Jamys had long suspected the same, and nodded slowly.
“The sun’s almost up. You should get some rest.” Her eyes strayed to the notes he had been writing. “Are you planning to go down to Miami for something?”
“Yes.” He opened Gifford’s Web site and tapped the screen where the lecture information was listed. “This.”
Chris read it, and then eyed his notes again. “You ran away from home to attend a lecture on piracy? Couldn’t you have just taken a class at the local community college?”
He pulled up the account from Father Bartley’s journals. “I want to know more about this.”
Chris skimmed the page, and then sat back. “Well, no one knows what happened to Hollander and the Golden Horde, not even Mel Fisher.” Her lips formed an O that she covered with her fingers. “Oh, my God. You’re going after the Emeralds of Eternity. No. Really?”
“Yes.” He was surprised that she knew about the lost jewels. “You have read the high lord’s summons.”
“I, ah, heard about it.” She jumped as the drapes on the other side of the room began to close. “I thought the curtains closing by themselves would be cool, but they’re actually a little creepy.” She regarded him. “If you’re the one who finds the emeralds, the high lord will give you rule of Ireland, right?” When he nodded, she smiled. “I could help you with that.”
Jamys knew how resourceful Chris was, and she knew the region far better than he. Accepting her offer would also allow them to spend more time together, and he wanted that more than the jewels. But while he wanted to have her with him, he had to consider first her position in the household. “I cannot take you from your obligations here.”
“You heard Lucan. He said for me to look after you while you’re here,” she reminded him. “That makes you my number one priority.”
Chris spoke as if he were nothing more than a task to be attended to, and yet he detected a subtle alteration of her scent that indicated secrecy. She was not lying, but she was not telling him everything. Jamys couldn’t blame her for holding back, not when he was doing the same. He suspected that, like him, she did not trust easily.
It did not matter to him. He would take her however he could have her. “Then we will search for the emeralds together.”
* * *
Lucan slipped away from his blissfully exhausted Samantha in their bed and left their chamber for his dressing room. Although she thought of herself as his equal, his beloved was still in her infancy as an immortal, and as such spent most of the daylight hours abed. Lucan himself seldom required more than three or four hours of rest, and had discovered he could make do with as little as an hour.
He dressed in silence as he thought on the night’s events. While he loved her rather more than anyone or anything in existence, Lucan never took for granted Samantha’s own devotion. He could not; she was the only soul in all the world who had ever loved him. He had never expected that, not after walking the night alone for more than seven hundred years. Indeed, she had come to him when eternal life had grown exceedingly tedious, and brought to him the sort of hope and wonder he had never imagined himself feeling.
In the beginning falling in love with her had absolutely appalled him, for he knew very well what he was. He had tried to save Samantha by pushing her away, time and again, only to realize he had not the slightest desire to live without her. Her own love had never wavered, even when Samantha had finally discovered the truth about him, and faced the monster inside the man. She hadn’t quailed or run away from learning she loved the most lethal killer among all the Kyn; she had stayed. She had demanded better of him.
For his part, Lucan had learned exactly what he would do to preserve and protect the love that had saved him. When Samantha had been shot and lay dying in his arms, he had ruthlessly dragged her back from the next life by pumping Kyn blood into her veins.
While Samantha rested, Lucan usually went down to his office to work until dawn, but tonight he felt little inclination to attend to business. He’d managed to keep his temper in check when she’d told him about the flowers, but the mysterious gift and her lack of concern over it still aggravated him. No doubt she was right and there was nothing to it, but he wouldn’t be able to relax until Garcia made certain of that.
There was one place in the stronghold where he could work off some of his frustrations and assess the new arrivals, and that was where he headed.
At Burke’s suggestion Lucan had purchased the five-level parking garage behind the stronghold’s main building. After enclosing the open-sided floors with concrete walls, Lucan had been able to do as he liked with the interior. The contractor he’d hired to cover the paved floors with many truckloads of earth had been puzzled, but no more than the lighting designer, the cabinetry installer, or the architect who had designed several auditoriums as venues for professional boxing.