Chapter Five
After a light meal consisting of a slice of plum cake, Eloise headed out with Lucian to the old abbey.
A fine mist showered the moors.
The damp, frigid air left nothing unscathed, not even her toes which her kid leather half boots did little to keep warm. “Now I see why you store such valuable windows in the ruins. No thief would take such pains to trek through this muck.”
“I seem to remember you being excited to trek through the muck at Davis Hall.”
“Only because I was trying to impress you at the time.”
Offering her his arm, Lucian gave a light laugh, the wind tousling his wavy, black hair. “So far have I fallen.”
“True, but like the ghosts in local tales, I consider you to be redeemable, my lord.” She leaned into him, notes of wild sea and bergamot pulling from his coat, calming her senses. “I trust you, Lucian.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise.” His gaze darted ahead and lingered on the purple heather-strewn fields, the edges of his lips pressing into a firm line.
The deepness of his wounded look rattled her. “Talk to me, Lucian. There’s nothing you can say that will scare me off.”
He merely clutched her arm tighter against his side.
The silence between them lingered until they reached the top of the hill, to where a massive gothic abbey jutted out from the landscape, its limestone ruins resembling a brooding hell-born sentinel. “It looks angry enough to devour me.”
Lucian lowered his voice. “We can turn back if you wish…”
Her mother died for the sake of the archives. The least she could do was traipse through a pile of old stones. “No. I’m fine.” Her stomach coiled.
The air shifted in nature, growing colder and more sinister as they approached and then entered the abbey.
Half the roof didn’t exist and only arches open to the elements remained of its walls, its protective buttresses and windows long gone.
Swaths of purple heather threaded with grass violated its outer aisle and spilled menacingly into its stone-floored nave.
The abbey’s structure might have been killed off, but its soul still lived. Eerily so.
“The stained glass panels are stored in the secured area of the abbey, in the towers beyond the ambulatory.” Lucian led her through the ruins.
Twisted iron gates hanging haphazardly from their broken hinges corded off the nave from the few still-intact alcoves housed sporadically along the outer aisles.
Inside, stood tall sandstone statues of knights and saints, their faces carved with pious expressions and their hands molded into sacred gestures.
They watched her. Their stone eyes, long since battered by salty sea air, seeming to note her every step taken within their guarded domain.
Eloise swallowed. The salty essence of sea mixed with the bittersweet, earthly notes of myrrh, tingled her tongue. “There’s still life in this abbey.”
“I imagine there always will be. It’s existed for centuries, its corner stones bearing witness to war and ritual alike.”
“It’s as much a ghost as are the roaming lovers.”
“In essence, yes.” Lucien briefly left her side.
Approaching the abbey’s north end, he retrieved a ring of keys from his pocket and jimmied the rusted lock on the tower’s door.
The clank of metal grating against stone slithered through the air as the massive link chain securing the portal snaked to the floor. He pulled the heavy door open. “We’ll have good light to study the panes unless a storm rolls in.”
Stepping into the stone tower, a chill brushed Eloise’s skin.
She shivered and gathered her cloak closer around her arms. “The rookery is more welcoming.”
“I imagine before the abbey fell to ruin, it was an inviting space.” Lucian’s love for the abbey he’d been entrusted with came across in his slightly defensive tone.
“And the windows?”
“They’re housed in the rows of panels.” He gestured toward the collection of standing, linen-draped wood frames set on wheeled legs. “Winston had them built when he renovated the abbey after he’d inherited it from our grandfather.”
Striding across the chapel, Lucian tugged the linen from the frames. “Take your pick. They’re not in any specific order, though markings along the sides state where they came from. A few are even original to the ruins, though the majority of those windows have been lost to wars as well as storms.”
Such losses couldn’t be recovered. “We’ll never know the true history of the Knights of All Hallows without them.”
“Maybe not. But I’m sure there have been a few meticulous archivists over the ages who recorded our history and whose ancestors rerecorded it when the pages of the old ledgers grew too fragile to read.”
Mother had done so many times, now that she thought about it.
“I have yet to come upon a book that old, needing such care. At least none that I study regularly. There are numerous volumes too old to touch, but those I keep locked away in dry cellars where hopefully they will not deteriorate further.”
“I’m sure your mother’s library is in good hands, having been left to your care.”
“I do my best with it.”
Lucian trailed his right forefinger along the edges of the frames while whispering to himself.
The soft sound of his voice brought back memories of the night before he’d left for war, to the hours they’d spent in bed together, him whispering her favorite poems at her ears, the words of Mary Queen of Scots, Shakespeare, and even several anonymous Irish ballads they both loved.
There would never be another man for her.
“This is the one I think you’ll love most.” Lucian’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He withdrew a single frame and wheeled it toward her. “It’s one of the oldest windows and depicts a knight and his lady.”
Rich blues and reds highlighted the two figures in the pane. A single flame sat in the knight’s open palm, while a flake of snow fell from the lady’s outstretched hand.
“He’s a Davis and she’s a McAvoy.”
“Yes and no,” Lucian said. “The knight is a Davis, but the lady hails from both the McAvoy and Blackwood bloodlines. The window dates from the late sixteenth century.”
“That’s almost more than two centuries after Sir Caelan Davis, one of the Order’s founders, lived.”
“Correct. It also represents the tragic lovers I told you about earlier. This poor lad died by McAvoy’s father’s sword.”
She squinted and brought her face close to the pane of glass, her only focus searching for the most minute detail the naked eye could find. “The field of flowers contains a treasure box.”
“Where?”
Hovering her right hand slightly above a cluster of pink heather, Eloise pointed. “Here. Do you see that rich red peeking out between the pink flowers of that group of Calluna vulgaris? That is a treasure box. It has a tiny gold lock on its front.”
“To be honest, I never really gave any of these windows more than a glance from afar. The ones in the house I’ve spent more time around, thus I’m more familiar with their designs. But these…I’m ashamed to say I’ve viewed only a handful of times, if that many.”
“Mother believed the roaming lovers met their fate because of treasure and not the rage of an angered father. But she never had proof. She didn’t have access to these windows.”
“What if your mother did have access?”
“How?”
Lucian paced, the silver-tipped end of his cane rapping against the stone floor. “The carriage ride. What if your mother came to All Hallow’s that night?”
“Uncle never said where my parents were off to when the accident occurred.”
Curiosity sparked in Lucian’s eyes. “The Abbey would have been shuttered at that point, as Winston’s health was already failing.
But that’s not to say the house was definitively locked up.
At the time, both your father and Hamish had the keys, since my cousin couldn’t keep watch over the estate and I was too far away.
Winston trusted your father. Hamish only had the keys because he was second in line to be Overseer. ”
“If my father had the keys, then he and Mother would have had access to the windows that remained in place at the time and could have studied the panes. And yet she made no entry in her ledger mentioning them.” So many questions remained about that night.
“Maybe your mother had reason for not recording her findings.”
The possibility gave her pause, but then a large falcon swooped into the chapel commanding attention, circling above like a predator homing in on newly spotted prey.
She eyed it head on. “You’re a rather large birdie, aren’t you.”
The falcon swooped closer.
Lucian dove faster, pulling her in, drawing her to his chest like a man possessed. “Falcons are fearless.”
“So am I.”
“He doesn’t know that. He thinks you’re a vulnerable little rabbit.”
“And so do you, apparently” The last time he’d held her this close, they’d been in bed.
Lucian lowered his head to hers. “I like rabbits. Especially one obstinate enough to antagonize a falcon.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
Those soulful brown eyes of his flickered with longing as he stared down at her. “I protect what’s mine.”
“I wasn’t aware I was still yours.” Breathing was nearly impossible with the storm of emotions brewing in her veins.
The falcon swooped once more, before diving for the open chapel door.
“He’s gone.” Lucian backed away, a hint of disappointment threading through his voice.
“He seemed at home here.”
“No doubt. Hamish has been training falcons near the old abbey since we were lads. He’s a menace with them.
They’ve destroyed the moldings with their talons.
” He pointed out the gouges in the decorative border above.
“Winston and I used to jokingly call this place Creag Talon because of those marks.”
“Talon Rock. I’m sure your menacing visitor would think it appropriate.
” Large birds were not her favorite. “I tend to gravitate toward ravens. Some documents in the archive state that my ancestor, Sorcha Winters, had a falling out with the war goddess, Badb, and was exiled to Skye with only a single conspiracy of ravens at her disposal.”
“So you believe we are descended from Fae blood?”
The deep longing in Lucian’s eyes almost made her want to lie to satisfy him. “Hardly. But I do enjoy reading the grossly exaggerated tales, though I’ve yet to come across any mentioning falcons.”
“I can write a book on them, thanks to Hamish.” Exasperation edged his words. “They’re hunters by nature and the one who swooped by today was more than likely just searching for food.”
“Inside an abbey? What was he hunting, you?”
A devilishly handsome smile lit up Lucian’s face. “I don’t believe humans are a falcon’s favored fare.”
“Still, I’m glad you were here.”
He brushed a stray curl from her shoulder, his touch warm and calming. “You really shouldn’t put so much faith in me, Eloise. I’m not who I once was.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand. And unless you explain it to me, I never will.”
Lucian swore. “I’m certain you’ll think me insane, but I see and hear ghosts in my sleep as much as in my waking hours.” He tensed as if bracing for rebuke.
All she wanted was to reassure him. “I don’t think you insane. You went through hell at Salamanca. I’m surprised ghosts are all that haunt you.”
He pulled away. “I don’t think I’ll ever escape that day.
And I’m not talking about the wound and the pain that comes with it.
What I’ll carry with me forever is the loss of the men who died under my watch.
The ghost I see the most is that of a young civilian spy who was under my command.
Or rather Hamish’s command, but that bastard abandoned him the day I was injured at Salamanca.
The young man died and I survived. I sense his ghost everywhere.
I won’t lie to you, Eloise, some days I truly feel as if I’m going mad. ”
The grief in Lucian’s eyes went straight to her heart. “You’re suffering from survivor’s guilt. Which is understandable.”
“Not to me. My sanity is slowly slipping away, and I fear the one it will harm most is you. I’d raze the whole of the bloody peninsula it if it meant I could keep you from the danger that I court.
But ghosts know no bounds, Eloise. They see you as part of me.
The only way for you to remain safe is to keep your distance from me.
And once the roads reopen, I intend to see you safe.
Only I can fight the demons that haunt me. ”
He’d never survive that fight based on the hollowed look shrouding his eyes. “And the promise you made to help me research my parents’ deaths?”
“I’ll arrange for Graves to assist you. He’s well-versed in the Knights’ history and he has a vast army of guards who are far more suited to protect you than I. Until then, you still have access to the abbey’s library. As well as whatever knowledge I may have that can benefit your research.”
A rumble of thunder shook the ruins.
Lucian looked up. “We need to head back if we intend to escape the rain.”
Nature’s storm was nothing compared to the tempest already battering her heart.