ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One (24 page)

He was already hard as a rock again.  The taste and enchanting scent of her, those moans, left him no choice.  He lifted her long, shapely legs over his shoulders, licking his tongue along the curve behind her knee. She bucked like
a wild horse as he drove into her and they came together as the world rushed away into mindless oblivion. When his reason returned, he thought this might well be the best night of his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Jessy had slept little but her body felt marvelous, sore and completely relaxed.  She smiled wondering if she should send a message to Sebastian and make certain his leg was all right.  The trellis had seemed to hold until he was a little over half way down before breaking.  He had leaped and then rolled across the ground with a grace that had startled her.  She didn’t remember him being quite that flexible or agile and she wondered for a moment where he had learned how to do that. It reminded her of the scars she had seen on his body. She could wonder where he had learned to do a lot of things he done last night, but decided she really would take Henriette’s advice and just appreciate the skills and move on.

With what little sleep she had, her dreams had been haunted.  Images of what she thought of now as Celtica, and of Boru, his eyes glowing with otherworldly light, growling at something in the dark she couldn’t see.  The first thing she did on waking was to dash off a note to Maureen to reassure herself the children were well.  She had no idea where this situation with Sebastian would lead but, last night, oh last night, had been worth whatever was to come. Until she could tell him, tell him her secret in the right way, she couldn’t give him the gift of words he had given her.  She couldn’t see how she could when love and trust were not always the same thing, but today was
the
day, her actual birthday. 

She couldn’t help the blush when Tweenie and Mary came in and found her night rail torn in the corner and Mary
would
find that button from Sebastian’s jacket.  She noticed that the mattress was far from straight on the bed frame and she had a highly visible redness across her breasts from the roughness of his whiskers.  But her servants pretended they noticed nothing unusual, while to themselves they smiled.  It was about time Mrs. Jess had a man in their opinion. By the look of her, and the bed, he had known what he was doing too.

She had to be at the theater later and had a performance tonight but her morning would be spent going to Herriot’s Bank.  Whatever her mother had left for her in their vaults, she could retrieve today.  She would also make up her mind how she was going to break the news to Sebastian that he was a father. She had decided in the hour just before dawn, with him inside her, there was no way, certainly no honest or right way, not to do it.  She had to do it soon.

What it would mean and how he would react she couldn’t say for certain, but she had hopes.  It was dizzying and yes, frightening, to be hopeful again but she couldn’t help it.  He would be angry she was sure.  He would question why she hadn’t told him right away but, if they were to be together again she wanted it to be for
them
and not that he was just doing the right thing.  She couldn’t imagine having it hanging over her head much longer or she would worry herself into an early grave. So, she moved quickly this morning with Tweenie helping her to dress.  She saw Tweenie bend to pick something up off the carpet. It was the hair comb Sebastian had brought.

“Shall I put this in your hair today?” Tweenie asked.

“Yes, why not,” she agreed and couldn’t stop the smile that bloomed.

  A little coffee with toast and egg and an hour later she was ready to step outside.  She hadn’t counted on two dragons waiting at her door.  Lucky for her she wasn’t faint of heart, for the stern set of those faces would be enough to stop most in their tracks.

Mick, formidable arms across his broad chest and Birdie matching his stance barred her way.  Exasperation welled up in her.  They were clearly taking the event at the theater to extremes.  It seemed clear to her that someone must have seen Sean with the circlet and had intended to steal it, valuable as it was.  The idea of a rival theater going so far as to attempt to burn down their set and building was too extreme to consider.  Her dressing room having been searched sealed it for her as an attempted theft.

“Really? You two think you are going to keep me locked in the house?” she raised one eyebrow imperiously, and unconsciously, channeling her mother.

‘No Mrs. Jess we know what today is but, what you won’t be doing is going alone,” Mick looked down his badly healed broken nose at her firmly.

There were worse things she supposed.  All that mattered was they didn’t try and stop her going.

“All right then, who’s it to be?  I don’t think there’s much to choose between you when it comes to ferocity, so one of you get a coat and let’s just get there,” she tapped her booted foot impatiently.  The look of relief the two shared at seeing she wasn’t going to fight them was almost comical. Really, she didn’t have
that
bad a temper.  In truth, she was unsettled enough to not mind the company and had no idea what she might find at the bank.  Company would be welcome today.

“Mick, you stay here and watch the house like Lord Carvell instructed and I will go.  We’ll take Martin with us too,” Birdie headed off to get her coat, hat and their footman.

She brought Martin, a strapping, but not too bright, young man they had brought from Ireland with them and served as the one and only footman for her small household.  It had rained again last night and they set off on foot down the damp pavement.  Jessy turned back for a moment to wave to Mick, she knew he was watching them off, then turned back for the walk to the bank.

Mick held the door a moment longer and it was only as he nearly had the door shut he thought he saw a dark figure move out of the shadows of the stairs of the house opposite theirs.  When he blinked nothing was there.  Even though he saw nothing and no one following Mrs. Jess he couldn’t help a feeling of unease at that flicker of shadow.  No matter how hard he looked he
saw nothing more.  He shut the door reluctantly, willing himself to stay busy until their return and not worry about any tricks his eyes may, or may not, have been playing on him.

London was its usual morning bustle of hawkers, news sellers, and nannies heading to parks with their charges, the smell of the horses and clatter of wheels on stone as people came and went about their business.  The walk brought a wisp of color to Jessy’s cheeks.  With the whole household knowing what business she had to conduct, and the stir of excitement it had caused, she never once had to encourage Birdie or Martin to move more quickly. 

Everyone wanted to know what her mother had left her.  It was almost like

Christmas, Jessy thought with a smile, just much warmer since it was the Season.  She could have taken a hackney but the weather was lovely, and she felt so wonderful, it was good to be out in the sunshine striding along even if her legs were still a little shaky.  It was hard not to smile.

Herriot’s loomed above them soon, all grey stone and white pillars, propriety and calm security oozing from every square inch.  It wasn’t the largest or most popular of the city banks that the aristocracy used in London.  It did however, have a reputation for one of the finest vaults and the greatest discretion.  As soon as she entered, Mr. Mackleby was walking quickly to meet her across the marble floor, all friendly officiousness.  The Grace family of

Pemberly had banked with Herriot’s for over a hundred years and, actress or not, Mr. Mackleby had taken on her own accounts with alacrity when she had needed a banker.

“My dear Mrs. Powers!” He bowed gallantly over her gloved hand, “The big day has finally arrived eh?” he smiled in an avuncular manner. “Please step into my office and we will sign the necessary papers and then escort you to the vault.  We don’t speculate even among ourselves of course, but to you I will privately admit to some curiosity all these years as to what your dear mother left with us.  Nothing has been touched in anyway, you will find it exactly as she left it.”

After scribbling her name quickly on a series of documents which rested on the highly polished desk in his comfortable office, she left Birdie and Martin to wait on the bench Mr. Mackleby pointed out to them in the foyer.  The steps down to the vault where protected by an imposing, locked door and the steps were worn from the passage of over a hundred years of feet. The air grew cooler and mustier the deeper they descended.  At the bottom of the flights of stairs a series of locked doors had to be passed through until they reached a final cavernous room, neatly organized and every cabinet numbered.

“Hmmm…cabinet 52 box 226 I see here,” the banker consulted a piece of paper as he stepped briskly along the long left wall coming to a tall built in cabinet that also was locked.  After taking a moment to choose the right key, during which Jessy found herself twisting the cords of her reticule to the point of breaking, he inserted it in the lock.

“Now, once I open the cabinet and box Mrs. Powers I will take the keys and step outside so you may peruse the contents in privacy.  At that point you are free to take whatever you please away with you. We will be happy to keep the box here if there are items you wish to remain in the safety of the vault,” he smiled and with a last turn and then removal of the key bowed and marched with precise steps from the room.

With shaking hands Jessy opened the unlocked cabinet.  She had imagined a thousand times what she would find. She expected little in the way of jewelry, the best pieces had been part of the entail, and she had taken away with her most of her mother’s personal pieces.  She hadn’t been able to recall any pieces that had disappeared before her mother’s accident.  That had been the strangest thing; her mother setting up this bank box for her so shortly before her death, only days really.

What confronted her was a letter, sitting propped against the stack of items behind it.  It had only
Darling Daughter
inscribed across it clearly in her mother’s hand writing.  She took it and ripped it open quickly.  The note was short and the familiar writing constricted her heart painfully.

My Darling,

              I hope I am standing next to you and we are opening this together, but I feel fate has chosen otherwise.  What you see here is your true inheritance.  Treat it wisely, handle it with care, know who to trust and help you decide what to do with it.  While I could hope young Sebastian, your darling Redsayle, is now truly your own, I fear overcoming the plans of his mother may have led your life in a different direction.  If you have not learned this yet, do not trust her my love.  You will understand once you have read what I have left you. 

You will find a leather satchel filled with my journals. Take them with you but guard them well. Two other items await you in here.  They are the wooden boxes above your head.  Do NOT open them here, wait until you are somewhere safe.  If you will now take the satchel and put the boxes in there along with the journals, Mr. Mackleby has the less interesting, but likely welcome and practical, part of your inheritance from me.  There is also something in the vault upstairs.  I will have to trust you to know what to do with what awaits.

Tell no one you wouldn’t trust with your life, show no one you wouldn’t trust with your life, what you have put in the satchel.  Now reach into the little pouch you see sitting in front of you and put on what you find inside.  It is the last gift I can give you and the gift a mother would give who loves you dearly; something to help keep you safe.  

With all my love,

Mama

             
Jessy did as instructed with tears blurring her eyes, first filling the fine leather satchel with the two boxes, fitting them in with the journals.  She remembered her mother writing in these every night of her life and had wondered what had happened to them after her death.  She had finally given up looking for them.  Even Birdie had not known what had become of them.  It was a mystery now solved.

              Lastly she reached into the small velvet pouch and her hand closed around a pendant on a chain.  It was an oval flat red stone set in what appeared to be a rose hued gold, decorated across the stone with an engraving of what she knew where Celtic runes.  The chain was the same unusual gold that hugged the stone.  The necklace gave off an aura of great age.  Something about it instantly brought her calm even as it seemed to radiate an indescribable power.  She knew her mother must have brought it from Celtica when she and father escaped.  She quickly slipped it over her head and tucked it under her bodice.  It settled, warm as a touch, against her breastbone.

              The satchel was heavy and she was glad that Martin had come after all.  The boxes were not terribly heavy but the journals were.  She swung the bag clumsily over her back and closed the now empty cabinet.  The letter was folded and tucked carefully into the pocket of her pelisse.  Mr. Mackleby was waiting outside the door for her but, when he offered to take the satchel, she politely and quickly declined.

              “I understand we have more business to discuss sir?”

              “Yes, yes we do and knowing you were coming I took the liberty of keeping everyone out of the upstairs vault.  We will have to discuss how you want to handle that part of your inheritance my dear.  It is a bit
unusual
.”                Unusual? Jessy couldn’t imagine how this could get any more unusual.  She had expected to maybe retrieve some jewelry at most and find out she had been left some funds.  How much more unusual could this get?

              She was led on to the upstairs vault where actual coin was kept and felt her confusion grow.  If it was money, wouldn’t she just be having it added to her account here?  But upon entering the vault she was led to a large, iron bound chest.  It rather reminded her of pirate stories and tales of illicit booty.  The banker proceeded to open the locks on the chest.  Her mouth gaped open like a fish once the lid was lifted and she couldn’t seem to close it no matter how hard she tried.  She went hot and then cold as, revealed inside the chest, was in truth a pirate like treasure of strange gold coins mixed with the most gorgeous gems of every color.  She couldn’t quite wrap her head around what she was looking at here in a respectable English bank.