Gladly Beyond (39 page)

“Are you even sure it’s yours?”

She shot me the
uh, duh
look that all women perfect by the time they’re ten. “It’s this special PH lipstick you have to order from a high-end boutique in Chelsea. Trust me. It’s not some random, over-the-counter Revlon—”

“Got it. So what are you going to do about it?” I pulled into an open parking space.

Silence.

“I don’t know.” Claire slumped back into her seat. Drummed her fingers on the center console. “I wish you could see shadows around it.”

I had tried. It was the first thing I did when she sat back in the car. But . . . nothing.

“I only see dead people.” My voice dry.

“Funny. Would Branwell be able to hear anything, do you think?”

“We’ll ask him. It’s definitely worth a try.”

More silence. Rain pattered on the car roof.

“Do you think I’m being paranoid?”

I put the car in park and killed the engine. “You felt like someone might have been in your room last week.”

“I brushed it off then . . .”

“Why would the Colonel be in your room stealing your lipstick? That makes no sense either.”

“I know, I know.” More finger tapping. “I am so tired of not understanding the Colonel’s motives.”

“Why not ask him?”

She turned to stare at me, eyebrows drawn down into a perplexed
V
.

“What? It’s not a bad idea,” I said.

She contemplated a moment longer. “True. I’ll just have to think of a way to phrase it that doesn’t sound accusatory.”

“You’ll come up with something.”

“If only I didn’t need this job so bad.”

A beat.

“I am glad you took the job, Claire.” I reached down and snagged her fingers with mine, keeping my other hand on the steering wheel.

“Me too.” She squeezed my hand. “This whole stalker thing has just thrown me. I simply need to shove my fear under a rock and move on.”

“Give yourself a break, Claire. You can’t just pretend everything that scares you isn’t there . . .”

She snorted. “Clearly you don’t understand my
vast
capacity for denial.”

I laughed, soft and low. She had a point.

I glanced around us one more time before getting out of the car. Our stalker friend hadn’t made another appearance today. So that was good at least.

The rain persisted, not a torrent but a steady enough drizzle. We dashed up the long drive to the front door of the Certosa. It was tucked in between two imposing medieval walls, one punctuated with open arches rising at an angle.

Honestly, it was like entering a medieval keep. The doors were big enough to fit a tractor-trailer. These ancient monasteries were as much a fortress as anything else. It was probably why I had forgotten about it. It always registered as more
castle
than
church
.

The Certosa didn’t take reservations for tours. You simply showed up at the times listed and hoped one of the brothers decided to show you around. Italian tourism at its finest.

Fortunately, we arrived just as a tour group of retirees from Yorkshire walked up, so the brothers ushered us inside.

We went up a long flight of wide stairs . . . a sort of covered loggia with arches evenly spaced on the right side. The same arches we had seen from the gate below.

Talk about stairs with a view. Each archway framed the Chianti countryside. Lush and green, the hills hung with humidity and freshly-sprung spring. The smell of night-jasmine lingered. The stairs themselves dipped in the middle, evidence of thousands of feet passing before our own.

Claire clutched my hand. I paused, taking a photo of her next to one of the arches.

She looked at it over my shoulder.

“No Ethan.”

We reached the top of the stairs and entered into a large piazza-like courtyard. The monastic church stood on one side, its white Baroque facade glistening in the rain. I managed to snap another photo of Claire while two elderly women argued—in their thick Yorkshire burr—over the best way to protect their hair. A scarf over the head won out.

No Ethan.

We darted across to the church piazza with the rest of the group and moved into the dark church itself. I tried to snap a photo along the short nave but got a stern ‘
No foto, per piacere
’ from one of the monks and a hand motion telling me to put my phone away.

Claire grunted next to me and pushed me in front of her. Using my body as a shield, I guessed.

Two seconds later, she handed me her phone.

She looked darling in the corner of the photo. The Baroque interior and organ pipes behind her.

But still no Ethan.

We continued on. Through one reception gallery, and then another. Through a smaller cloister glistening with rain . . .

Still no Ethan.

I had settled on taking constant video, holding my phone low, Claire walking in front of me.

We passed out of the smaller cloister and stopped. A long flight of stairs stretched on both sides of us.

To my right, bright light streamed from doors above opening onto the enormous cloister that made up almost fifty-percent of the monastery.

I aimed my phone to the left. Down the stairs.

Something flickered in my video. Ethan was turning the corner at the bottom of the steps.

At last!

I grabbed Claire’s arm, pulling her to a stop against the wall, showing her the video. The rest of the tour group moved past us, climbing the stairs upward.

Claire and I looked at each other for just half a heartbeat.

With a quick glance behind, I snatched her hand and started down the stairs, toward the arched hallway where Ethan had disappeared.

“
Fermatevi!
” A voice called behind us. “Stop. You may not go—”

I ran faster. Claire giggled.

We were two school kids running from the principal, hoping not to get caught.

Footsteps sounded behind us.

Which meant I didn’t notice the exact point when the world swirled from day to night.

The point where my laughter melted, morphed, faded . . .

Panic blasted me.

Run. Faster. Ignore the pain—

He canna have her . . .

Thirty-Two

C
aro clutched Ethan’s hand, racing through the pitch-black ruin, struggling to keep her skirts from tangling in her legs and tripping them both.

They left the long arched hallway and stumbled into a larger room. Pale moonlight poured through windows high on the walls . . .

The refectory.

The old monastery was barren . . . a crumbling ghost. Napoleon had emptied it of monks years ago, leaving an aged couple as ‘caretakers.’ Without constant attention, however, the Italian countryside had reclaimed the building as its own.

Ethan pulled her down behind one of the enormous, refectory tables, hiding them in the deep shadows of the room.

Ethan swallowed next to her, squeezing her hand in comfort. Caro fought to still her breathing.

Silence. They could not be found.

Well. Not found
again
.

Ethan pulled her against his side, tucking her tight against him with one hand.

He carried a loaded pistol in the other. Even in the murky gloom, she caught a glimpse of its silvery metal.

She felt the puff of his breath against her cheek. The press of his lips on hers.

All will be well,
it said.

She trusted him. They hadn’t come this far to fail.

The night had gone well.

Up until the point it had fallen apart.

Caro had pleaded a headache an hour into the musicale, readied for bed and then waited for Mary to fall asleep. Slipping back into her clothes, she stole down the servant’s stairs with a small bag in one hand and a wooden tube housing the rolled-up Michelangelo
modello
and her vellum copy in the other.

Hiring a hack, she had been dropped at the end of the long lane leading up to the abandoned Certosa. It had been a simple thing to scurry under the gate and make the steep climb to the base of the monastery walls. The bright moon lighting her way.

Full of such hope. Ethan would be there. They would
finally
begin their life together.

But Ethan was
not
there.

Not for one hour. And then two.

Caro sat on her valise, toes numb from the cold ground. Balancing the tube with both drawings on her knees to protect them from the damp. Every night noise—the hoot of an owl, bats fluttering into the eves, things scuttling in the surrounding bushes—causing her to jump.

Finally, she heard horse hooves on the road.

Hallelujah!

But wait! There were too many of them . . . it should just be a pair of horses and a small carriage . . .

She jumped to her feet, pressing herself back into the shadows.

A familiar shape burst from the surrounding bushes, pistol in hand.

“Ethan!” Her voice came out in a horrified whisper.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

The worst part?

She
still
didn’t know what had happened.

He had merely grabbed her hand and tugged her into the dark ruin, Caro clutching the wooden tub with her free hand. Halfway across the huge church courtyard, she had heard shouts behind them.

“There they are!”

She had run faster, landing on tiptoe to soften the sound. Through black corridors, across several small cloisters and into the old refectory.

Now crouched behind the table, she gathered close to Ethan, pressing her face into his shoulder to muffle the pounding of her heart. Surely it could be heard at the other end of the room. She set the wooden tube at her side and wrapped her free hand around his waist.

Ethan hissed. Caro instantly loosened her grip, only to realize that her hand was wet. The smell of blood—copper, metallic—assaulted her.

Oh no! No!

“You’re hurt.” She dared to whisper, a breath of air in his ear.

He shook his head.
‘Tis nothing
. Even his gestures had a Scottish burr to them.

Damn the man.

Caro bit her lip. Blinked away her blurring vision.

Everything would be all right. They would wait out whoever was pursuing them and then be on their way.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. Coming nearer. Nearer.

“I know you are here.” A cool aristocratic voice echoed through the gloom like cannon-fire.

Blackford.

No—damn
that
man.

“I have merely come to collect that which is rightfully mine.” Footsteps moved closer. “My Michelangelo and my bride. That is all I require.”

Ethan pulled her tighter against him.

Peeking across his chest, Caro could see dark shadows moving in the room. She heard the click-click of flint on steel. A hiss. Something flickered and then burst into flame. Light filled the room. A torch flitted past her view.

She glanced down, more clearly seeing the red stain spreading from Ethan’s waist across his shirt. How badly was he hurt?

Nausea clawed its way up her throat. Stinging.

Caro clenched her jaw.

Boom!

A refectory table across the room crashed to the floor.

“You cannot hide from me,” Blackford called.

Boom! Boom!
More tables went flying.

Blackford would find them. It was only a matter of time now.

There was no other door, no other way out. She counted three shadows—three men, including Blackford. Given Ethan’s wound, they were armed.

Ethan had one pistol. One shot.

Understanding their odds wasn’t difficult.

Caro closed her eyes. Made her decision.

Ethan tensed beside her. She shifted, leaned over him.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Until the day I die, I will love you. Never forget.”

She pressed her lips to his. A benediction. All the anguished yearning and longing in her soul.

“No!” Ethan grabbed at her, voice more a motion than sound.

“Love alters not . . . even to the edge of doom . . .” She breathed into his ear.

“Doona do it, lass—”

Boom!
Another crash reverberated.

Caro wrapped a hand around the wooden tube with the Michelangelo drawings. Pushed away from Ethan’s grasp and jumped to her feet.

“Stop!” She faced the men, knees trembling, heart pounding. But her resolve was firm.

Blackford whirled to face her. Eyes gleaming in triumph. A polished pistol in
each
hand.

Lovely.

The other two men with Blackford swung their pistols her way, leering openly.

“Enough! Here I am. Here are the sketches.” She shook the tube. “Take what you see as yours.”

She strode forward. Her only thought to get the men out of this room. Away from Ethan. He was a doctor. He would know better than anyone how to treat his own wound.

She just had to give him a fighting chance.

“Ah. My radiant bride.” Blackford gave a mocking bow. “I am charmed you decided to join me this evening.”

His tone was anything but. He bristled with outrage.