secret. “I’ve been promised eternal life if I take it from them, and if I find a way to open the seals I will receive the power of the horsemen.”

He stepped closer, until nothing separated them but the clothes they wore, and shoved the full length of his body against hers, grinding his manhood into her until she cried out in pain. He leaned forward and kissed her so hard he smashed her lips against her teeth and she tasted her own blood.

She was accustomed to brutal kisses, was accustomed to her husband taking what he wanted without asking and had long ago resigned her fate to such a life, but this was different. This wasn’t her husband who had a right to her. This was a madman who believed he could become one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

She sank her teeth into Lucien’s lip. Like a dog with a rabbit, she didn’t let go when he jerked back. He backhanded her with a viciousness that made her stagger to the side and her ears ring and her vision dim.

“Is this how it will be, my countess?” He dabbed at his lip, glancing at the blood now on his fingers. He smiled, flicking his tongue out to lick the blood pooling in the corner. Madelaine turned away, sickened.

He grabbed her chin and yanked her head toward him, forcing her eyes to meet his. He hit her again, an openhanded slap on the opposite cheek that threw her head sideways, causing the rough tree bark to cut her temple.

“Submit to me and I will give you power that you can only imagine. We will have eternity, my countess. Forever.”

With a strangled cry, Giselle rushed forward, her face a mask of fury. “What is this?
I
was promised eternity and power.”

Lucien laughed. “Surely you don’t believe a whore such as yourself would be of service to someone as powerful as I plan to become. Not someone who was married to the castle
blacksmith.
” He spit the word
blacksmith
out as if it tasted foul in his mouth.

With a screech, Giselle sprung on Lucien, but he was expecting the attack and pushed her away. Giselle stumbled and fell. Madelaine turned and ran.

Instantly the dogs were there, howling and circling, tripping her. Lucien grabbed her and wrapped his hand around her throat, pushing until she slammed against the trunk of a large tree. Pinned there she could do nothing but look at the muscles bulging in his neck and his black eyes narrowed in fury.

A scream rent the quiet night air. Lucien turned as Giselle swung a large branch. He yelled out, raised his hands to deflect the blow but was too late. The limb slammed into his temple. For a moment he staggered, his surprised gaze going to Giselle, before his knees crumpled and he fell.

“You!” Giselle advanced on her still holding the tree branch.

Madelaine picked up her skirts and ran. She was shoved from behind and lost her footing. She fell forward, her face hitting the hard-packed dirt, jarring her teeth and forcing the breath out of her. Giselle flipped her over and wrapped her hands around Madelaine’s throat. Madelaine kicked but her skirts hampered her movements. She tried to scream, but no sound escaped. The dogs came, prancing around them, whining and howling. But as if sensing the evil inside Giselle, they kept their distance.

Giselle lifted Madelaine from the ground by the hands around her throat and slammed her head into the dirt.

Pain exploded in her head and shoulders. She cried out. Giselle’s face, a twisted mass of raging fury and evil, froze Madelaine’s blood. She’d never seen such hatred before.

“He promised me,” she grunted between clenched teeth. “I was to be at his side for eternity. He. Promised.
Me.
” With each word, Giselle slammed Madelaine’s head into the ground.

Madelaine tried to fight but her strength was nothing compared to Giselle’s. Eventually her limbs grew heavy, the forest faded and even the dogs’ barking sounded like it came from a great distance.

Hope. The one thing she’d clung to for so long slowly trickled out of her. There would be no daring rescue from the man she loved and she refused to bring a baby into this sordid, hellish world she’d been thrust into. She tried to keep her eyes open as Giselle’s hands tightened upon her throat, but it proved too much. Her eyes drifted closed. She conjured an image of Christien, his smoky gray eyes bursting with love as he leaned forward to kiss her.

A terrible grief consumed her. They would never be together to celebrate their love. They’d never had a chance.

The grief gave way to lightness as she gasped her last breath.

“Madelaine, wake up.
Madelaine.
”

Lainie gasped. Her eyes flew open to stare at a dark ceiling dappled with moonlight. No trees looming above her, no rocks digging into her back. No fingers circling her neck and choking the life from her. A ceiling in Christien’s home. In France.

Tears traveled into her hairline and onto her pillow. Terror seized her in its hideous grasp.

Christien gathered her stiff body in his arms. “’Twas a dream,
mon couer.
Only a dream.”

She struggled to catch her breath and tame her runaway heart. Her knee ached, like she really had fallen on it. Her throat hurt to swallow, like someone really had strangled her.

A sob rushed through her, shaking her body and breaking the numbing paralysis.

She clung to Christien, fisting her hands on his bare chest. Giselle’s face loomed in front of her, her eyes furious. Lainie cringed from the image and Christien pulled her tightly to him. But even Christien’s strong arms would never dispel the image of what happened in that forest.

She pulled away from Christien. “She was strangled. That’s how she died, isn’t it?”

“Strangled? By Lucien?”

“Not Lucien. In my dream it was Giselle, but that can’t be right.”

“Giselle?”
he whispered.

“Of course it wasn’t Giselle.” Lainie ran a hand through her tangled hair and laughed, but the laugh was weak. “I’ve been thinking about my project at work and my mind probably stuck Giselle in my dream.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“I’m sure I
dreamt
it was her, but she wasn’t the one who killed Madelaine. That would make her something like seven hundred years old or reincarnated. Like me.” She tried to infuse some levity into her voice, making a joke out of something not all that funny, but it failed miserably. Instead her voice wobbled and the statement came out more a question. But Christien didn’t seem to be listening.

“Tell me everything. Everything you saw in your dream,” he said.

Her mind shied from the visions that wouldn’t let her go. She didn’t want to relive Madelaine’s fear and grief. Nor her death or terrifying things Lucien said to her at the end. Already her heart was galloping, as if she really had run through the forest. She heard the baying dogs, her ragged breaths, the swish of her skirts through the underbrush. Like her other dreams, this one was so real she felt as if she’d been there.

“I’m sorry,
ma chérie,
but I need you to tell me. It’s important.”

She took a deep breath and clutched Christien’s hand like it was her last tie to this earth. “They were so sure Lucien would go after Madelaine, and he did, but not in the way they thought.”

Christien and Madelaine hadn’t died together. They never found their happiness. Stupid of her to think they would when so much had been stacked against them. But she’d hoped. She’d really hoped.

“She’d discovered she was pregnant with the count’s baby.”

Christien’s fingers flexed in hers and he drew in a sharp breath.

“She went to the garden, to the spot where she met Christien that one night. Lucien was there. He was talking to…” She frowned. “A woman. A woman who looked like Giselle. She heard them talking about King Philip and a letter he’d sent telling the king that Simon of Flandres was sympathetic to the Templar’s cause and he was trying to free the Grand Master.”

Christien didn’t move. He barely even breathed. “What happened?”

“I ran away. I was scared.” The words came faster. Her chest heaved with the effort to slow them down. She barely realized she was speaking in the first person. “So I ran.”

Christien rubbed his thumb along the top of her hand, back and forth, anchoring her.

“Lucien and…Giselle followed. They had an argument. Lucien claimed…” She couldn’t even speak the blasphemous things Lucien had said to her. The ravings of a madman. That was all it was.

“Tell me, Madelaine. I need to know.”

She took a deep breath and looked into Christien’s eyes. “He told me he had to steal the Templar treasure. He said if he broke the seals then he would have the power of one of the four horsemen.”

Madelaine’s terror came rushing back but Lainie wasn’t sure it was Madelaine’s anymore. It felt all too real when she thought of the books on Christien’s bookshelf that referred to the Book of Revelation.

“What happened next?” he asked urgently.

Lainie brushed the tears off her face. “Giselle was furious. She hit Lucien with a tree branch and knocked him out. Then she strangled… She killed Madelaine.”

She cried, deep sobs that robbed her of breath and shook her body. Christien held her, rocked her, rubbed her back and murmured soothing words until the tears subsided and she pulled away.

“I think I knew she wasn’t going to live long. It’s just…” She dragged in a deep breath. “It still shocked me.” She tried to pull herself together, to stop the endless tears, to stifle the clawing fear. “What is this all about, Christien? Why would Lucien think he could break the seals and become a horseman?”

Christien stood and pulled her up with him. “Come, Madelaine, let’s get dressed. There is something you must see.”

“Now?” She looked out the window where the dark sky was slowly turning a deep purple. A new day dawning, yet Lainie felt as if it were the end rather than another beginning.

“Trust me, love. You need to see this.”

Lainie hesitated but eventually nodded. She did trust Christien. As bizarre as this was, one thing remained steady—her trust and her love for this man.

They dressed silently. A pall hung between them, a sadness that would never be easily erased. She’d lived with this other Madelaine for weeks, experienced her terror, her joy, watched her fall in love with her dark knight. To witness her death, with no warning, horrified her and left her empty and sad.

Once they were dressed, Christien took her hand and led her out of the house, through the countryside and over rolling hills covered with purple lavender. The air was so fresh and even though her grief pressed down on her, she still felt as if she’d come home.
This is where I was meant to be.

She didn’t know how long they walked—ten minutes? twenty?—when they entered a line of trees. Lainie hesitated, the terror of her last memory rearing its ugly head. Christien looked back at her, his heart in his eyes. Her trust in him outweighed the fear and urged her forward.

After a few minutes the trees thinned out, giving way to a small clearing shrouded in the shadows of the waning night. In the middle of the clearing was a cemetery surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence.

The gravestones were old, some so worn the lettering was almost nonexistent. Many were centuries old, but one in particular looked brand-new.

Christien stopped in front of it and bowed his head, his shoulders curving as if the responsibilities of the world rested on them. Lainie read the epitaph.

Madelaine, Countess of Flandres

1288-1307

There is nothing love cannot face;

there is no limit to its faith,

its hope, and its endurance.

“I brought her body here after I purchased her family home.”

Lainie’s gaze flew to Christien. She pictured the imposing house high on a hill with the surrounding countryside spread before it.

With turrets, crenellations and arrow slits, it was more a castle than house. Built as a weapon of war, a stronghold and a place to retreat to for safety. Now she understood why it looked so familiar, why she was able to walk through it without losing her way and why she felt safe within its walls.

She hadn’t dreamed of it, but she knew as deeply as she knew she loved Christien that this was where she grew up. There had been additions, renovations and improvements over the years but the heart of the castle remained the same.

“Why?” She wasn’t sure which question swirling through her brain she was asking. Why did he own Madelaine’s home? Why was her grave here?

He looked at her through the shadows of the dawn, sadness burning in his eyes. “She needed to be here, where she was happiest.”

“She was happiest with Christien.” Lainie touched the cold stone, damp from the dew. “I can’t imagine his sorrow when he returned to find her…gone.”

“He was devastated. Beyond grief. I…
He
returned to the castle too late to save you.” He pressed his fingers into his eyes.

Stunned, caught in his grief and rage, she touched his arm, not knowing what else to do. His muscles were tense, rock hard.

He drew in a deep breath. “They told me you had fallen off your horse and broke your neck but I doubted the story. However events were unfolding swiftly. King Philip was experiencing heavy financial losses and wanted to acquire the Templar’s wealth by accusing us of heresy and witchcraft. Our leader, deMolay, had already been arrested. My fellow brothers were being rounded up, questioned, tortured, accused of heinous crimes. I was ordered back to Paris to meet with deMolay. There had been no time to inquire further into your death. I thought when I returned I would look into it. But it was not to be. In Paris I was given a…task. I had to travel to Scotland right away. I had no choice.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat, still staring at the stars.

Scotland. That explained the Celtic cross tattooed on his chest. A tattoo he said he received in Scotland a long time ago. Puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place, but her mind shied from the picture forming. Certainly what she was thinking was impossible. And yet hadn’t she at one time thought reincarnation was impossible?

“I was operating on sheer force of will and the desperate need to protect the Templar treasure.” He looked at her. “The same treasure Lucien was promised if he took it from me.”

Lainie took a step back as if distance could separate her from what she was hearing. She’d thought Lucien insane but she knew Christien not to be. Yet why was he telling almost the same story? Why did he too believe in this treasure?

“It took eighteen months to get to Scotland,” he said. “I traveled at night. The tide of hatred toward the Templars was growing, spreading across countries and continents. I had a mission and it was all I concentrated on. Finish my mission and I could die for there was no thought of living without you.”

Lainie swallowed past the lump in her throat, aching for her dark knight and his pain.

“I almost failed several times. I was weak with fever, dying with every breath I took. But it was not enough.” He pounded his fist against the headstone. “’Tis never enough. I was brought back from the brink of death and told I must protect the treasure for always.”

“What do you mean brought back from death?” she whispered.

Christien turned to her, his look intense, the knowledge of centuries engraved upon his face and reflected in his eyes. She took another step back, suddenly afraid.

“I died. And then I was resurrected, never to die again.”

Heartbeats of silence passed, Christien looking deep into her eyes, willing her to accept what he was saying and Lainie, pushing away the thoughts, refusing to believe.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do. I am the same man you met seven hundred years ago. I live still and will continue to live until the end of time. I am the keeper of the treasure of the Knights Templar—the treasure Lucien, now named Lucheux, wants to take from me. I am forever alive, yet dead inside until you came along.”

She shook her head, holding her hands out as if she could physically stop him from speaking.

Christien moved toward her. “You dreamt of us, Madelaine. You understand that you and the Countess of Flandres are one and the same. Is it not too much to believe I am the same man?”

Lainie swallowed and licked her dry lips. “How is it possible—”

Christien huffed out a laugh. “Oh, it’s very possible. God sent his emissary to pull me from the brink of death, to heal me of the fever and to thrust me back out into the world. Forever.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m all that stands between good and evil.”

There are people who want to get to me through you.

The words he said to her in the hospital suddenly took on a whole new meaning and chilled her.

“This evil.” She cleared her throat. “Is that what you meant when you said I wasn’t safe?”

“Yes.”

Fear leapt inside her but she bravely fought it down. “Who is… What is the evil?”

For a long moment he didn’t speak, as if he didn’t want to say what had to be said. The longer the silence stretched, the harder her heart pounded and the weaker her knees became.

“Christien. Tell me. Please. Is Lucheux the evil you speak of?” Good God, what was happening here? What was Christien in the middle of?

His eyes were like flint. “Yes. The treasure I was chosen to protect contains the seven seals. If they are opened…” His voice trailed off but he didn’t need to say more. His message was clear enough. If they were opened unspeakable things would happen, all leading to the Apocalypse.

She didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know, but she asked anyway because to deny it would be cowardly and she wasn’t a coward. “Lucheux. He’s the opposite of you?”

For the first time a shadow of a smile played across his lips. “You could say that. He and Giselle were given eternal life by a demon of Satan. They are tasked with finding the treasure and opening the seals.” Christien’s lips thinned. “’Tis the reason I was in Milwaukee. To keep an eye on them and contain them.”

Even though she’d been expecting his answer, it still felt as if someone had body-slammed her. Lucheux and Giselle. The people she worked for. The woman who’d killed her in another life. This couldn’t be happening. These were the things movies were made of, not something that happened in real life. And yet, part of her believed. No, part of her
knew
it to be true. It all made sense now. The clothes in Christien’s bedroom, Giselle’s hatred. Is this why Lucheux never showed his face to her? Had he known she’d been dreaming of him? Yet she hadn’t dreamt of Giselle until the very end. How had they known?