Chapter Thirty-Eight

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

JULIET 2018

Juliet spent the night tossed between dreams of threatening medieval horsemen and threatening ex-husband. At some point, the two bled together. First she dreamt that armed men had invaded the university campus where she'd once worked, and next she saw Duncan looming at her from a corner raising a two-handed sword.

She dragged herself out of bed at eight, wondering why the light from the windows looked so odd. She looked out, and caught her breath at the fairyland spread below: it had snowed in the night. Juliet, who'd lived so long in Maine, judged at least ten inches covered the ground and the priory ruins she could see from her bedroom window.

Throwing on the first sweatshirt she could find, she dashed to the elaborate Victorian bedroom at the front of the house and actually smiled at how beautiful it was outside. The snow smoothed out the rough turf and overgrown hedges, and the stone bridge looked like something out of a misty-hued calendar photograph.

Flakes still drifted lazily down from the leaden skies, and Juliet immediately conjured up a day spent wrapped in blankets and reading to her heart's content until Noah arrived—

Noah. That narrow bridge. And a river that, despite the cold, was still flowing, and whose level had risen dangerously overnight. Juliet ran back to her bedroom, finally noticing that her bare feet were freezing, and rang Noah while pulling on wool socks.

"I hear it snowed up there" were the first words out of Noah's mouth.

"It didn't snow in Newcastle?" she asked.

"Not much to speak of. Six inches or so. You're not worried about me getting there, are you?" he teased.

"A little." Juliet had been checking a weather app while they talked. "It looks like the snow's going to start up again in the afternoon."

"I've lived here all my life, Juliet. I know how to get around Northumberland, even if it's a blizzard. My car has four-wheel drive and it's plenty heavy to navigate safely."

Yes, that heavy, wide car of his . "My worry is the stone bridge," she said. "The water level is awfully close to the track. If it floods over—"

"If it floods over, I can go round to the farmhouse first. We've got a tractor that could get me through Antarctica if necessary. You're not getting rid of me that easily, Juliet."

"That does make me feel better," she admitted.

As they'd talked, she'd kept seeing that image of the British Airways plane Duncan had sent her. It seemed her ex-husband had worked out, at least in a general way, where she was. She told herself it didn't matter. She told herself he liked nothing more than playing games and keeping her off-balance. It was only four days until Christmas. Even Duncan wasn't arrogant enough to think he could just fly to England and find her by instinct. This business about Havencross hadn't come up until after Liam's death, and there was no way her mother would have let slip anything to him. Juliet was perfectly safe. And when Noah arrived tonight, she would be perfectly happy.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Noah asked.

She didn't want to worry him, but she also didn't want to lie. "My ex-husband has been texting me for the last while. He's got problems at the university. Look, if you're really interested, I'll tell you all about our breakup tonight. There's nothing to worry about though. Duncan is an asshole, that's it. I'd much rather think about you."

"If you're sure," he said, a little doubtfully. Noah had an instinct for reading her, even through the phone. It was a warming thought. "Listen," he added, "If the weather does get worse, I'll get out of Newcastle as soon as I can. You remember how to check the boiler and where all the torches and candles are?"

"I remember."

"Even if the power doesn't go out, you might want to light a fire in your little sitting room fireplace. With enough blankets on the floor …" He trailed off suggestively.

Juliet laughed and hung up. Today is a good day , she told herself firmly. And tonight will be perfect.

She dressed warmly, had one of Rachel's homemade scones for breakfast, and began her circuit of the house. It had weathered the night's snowfall without incident, but if the reports were right the next part of the storm would include gale-force winds. For the first time since her arrival, Juliet closed the heavy wooden shutters that framed most of the Victorian windows. The ensuing darkness was spookier than the nighttime, and Juliet was glad to get back to her section of Havencross, which had been built to withstand both sieges and storms. Nothing would get through the ten-foot-thick walls of the medieval core.

In the little sitting room, she stocked all the necessary supplies for a power outage: firewood, matches, solid pillar candles, two oil lamps, extra batteries for the flashlights, five blankets, crackers and teacakes and protein bars, plus two bottles of wine. She rounded the house twice more, as the shortest day of the year passed quickly toward night, and finished with a visit to the boiler. As far as she could tell it was working fine. By the time she headed back to her room the blizzard had begun in earnest.

Heavy snow was one thing—a blizzard was an entirely different creature. Juliet had experienced three or four blizzards during her years in Maine and knew how quickly a person could get disoriented with snow stinging their face and wind sucking their breath. The vortex of movement could make it seem like the snow wasn't so much falling as attacking from every single direction, including the ground.

Juliet stood at the Victorian front-bedroom window, from where the bridge was no longer visible. She watched the whirling snow until she grew dizzy, then retreated to her cozy little aerie. Setting aside the historian mind-set for now, she lost herself in a classic Daphne du Maurier novel she'd found abandoned in one of the third-floor servants' rooms.

It was 5 p.m. the next time she checked her phone. It also seemed she'd lost cell connection—no bars showing, and no missed calls or texts from Noah. That's all right. He'll come . And in case of emergency, she had the landline phone in Clarissa's ground-floor bedroom.

She stretched and considered trekking downstairs to make a sandwich but decided to wait for Noah. At least she could put on something slightly more attractive for later, if only underneath her thermal tee and leggings. Smiling at the thought of Noah discovering her laciest bra, Juliet stepped into the corridor.

The house had been unusually silent today, the hush of falling snow broken now only by the wild winds. But the moment she set foot outside her sitting room, Juliet was enveloped in a swell of noise: footsteps, many heavy-booted feet tramping in the corridor, men's voices, the pounding of steel dagger hilts on closed doors and caskets, reverberating through her head and bones—

Juliet yelped and darted across to her bedroom door. Her hand lifted the medieval latch, and through the noise she thought, I'm sure I left this door open.

She shoved the door open wider, hoping the corridor noise wouldn't follow, hoping for a space in which to pull herself together and figure out what the hell was going on—

"Hello, Juliet. I've missed you."

Duncan smiled at Juliet from her bed, the predatory smile she'd long had cause to distrust. As she backed away, he slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off her.

"We're going to talk," he said. "And then you're coming home with me."