Chapter Seven #2
Her face paled and her lips thinned into a tight line. He wanted to shake the answer out of her, but knew that would only scare her and regardless of his anger, he didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was.
“Don’t you think after all that has happened you can trust me?”
“I trust you.”
He wanted to laugh at her outrageous lie. “Do you?”
She hopped off the stool. Her face went from pale to red in a heartbeat, surprising him. “I’m trying,” she said between clenched teeth. “Can’t you see I’m trying? I don’t know who to trust.” She ran a hand through her mussed hair and stormed out of the room.
He followed slowly, giving her time, intrigued by her display of anger. I don’t know who to trust. What an interesting choice of words.
He found her in the living room staring up at the sword hanging on the wall above the fireplace.
At one time it had been an extension of himself.
He’d carried it everywhere and even slept with it.
Many an enemy’s blood had dripped with it.
Nowadays he barely looked at it, but looking now he realized he missed the weight of it in his hand, the way it sang through the air toward an enemy’s head.
A lot could be said for modern times, but ’twas medieval times he was born to and medieval times he yearned for. Especially when justice was called for.
“Tell me about the dream,” he said casually, taking a sip of coffee.
“Which dream?”
He looked at her sharply. “There’s been more than one?”
She huffed out a shaky laugh and looked at him with haunted eyes. “Oh, yes. Many more than one.” She nodded toward the sword. “That was in my dream.”
He looked up at the sword as if he’d never seen it before. She dreamt of his sword? It’s not surprising. She was intrigued by it last night so she incorporated it into her dream.
“I dreamt of it before I came here.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His brain went blank and he could do nothing but wait for what she had to say next.
“I dream of you, too.”
The fine hairs on his arms rose. Slowly he put his mug down on the nearest table. The unexpected turn of the conversation left him floundering. A sensation he was unaccustomed to and didn’t like.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
Her eyes filled with tears and her defenses broke under the flood. ’Twas as if he were seeing the real Madelaine Alexander for the first time without pretenses or lies on her lips.
“I saw her,” she whispered. “I saw her in the hall. With a dark-haired knight that looked like you. I was there, yet I wasn’t.
I was watching, yet I was inside her, feeling her excitement at speaking to you and her fear of being discovered by her husband.
She…” Her breath hitched. Tears raced down her cheeks.
“She was drawn to you. Attracted. She knew she shouldn’t be.
She knew she’d be punished if her attraction was discovered. ”
Christien closed his eyes and bit back a groan of torture. She was describing the night they first met. Mon Dieu. What was happening here? Where did these memories of hers come from?
Lucheux?
Had Lucheux planted them in her mind?
“She had no love in her life,” she was saying. “No happiness. No laughter. She missed that the most. The laughter.”
Christien made a low sound. Memories came pouring out.
Emotions he’d buried when he buried the treasure and made a pledge to protect it for the rest of eternity.
He felt his Madelaine’s pain from so long ago.
He’d tried to shield her from it, to give her laughter and happiness, but his visits were sporadic and his attempts had to be covert.
He could do little save whisking her away.
But where would he have taken her? He was a landless knight, paid by the Knights Templar and the money he was earning would have disappeared if he’d taken her from the powerful influence of Count Flandres.
Not to mention she was cousin to King Philip.
Christien would have lost his head if he’d been caught and where would that have left her?
“Her husband found them talking.” She was breathing too fast. “She knew she was going to be punished, but she didn’t regret talking to the kind knight.” A long, low moan escaped her and she pressed a fist to her mouth, her eyes huge, unseeing. Or seeing too much.
“Madelaine. Arrête. Stop. Please.”
Her breath was wheezing out of her. The tears came faster. “H-he… He… Oh, God, Christien.”
“Enough, ma belle.” He couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t force her to say the words. Her body was trembling, tears racing down her cheeks. She could barely breathe through the sobs. Whether she was the real Madelaine or not, this was tearing her apart and he couldn’t bear to watch it happen.
“He raped her.”
Christien closed his eyes. He wanted to scream in agony, wanted to find the bastard who’d done this and kill him with his bare hands, but he was already dead.
“Shhh, little one. Quiet.” He took her in his arms, unable to stand by while she grieved and needing her next to him before his own memories overtook him.
“What’s happening to me, Christien? Why am I suddenly having dreams of this woman?”
He stilled, her words piercing him. The emotion was too real to be forced. Could it be she truly didn’t know what was happening? Ah, God. He wished he knew.
The look she gave him was so desperate it tore him apart. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
He saw the fear those words evoked and knew she was balancing on a slippery slope. She honestly thought she was losing her mind and who could blame her?
“No, Madelaine. I believe you.” But did he? Did he really believe her? He wanted to, but his mind still balked.
“What if…” He paused to consider his words carefully. “What if there are two realities? What if what you are experiencing aren’t dreams but something else?”
Her brows drew together in confusion. If she was an actress then she deserved an Academy Award for this performance. However, he was beginning to believe she wasn’t acting.
“Of course they’re dreams. What else could they be?”
He hesitated, but knew he had to put it out there, if only to get her reaction. “Memories.”
Her brows dipped and she chewed on her lower lip. “Memories? I don’t understand.”
“There are people who believe death isn’t really the end. That a person’s…essence…can be passed on to another body.”
“You’re talking about reincarnation.” The brows drew deeper and her eyes narrowed in thought before she shook her head. “There is no such thing as reincarnation, Christien.”
“Some would disagree.”
“So you’re saying these dreams aren’t dreams but memories of a past life I led? A past that includes someone who looks like you?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“I don’t believe in reincarnation.” She backed away from him. “I’ve been under a lot of stress with this new job and moving to a new city.”
“So you believe stress triggered these dreams?”
“Yes.” She nodded vigorously.
“The dream you just had, tell me, why did I have to leave?” Only she would know the answer to this question.
She looked away and bit her bottom lip, but this time he didn’t sense her trying to come up with a lie. “So you weren’t caught with her,” she said so quietly he had to lean forward to hear her.
“Caught with whom?”
She looked at him with wide eyes. “Her. The other Madelaine. The one who looks like me.”
“Where were they that they could get caught?”
She frowned and he could tell she was thinking, plunging herself back into the dream. “A garden.”
His heart stilled. Up until now she’d told him things Lucheux could have easily known, but Lucheux didn’t know about that night in the garden.
“Did he find me?”
Her golden-brown eyes looked up at him. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Mon Dieu. He was beginning to believe she wasn’t trying to trick him. Her reactions were too quick and too real. No hesitation.
“Do you know I fell in love with you that night?” he asked in Norman French.
She frowned at him.
“Did Lucheux send you to me?” he asked again in Norman French, studying her, looking for any sign she understood what he was saying. Nothing. Not one spark of recognition.
“What are you saying?” she asked, obviously confused.
He looked away. “Never mind.”
She thought she was going mad? ’Twas nothing to what his mind was telling him. More and more he was beginning to believe she was an innocent bystander in all of this and it made his anger boil. If Lucheux truly had pulled an innocent into this war, then Christien was going to make him pay.
“I think I should go.”
The soldier in him went on alert. “I wish you would stay.” And not only because he didn’t want her going back to Lucheux—if that was where she was going—but because he genuinely didn’t want her to leave.
She looked around as if searching for something and found her shoes by the couch. She was still dressed in the jeans and sweatshirt she’d arrived in the night before. “Thank you for letting me sleep…” She looked away and a blush rose up her neck and cheeks.
“Madelaine. Look at me.”
She slowly turned her gaze to him.
“You are welcome here anytime. My door is always open to you.” You fool.
Why give her an open invitation? Turn your back and concentrate on protecting the treasure.
That was what he should do, follow the inner voice, pretend she didn’t exist, but he couldn’t.
He would sooner cut off his sword arm than turn his back on those frightened eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He followed her to the elevator and punched the button, his mind screaming not to let her go. To protect her.
From what? Shouldn’t he be protecting himself?
He found the idea ludicrous and the idea of her needing protection from Lucheux all too real.
The thought of her alone out there, working for Lucheux, experiencing her dreams by herself, made him feel helpless and if there was one thing he hated it was feeling helpless.
He’d experienced it too often in the past.