Her breath was wheezing out of her. The tears came faster. “H-he… He… Oh, God, Christien.”
“Enough,
ma belle.
” He couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t force her to say the words. Her body was trembling, tears racing down her cheeks. She could barely breathe through the sobs. Whether she was the real Madelaine or not, this was tearing her apart and he couldn’t bear to watch it happen.
“He raped her.”
Christien closed his eyes. He wanted to scream in agony, wanted to find the bastard who’d done this and kill him with his bare hands, but he was already dead.
“Shhh, little one. Quiet.” He took her in his arms, unable to stand by while she grieved and needing her next to him before his own memories overtook him.
“What’s happening to me, Christien? Why am I suddenly having dreams of this woman?”
He stilled, her words piercing him. The emotion was too real to be forced. Could it be she truly didn’t know what was happening? Ah, God. He wished he knew.
The look she gave him was so desperate it tore him apart. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
He saw the fear those words evoked and knew she was balancing on a slippery slope. She honestly thought she was losing her mind and who could blame her?
“No, Madelaine. I believe you.” But did he? Did he really believe her? He wanted to, but his mind still balked.
“What if…” He paused to consider his words carefully. “What if there are two realities? What if what you are experiencing aren’t dreams but something else?”
Her brows drew together in confusion. If she was an actress then she deserved an Academy Award for this performance. However, he was beginning to believe she wasn’t acting.
“Of course they’re dreams. What else could they be?”
He hesitated, but knew he had to put it out there, if only to get her reaction. “Memories.”
Her brows dipped and she chewed on her lower lip. “Memories? I don’t understand.”
“There are people who believe death isn’t really the end. That a person’s…essence…can be passed on to another body.”
“You’re talking about reincarnation.” The brows drew deeper and her eyes narrowed in thought before she shook her head. “There is no such thing as reincarnation, Christien.”
“Some would disagree.”
“So you’re saying these dreams aren’t dreams but memories of a past life I led? A past that includes someone who looks like you?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“I don’t believe in reincarnation.” She backed away from him. “I’ve been under a lot of stress with this new job and moving to a new city.”
“So you believe stress triggered these dreams?”
“Yes.” She nodded vigorously.
“The dream you just had, tell me, why did I have to leave?” Only she would know the answer to this question.
She looked away and bit her bottom lip, but this time he didn’t sense her trying to come up with a lie. “So you weren’t caught with her,” she said so quietly he had to lean forward to hear her.
“Caught with whom?”
She looked at him with wide eyes. “Her. The other Madelaine. The one who looks like me.”
“Where were they that they could get caught?”
She frowned and he could tell she was thinking, plunging herself back into the dream. “A garden.”
His heart stilled. Up until now she’d told him things Lucheux could have easily known, but Lucheux didn’t know about that night in the garden.
“Did he find me?”
Her golden-brown eyes looked up at him. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Mon Dieu.
He was beginning to believe she wasn’t trying to trick him. Her reactions were too quick and too real. No hesitation.
“Do you know I fell in love with you that night?” he asked in Norman French.
She frowned at him.
“Did Lucheux send you to me?” he asked again in Norman French, studying her, looking for any sign she understood what he was saying. Nothing. Not one spark of recognition.
“What are you saying?” she asked, obviously confused.
He looked away. “Never mind.”
She thought she was going mad? ’Twas nothing to what his mind was telling him. More and more he was beginning to believe she was an innocent bystander in all of this and it made his anger boil. If Lucheux truly had pulled an innocent into this war, then Christien was going to make him pay.
“I think I should go.”
The soldier in him went on alert. “I wish you would stay.” And not only because he didn’t want her going back to Lucheux—if that was where she was going—but because he genuinely didn’t want her to leave.
She looked around as if searching for something and found her shoes by the couch. She was still dressed in the jeans and sweatshirt she’d arrived in the night before. “Thank you for letting me sleep…” She looked away and a blush rose up her neck and cheeks.
“Madelaine. Look at me.”
She slowly turned her gaze to him.
“You are welcome here anytime. My door is always open to you.”
You fool. Why give her an open invitation? Turn your back and concentrate on protecting the treasure.
That was what he should do, follow the inner voice, pretend she didn’t exist, but he couldn’t. He would sooner cut off his sword arm than turn his back on those frightened eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He followed her to the elevator and punched the button, his mind screaming not to let her go. To protect her.
From what? Shouldn’t he be protecting himself? He found the idea ludicrous and the idea of her needing protection from Lucheux all too real. The thought of her alone out there, working for Lucheux, experiencing her dreams by herself, made him feel helpless and if there was one thing he hated it was feeling helpless. He’d experienced it too often in the past.
They rode the elevator in silence. The club was dark and silent. Their footfalls echoed over the deserted dance floor as they moved beneath the darkened lights.
“You don’t have to walk me home. I’ll be fine.”
“Nevertheless, I am.”
“I jog these streets nearly every day. Right now they’re deserted.”
His hands clenched at the thought of her running through the streets alone. He might be living in modern times, but his mind was of a warrior who constantly catalogued the dangers around him. And the streets of Milwaukee, while not the most dangerous, were still wrought with some danger.
“Humor me.” He began walking in the direction of her apartment.
He heard her sigh, then fall into step beside him. “Look, Christien, I appreciate that you let me stay the night. That was very nice of you.”
He snorted.
Nice
wasn’t the word he’d been thinking and
nice
certainly weren’t the thoughts he had when he carried her to bed. He’d wanted to kiss her awake until she was hot for him and squirming beneath him. Even thinking of it now made him want to turn back and drag her through those doors and do everything he wanted to. The fact he kept walking didn’t make him
nice.
It made him an idiot.
Apparently she chose to ignore his sound of disgust because she kept speaking. “As you know I just started this new job—”
“I know.”
“Yes, well.” She cleared her throat. “It’s important I succeed in this new position.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is it important for you to succeed?”
She waved her hands in the air. He liked that she talked with her hands. The other Madelaine had done that as well and he always thought it endearing. He concentrated on those hands, watching them.
Just like the other Madelaine.
The actions weren’t something easily duplicated and probably not something Lucheux had noticed about the fourteenth-century Madelaine. He filed the thought away with the other clues that told him she was the genuine thing.
“Because it’s difficult to get into a company like Lucheux Limited. The competition is fierce and so few jobs open up.”
“And yet Lucheux hired you. That has to tell you something.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to screw this up.”
He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she didn’t get the job based on her resume but based on her eerie likeness to a dead countess.
He steered her onto the entrance to the River Walk. Normally Christien barely noted the changing of the seasons. When time held no meaning, seasons were inconsequential. He’d lived through hundreds of them but today he could feel spring in the air. The breeze was warm upon his face. The sun seemed brighter. He was aware that this new appreciation had nothing to do with Mother Nature but rather Madelaine at his side. She brought new awareness to his life, an edge to a dull existence.
“I need this job more than anything. I
have
to succeed.”
“Why do you have to succeed?”
“Well. For the same reasons everyone wants to succeed.”
“Generally people want success for money or power or to rise above bad situations. Which reason is yours?”
“Money,” she said softly.
He wondered if she would admit it. He knew everything about her. Where she grew up, what her grades were in college, how much money she owed in student loans. And he knew about her father, about the fight they’d waged against the government who wanted their land to build a highway and the loss of not only her family home, but the father who’d doted on her all her life. The worst part was that he didn’t die, but lost his sensibilities, forcing her to put him in a very expensive nursing home and increasing her debt.
No doubt Lucheux knew all of this as well and played on her vulnerabilities. What had he offered her? Enough money to cover her debts without making her suspicious? Or did he outright offer to pay everything off if she agreed to play along with his scheme?
Christien wouldn’t put either scenario past the man, but he was beginning to doubt the latter. Her debts were still there, whittled down little by little every month.
“It’s not such a horrible thing to want money,” he said. “I’ve been poor and helpless in the past because of the lack of it. I understand.” And damn his traitorous mind he could also understand why she would agree to Lucheux’s scheme. Being helpless wore a person down and trampled their pride. To save her father, she would do anything, even swallow that pride.
She breathed out a sigh. “I don’t want you to think I’m here because, well, because you’re rich.”
He laughed. “I never once thought that.”
“Oh.” She ducked her head in embarrassment. “Good. I’m glad.”
“Why are you glad?”
She blew out a breath. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“How else am I to learn about you?”
Her steps faltered. He put a hand under her elbow to steady her, the simple touch anything but simple to him.
“You want to learn about me?”
“You intrigue me.”
“I do?”
He smiled at her surprised tone. “You do.”
They walked in silence for a few moments. Slowly the tension eased out of her. Her shoulders relaxed, her steps became lighter, less hurried, as if she actually wanted to linger.
“And working for Lucheux will get you the money you need?” he asked, returning to the conversation.
“Yes.”
How much money will it get you, Madelaine? Enough to pay off all your bills?
“My father is…ill. He’s in a good nursing home but the expense is a little beyond my budget. The opportunity to work for Lucheux came at the perfect time.”
He bet it did. Rage hit him hard and unexpectedly. Another coincidence he couldn’t write off. Lucheux was definitely using her to get to him. But did she know it?
“This job is so new and so important.”
Christien yanked his attention back to the conversation, not liking the turn it was taking.
“I don’t need any distractions right now.” They reached her apartment building and she turned to him.
He took her hand and was relieved when she didn’t pull away. “Do you think I’m a distraction?”
“Yes.”
“A good distraction or a bad distraction?” He rubbed her knuckles. Her eyes darkened and her fingers trembled.
“Bad.”
He took a step closer. “Bad can sometimes be good.”
She yanked her hands away, obviously flustered. “This isn’t a good time for me to have a relationship.”
Stunned, he stared at her for a moment. She didn’t know. She didn’t know Lucheux had thrust her into Christien’s life to distract him. Lucheux hadn’t coaxed her into lying to him. He’d merely used her looks to get to Christien. Otherwise she wouldn’t be trying to push him away. Unless she was a very, very good manipulator, but he didn’t believe she was.
His relief was so profound that he tightened his hold on her fingers so she wouldn’t see his hands shake. But the realization only led to more questions and prodded his instincts to protect her even more. Her innocence meant danger to her.
He cleared his throat. Of course he couldn’t let her walk away. Not now. But he also couldn’t kidnap her and keep her locked up for her own safety.
He skimmed his fingers up her arm, feeling the goose bumps rise. A ray of sunlight caught on the key at her neck, drawing his attention to it and making him believe more than ever that she was the key Michael spoke of.
He put his hand beneath her chin. Slowly she raised her eyes to his.
“I can wait,” he said softly even though every instinct told him not to let her out of his sight.
She stepped back, breaking their contact. He allowed her the room she needed, but would only let her go so far. He said he would wait, but he lied. He was through with waiting. However, he would give her the illusion of time if that was what she wanted.
“Why would you wait? I’m a hick from farm country. You’re…” She waved her hand in the air.
“I’m what?” They were standing so close that every time she breathed her chest brushed against his. He had to grit his teeth to keep from taking her in his arms.
“This isn’t a joke,” she whispered.
“Oh, I know.”
“You’re way out of my league.”
“I don’t play baseball.”
Her lips thinned. To keep from laughing or because she was perturbed?
“You’re exasperating,” she said.
“I’ve been called worse.”