Chapter 67

NORA SLOWLY SWAM back into consciousness. She lay in a soft bed, it was warm, and a blazing fire cast a soft glow around the room. Had Jack found an inn? If he had, it was a fine one. As her eyes focused, she looked about. This was no inn. This room was familiar to her, though she hadn’t seen it in eighty-two years. Terror dawned as she realized she was in her childhood bedchamber in her father’s manor.

She bolted up. Her head swam for a moment, and when the everything stopped spinning and things came back into focus, she saw her father seated in a leather chair by the fire.

“There you are, my sweet,” he greeted pleasantly.

Nora hopped out of bed and ran for the door. When she opened it, two soldiers turned and blocked her way. She spun back toward her father and stepped back into the room. She didn’t notice the guards discreetly close the door again.

“Why are you holding me prisoner,” she demanded.

“That is not my intention, princess,” Rogan said. “I merely want you back where you belong, at home safe with your family.”

“We have no family,” Nora seethed. “Why would I want to be back with you when you have spent decades trying to have me killed?”

“I have done no such thing,” he said sternly, pounding a fist on the arm of the chair. “My instructions have always been that you were never to be harmed. Men, unfortunately, can be greedy. Those that have disobeyed me have been punished—well, those that you have not dispatched yourself. I am told you have become quite the mercenary. Hardly appropriate for the daughter of a lord, my dear one.”

“I have done what I needed to in order to stay alive,” Nora replied. “I have become quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“Then why do you travel with a bodyguard?”

“Do you mean my husband?” Nora countered. “Is it not customary for a husband to protect his wife?”

Her father obviously wasn’t expecting that answer. He gaped at her before recovering. “My information was that he was hired to be your bodyguard.”

“Your information is not current then, sir,” Nora replied, folding her hands in front of her. “Jack and I were married aboard *The Independence* on our journey from the Colonies. Speaking of which, how on earth are you here already? You could not have known our destination.”

“Here?” Rogan replied. “I never left England, my dear. I have associates in the Colonies, but they were taking orders from my second-in-command. Perhaps he took a faster ship.”

“Perhaps,” Nora agreed, though she didn’t find it likely. Faster ship or not, her father still somehow knew she was coming. “Where is my cloak?”

“Being laundered,” Rogan said. “Or burned, considering the condition it was in. You won’t be needing it anytime soon.”

“And my possessions?”

“You do not need to dance around the subject, princess. Ask me right out what you want to know.”

“Where is the stone, sir,” Nora ground out between her teeth.

“You used to call me Papa,” Rogan said, and Nora could not mistake the sadness in his voice. What game was he playing with her now? Was he trying to toy with her sympathies? Once, she was convinced that if she could only see her father face-to-face, she could persuade him to stop pursuing her.

“You used to act like a father.”

“A father protects his children, and that is exactly what I am doing, Eleanor,” Rogan said. “It cannot be helped that you do not agree with my methods. The stone is the Devil’s instrument. It should never have been given to an innocent girl, and you certainly should never have been permitted to keep it. I am righting a terrible wrong.”

“The stone was given to me, sir. I am its Guardian. You have no right to it.”

“No right to it!” her father thundered. He propelled him-self out the chair but made no move to come any closer. Despite herself, Nora took a hasty step back. Her father had always been a gentle man, a giving and loving one. This stone had made him crazed.

“No right to it,” he hissed, clenching his fists. “That stone ruined my life! It tore my family apart. We should have been able to grieve for your mother together as a family. We should have been able to move on together. I should have had the right to approve your marriage. To see my son take over leadership of our estate. Instead, I have none of that. I was denied my God given rights as a man and a father by that object of evil, and by God, I will not allow it to continue.”

“And so, what do you plan to do now, sir? Keep me here locked up forever? My husband will come for me. He will never allow me to remain a prisoner. You have gotten one thing you wanted, sir—your daughter has married for love and not duty. I am sorry you could not be happy about it and you were not there to give me away on my wedding day, but that was your own doing. The stone has made you mad. Give it to me and let me go.”

“I cannot do that, my dear,” Rogan said quietly. “I cannot let you go.”

“Then things will never be right between us,” Nora replied. “I may be frozen in time as a young woman, but I am as wise as my years on this earth. I am not the girl you knew.
You do not know the woman before you, and she cannot love you under these conditions.”

Rogan paused before answering, “We shall see. You will find appropriate clothing in the armoire. Dress for dinner. Someone will be along to escort you shortly.” He began to walk by her and paused. He turned and ran a gentle finger down her cheek, then smiled a bittersweet grin.

“I do not have the stone either, Nora,” he said. “It was not upon your person when you arrived here. You may choose to believe me or not, but I do not know where it is.” He began to walk away again, paused near the door, and turned back. “And about your husband, are you sure he’s who he says he is? After all, he’s the one that told the garrison commander in New York where you were headed, and then you were attacked on the road to Boston. He may have put up a good show along the way, but he did ultimately deliver you nearly right to my door. That bears some thinking about, don’t you think?”

Rogan left the chamber and closed the door behind him. Nora stood frozen in the middle of the room. It couldn’t be. Her father was lying. Jack couldn’t have been an instrument of Rogan. All the things he’d said, all the things he’d done! But Jack was as secretive as she was, though she thought they had told all their secrets. Jack did not have any left. Did he?

She couldn’t be sure. They trusted each other with their lives, but little else. They didn’t trust each other as they should. Nora sat on the bed and dropped her head to her hands. How had things spiraled out of her control? Things weren’t supposed to be this way with her Warrior. They were supposed to be easier. She had always imagined that her Warrior would just go along with her plan as it stood. She thought he would follow her lead. After all, she’d been on this quest significantly longer than he had.

But Jack didn’t do any of that. Jack took control and had his own ideas on how things would be done. He was never merely a bodyguard, but also a teacher of fighting and weapons skills. He wanted her to still be able to fight when and if he was inca-pacitated, which empowered her more than she had been before they met. It wasn’t possible that he was an agent of her father’s.

Then why did she feel so much doubt?

No, she thought, standing back up. Jack had gone to the garrison to negotiate for his tribe. As a result, he had been kidnapped because of her father’s lies and tortured. He never would have said where they were headed. The shock on his face when she’d told him they were destined to love each other had been too genuine. He cared about her.
He was not in league with her father or any of his associates. Nora was certain.

He would come for her. She was positive of that, as well. All she had to do was wait.