Lost in Time: His Lady in Green 12

TWELVE

Eve stretched out her hand, but even as she touched the dagger the ground opened beneath her and she was falling, falling into darkness. She screamed, tensing herself ready for the jolt when she hit the ground.

But there was no jolt. She was slumped on the floor, leaning against a solid wall. Opening her eyes, she saw she was back in the bedroom corridor. She looked at the dim wall lights. Electric lights. She closed her eyes. She was back. Had she ever been away?  Maybe she had been hallucinating. She had immersed herself in other people's history for so long, it was perfectly possible that she had imagined everything. Then she realised that she was clutching a dagger in her hand. That couldn't be imagination. Her free hand crept to her neck. The emeralds had gone.

'Eve! Thank God, I have been looking everywhere for you.' Sebastian's voice cut through the fog of fear that was enveloping her and she struggled to her feet, turning to him thankfully. 'What the hell has happened to you, your dress is filthy. Have you been outside…' His voice trailed off as he spotted the dagger in her hand. 'Where did you get that?' When he raised his eyes again they were hard, and he was frowning. 'I'd rather you asked before you start removing artefacts.'

'I – I didn't.'

He took the dagger from her, saying quietly, 'Let's put it back, shall we?'

What could she say? How could she explain what had happened to her? Miserably she followed him through the corridors, away from the party and into a much older part of the castle. He opened the door of the muniments room.  When the lights flickered on she could see that the walls were covered with shields and weapons, pikes, swords and halberds fixed high up out of harm's way.  Suits of armour stood to attention between glass cases displaying the evidence of the Daubenays' bloody past.  Duelling pistols and flintlock rifles jostled for position with wheel-lock guns in one cabinet while in another a huge broadsword was flanked by sabres, rapiers and even a claymore.  Sebastian was heading for a large cabinet that held nothing but wicked looking knives.

'That's funny.' He stopped, his eyes moving from the dagger in his hand to the cabinet, where an identical weapon lay peacefully on its mount. 'So you didn't take it from here.'

'No. He – he gave it to me.' Eve's voice was strained. 'Richard Daubenay.'

Sebastian turned to her, a look she could not interpret in his blue eyes. She knew it sounded crazy and she had no idea if he would believe her. But there was worse to come. She had to tell him.

'And I have…lost…the emeralds.'

Sebastian stared at her, his face pale. Tears burned her throat when he turned away from her.

'You'd better go. I wish I'd never brought you here.'

His quiet words sliced into her heart. He might as well have pushed that dagger between her ribs. She looked at his broad back in its immaculate evening jacket, a solid, immoveable wall of black. She swallowed.

'Y-you want me to leave?'

He swung round.

'No, I don't want you to leave, but you must. It isn't safe for you to be mixed up in this.'

'In what?'

'I – I don't know.' He raked his fingers through his hair. 'I have grown up with all the family legends, so of course I've heard about the Lady in Green but I never believed any of it.  Until tonight, when I couldn't find you, then you reappear, looking as if you've been –' He broke off, his jaw working as if he was struggling for control.  'The legend says the lady must make the ultimate sacrifice to secure the fortunes of the Daubenays.' He looked at the dagger in his hand. 'This is too dangerous for you, Eve. You should go. Now, while you still can.  I'll get one of the staff to drive you back to London.'

'But what about you?'

'I can't leave. This is my home, my heritage.  I must face whatever is coming.'

What she saw in his eyes made her breath catch in her throat.  A thousand years of responsibility. The Daubenays had fought and struggled through the centuries to reach this point and Sebastian would not turn away from what he saw as his duty.

Eve had drawn up family trees, traced forgotten ancestors, pieced together other people's history but always as an observer.  This was different. It was very real – and very frightening.

'Sebastian.' She took his hand. 'We must find those emeralds – '

'Damn the emeralds. Your safety is far more precious than any stones. You have to get away from here.'

He pulled her close, cupping her chin with one hand and tilting it up so that he could kiss her.

A long, lingering, never-to-be-forgotten kiss that reached into her very soul. He was saying goodbye, sacrificing his own happiness and possibly his inheritance to keep her safe.

Eve felt bereft when at last he released her. This was the end. He would walk her to the outer door and hand her over to a servant, who would drive her away from Meryngham forever. She would be safe, but she would never see Sebastian again.

She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

'I'm not leaving you. If I am the Lady in Green then I am as much a part of this as any Daubenay.'

'Eve – '

'I 've made up my mind. I am going to find those emeralds.' She reached out and took the dagger from his hand, saying with a grim little smile, 'Your ancestors are a rough lot, Sebastian. I might need this before I've finished!'

Sarah Mallory
author of historical romantic adventures!
winner of the RoNA Rose Award 2012 & 2013
Beneath the Major's Scars (RoNA Rose winner 2013) - Harlequin Mills & Boon Dec 2012
Behind the Rake's Wicked Wager Harlequin Mills & Boon Jan 2013

His Lady In Green: Chapter Two

Even in candlelight this was obviously a bedchamber, not a stairwell.  Eve turned and found the door had closed silently behind her. Mist swirled. Strange, it must have been wood smoke drifting from the open fire.

Eve tugged at the handle. It stuck. ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ She fought the impulse to hammer on the heavy panels: there would be a phone by the bed, just as there was in her room, she’d ring down and someone would come. She walked across the bare boards into the wash of firelight. ‘Aagh!’

‘I am sorry, Mistress. I startled you.’ The man who had been sprawled in one of the great oak chairs before the hearth stood, rising to a familiar six foot plus of broad-shouldered male.

‘Oh, Sebastian! You scared the living daylights out of me. Sebastian?‘

‘You mistake me for my brother, Mistress.’ The man bowed with a courtly elegance. ‘Rafe Daubenay, your servant.’

‘He did not tell me he had a brother.’ Surely this man was older, a little, than Sebastian. There was a honed edge to him that spoke of more than assiduous attendance at the gym. ‘Are you a soldier?’ It was a guess, but she could visualise him with a weapon in his hand. Then she realised that there was one at his side: a sword. A sword?

‘Of course I am a soldier.’ His mouth hardened. ‘And in the rightful army, that of our sovereign lord, the king. Sebastian skulks at home, dithering over which side to take when Charles needs every sword at his side. Especially now.’ The fierce anger in his voice ebbed and suddenly she saw he was beyond tired. Deep lines bracketed the familiar mouth, there were shadows under the blue eyes.
His hair was long, curling to his collar. His broad lace collar. Eve made herself focus on something other than his face. White, wide-sleeved shirt, soiled and ripped, buckskin beeches, high black boots. A re-enactor, of course. She pulled a deep breath down to her diaphragm. Honestly, you’ll be imagining ghosts next. She had surprised one of the family rehearsing for an English Civil War re-enactment, that was all. They got very deeply into character, she knew from a friend, an Anglo-Saxon warrior in a local group.

‘Which re-enactment group are you with?’ she asked and wished her heart would stop thumping quite so hard. Anyone would think something was wrong. But it is. The house smelled wrong – of beeswax, wood smoke, lavender. It sounded wrong, a deep silence, when before the faint music from the Great Hall had penetrated everywhere. The air was cool as though the central heating had been off for hours
‘Re-enactment?’ He seemed baffled.
‘Or perhaps you have been to a masquerade?’ Eve persisted, desperate now for a logical explanation. He was the perfect Cavalier. There was a plumed hat on the table, a coat with deep buttoned cuffs on the foot of the four-poster bed.

‘A masque?’ His laugh was harsh. ‘A slaughter… all too real.’ He swayed and Eve realised the stains on his sleeve were dried blood. ‘The bloody field of Naseby, the end of the kingdom if we cannot rally and fight on.’

‘You are hurt.’ She caught at his arm, solid and warm through the fine linen, and realised that she had half expected her hand to go right through. ‘You are not a ghost.’ She said it out loud and he stared as he fell back into the chair, pulling her down to kneel by his side. She could not drag her eyes from that intense blue stare.

‘No, I am not. But you are, I think. I never believed in the Lady in Green before. They say every heir sees her, that she wears the Meryngham emeralds.’ One long finger traced the necklace at her throat and Eve trembled, even as her mind reeled. Rafe is real? He had just fought at the battle of Naseby. Her mind scrabbled for the date. Sixteen forty… 1645.

His touch felt… right. She laid her hand on his knee to steady herself and felt the force of attraction lance through her. ‘I am real, as real as you.’

Rafe reached out and pulled her towards him. She smelt black powder, sweat, the metallic tang of blood, leather and horse. It was shockingly male. Eve swayed forwards.
‘They say she comes twice and that if there is a third time, she will stay. No-one knows if she ever has.’ His mouth found hers, arrogant, demanding. Then he lifted his head and said simply, ‘Stay. Stay with me now.’

‘Yes… No!’ The heat of him, the taste… This was insane, she was dreaming, she must be. Eve shot to her feet, backed away until her spine met the carved door panels with a painful reality. She wrenched at the handle and then she was in the corridor, dizzy, shaking. All the doors were closed. Which one had it been?

Louise Allen
 Lousie Allen is the auhtor of more than forty historical romances.
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