"Like what?" Grimm asked, the veritable picture of innocence.
"Yes, like what?" echoed a voice behind her. Something in his voice had decidedly changed and for the worse. The Hawk's velvet purr had taken on the coldness of smooth, polished steel.
Was she responsible for that change?
"Take her to the Peacock Room. Lock the door and bring me the key, Grimm."
"No!" she cried, spinning around to face him. "I must go! I want to go to the Comyn keep!"
"What seek you, wife?" he asked icily.
Mute, she stared at him defiantly.
Hawk muttered a dark curse. Could it be true? Could she truly be from the future and looking for the way back home? The thought that she might leave him for Adam had made him near crazed.
But, he brooded darkly, if it was the black queen she was seeking, then she was most definitely doing it for a reason. Odds were she was from somewhere else if not some when else, and she thought the black queen could take her away from him.
One way to find out, he decided.
"Is it this you're after, lass?" he asked as he withdrew the chess piece from his sporran and raised it before her widening eyes.
* * *
CHAPTER 18
"come, lass." the command was toneless and unmistakably dangerous. And even now, the mere word made her shiver with desire. The flush of heat stole her breath. "Hawk—"
"Don't." The word was a warning. "Now. Take my hand."
What was he going to do? she wondered frantically. Behind her, she felt Grimm step closer, edging her toward the Hawk.
"Wait!" She held out a hand to ward him off.
"Move, milady," Grimm said softly.
"Don't lock me in a room!"
"How could I not?" Hawk sneered. "Knowing that you would go back to a place where it seems you knew little joy—yet you would rather be there than here with me!"
"You don't believe I'm from the future!" she gasped.
"I'm beginning to," he muttered. "How do you think I knew about this?" The black queen glittered in his hand.
She shrugged. "How?"
"You, my sweet wife, talked about it when you were poisoned. Worried and fretted and tried to find it—"
"But I only just remembered."
"Your sleeping mind remembered sooner."
"But how did you get it?"
It was Grimm who told her. "The Lady Comyn saw it fall from your hand the night she claims you arrived."
"But how—"
"Lady Comyn entrusted it to me after the wedding. I gave it to the Hawk."
"She admitted that you're not her blood daughter. I can see no reason why she would lie on that score." Unless Comyn keep is suffering some strange contagious madness, he thought grimly. "Will it truly take you back to wherever you came from?" the Hawk asked carefully.
"I think so. As far as I can tell, it's what brought me here," she said, her gaze cast upon the cobbled walkway.
"And your plan was to get it and go home, lass? You planned to slip from Dalkeith, by yourself?"
"No! With your mother, Hawk!" she snapped absurdly. "Of course by myself!"
"So you were going to go to Comyn keep to get this chess piece and try to go back to wherever you came from? That was your plan this evening?" She missed the warning in his careful tone.
"Yes, Hawk. I admit it. All right? I was going to try. I'm not certain it will work, but it's the last thing I had in my hand before I ended up here, and legend says the chess set is cursed. It's the only thing I can think of that might have done it. If it brought me here, it might just take me back."
The Hawk smiled coolly. He turned the queen in his hand, studying it carefully. "Viking," he mused. "Beautiful piece. Well worked and well preserved."
"Do you believe me now, Hawk?" She needed to know. "That I really am from the future?"
"Suffice it to say—I don't believe in taking any chances." He still didn't quite believe, but infinitely better safe than sorry.
He turned sharply on his heel and stalked off toward the gardens. "Bring her, Grimm," he called over his shoulder, almost as an afterthought.
But Grimm didn't have to take her anywhere. A thousand warning bells clanged in her head, and she raced off behind him to catch up. His careful tone, his steely demeanor, his questions. He'd been neatly tying things down to the absolute letter. The Hawk was not a man lacking intellect and purpose. She only hoped she misunderstood his purpose now.
"Hawk!" she cried.
Hawk's shoulders tightened. He was beyond anger at this moment, he had slipped into the realm of icy resolve. He knew what he had to do as he broke into a run through the gardens, across the bailey, in the blushing Scottish morn. Until it was done, he couldn't afford to let her touch him, to put her sweet hands on his shoulders and beg. I'll take no chances where my wife is concerned.