CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Six months later
Present time; the University of California at San Marcos
Bud Dietrich had entered the class towards the end, watching the lovely professor at the head of the class discuss the Methodology of Preliminary Excavation. It was a lower level class that was packed full of archaeology and anthropology majors, young kids with bright minds and big dreams. Bud tucked himself into the back of the class, seating himself at a desk as the class ended and the students filtered past him. A few greeted him, knowing Dr. Dietrich on sight. The man was practically a legend around the school. Big digs and a big reputation followed Bud wherever he went.
But he wasn’t thinking about digs or reputations at the moment. His gaze was fixed on the pale woman who was putting her papers back into her briefcase at the front of the class. As the last few students trickled out, he rose from the desk and made his way to the front of the class. He smiled faintly when big hazel eyes noticed him.
“Hi,” he said.
Rory neatly put the last of her papers in the case and closed it. “Hi,” she responded.
He watched her lowered head as she fumbled with her purse, opened drawers and put pens away.
“Got time for lunch?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she replied. “I’ve got papers I need to grade before my six o’clock class.”
Bud wriggled his eyebrows. “Running a little late on that, aren’t you?”
Rory was forced to agree. “Yep,” she shrugged. “But I’ll get them done. I always get them done.”
Bud sighed faintly, watching her lethargic and unenthusiastic body language; ever since that incident on that rocky beach in Nahariya, Rory hadn’t been the same. Having Kieran Hage killed in front of her by a lightning strike had a devastating effect on her. At least, it was the general opinion by all who witnessed the event that Hage had been vaporized. But Rory told a different tale, one so amazing that the only person she had told it to was Bud. Anyone else would have thought she had lost her mind.
Everything about her tale had been vivid to the last detail, a story that had been so great and fantastic that it was beyond the wildest novels. She’d even had a baby in this crazy tale, a son to carry on the Hage name. She and Kieran had been deliriously happy. Trouble was, the entire happening was impossible. Somehow, the lightning strike had affected Rory’s mind and that crazy tale had come forth. But she did have a rather odd rope burn on her ankle, an infected wound that had looked strange and raw. Bud still didn’t know how she could have gotten it. All she would tell him was that it was because Prince John had tied her up.
He tried to push all of that out of his mind as he attempted to convince her to have lunch with him. He didn’t like to leave her alone these days because she was so emotionally brittle.
“I promise that lunch won’t take long,” he encouraged her. “I have a request from the higher-ups I’d like to talk to you about.”
Rory stopped putting things away and looked at him. Her lovely face was without color, devoid of joy.
“What request?” she demanded.
He sighed again. “Can we talk about it over lunch?”
Her features tightened. “No. Tell me now.”
He scratched his crew-cut blond hair. “Dr. Buitoni is taking a leave at the end of the semester. His wife is sick, you know. He wants to spend some time with her. They want to know if you’ll take his class.”
Rory frowned. “He teaches Medieval History.”
Bud nodded slowly, averting his gaze. For some reason, he just couldn’t look at her. “With your expertise in the field, they were hoping…”
She slammed the drawer on the desk and cut him off, grabbing her purse and her briefcase as she pushed past him. “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to do it.”
Bud tried to stay calm as he followed. “Rory, honey, Medieval History is right up your alley. You know it like…”
She suddenly stopped, whirling on him. “No, I don’t know it, Bud,” she hissed. “You know I don’t know it anymore. What the history books say happened in Medieval England is not the history I know. I told you that. It’s not the same. It hasn’t been since that day in Nahariya.”
They’d had the same argument for the past six months. It never got any better. She wouldn’t return to the dig in Nahariya, instead choosing a professorship at the university. The love she’d had for excavation and archaeology seemed to have gone out of her and she pigeonholed herself in a classroom. So the university had put Dr. David Peck in charge of closing down the Nahariya dig and offered Bud an opportunity to go to Cyprus on a high-profile excavation.
But Bud had turned the offer down simply so he could remain with Rory. He was deeply worried for her with everything they had been through. He just couldn’t leave her but, at times, it was trying. He grunted softly to her statement, with lagging patience.
“Honey, whatever made you think that John Lackland lived to be king, spawning generations of Plantagenets from his paternal line, is just some wild dream you had,” he repeated what he’d told her many times. “Do you know what a horrible king he would have been and how England would have gone to the dogs? It would have been devastating. Whoever murdered that man did the world a favor.”
“It was me,” she hissed deliberately, her hazel eyes flashing. “I’ve told you a hundred times that it was me. I did it. I changed history!”
Bud sighed and averted his gaze, scratching at his head again. He just didn’t know how to respond to her when she got like this.
“That’s impossible and you know it,” he told her. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. Something has happened to you and I just can’t fix it.”
Rory stared at him, feeling that familiar sick feeling come over her again. The guilt, the anguish, the sorrow… she sank down into the nearest chair, feeling overwhelming desolation. She felt like a fool, the one person in the history of mankind who had actually changed the course of history and no one believed her. Maybe it was a good thing. She was guilty as sin and paying the price every morning that she woke up in this horrible modern world without Kieran beside her.
“John had a son who reigned as Henry the Third,” she muttered. “Henry had a son named Edward the First who was arguably the greatest king in English history. And Edward had a son who…”
“John wasn’t king, honey.” Bud crouched in front of her, gazing up into her beautiful, weary face. “He was murdered before Richard returned from the Crusades. When Richard died, the royal line came from his oldest living sibling, Matilda, who married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria. Her eldest son was Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine who would go on to be the future King of England. The entire English line descended from him. Do I really have to explain this again?”
Rory looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “That’s not what happened,” she whispered. “Bud, you remember Kieran, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you know he was a knight from Richard’s Crusade, put into a suspended state by an alchemist until I woke him up.”
Bud averted his gaze, scratching his neck as he thought on his answer. “I know you believed that’s who he was.”
“Are you seriously telling me that after everything we went through, you still don’t believe he was who he said he was? I thought you believed, Bud. I really thought you did.”
Bud opened his mouth to reply but a soft knock on the classroom door interrupted him. Both Rory and Bud looked up to see a man in a dark suit standing in the doorjamb. He smiled weakly when Rory and Bud looked at him.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, taking a step into the room. “I was told I could find Dr. Rory Osgrove here.”
Rory stood up, quickly wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m Dr. Osgrove,” she replied. “How can I help you?”
The man stepped into the vacated classroom, echoes from his expensive shoes bouncing off the ceiling. He was dark-haired, middle aged and very corporate looking.
“My name is Marc Tillery,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry if I’m intruding, but I’ve tried calling a few times. I’ve even sent a couple of emails but I got no response.”
Rory cocked her head, her brow furrowed with faint recognition. “Emails? I don’t think I…”
He interrupted. “I work for the firm Trent, Rosskopf, Sheppard and Jones in Los Angeles,” he said. “I represent some international clients that…”
It was Rory’s turn to interrupt him. She pointed a finger at him. “I recognize that name,” she said. “You sent me a couple of emails about representing an international client who wanted to get in touch with me.”
“Right,” he nodded quickly. “It began to occur to me that in sending you those emails, it sounded like one of those internet investment scams so I thought I’d better come personally.”
Rory nodded her head, somewhat suspicious yet not without interest. “You’re right. It did sound like a scam,” she said. “The emails were pretty vague and generic. I just deleted them.”
Marc grinned. “I figured as much.” His gaze drifted over the very pretty if not somewhat exhausted-looking woman. “I know they were vague, but I didn’t want to put too much into writing. Emails can be hacked and all. But it’s not a scam, believe me. In fact, it’s all very strange but totally legitimate so I was hoping to have a moment of your time to explain.”
Rory shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.” She caught sight of Bud from the corner of her eye and introduced him. “This is Dr. Dietrich. He’s a colleague. It’s okay to talk in front of him.”
Marc greeted Bud, his gaze returning to Rory. He stared at her a moment before chuckling. “Oh, boy,” he looked around for a chair and ended up sitting at one of the desks in the front row. “Where to start? I have to tell you that in my entire fifteen years in law, I’ve never quite seen anything like this. This is a first.”
Rory set her purse and briefcase down on her desk. “A first for what?”
Marc leaned back on the chair, contemplating how he was going to explain everything. “Well,” he began. “First of all, I was contacted by a colleague of mine in London, a barrister by the name of Joseph Saladin. He is a partner in a high-powered firm in London that only works with the crème de la crème of British society. You know; the old nobility and barons and such. The firm has been around for about three hundred years. One of Joseph’s clients is an old family; like, over one thousand years old. He says they can trace their lineage back before the time of the Norman Conquest. Anyway, this family is one of the few left in England who still hold any power and property. They contacted Joseph to see if he could find someone to track you down.”
About midway into Marc’s explanation, Rory’s heart began to race. The more he spoke, the more lightheaded she seemed to become. By the time he finished, she was sitting on the desk and gripping the sides of it so she wouldn’t slide off.
“Me?” she repeated. “Why would they want to contact me?”
“Because,” Marc continued, “they apparently have a document that is about eight hundred years old with your name on it.”
Rory was having difficulty breathing. She didn’t dare look at Bud, fearful of what she would see in his face. She began to shake uncontrollably.
“What…” she began, swallowed, and started again. “What is the document? What does it say?”
Marc shook his head. “That’s the big mystery,” he replied. “Nobody knows. It’s been a family heirloom for eight hundred years, sealed up and addressed to you.”
Rory struggled to maintain her composure. “Maybe… maybe it’s to someone else named Rory Osgrove, somebody who lived eight hundred years ago.”
Marc sighed and nodded his head. “That would make sense except it’s addressed to Rory Elizabeth Osgrove, daughter of Lucas, American, Year of our Lord Twenty and Twelve. The only Rory Elizabeth Osgrove, daughter of Lucas, that we could find is you.” He sat forward, shaking his head in disbelief. “Completely disregarding the fact that someone knew about America eight hundred years ago, why in the hell did someone eight hundred years ago write to a person living in modern times? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Rory just stared at the man. Beside her, Bud was watched her pallor go from pale to paler. He knew the color was gone from his face, too, because the crazy story she had told for the past six months suddenly wasn’t so crazy any longer with this bizarre little twist. He was fairly shaken himself and the message didn’t even involve him. Clearing his throat softly, he turned to Marc.
“Where is this letter?” he asked.
Marc’s dark eyes moved to him. “The family has it,” he told him. “They made it very clear that they would not let it out of their possession. So my job is to find who it is addressed to and bring them to London. The problem is, I don’t even know if Dr. Osgrove is the intended person. There’s no way to prove it. Is it all some peculiar coincidence?”
Rory wasn’t looking at him any longer; she was staring off into space, a dreamy expression on her features. There was something of longing and disbelief and joy there. She didn’t say anything for several long moments. When she did speak, it was in a voice barely above a whisper.
“The name of the family is Hage, isn’t it?” she murmured.
That brought Marc to his feet. “How did you know that?”
She looked at him, then, a faint twinkle to her hazel eyes. “The man who wrote it is Kieran Hage, Viscount Dykemoor and Sewall. Is that confirmation enough that I’m the person addressed on the letter?”
Now it was the lawyer’s turn to look shocked. His wide-eyed gaze moved between Rory and Bud. “Then you know about this?” he asked, awed. “Who in the hell told you?”
She shook her head. “No one told me,” she murmured, suddenly feeling calmer and more at peace than she had in six months. She should have expected that Kieran would have tried to communicate with her beyond the grave. Closing her eyes, she could see him again, smell him, and feel the texture of his skin. Her heart was aching with joy and longing so strongly that it brought tears to her eyes. “But I can prove that it’s mine.”
Marc continued to stare at her as if she had just grown another head. At a loss for words, he simply shook his head. “With that knowledge, I’d say it’s proof,” he agreed, eyeing her. “Care to tell me how you knew?”
She smiled, some color coming back into her cheeks. She suddenly didn’t feel so alone or horrible any longer; there was so much elation in her heart that she wasn’t sure she could contain it. She desperately wanted to get her hands on that letter, more than she had wanted anything in her life. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said sincerely. “So when do we leave for London?”
“Whenever you’re available.”
“I’m available now.”
Marc nodded, a bit surprised by the swiftness of her reply but pleased nonetheless. “All right, then. I’ll call Joseph and tell him we’re on our way.”
Within twelve hours, Rory, Bud and the lawyer found themselves on a red-eye to Heathrow.
*
Rory’s first look at Southwell had her wiping silent tears from her eyes. It was vaguely the castle she remembered, but the guidebook said that somewhere around the sixteenth century, the Hage family got the bright idea to add a wing on to the keep. Then, one hundred years after that, they added a Georgian façade which altered the entire character of the place. It was no longer the stark, imposing and warring fortress that Rory knew. It was a palace with big rooms, wide halls and gardens. Southwell had evolved.
In the rented Vauxhall sedan, Rory sat in the front seat while Bud sat in the back. Marc was driving. The road through Notthinghamshire was a two lane, little road with big hedgerows on either side; the village of Southwell was barely visible through the foliage but the castle was a clear view up on the rise. Bud leaned forward, his chin nearly on Rory’s shoulder.
“So this is Southwell, huh?” he asked.
She nodded, her eyes drinking in everything. “This is it.”
“Is this how you remember it?”
Rory set the guidebook on her lap, dashing away an errant tear from the corner of her eye. She had refrained, since the moment she had returned to that rocky beach in Nahariya, from doing any research or reading on Southwell or the Hage family. She didn’t want to know what happened after she had left, mostly because she knew how much it would shatter her already-shattered emotions. She had decided early on that it was best just not to know what had become of those she loved. There was nothing she could do about it, anyway, and to know the fate of Kieran and Tevin would only wrack her with anguish.
For her own sanity, she didn’t want to know. But now, with Southwell looming large before her, she had decided to pick up the guidebook and read what she could. She thought it might be wise so she wasn’t blindsided by anything. But her heart was pounding and her hands shook, feeling more apprehension than she ever thought possible.
“No,” she replied to Bud’s question. “I mean, the walls look the same essentially, but everything else has changed dramatically. Even the town; it used to butt up against the walls, but now the walls are clear and the village has moved away. It’s kind of weird.”
Bud’s chin came to rest on her shoulder as he jockeyed to get a better look. “It’s a massive place.”
Rory’s gaze lingered on the stone walls that were faded and mossy with age. Other than natural anxiety, she wasn’t sure what else she was feeling… sadness? Excitement at having returned? Anguish because this was the last place she saw Kieran and Tevin? She wasn’t quite sure yet but, at the moment, the predominant emotion she was experiencing was awe; awe that Southwell was still standing after all of these years. The place was immortal.
Tillery sat in the driver’s seat, hearing the soft rumblings of conversation but not really hearing what was being said over the drone of the radio. The whole situation was odd for him but it was also very intriguing. The more time he spent with Dr. Osgrove, who seemed like a genuinely sane and sweet woman, the more interested he became in the case. She still wouldn’t tell him how she knew about the letter or how she knew so much about who wrote it; she simply said that he wouldn’t believe her anyway. But the truth was that, at this point, he’d believe anything. The entire situation was just too weird to believe.
Southwell had a car park to the west, a neatly graveled area where a few cars were already parked. Southwell Castle was still inhabited by the Hage family yet great sections of it were open to the public. As Rory discovered, they also had weddings and other events in the castle to help pay for the undoubtedly massive upkeep.
As the car came to a halt, Rory bolted from the car without her coat and just stood there, looking at it. Bud climbed out behind her, collected her jacket, and held it as he walked up behind her. Together, the two of them just stood there and stared at the structure; Rory because she was feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety and Bud because he was, frankly, curious about her reaction.
Marc locked the car, put on his coat, and walked up beside the pair. He stared at the castle because they were. Overhead, fat, dark clouds threatened rain and he glanced up, wondering when they were going to get soaked. He could smell the rain.
“Shall we go in?” he encouraged them. “My colleague should already be here.”
As if on cue, a man in an expensive, camel hair coat stood beneath the gatehouse, waving an arm at them. Marc waved back and began walking towards the man. Bud took a few steps to follow, noticing Rory was still rooted to the spot. Her expression was odd. He put a hand on her elbow, gently pulling her forward.
“Come on, honey,” he said softly. “We flew all the way here. We may as well go in.”
Rory glanced at him, took a deep breath, and smiled weakly. “I guess so.”
Bud didn’t let go of her arm as they tramped across the wet, greet grass, making their way towards the road that led into the fortress. Rory’s hazel eyes were rivet to the well-maintained, gravel road as they approached from the car park.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “The last time I saw this road… it was muddy and full of pot holes and big rocks. It was horrible to travel on.”
Bud didn’t say anything. He kept his focus on the two men ahead, both of whom were now shaking hands and smiling at each other. But Rory wasn’t looking at them; she was still looking at the road.
“And over there,” she pointed to what was now a big, grassy area that seemed to stretch the length of the great wall. It disappeared off to the east side of the fortress and was about fifty feet in length, bordered by a ridge of short, thick, wooden posts and a road that skirted the edge of down. “That grassy area was full of Medieval homes. And right about where that street runs was the main road that led into the town.”
Bud still didn’t say anything as they came to the dirt and gravel road, neatly kept, that lead into the great gatehouse of Southwell. The moment Rory’s boots hit the gravel, she suddenly found her attention drawn up to the castle.
It was an odd moment filled with a mixture of angst and exhilaration. She looked up, seeing the modern walls, remembering the Medieval ones. She was transported back in her memories to what had been, what she remembered. It was a comforting reflection, the last place she ever saw her husband. She could feel him everywhere.
“The last time I saw these walls, there were soldiers on them with big torches in their hands,” she could feel her excitement gaining, realizing she was very happy to be back. Though her sight beheld modern visions, she could only see the Medieval memories at the moment. “They had big dogs with them, too, big greyhounds. These walls were constantly manned.”
Bud looked up because she was pointing. Now he had her by the hand, leading her up the road. In spite of their reason for being here, he still wasn’t sure what to believe. He was a man of science, and science dictated that things like time travel and past lives could not be proven. There had to be a logical explanation for the ancient letter with her name on it. Or maybe there wasn’t. His indecision had him edgy and torn.
“And this gatehouse,” Rory pointed at it as they approached. “There were two big portcullises, these big, nasty-looking things. They had modeled them to look like fangs. It was really awesome and scary-looking.”
Bud suddenly came to a stop and faced her. “Honey, please do me a favor,” he kept his voice down. “Please don’t say any of this in front of the lawyers or the Hage family. Saying it to me is one thing, but saying it to them might give them cause to think you’re crazy. You do realize how you sound, right? Put yourself in their shoes. If some woman showed up talking about having lived during Medieval times, what would you think? You’d think she was nuts. So please, for your sake, don’t talk about this stuff in front of people we don’t know. Okay?”
All of the joy accumulated over the past few minutes was gone from Rory’s face. She looked at Bud, her expression wrought with disappointment and resignation. She knew he was right but she was still upset by his words. She wasn’t crazy because everything that happened was real. Still, she understood what he was driving at. She didn’t want to sound like a nut. With a faint shrug, then a nod, she silently agreed. Bud patted her hand and pulled her towards the waiting lawyers.
“Joseph, this is Dr. Rory Osgrove,” Marc made the introductions as Bud and Rory came upon them. “Rory, this is my colleague, Joseph Saladin. He represents the Hage family.”
Rory shook the man’s hand, getting a good look at him for the first time. He was young, handsome and had a hint of Middle Eastern decent to his features. The eyes looked strangely familiar and it took her a moment to realize that he looked vaguely like Yusef. Isn’t the name Yusef a version of Joseph? She thought to herself. Startled by the coincidence, she forced herself to come across as polite and in control.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
Saladin nodded, a half-grin on his face as he inspected Rory carefully. There was something of vague remembrance in his expression, too, one of those feelings of familiarity that he couldn’t put his finger on.
“Likewise,” he lifted an eyebrow. “I have wanted to meet you for a while, Doctor. Maybe you can shed some light on this big mystery.”
Rory’s smile faded as she gazed at the man. She wasn’t sure what to say so she simply lifted her shoulders. “Maybe,” she replied vaguely, her gaze moving to the courtyard beyond the gatehouse. “Is the letter here?”
Joseph nodded and began to lead them into the courtyard beyond. “It is,” he replied as they emerged into the bright green, mowed and manicured courtyard. “The document has never left these walls.” He suddenly put up his hands apologetically. “Let me start from the beginning and see if I can explain this satisfactorily. This letter isn’t a letter proper as much as it is a scroll of parchment, rolled up and sealed. It is…”
Rory cut him off gently. “Whose seal?”
Joseph looked at her. “Sir Kieran Hage,” he replied softly. “But I’m told you already know that.”
Rory was trying not to get ahead of herself and keep her anxious thoughts in check but she wasn’t doing a very good job. “When was it written?”
Joseph inhaled thoughtfully. “I’m told by the Hage family that it’s dated March of eleven hundred and ninety-three.”
Rory fell silent as they waited for her to come back with more questions but she didn’t. Joseph passed a glance at Bud, a more pronounced one at Marc, before continuing.
“Kieran Hage, as you probably already know, was the eldest son of Jeffrey Hage, the fifth Earl of Newark,” he went on as they neared the massive keep that hardly looked anything like what Rory remembered. “The man was a crusader during Richard the Lionheart’s quest in the Holy Land but returned prior to the fall of Acre. He was a powerful man by all accounts and held several titles himself, all of which were passed to his only son.”
Rory’s head came up. She was suddenly fighting off a flood of tears as the man brought her son in to the mix. But she didn’t miss the gist of what he had said. Kieran had returned home from the Crusades early, confirming the fact that there was no record of him ever having been excavated in Nahariya.
Rory had found in the days after her return that the dig in Nahariya was still nothing more than the excavation of an ancient trash pile, as it had been in the days before Kieran had been discovered. It was like it never progressed beyond potsherds and bits of ancient baskets; it was still stuck in the pre-Kieran discovery days. She had refused to return to the dig, not strong enough mentally to face it, which is why David Peck was sent to shut it down. In this new world, the Nahariya dig was considered a failure.
But the odd thing was that anyone who was on that rocky outcropping of beach in Nahariya remembered Kieran. Bud and David both remembered him. Rory wondered if the others there remembered Kieran, too; Darlow, the British Embassy man, or the British Marines who had also been there. She’d never contacted them to find out what they remembered. In hindsight, it didn’t matter too much. History had been changed so much that she could do nothing more than accept what had happened and deal with it.
She refocused on the barrister and his comment about Kieran Hage’s only son. “Are you speaking of Tevin Hage?” she asked hoarsely.
Joseph nodded, oblivious to the longing inflection in her tone. “He was a remarkable man by all accounts, very involved in royal affairs and wrote what is largely considered the basis of the United States Constitution.” His gaze moved to the enormous, Georgian-style structure in front of him. “Moreover, he is widely regarded as the one who held England together through some very rough times following the death of Matilda’s son, Henry V. There was a real power struggle at that point in history, if you recall. Tevin Hage was hugely influential in his time and quite well regarded.”
Rory’s heart swelled with pride as she heard of her son’s accomplishments. She knew that Kieran would have been deeply proud as well. “I’m not surprised to hear that,” she murmured gratefully. “His father set a fine example.”
“You would think so, but that wasn’t the case.” Joseph glanced at her. “Tevin was raised by Kieran’s brother, Sean, because Kieran died in the summer of eleven hundred and ninety-three. In fact, he…”
So much for dealing with the status of history; those few words had Rory bursting into hysterical tears. She would have fallen had Bud not still had hold of her arm. They were loud, painful gasps, hysterical, as Bud held her to keep her from falling. Marc even went to see if he could help, grasping her by the torso as Bud put his hands on her face and begged her to calm down. Joseph took a few steps towards the group, his brow furrowed with concern and curiosity.
“I’m sorry,” he wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Is… is there a problem? Why don’t we go inside and sit down? Maybe Dr. Osgrove will feel better if we sit.”
Bud had his hands full but he acknowledged the lawyer. “Good idea.” He grabbed Rory around the waist, practically carrying her towards the massive Georgian building before them. “It’s been a long flight and too much travel. Dr. Osgrove is… she’s just exhausted.”
Joseph bought the explanation, having no reason not to. With nothing more said, the group disappeared into the sixteenth century addition to Southwell’s massive keep.
*
A half hour later, fortified by the two shots of brandy that Bud had forced her to down, Rory was seated in an enormous, Baroque-style parlor just off the main entrance to the building. Everything was lavish and over the top but not completely gaudy, decorated in shades of yellows and reds and golds. It was simply a testament to the wealth of the Hages, with pictures of Hage family members that Rory didn’t recognize gracing the walls. One thing she did notice, however, was that all of the men had the Hage square jaw and many of the women seemed to have chestnut-colored hair. A coincidence? She wondered.
Marc and Joseph sat across from Bud and Rory, waiting patiently for Rory to pull herself together. Rory was coming to realize how foolish she had looked out in the courtyard and struggled not to be too embarrassed. Trouble was that she couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. But she had reached the point now where she had to know everything. She’d stayed away from anything Hage or Medieval for six months. And now, she had to know everything no matter what. She took another shot of brandy before she dared continue.
“I’m sorry about that.” She took a deep breath and faced the lawyers. “I guess I take my history too seriously.”
Joseph watched her closely. “Not to worry, Doctor,” he assured her. “Sometimes I do the same thing when I’ve lost a case.”
Rory smiled weakly. As she prepared to reply, a man entered the hall and Joseph rose swiftly to greet him. Rory stood as well, followed by Bud and Marc. She studied the man who was amiably greeting Joseph. He was broad and fairly tall, with short blond hair that was graying at the temples. He looked like he might have played rugby at some point because of his muscular build. He had enormous hands. When he turned to Rory and extended a hand in greeting, Rory was struck by the square jaw and bright green eyes. She would have known those eyes anywhere. She had seen them, once, on a child she gave birth to. Shaken, she struggled not to come across like an idiot again.
Introductions went all around. Daniel Antony Christopher Hage, the eighteenth Earl of Newark, was a handsome man with an easygoing way about him. He insisted everyone call him Dan. Rory watched him, fascinated, because he seemed to be cut out of the same mold that Kieran and Sean had been. He was manly to a fault, intelligent and gracious. Rory sat back down in her chair, seated across from him, staring at the man because he seemed so familiar. She was so busy staring that she was caught off guard when Joseph drew her in to the conversation.
“Dr. Osgrove is the woman we have all been waiting to meet,” he said to Dan. “I can’t tell you how bizarre this all seems, but you wanted me to find Rory Osgrove, daughter of Lucas, so here she is. And what’s even odder is that I’m told she knew the letter was from your ancestor, Kieran, before she was even told.”
Dan looked at her with his bright green eyes, a faint smile playing off his lips. “Bizarre, indeed,” he muttered, seeming to study her just as she was studying him. “How did you know it was from Kieran?”
Rory sighed faintly, averting her gaze as she thought of a believable answer. She had promised Bud she would be careful in what she said and she was trying to do so.
“I’m not sure,” she lied. “I… I’m a Doctor of Medieval History and have done a lot of research, obviously, in the field, and I know a great deal about Kieran Hage. Can I please see the letter?”
Dan scratched his chin, snickering at her straight to the point request. “I think that can be arranged,” he replied, glancing at Marc and the other men in the room as he stood up. “Would you gentlemen mind waiting here a moment? Dr. Osgrove and I will be right back.”
Bud looked slightly panicked that Rory was leaving his presence but he sat tight. Rory’s gaze lingered on him as she left the room, winking at him just before Dan took her into a small corridor off the main room. The corridor was narrow, opulently paneled, and led to a series of smaller rooms. When they entered the first red-wallpapered chamber, Dan shut the door behind them.
“Nosy lawyers,” he muttered, grinning when Rory snickered. “Joseph will try to follow us just to spy.”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “No,” she drew the word out as if outraged. “Really?”
He snorted. “Really,” he said. “He comes from generations of legal counsel to the Hages. He thinks he can snoop into all of my business.”
Rory laughed as he led her through the red room and into another chamber, this one smaller and more cluttered. It smelled of pipe tobacco and tea. Rory came to a halt just inside the door, observing the books packed to the ceiling and taking a deep breath of the tobacco smell. Dan went to the desk that had to be three hundred years old; it was magnificent. Once she noticed the desk, she took a few steps towards it to get a better look.
“Wow,” she murmured. “This desk is amazing. How old is it?”
Dan was digging in drawers, finally pulling out a key ring. He spoke as he turned to the shelf behind him, jiggled a book, and an entire shelf suddenly slid aside to reveal a wall safe.
“It was built in fourteen seventy,” he replied.
Rory was amazed by both the desk and the hidden wall safe. “I’d have to say that this is seriously the coolest room in the house,” she declared. “Ancient desks and hidden wall safes. It’s so… so Sherlock Holmes. Are the Hounds of the Baskervilles in the next room?”
Dan laughed as the safe popped open and he pulled forth a long metal box. He set the box on the table and pulled up a chair for Rory. She ended up sitting next to him at the desk.
“No hounds,” he assured her. “At least, not those types. I have a few dogs but they’re house dogs. Anyway, I was hoping to get you alone. I have many questions.”
She smiled faintly. “No doubt you do,” she said quietly, looking to her lap.
Dan studied her a moment. She was undoubtedly beautiful, which had surprised him. He didn’t know what he had expected, but a drop-dead gorgeous woman hadn’t crossed his mind. His gaze lingered on her a moment before he moved to the box and, taking a small key from the same key ring that had opened the safe, used it on the box. The lid popped open and Rory looked up from her lap, seeing a yellowed scroll packed carefully in the box. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, even when Dan set the keys down and looked at her.
“Now,” he lowered his voice. “I sincerely cannot stress to you the importance of this document to my family, but as an archaeologist, I’m sure you can understand. This is one of the few family heirlooms we have that no one really talks about. It’s sort of like the Shroud of Turin; only a select few have seen it and it drums up a great mystery for us. It’s a mystery with your name on it and I would like to know what you know about it.”
Rory stared at the parchment, her mind whirling with truths and deceptions. She didn’t want to lie to the guy, but she wasn’t too keen on telling him the truth. He might not believe her and slam the lid on the box, never to show it to her again. Still, it was worth a shot. She’d come this far so she decided to take a leap of faith. She fixed Dan in the eye.
“Your ancestor, Kieran Hage, wrote this document in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And he wrote my name and nationality on it, right?” Dan nodded. “It would seem so.”
Rory took a deep breath and reached out, putting her soft hand on Dan’s muscular, fuzzy forearm.
“Do you believe that there are things in this world that we can’t explain?” When he cocked his head curiously, she explained. “Like ghosts and UFOs and stuff like that?”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “There’s no proof of those things.”
“There doesn’t have to be. But do you have faith that things like that are possible?”
The twinkle was back in his bright green eyes. “Maybe.”
She smiled. “Good,” she whispered. “Because what I’m about to tell you is the God’s honest truth. I swear I would never lie; I have no reason to. I’m not crazy and I don’t do drugs. But before I say anything, I need to ask you a question.”
“What’s that?”
“Is there any record of Kieran having been married?”
Dan nodded. “He was, for about a year.”
“What happened to his wife?”
Dan scratched his head thoughtfully again. “According to family records, she died sometime in the spring of eleven hundred and ninety-three, right about the time he wrote this letter.” He cocked his head, confused. “Why? What’s it all about?”
Rory smiled, understanding his confusion. “Do you know how she died?”
He nodded decisively. “Yes,” he replied. “Executed by Prince John right before the prince’s death, although we’re not sure why she was killed. We don’t have records that are that detailed.”
“But Kieran had a journal. Surely he wrote about it in his journal.”
Dan stared at her and Rory swore she could see the color drain from his face. His expression eventually twisted with great bewilderment. “How in the world would you know that?” he breathed.
“I know that and a lot more. Can I have my letter now, please?”
Dan shook his head, torn between extreme disbelief and, Rory thought, mounting anger. “No,” he said firmly. “Not until you tell me what else you know.”
“I know about the Crown of Thorns or, as Kieran called it, the diadem of Christ.”
That bit of information caused Dan to bolt out of his seat with shock. It was as if he were suddenly repulsed by her but, more than that, he looked plainly ill. He ended up standing over by the wall safe, staring at Rory with his hands over his mouth. There was a huge amount of shock in his eyes. When he did speak, it came out sounding like a hiss.
“Tell me how you know about that,” he demanded. “No one but the males in my family know about that. It’s a family secret passed down from earl to earl, never to be revealed to outsiders. That is our treasure and ours alone. How do you know?”
Rory’s gaze moved to the parchment. “If you let me read my letter, I’ll tell you how I know.”
Dan remained standing a moment longer before reclaiming his seat, somewhat shaken, and pulling the vellum from the steel, fireproof box. He handed it to Rory without another word.
Rory accepted the parchment, her hands quivering. She inspected the exterior, the seal, noting that it was Kieran’s personal seal, and the tears began to come. She couldn’t help it. Carefully, she ran her finger under the wax and popped the ancient seal. The wax remained surprisingly intact. Very carefully, she unrolled the parchment.
She struggled to blink away the tears because she couldn’t read through all of the water in her eyes. But seeing the first three words at the top of the parchment had her weeping softly. She tried not to get salty tears on the ancient material as she absorbed Kieran’s words, his writing, and the feel of his parchment in her hands. The more she read, the more evident her surprise became until she suddenly dropped the parchment onto the desk top, sobbing so hard that she could hardly breathe.
Dan watched her, concerned and baffled, as Rory suddenly reached out and yanked on his hand.
“Where is Kieran buried?” she wept.
Dan was both greatly disturbed and greatly confused. He instinctively grasped Rory’s hand gently as if to give her comfort because the woman was seriously distressed.
“What?” his bafflement won over. “Why do you…?”
Rory was on her feet. But her feet wouldn’t support her so she fell to her knees, her hands on Dan’s thighs as if she were begging; begging him to understand her, begging him to do as she asked. Begging a man she had never met before. But nothing in this world had ever meant as much to her as this did.
“Please,” she beseeched him. “Oh, God, please… where is he buried?”
Dan gazed down into her lovely face, finding himself swept up in her fervor whether or not he wanted to be. He just couldn’t help it. Too much about this situation was bizarre and magical. There was some very small part of him that wanted to believe in the unbelievable, to solve a mystery that had been a part of his family’s history for eight hundred years.
“He’s at Southwell Minster,” he said softly. “The entire family is buried there. Why? What in God’s name does that parchment say?”
Rory was struggling to calm down; deep down, buried beneath the hysteria and tears, her level self told her that she’d never achieve her ends unless she was able to calmly and succinctly explain what needed to happen. And the only person in this world who could make things happen was seated in front of her. Still on her knees, she reached over to the table and handed him the parchment.
He took it hesitantly, eyeing her with some trepidation as he did so, but finally settled down and carefully read the secret that his family had guarded for eight hundred years. By the time he finished reading the parchment, his face was ashen.
“I… I don’t understand.” He looked at her, his bright green eyes wide with astonishment. “What does it all mean?”
Though there were tears still on Rory’s face, she smiled. She couldn’t help it. She suddenly began to laugh, looking up to the heavens as if to thank them for showing her this one final mercy. It was more than she could have ever hoped for but, given Kieran’s intelligence, she wasn’t surprised. He would stop at nothing to be reunited with her. She grasped one of Dan’s hands tightly.
“It means that if you take me into town and open Sir Kieran’s crypt, I swear to God that you will witness a miracle,” she murmured. “It means that right now, I need for you to trust me. I know this sounds absolutely crazy and I know that, if I were in your shoes, I would think that I was nuts, but I promise you that I’m not. I promise that everything will explain itself if you’ll just take a very small chance and take me into town to Sir Kieran’s crypt.”
He stared at her, unnerved yet inherently curious. “You want me to open his crypt? I can’t do that!”
Rory nodded patiently. “Yes, you can. You’re the Earl of Newark and you can open your own family’s crypt.” She squeezed his hand, her hazel eyes moist and lovely and pleading. “I can’t tell you how important this is or how this will change the way you view the world. All I can tell you is that I’m begging you to do this for a woman who had a letter written to her eight hundred years ago by your ancestor. Isn’t that enough to convince you that I might be telling the truth?”
Dan just stared at her. He was, frankly, rather scared by all of this. But it wasn’t enough to dampen the curiosity that was consuming him, the family mystery that was finally going to be solved. Too much about this circumstance was strange enough to cause him to think he might want to see what she was talking about. Odd clues from an eight hundred-year-old letter had him seriously considering it.
He let out a heavy sigh. “All right,” he muttered, standing up and pulling her off the floor. “I’ll take you there. But you tell me one thing and you be perfectly truthful. Who are you and why is this letter written to you?”
Rory wiped the moisture away from her eyes, facing Dan with a clear and level head for nearly the first time since their introduction.
“May I ask you a question first?” she ventured, speaking quickly before he could interrupt her. “Do you know the name of Sir Kieran’s wife?”
His brow furrowed as he looked at her, an eyebrow lifting thoughtfully. He let go of her hand and made his way over to one of the innumerable bookshelves in the room and began thumbing through several huge, leather-bound volumes. He finally came to the one he was looking for, pulled it out, and began to thumb through it. Rory stood on pins and needles, watching him as he slowed in his perusing and came to rest on a particular page. About halfway down the sheet, he found what he was looking for. He read it back to her.
“Sir Kieran was married to an Irish heiress.” He held the book out so he could read it better; he didn’t have his glasses handy. Suddenly his eyes widened and his head came up, his accusing gaze locking with hers. “Roisin-Elizabeth.”
Rory’s lips creased with a smile. “Not Roisin,” she said softly. “Rory Elizabeth. Your chroniclers didn’t get it right. He called me Libby because he didn’t like Rory. He thought it was a man’s name.”
Dan’s eyes threatened to pop from his skull as he glanced back at the book. He just didn’t know what to say. He finally closed the book and set it to the nearest table, all the while looking bewildered and lost. Rory went over to him.
“Please,” she begged softly. “Take me to Southwell Minster and be a part of something that no one else in history has been a part of. Please?”
Dan stared at her, unsure what to think or believe any longer. Before he realized it, he had his car keys and they were headed out to the Land Rover. Rory jumped into the passenger side and Dan tore out of the bailey, kicking up the very carefully kept gravel drive. Since the castle and grounds were just to the northeast of the church and less than a half-mile distance, they would make it to their destination in a matter of minutes.
And the minutes were ticking.