Chapter Seven
Present Day
Christien looked down at Madelaine fast asleep on his couch. Her knees were curled to her chest and a hand was tucked beneath her cheek.
His knees buckled and he sank to the floor beside her. Who was playing such a cruel joke on him? Who knew of the one person who could breach his defenses and leave him powerless?
Slowly he uncurled his fingers and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. Her lids fluttered but did not open, and his heart turned over.
The warrior in him told him to let her go.
To take her home and expel her from his life.
Her appearance did not bode well for him or for the treasure he was sworn to protect.
At best she was a distraction. At worst she was the catalyst that could start the war to end civilization.
He shook his head at the thought. All these centuries he’d wondered when it would begin, when evil would make its move on good.
Never in all that time had he imagined his Madelaine would come back to life and be caught in the middle of it.
He closed his eyes, the pain too great to bear.
But bear it he must. He had to look on her as his enemy until he could prove otherwise.
She sighed, drawing his gaze back to her. The key around her neck caught his attention. ’Twas no more than two inches long but beautifully made, wrought in silver with small diamonds surrounding the bow. He sat back on his heels, his mind suddenly racing.
“Only the key will open it.”
His gaze returned to the necklace. Coincidence that she was wearing a key about her neck? Christien didn’t believe in coincidences.
His jaw clenched in indecision. How had Lucheux found her?
His eyes narrowed. If Madelaine had approached Lucheux with this plan that meant she had prior knowledge of the treasure and what she meant to Christien.
Theirs had been a great love and even though he was cynical by nature he could not imagine her using their love against him.
Which made him wonder if someone else had conceived of the notion to cross Madelaine’s path with Lucheux’s.
He stood swiftly, frustrated by the questions piling up and the lack of answers.
He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the guest bedroom. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. He wouldn’t take her home tonight. He would keep her close and when she awoke in the morning he would get the answers he needed.
At least that was what he told himself. Yet when he laid her on the bed his heart beat a little harder, the blood rushed through his veins a little hotter and his mind wasn’t thinking of her as an enemy, but as the woman he loved long ago.
She blinked and looked up at him with sleepy eyes. “Christien.”
“Yes, my love?”
She sighed and her eyes drifted closed. “Just Christien.”
His heart turned over and he knew if he discovered she was consciously using him to get to the treasure it would destroy him.
Madelaine cried out, ripping Christien from a sound sleep. He rolled from his bed, instinctively reaching for a sword that hadn’t been at his side for several hundred years. He was down the hall before he realized where he was and in her room before the sleep cleared from his brain.
She was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes wild with fright, her body shaking so hard it made her teeth chatter.
“He’ll find us.” She turned wide, blank eyes to him.
She was in the grip of a nightmare.
He rounded the bed, cautiously advancing on her. “Who will find us?”
She put her hands on his chest and pushed. The action didn’t budge him. “You must go,” she whispered desperately.
He froze, belatedly realizing she was speaking Norman French. The breath rushed out of him and for a moment he didn’t move. He hadn’t heard his native tongue in many, many years. Hearing it now plunged his mind into the past so fast it made him dizzy and his pulse beat harder.
She spoke the language fluently, with no hesitation. At first he wondered if Lucheux had coached her in it, but her fluency convinced him otherwise. She wouldn’t speak a newly learned language while immersed in a nightmare.
Automatically he answered in the same language, the words he hadn’t used in centuries rolling off his tongue as if he spoke it every day. “Why must I go, chérie?”
She muttered under her breath, a disjointed prayer spoken in Latin. He’d heard her murmur this same prayer one other time. A night etched in his memory of a garden and a woman sobbing over a child that was not to be.
Her head whipped around as if something behind her had startled her.
“Madelaine.”
She shrieked, jumped and tried to push him out the door. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against his body. She desperately squirmed to get free, her feeble attempt ineffectual against his hold. She was so small and so soft he was afraid of hurting her.
“Madelaine, stop this.”
She looked up at him with terror-filled eyes, not seeing him. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing rapid. She twisted, slipping out of his hold. He made a grab for her, but she stepped away.
“You must go, before he finds you here. Oh, please, leave!”
Christien closed his eyes. An invisible hand squeezed his heart, tearing at the barely healed scars. ’Twas as if he were reenacting that fateful night all over again. How could she know of it? What was she seeing?
“Mon amour, you are dreaming. We are safe. Trust me, Madelaine. We are safe.”
He pulled her against his chest and cradled her head to his shoulder. Sobs racked her body until he shook with them. He pressed his lips into her hair, closing his eyes tight to keep his own tears from falling.
He absorbed her tremors while his mind went back to that night in the garden. When they stood this close. When he felt for the first time her body against his and realized they were made for each other. Two halves of a whole—exactly the way it felt now which made his pain even more acute.
She is real.
His heart squeezed. He desperately wanted to believe she was the real thing, but he couldn’t afford to follow his heart. Until proven otherwise, he had to believe she was his enemy.
Her body went rigid and her breathing hitched, but he continued to hold her.
He began to fall in love with her that night in the garden as she sat on the bench and cried. She had been such an innocent in the harshness of Castle Flandres, such a ray of sunlight when it seemed he’d forever been deprived of sunlight. He’d been drawn to her, inexplicably. Certainly unadvisedly.
Theirs had been a romance doomed for failure, but when they were together, it was simply right.
Just like it felt right holding her like this. When she was in his arms he couldn’t believe she wasn’t a miracle, a dream come true, a prayer answered. She had to be. Anything else was inconceivable.
He tore himself away from her, leaving her swaying in the middle of the room, a look of confusion on her face. ’Twas dangerous to think that way, to let his heart rule his mind. Whatever nightmare she was having had nothing to do with that night in the garden.
He stepped away, schooling his features, pushing the memories from his mind to become the guardian he was meant to be. “Do you feel better?”
She nodded, head bent, her fall of mink hair hiding her face. He checked the urge to push the hair away and see into her eyes.
Finally she looked at him, a quick glance before she looked away but enough to tell him how scared and confused she was.
He held his hand out to her. “Come. Let us eat breakfast.”
She hesitated, her gaze flying to him before she tentatively wrapped her fingers around his.
He led her to his kitchen where a wide variety of breakfast food awaited.
Before retiring for the morning he’d instructed his chef to have food sent up in the hope she’d still be here, but even he was surprised at the abundance.
Madelaine stared blankly at the spread. Her hair was in disarray, as if she’d been well loved. The nightmare he’d woken her from still had its claws in her.
She sat at the breakfast bar, her movements wooden, automatic. Christien poured them each a tall mug of steaming coffee from a carafe, nudging hers closer when she didn’t immediately take it.
He waited until she took a few sips, and forced himself to wait until she took a few more.
She was looking a little more awake and was eyeing the food hungrily.
She slathered a bagel with cream cheese and took a big bite.
His gaze followed the movement of the tip of her tongue as it licked the cheese from the corner of her mouth, his body responding with a ferocity he hadn’t felt in a long time.
In fact he remembered the last time he’d felt this type of intense need. ’Twas his last night with Madelaine.
He shoved the thought away because it brought too much pain and heartache.
Their entire relationship had been nothing but pain and heartache if he was truthful.
They’d been foolish. Stupid, would be a more accurate term.
They had no business conversing let alone becoming so well acquainted, yet he wouldn’t trade those times for anything.
“Tell me about the dream,” he said after she finished her bagel.
Her gaze slid away. His anger resurfaced, nearly consuming him.
He pushed off his stool to refill his coffee, surprised to see his hand tremble from fury.
Damn her. And damn him for wanting to believe in her.
She was nothing but a conniving liar. A fake.
Suddenly he hated her. Hated her for who she looked like and the memories she’d dragged out of him.
Hated her for distracting him at a time when he could ill afford distractions.
But most of all he hated her for making him feel again. And just as quickly as the hate came, it disappeared, leaving him empty and confused.
“Who did you want me to run from?” He took a sip of coffee, swallowing the hot brew quickly and feeling the burn all the way to his gut.