“I have a remedy for that.”

“You don’t need to use it.”

Those lethal eyes of Leo’s searched her face. They seemed to darken, smoldering with something she was afraid to define. Something that suddenly deprived her of oxygen. She was still much too close to him, but couldn’t seem to move.

Carrying her hands to his mouth, he began to demonstrate that remedy, nibbling on her fingers, placing kisses in each of her palms.

Drawing her tightly against him, a growl low in his throat, Leo angled his mouth across hers. His kiss was deep, demanding.

Jennifer’s senses rioted. Threatened to go out of control. And might have, if there hadn’t been the sound of someone, making them aware they were no longer alone.

To the Rescue
Jean Barrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Barb and Dick Norene, in appreciation for your support and friendship. You are the best.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If setting has anything to do with it, Jean Barrett claims she has no reason not to be inspired. She and her husband live on Wisconsin’s scenic Door Peninsula in an antique-filled country cottage overlooking Lake Michigan. A teacher for many years, she left the classroom to write full-time. She is the author of a number of romance novels.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jennifer Rowan—She is desperate to prove herself innocent of murder, but can she survive the rugged P.I. who puts her heart and soul in jeopardy?

Leo McKenzie—He is determined to catch his brother’s killer, but he hadn’t counted on the irresistible allure of the woman who is his chief suspect.

Father Stephen—The abbot’s monastery may not survive if the valuable Warley Madonna is not recovered.

Brother Timothy—Will his medical skills be enough to save the latest victim of a deranged killer?

Geoffrey—The young novice seems to be troubled about taking his final vows.

Patrick—He wants to join the order, but is it for the right reason?

Harry Ireland—The traveling salesman may not be what he seems.

Fiona and Alfred Brasher—What secret is the couple hiding?

Sybil and Roger Harding—She has a sharp tongue and a fondness for gin. He’s a devout ex-monk who’s worried about his wife.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

Heathside, Yorkshire

Who is he? How did he find me?

Needing answers, Jennifer hugged the shadows at the top of the stairs, her heart registering anxiety with rapid beats as she listened to the conversation in the lobby below.

“You’re sure you can’t give me her room number?”

His voice was deep and mellow. That much Jennifer could tell, but nothing else about him. Although she had a limited view of the front desk and the young woman who stood on duty behind it, the man who had come in off the street wasn’t in her line of sight. She would need to lean forward in order to glimpse him, but she feared even a slight movement would betray her presence.

The clerk, her thin face peppered with freckles beneath a cap of red hair, shook her head in regret. “Be worth my job if I was to go and tell you that, sir.”

The woman had been far less careful when he’d approached the desk a moment ago with a confident “I’m here to see Jennifer Rowan. She is registered with you, right?”

He shouldn’t have known that. Jennifer had told no one she planned to spend the night at this inn. But his bold assumption that she was here had won an admission from the clerk that, yes, Jennifer was a guest at the King’s Head. The clerk hadn’t bothered to ask him his name.

“Sure wouldn’t want you to go and jeopardize your job—” he paused, moving in close to the desk in order to read the clerk’s name tag “—Wendy.”

Jennifer could see him now. Or at least enough of him to understand why the desk clerk wore a willing smile as he leaned toward her. From what Jennifer could tell at this angle, he was good-looking in a rugged sort of way. That deep voice was also persuasive, with a tone that was appealingly personal.

“But how about calling her room and letting her know someone is here to see her. You could do that much, couldn’t you, Wendy?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that, sir. Not that I’d have to, being as how Ms. Rowan isn’t in her room. Went out a bit ago to buy herself a London paper. Real disappointed, she was, when I told her we only take the local paper here. Well, why would we need anything else when we have the telly?”

But Jennifer hadn’t been willing to wait for a TV newscast, which wouldn’t have provided her with enough details anyway. Only a London paper would have a full account of Guy’s murder. She needed to know if there was any new development in the case, whether she was at imminent risk of being arrested.

As far as the desk clerk knew, Jennifer wasn’t in the inn. Wendy had watched her go out the front door in search of a shop that carried the London papers. What the young woman didn’t realize was that, once out on the street, Jennifer had feared she would be soaked within seconds. A hard rain had begun to fall. Wendy hadn’t been at her post when Jennifer immediately returned to the inn to fetch her umbrella. If the tea mug now at the clerk’s elbow was any indication, she must have been in the kitchen.

Umbrella in hand, Jennifer had been heading toward the street again when the stranger below had asked for her by name. Alarmed, she had shrunk back into the shadows where the hallway emerged at the top of the stairs. But she couldn’t go on standing here. The dimness, presumably the result of a burned-out lightbulb in the fixture overhead, wasn’t enough to conceal her if either of them happened to look up.

Frozen in place, Jennifer prayed he was satisfied by the clerk’s explanation of her absence. That, whoever he was, he would leave the inn and go out on the street to look for her in the shops. But it didn’t happen that way.

“You wouldn’t have any objection if I waited here in the lobby for Ms. Rowan, would you, Wendy?” he asked the clerk.

“That’s all right then, sir.”

Trapped! What was she to do? He had already removed his coat, was running a strong hand through his wet hair. It was when he looked over his shoulder, probably to locate a comfortable chair in which to take up his vigil, that Jennifer seized the opportunity to make her escape from the stairway.

Backing slowly, silently away from the landing, hoping none of the old floorboards would announce her retreat with a sudden groan, she waited until the lobby was entirely swallowed from view before she turned and fled to her room.

Once inside, and with the door secured behind her, she went and sat on the edge of the four-poster. Only then did she realize she was trembling. It was imperative that she think rationally about her situation, come to some decision, and in order to do that, she had to calm herself.

The setting itself was certainly tranquil enough. An ancient inn, the stone-built King’s Head featured wide hearths, leaded windows and low ceilings crossed by heavy oak beams. She gazed for a moment at one of those windows where the rain bubbled on the glass against a heavy, gray sky.

Though she managed to control her panic, her frustration was another matter. She had failed to learn the answers to the questions that continued to race through her mind.

He had asked for her by name. How was that possible when he was a stranger? Unless—

Had Guy’s charwoman surfaced from her coma, told the police what she had witnessed? If so, then her information would be enough to make a strong case against Jennifer as Guy’s killer. Was this man a detective who had somehow managed to track her here?

But if that was true, if he was official, then why hadn’t he presented his ID to the desk clerk? Told her he was here on police business?

There was something else. Like Jennifer, he had an American accent. Puzzling, but she supposed he could be working with the London police. It wasn’t unknown for American officers to be connected with English police departments.

In the end, there was only one certainty. Whoever this mystery man was, he was looking for her. That made him a potential danger to her. Because if he knew she was on the run, and why—

She had to leave. Had to get far away from him. Now.

Never mind her plan to spend the night here in the inn and then go on to Warley Castle in the morning. Forget the late hour, the threat of the weather and a lonely road across unfamiliar terrain.

Jennifer was desperate enough to risk all of these in order to reach her destination without further delay. If she stood any chance at all of vindicating herself, then it was urgent that she get the answers she was hoping for before it was too late.

She threw the few things she had unpacked earlier back into her suitcase. Since she had already paid for a night’s lodging in the inn, there was no problem about running out on any bill she owed. But there was the concern of the man down in the lobby who guarded the front door.

She couldn’t use that route to slip away from him. A service staircase then? Surely there had to be one in a place this size. It was time to find out.

Suitcase and umbrella in hand, her purse hanging by its long strap from her shoulder, Jennifer crossed the room, unlocked the door and eased it back. She checked the hallway in both directions. It was silent, empty. There were few guests in the inn at this time of year. She met no one as she hurried along the passage.

An unnumbered door drew her to the end of the corridor at the back of the inn. When she tried it, she found herself looking down into the poorly lit well of the service staircase she was seeking.

Descending swiftly through the gloom, she arrived in another passage at the bottom. There were several doors along its narrow length. The nearest one had to be the kitchen because she could hear behind it what had to be the sounds of dinner underway.

Praying no one would emerge from that area to challenge her, Jennifer headed toward the door at the end of the passage. The window in it, framing the gray daylight beyond, told her it was a back entrance.

It had to be a fire exit, readily opened from the inside, because she had no trouble with the door when she reached it and let herself out of the inn. Not until she exhaled in relief did she realize how much she had needed to release her tension.

She found herself in a service yard at the rear of the building. Rain was pelting down on the cobbles. The air was cold, evidence that the temperature had dropped since her arrival in Heathside.

Raising her umbrella, Jennifer crossed the yard and made her way to the car park where she had left the little English Ford she had rented back in London.

She was shivering by the time she stowed her suitcase in the vehicle and settled herself behind the wheel. Nerves more than the cold, she thought.

Once she was underway, with the heater issuing a welcome warmth, she was able to ease her worst fear. Not that she could relax when she had to deal with every American driver’s problem of keeping to the left while negotiating narrow streets that hadn’t been designed to accommodate modern traffic. This, in addition to finding a route through the old town in a steady rainfall, kept her occupied.

Jennifer didn’t pay any attention to the dark-colored SUV that slid out of an alley as she passed, swinging into the street behind her. It was just one more vehicle in the congestion.

MERCIFULLY, the traffic thinned once she left the center of town. She didn’t need to consult the map. She had already committed to memory the route she needed. There was a fork in the road after she crossed a bridge. She chose the posted left branch, climbing a long hill out of the river valley in which Heathside was nestled.

Jennifer caught her breath when she crested the rise. The immediate contrast between the town that had dropped out of sight behind her and the largely unoccupied expanse of moorland that stretched away in front of her was both sudden and startling.

She found herself clutching the wheel as the little Ford was shaken by the blasts of wind that, uninterrupted by any forest or settlement, blew with ferocity over the high, open moors.

It was early March, the days still short. But even with the afternoon light beginning to ebb, hastened by the mass of racing clouds overhead, Jennifer was able to appreciate the panorama of the treeless swells that rolled off to the horizon in every direction.

The Yorkshire moors were desolate affairs in any season, but in winter like this, with the turf and heather brown and barren, they were especially bleak. But there was also a raw beauty in this wild landscape. Jennifer could see it in the broken stone walls that framed the slopes, in the becks that tumbled through the folds between the hills, and in the tough grass where the occasional, rough-coated sheep browsed.

The road was a minor one, with few travelers. That didn’t worry her. Not until the rain turned into sleet, making the already wet pavement treacherous beneath her wheels.

It was then that Jennifer remembered the weather report she had heard on the car radio earlier today. A major storm was expected to blow in off the North Sea. With all that had happened back at the inn, she had forgotten about that forecast. But now, in all this remoteness, and with darkness approaching and the long road in front of her…

Turning on the radio, she tried to find a weather update. All she got was pop music.

She was so busy with the dial, while at the same time being careful how she drove, that she paid little attention to the vehicle behind her. There was no reason why another traveler shouldn’t be out here. In fact, his headlights slicing through the gloom were a comfort. An assurance that, no matter how isolated the sodden terrain, she wasn’t alone in this vastness.

Driven by the powerful wind, the sleet continued to sting the car, the wipers swishing across the glass working hard to keep the windshield clear. Just how bad was it going to get?

Jennifer worried about that as the winding road carried her across the endless tracts of vacant moorland. As the ice began to form on the road, she slowed her speed to avoid spinning into a ditch.

She couldn’t say at what point she became concerned with the vehicle behind her. She had expected the driver to turn off on one of the side lanes at some point or that, growing impatient with her crawl, he would pass her. He did neither. And, though he kept a safe distance behind her, what had seemed a comfort began to feel like an unnerving pursuit.

Reckless or not, she tried several times to lose him by increasing her speed, but he wasn’t to be shaken. That’s when it struck her. He was deliberately following her.

Had he been there all along? As far back as Heathside?

The light was too poor to identify his make. She had an impression of something large and dark-colored, maybe an SUV. Had an SUV tailed her out of town? There was something sinister about the possibility.

“What do you want?” she muttered. “Who are you?”

But Jennifer could guess exactly who he was. The man back at the inn! If he’d grown tired of waiting for her in the lobby, or suspicious of her failure to return to the inn, and had gone out on the street to look for her and spotted her emerging from the car park…

It had to be him, which meant her flight from the inn had been for nothing. Unless…

The sleet had stopped falling. The stretch of road ahead of her looked free of any slick spots. Though it was probably useless of her to make the effort, Jennifer squeezed the pedal to the floor.

The little car leaped forward, charging down into a glen and up the slope beyond. The road curled around a bend where a terrace had been sliced out of the hillside to carry the route.

She glanced into her rearview mirror. His headlights were no longer behind her. Had it been that easy?

Slowing the car, Jennifer peered through her side window, checking the deep hollow below her. There was no sign of the SUV. He couldn’t have just vanished.

Stopping the car, she backed up past a wall of gorse for a better view. That’s when she saw the SUV. It had left the road and landed in a ditch with its nose angled down against an enormous boulder.

An accident. He’d had an accident!

The temptation to throw the gear into forward and race away into the gloom was very strong. But Jennifer couldn’t bring herself to abandon him. What if he were injured, helpless?

Through the thickening twilight, she could just make out the door on the driver’s side of the SUV. She sat there on the elevation with her engine idling, waiting for that door to open, hoping he would climb out. That he would be all right. But nothing stirred.

Damn.

She had no choice about it. She had to go down there and do whatever she could to help him.

With careful maneuvering, she turned the car and drove back down the incline into the sheltered glen. When she reached the scene, she took the precaution of easing the Ford around again until it faced the direction of her destination. If this was all just a ruse to lure her into a trap, she wanted to be able to make a fast departure.

But when Jennifer left her car and almost lost her footing on a patch of ice, she was inclined to believe that the accident itself had been no trick. Her own vehicle had traveled over it without her even being aware of its existence, but the SUV must have spun off the road when its wheels struck the ice. A lone sheep, whose form she could dimly distinguish at the side of the road, might have been responsible for that if the driver had slammed his foot on the brake in an effort to avoid a collision with the animal.

Equipping herself with a flashlight from the glove compartment, Jennifer made her way down into the ditch. She felt a wetness on her cheek as she approached. That’s when she realized that flakes of snow were swirling through the air. This wasn’t good.

Nor was the sight of the man slumped over the wheel when she managed to scrape the door open and lean into the SUV. There was no movement or sound from him. He was either unconscious or—

Don’t think it.

Because, whether he was her enemy or not, she didn’t want him to be dead. Although she knew next to nothing about checking for vital signs, she reached for his limp arm and felt for a pulse on the back of his wrist.

After a few seconds of nervous searching, she managed to locate a slow, steady beat beneath flesh that was reassuringly warm. Her relief that he was alive was only momentary. There was still the possibility that he was seriously injured.

If she could see his face—

He was a solid man. She had to shove the flashlight into a deep pocket of her coat in order to free her hand. She needed both of her hands gripping his hard shoulder to haul him off the wheel and back against the seat. Recovering the flashlight, she switched it on, focusing its glow on his face.

It was a strong face, the same one she had seen at the inn, but there was noticeable swelling on the forehead. Probably the result of his head striking the wheel.

The vehicle looked like an older model, maybe before air bags were in general use, which would explain why none had deployed. But his seat belt—

No, she realized after a quick glance, the belt wasn’t buckled. Either he had foolishly neglected to wear it or had managed to unfasten it before he passed out.

Whatever the explanation, all that was important now was securing help for him, because he could have sustained injuries other than the bump on his forehead.

Backing out of the car, Jennifer swung her purse off her shoulder and fumbled inside it for her cell phone. When she tried it, the lighted display indicated no signal. Either the remoteness of the region or the weather must be responsible. It was snowing in earnest now.

Striving not to panic, Jennifer clambered out of the ditch and went to stand in the middle of the road. She looked in both directions, as though desperation alone could produce the gleam of headlights from an approaching car. But there was no other vehicle on the road. She was on her own.

The daylight was rapidly dying. And so might the man in the SUV if she didn’t do something about him. But what? Drive back to Heathside and bring help? No, it was too far away now. It would be better to go on to Warley Castle for help.

But there was a problem connected with that. The snow was already accumulating on the road. By the time she reached the castle, it might be too deep to permit any effort to rescue him.

Besides, Jennifer knew she couldn’t bring herself to leave him here. He needed immediate attention and shelter from a temperature that had become dangerously frigid. Her destination could provide both.

No choice about it then. She would have to take him with her. But how on earth was she to achieve that when he was unconscious? She couldn’t carry him to her car. He was much too heavy for that.

What was her chance of rousing him just long enough to coax him to shift himself under his own power into her car? Maybe not good, but it was all she had.

Sliding back into the Ford at the side of the road, she spent a few precious minutes positioning it on the shoulder as close to the ditch as she dared and with its passenger door directly opposite the back end of the SUV. He’d have only steps to go. Providing, that is, he could exert enough energy to climb out of the ditch.

Making sure the passenger door was wide open and ready to receive him, Jennifer eased herself down the slope that had now grown slick with snow. She eagerly hoped he would be awake when she arrived back at the driver’s side of the SUV. He wasn’t.

Bending down to scoop up a handful of snow, she leaned into the vehicle and rubbed the stuff over his face, thinking its icy wetness might revive him. There was no reaction.

All right, if an application of snow wasn’t going to work, then it was time to try something less gentle. Seizing his arm, she shook him vigorously, shouting into his face. “Come on, hear me, whoever you are, and open your eyes!”

To her joy, he groaned, but his eyes remained closed. She didn’t know what else to do, except to get tough. With the palm of her hand, she began to slap him across his beard-roughened cheeks.

Success! He stirred at last, cursing angrily and batting at her hand. “You try that again,” he growled, “and I’ll—”

“I will slap you again if you don’t listen to me. You have to come with me. I’m going to put you in my car and take you to a place where there will be someone to help you.”

No reaction.

“Do you understand? You’ve had an accident. You need to get out of your car and into mine. It’s only a few steps away. Can you manage that much if I help you?”

He mumbled something she didn’t comprehend. He was obviously dazed, perhaps in a bad state of shock, but her urgency must have reached him on some level because he began to drag himself out of the car.

He was weaving when he finally came erect beside the SUV. “Hurts,” he complained, pressing a hand against his chest.

Another concern, she thought. He must have injured more than just his head. There was no time to question it.

“We have to move. You can rest once you’re inside my car.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. She wondered if he had any idea at all who was speaking to him.

The next few minutes were difficult ones. Not only as solid as stone, he was tall, easily six feet or more in height. Supporting that weight, with her arm flung around his waist and his own arm draped over her shoulder, was a challenge she undertook but never wanted to repeat. Somehow, stumbling and staggering, they fought their way out of the ditch with the snow driving into their faces at a furious pace.

Jennifer was winded by the time they reached the Ford. She was able to deposit him in the passenger seat where he immediately collapsed, lapsing back into unconsciousness.

Although she wanted nothing more than to get them away from this place as quickly as possible, she spared another moment to trudge back to the SUV. The engine must have stalled when he smashed into the boulder, but the key was still turned on in the ignition and the headlights burning. She switched off the lights, pocketed the key, then trained her flashlight into the back. There was a suitcase on the seat.

Taking the piece of luggage with her, she went back to the road where she shoved it into the trunk of her car next to her own suitcase. Once behind the wheel of the Ford again, she leaned over him to fasten his seat belt in place. He might be in no state to care, but she did.

“No more risks,” she informed him.

She got no response.

THE SNOW AND THE WIND had been bad enough down in the glen. But once they were out on the high moors again, the conditions were fierce. The howling gale alone made the car, which trembled under its force, difficult to handle. The snow made it all the worse.

There were moments when Jennifer could barely see the road. And when she could see it, she was alarmed by the drifts that were building along the shoulders, spreading ridges onto the pavement itself.

She didn’t dare let herself imagine what would happen if the road became impassable before she reached her objective, if the car was no longer able to plow through those growing white swells. All she could trust herself to do was to stubbornly pursue the route, even though it carried her straight into the teeth of the raging storm.

From time to time, Jennifer glanced at her silent passenger sprawled in the seat beside her. He hadn’t stirred since they’d left the scene of the accident. His eyes remained closed, his body inert.

How bad was he? she wondered. And what good did it do to worry about him when she had done all she could by rescuing him from the crippled SUV? At least he was out of the cold now.

Since they were still wearing their coats, both of them were snug with the heater humming away, releasing a blessed warmth. But if they should become trapped out here, run out of gas and the heater quit on them—

What are you doing? Stop thinking about that. Just drive.

There was no other choice. But as the ribbon of road endlessly dipped and turned and rose again, Jennifer wondered if she had misjudged the distance. Or was it the blizzard that seemed to lengthen the miles?

They were in the very heart of the moors now, in its most isolated depths. It would be easy to miss the turning to Warley Castle now that it was dark and snowing so hard. She might already have passed it.

And then suddenly, unexpectedly, as she rounded a bend on the brow of a hill, the castle was there in front of her.

As if by a deliberate magic, the wind dropped at the same time the shroud of snow momentarily lifted. The clouds overhead briefly parted. Halting the car, Jennifer found herself looking across a valley at a steep-sided, craggy peak. The last faint light of day streamed down on the summit where, looking as though it had been carved out of the rock itself, the castle perched, like a great sailing ship in a turbulent sea.

No introduction to that medieval pile could have been more dramatic.

Sitting there, gazing at the structure, it seemed inconceivable to Jennifer that such a formidable fortress could contain anything so benevolent as a monastery. But that’s exactly what the castle housed, and had for centuries.

Guy had told her how Warley had come to be occupied by the brothers, but she didn’t want to remember the story now. The very thought of Guy awakened the shock of his death, and with it a rush of fear and anguish.

As though triggered by those dark emotions, the wind rose again while overhead the clouds closed the gap. With the pale light vanished, the castle became a mass of black stone, grim and forbidding.

The curtain of snow also descended again by the time Jennifer reached the turning on the floor of the valley. The little Ford valiantly climbed a twisting lane through banks of snow that threatened to soon block the way. With the engine straining, it seemed to take forever to crawl to the top of the rise where the castle loomed in front of them.

Made it, she thought thankfully as the car finally chugged through the portal of a massive gatehouse that once would have been barred by a lowered portcullis.

Swinging into the bailey, Jennifer brought the car to a stop and got out. The place was dim, with only a single lantern burning on one of the walls. But its light was sufficient enough to guide her to a heavy oak door. There was a chain suspended beside the door. She tugged on it, and from somewhere inside a bell clanged hollowly.

As she waited for a response, she looked over her shoulder where she had left her passenger in the car. There had been neither sound nor movement from him since they had left the glen.

Her mind was on him, wondering if he would recover, when the door scraped open. Head swiveling, she was startled by the sight of a robed figure standing in the shadows of the archway, his face hidden in the depths of a cowl.

An ancient castle, flickering light, a mysterious figure. It was the stuff of Gothic legends. But even before he spoke to her in a gentle voice, Jennifer knew she was being foolishly imaginative. There was nothing diabolical here. And of course he wore a robe with a cowl. This was a monastery, after all.

“What is it?” he inquired kindly. “Have you lost your way in the storm?”

“Please, I need your help. I have an injured man in my car, and I think he may be in a bad way.”

Chapter Two

Heat radiated from the glowing core of the peat fire. Huddled on a stool close to the wide hearth, Jennifer tried to keep warm without scorching herself.

There was apparently no central heating in the castle. Either funds didn’t permit it, or the good brothers were obeying a spartan existence dictated by their order.

The room they had given her was a testament to that. Its thick stone walls were unadorned except for a plain wooden cross. The furnishings were sparse and simple, though the bed looked comfortable enough even in the poor light. There was a single lamp on the bedside table, which made her think that the electricity must be limited to essential uses. But even with the menacing shadows in the corners, Jennifer was glad to be out of the storm, which had worsened since her arrival. She could hear the snow being driven against the window by a raging wind that battered the ancient walls.

Looking up from the fire, she cast a nervous glance in the direction of the closed door that connected her room with the one that adjoined it. Jennifer wondered what was happening behind it.

“We’ll let you know as soon as Brother Timothy has examined him,” she had been assured.

The monks assumed she was concerned about her unconscious passenger who had been installed in that other room. Although it was true that his condition mattered to her, they didn’t know that she was equally worried about his identity.

She had sacrificed an opportunity at the scene of the accident to search him, suppressing her longing to know who he was. Since he could be in a critical state, it had been far more important to get help for him without wasting a moment of time.

Jennifer regretted that lost opportunity now because she still knew nothing. She was certain of only one thing, that the man she had rescued was no one she had ever met before.

But whoever was with him now might be learning not just his identity but why he’d been pursuing her. And if he was carrying anything on him that implicated her in Guy’s murder, then—

Jennifer started at the sound of a knock on the hall door. Leaving the stool, she crossed the room to answer it. When she opened the door, a tall, almost gaunt figure stood there in the dimness of the passage. The habit he wore of coarse, undyed sheep’s wool identified him as one of the brothers. He bore a tray with covered dishes on it.

“I’ve brought you some supper,” he said. “If I might come in…”

“Please.”

She stood aside in the doorway. He glided on sandaled feet into the room where he paused to look around.

“In front of the hearth, I think. If you’ll just hold the tray for me, I’ll drag the table there into place.”

She took the tray from him, watching him as he drew a small table over to the fireplace. When he’d placed a chair at the side of the table, he recovered the tray from her and carried it to the table. Satisfied with the arrangement, he turned to her.

“I hope you don’t mind eating in your room. We do have a dining parlor for our guests, and tomorrow you’ll be able to have your meals there. But what with the weather and all, we’re in rather a muddle tonight. This seemed to be the most expedient way of seeing to it that you didn’t go hungry.”

“I don’t mind in the least. I’m just grateful to be here at all.”

“Yes, I understand you had rather a bad time of it out on the road. It’s Miss Rowan, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, Jennifer Rowan.”

“I’m Father Stephen, the abbot of Warley Monastery.”

Jennifer was surprised by his identity. She wouldn’t have expected the abbot himself to serve her like this. Nor was there anything about his robe, except perhaps for the heavy cross that dangled from the cord around his waist, to distinguish him from the other monks.

He must have sensed her confusion. “This was an opportunity for me to meet and welcome you to Warley,” he explained. “I’m sorry I was unable to come to you sooner, but there were other matters that needed my attention. Have they made you comfortable?”

“They have,” she assured him, though he needn’t have concerned himself.

The brother who had answered the bell in the courtyard and the monk he’d summoned to help him, had been efficient from the moment of her arrival. Taking charge, they had managed between them to move both her and her unconscious passenger into the area of the castle reserved for guests, delivered their luggage to the connecting rooms and even saw to it afterwards that her car was garaged in one of the old stables.

“In that case I’ll leave you to your supper.”

He started to move toward the hall door, but Jennifer stopped him.

“Father, before you go…”

“You have questions. Yes, that’s understandable.” He hesitated. “We’ll visit then for a few minutes.”

He waited until she was seated at the table before he placed himself on the stool across from her.

“You’d better eat your supper before it gets cold.”

Whatever his garb, she should have known he was a figure of authority. It was evident in his voice and manner. He had that kind of face, too, beneath his tonsure. It was narrow with deep grooves from his hawklike nose to his thin mouth. It would have been austere if it hadn’t been softened by a pair of cheerful blue eyes.

Jennifer uncovered the dishes on the tray, exposing a simple fare of thick vegetable soup, bread, slices of cheese, and a small bowl of stewed apricots. The soup was steaming and smelled delicious. Tasted delicious, too, when she began to spoon it into her mouth.

“Now for those questions,” he said.

She reached for a slice of bread, her gaze slewing in the direction of the connecting door that remained closed. He understood.

“You’re wondering about the condition of our patient.”

“Is he awake, Father?”

The abbot shook his head. “Not yet, no. But I had an encouraging report from Brother Timothy who saw him earlier. Brother Timothy doesn’t think his injuries are serious.”

“And Brother Timothy is…”

“Our healer in charge of both the infirmary and the dispensary. He’s quite knowledgeable.”

“Does that mean he was in medicine before he joined the order?”

Father Stephen chuckled. “Brother Timothy was a prize fighter before he came to us. By his own admission, not a very good one. But he claims that all the punishment he suffered in the ring has turned out to be quite beneficial. There aren’t many injuries he didn’t learn how to treat, the external ones in particular.”

The abbot paused, glancing down at her hand. Only then did Jennifer realize she’d been unconsciously crumbling the bread into bits. It was a result of her tension over the man in the next room. She’d have to be more careful. She didn’t want Father Stephen to suspect that she was worried about more than the health of Brother Timothy’s patient.

She took a fresh slice of bread and went on with her soup.

“Of course,” the abbot continued, “capable though our Brother Timothy is, whenever there is any question about an injury or an illness, we don’t hesitate to consult with a doctor in Heathside. Unfortunately, that won’t be possible in this case.”

“Oh?”

“Both the phone and power lines are down. It happens more often than we’d like with our situation as exposed as it is, which is why we have a generator. It’s enough to operate our water pump, as well as permit us a reduced number of electric lamps.”

That explained the poor lighting in the castle. The generator was obviously unable to provide anything but essential power during any outage.

“Will the lines be restored tomorrow, Father?”

He shook his head. “Doubtful with this storm. By morning the road will be blocked with heavy snow. I’ve seen it happen before. And the forecast promises more of the same for the next few days.”

“So we’re cut off until the weather clears.”

“It’s the price we pay for the seclusion we prize.”

Jennifer knew about that seclusion. She thought again of the story Guy had told her that explained the monastery’s unlikely existence in a castle. How, at the time of the Dissolution in the sixteenth century, the brothers had been driven out of their abbey, their properties stripped from them. Warley’s devout owner had risked his life and his own wealth by offering them the castle, which had been abandoned by his titled family in the previous century for a more convenient location. The order had managed to survive at Warley only because its extreme isolation drew no attention to them.

And now Jennifer was stranded in all this vast solitude. It could work for her, give her the time she needed. Or it could be a disadvantage. She thought of the man lying in the room next door. Everything depended on him.

Wanting to be in no suspicious hurry about what she was so anxious to know, she tried the cheese but found it too strong for her taste. She finished the soup, then framed her question in what she hoped was a casual tone as she laid down her spoon.

“I’ve been wondering, Father, whether anyone managed to find some identification on the patient.”

“Yes, I’d forgotten that I was told you mentioned when you arrived you have no connection with this man. You happened to be passing when you saw his car in the ditch, wasn’t that it? Well, he was fortunate you were on the road and found him.”

Jennifer didn’t correct him, allowing him to believe it was all just by chance.

“Since he owes his life to you, he shouldn’t remain a stranger. Brother Timothy was able to learn his identity from both his driver’s license in his wallet and the passport he carries. His name is Leo McKenzie. An American like you, I believe.”

Leo McKenzie. No, she didn’t recognize the name. It meant nothing to her. “I wonder. Did Brother Timothy happen to find anything else on him?”

She had gone too far in her desire to know whether Leo McKenzie was connected somehow with the London police. Jennifer realized that immediately when Father Stephen gazed at her thoughtfully. Was there a hint of suspicion now in those intelligent blue eyes?

“Did you have something particular in mind?” he asked her slowly.

Hoping to cover her mistake, she turned to the dish of stewed apricots. “Only,” she replied nonchalantly, “that he probably has family or friends somewhere who could be worried about him, and if we knew who they were—”

“They should be contacted. I see what you mean. No, Brother Timothy said nothing about any evidence on him of family or friends. We’ll have to wait until Leo McKenzie is awake to learn that. In any case, nothing can be done in that direction until we can communicate again with the outside world.”

Jennifer began on the apricots. They had a sour flavor, but she didn’t feel she could leave them uneaten, as she had the cheese. It would look as if she didn’t appreciate the meal.

“In the meantime,” the abbot said, getting to his feet, “you and our patient are safe here. I can only give thanks that providence led you out of the storm to our door.”

Jennifer could have left it at that, but she knew that Father Stephen would have to be told at least a part of the truth at some point. It might as well be now.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t anything like that, Father.”

“Then you weren’t lost out on the road when you found us?”

“No. Warley Castle was my destination all along.”

“I see.” Puzzled, the abbot lowered himself again on the stool. “But, of course, I don’t see at all.”

Jennifer tried to explain without telling him what she couldn’t afford to reveal. “I came to see one of the brothers. It’s something that…well, I need his help. I’m not at all certain he can provide it, but I’m hoping he can.”

“One of our order, you say.” He was understandably surprised. “And this would be?”

“Brother Anthony. He is here, isn’t he?”

“He is, yes,” the abbot admitted, sounding suddenly reluctant now. He had to be wondering just why she needed to speak to Brother Anthony. Maybe his position even entitled him to know, but he remained polite. “However, I’m sorry to tell you that you won’t be able to see him.”

“May I ask why, Father?”

“Brother Anthony is cloistered in his cell under a self-imposed vow of silence.”

“I don’t understand.”

The abbot hesitated, looking at her solemnly. Her disappointment must have been all too evident, because in the end he relented.

“I don’t suppose there’s any reason you shouldn’t know. Brother Anthony recently came back from London where he met with an old friend.”

On behalf of the monastery. The abbot probably wouldn’t tell her that, but then he didn’t have to. Jennifer knew all about it.

“This morning,” Father Stephen continued, “Brother Anthony learned of the death of that friend.”

Guy’s murder, Jennifer thought.

“I think you can appreciate just how shocked and upset our Brother Anthony was. His friend was very dear to him.”

“But to restrict himself to his cell…”

“You think it extreme. It isn’t, you know. Not when you understand, as we do, that there are times when one of our order needs absolute solitude for prayer and meditation.”

“I can respect that, Father, but I was just wondering…”

“What?”

“Whether Brother Anthony was troubled even before he heard of his friend’s death.”

Jennifer knew that the monk had, in fact, been worried when he visited Guy in London. Guy had confided as much to her. And this, among other reasons, was what had brought her to Warley Castle. But she couldn’t tell the abbot this without disclosing her connection to Guy. That would be a dangerous admission that could destroy her chance of getting answers.

Or maybe she had already lost her opportunity. She could see by the guarded expression on the abbot’s face that her probing had again been a mistake. He was definitely uncertain about her motives now.

“That isn’t something I can tell you.”

Because he didn’t know, she wondered. Or because he was being protective of Brother Anthony? It was understandable. His role must require him to safeguard all the members of his community.

Jennifer heard the slow tolling of a bell somewhere off in the distance.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” the abbot said, coming to his feet again. “I need to be in the refectory for vespers and our evening meal.”

Jennifer didn’t think it was her imagination that his tone was on the severe side when, crossing the room to the door, he turned to address her again.

“We’ll let you know when Brother Anthony is able to speak to you. I can’t say just when that will be. Until then, you’re welcome to move around the castle. With one exception. I must ask that you not try to visit the wing occupied by the monastery itself.”

A warning because he didn’t trust her not to try to see Brother Anthony in his cell? Or because the brothers’ domain was off limits to any secular outsiders, especially women?

“I’ll remember that.”

“Don’t concern yourself about the tray. It can be collected in the morning. Good night, Miss Rowan.”

He slipped out of the room. She gazed at the door that closed silently behind him. Whatever his wariness with her in the end, she decided that she liked Father Stephen, even though his formal manner and mode of speech struck her as oddly old-fashioned. But then, from the moment of her arrival at Warley, Jennifer had felt as though she’d gone back in time to another age. One in which the innocent battled dark forces. And didn’t always win.

IT HAD BEEN a long and daunting day. Jennifer’s exhaustion should have guaranteed her a solid, uninterrupted sleep when she climbed into bed. It didn’t work that way.

She found herself awake and restless, listening to the mournful wind outside. At some point she heard the soft tolling of the bell again that measured the canonical hours of devotion.

Another hour must have passed before Jennifer realized how cold the room was. The fire had dwindled to smoldering embers. Turning on the bedside lamp, she pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She shivered when she came to her feet. Her robe was draped over the chair. She reached for it, hugging its thick folds around her as she padded on bare feet to the fireplace where she fed the grate with fresh peat chunks from the basket beside the hearth.

Safe, she thought as she crouched there, feeling the heat from the glow that slowly developed. That’s what Father Stephen had told her. That she was safe now in the sanctuary of the monastery.

The abbot had meant she was safe from the harsh weather. He didn’t know she was threatened by something far worse than the elements.

And right now, she thought, gazing at the connecting door, that something was not only in the monastery with her but inside the room behind that door.

Father Stephen had informed her that Leo McKenzie’s identity had been established by his driver’s license and his American passport. Nothing had been said about a discovery of anything that would give her a reason to be alarmed. But what if there was something?

It was no use. Jennifer knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had satisfied herself that Leo McKenzie wasn’t carrying something that incriminated her. If not, she might at least be able to learn how he had traced her to Yorkshire. And why he’d been hunting for her.

She crossed the room and put her ear against the connecting door, listening. Silence. She tried the door. It was unlocked.

Opening the door slowly and carefully, hoping she wouldn’t find him awake, she entered the room.

A single lamp burning on the bedside table revealed that the chamber was similar to her own. What she could see of it, anyway. The light here was also weak, leaving the corners in darkness. But it was sufficient to show her the man on the bed.

He lay on his back, his eyes closed. It wasn’t his face, though, that immediately captured her attention. The blanket that should have fully covered him had somehow gotten tangled down around his waist, exposing his chest. A sleekly muscled chest that was naked except for some kind of white band wound tightly around the lower part of his rib cage.

Riveted by the sight of the powerful shoulders above that wrapping, Jennifer was suddenly nervous about approaching the bed. She went on standing there just inside the door. Then, directing her gaze elsewhere, she discovered his belongings that had been removed from his clothing. They had been dumped on the seat of a chair beside the bed. His wallet was among them.

The temptation to search those personal belongings was as strong as ever, but she hesitated. If there was anything in that collection that incriminated her, wouldn’t Brother Timothy have discovered it and alerted the abbot?

Now that she thought of it, it didn’t make sense that Leo McKenzie had been sent by the London police to find and arrest her. If she was a wanted woman now, then the local police would have been asked to handle it. Wouldn’t they?

But Jennifer was no longer certain of anything. She had to know. Summoning her courage, she started to move in the direction of the chair. And was halted by the sound of Leo McKenzie mumbling in his sleep as he stirred on the bed.

“Lad’s restless.”

Jennifer whirled around with a startled gasp.

The voice, like gravel, went on speaking to her from one of the dark corners of the room. “Keeps throwing off his covers. I’ve given up trying to keep them up about his chin where they belong. Don’t think he minds the cold at all.”

A chair creaked as the man whose silent presence she’d been unaware of until this moment rose and moved forward into the light.

“Still, it’s a good sign he’s restless,” he said. “Tells me he’s not gone and sunk hisself into a coma. You’ll be Miss Rowan, is it?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Brother Timothy,” he introduced himself. “They’ll have told you I’m minding the patient.”

In spite of the robe he wore, he looked more like the hefty prize fighter he’d been than the monk he was now. His round, ruddy face with its broken nose also belonged to a boxer. But his grin was good-natured.

“Gave you a bit of a start, did I?”

“I didn’t know you were still with him.”

“Thought I’d better spend the night here. With a bump on the head like that, there’s always the chance of a concussion, you see. Have to be watchful for that. I expect you came in to check on him yourself.”

“Yes,” Jennifer lied, “I was worried about him.”

“Mind you, he’s not out of the woods,” Brother Timothy said, bending over the bed, “but he’ll come around yet, stout lad like him.”

“That’s good.”

“Grumbled about his ribs being sore when I examined him. I’m of a mind he’s just bruised there, nothing broken, but I taped him up. Can’t be certain that it isn’t a cracked rib. No trouble breathing, anyway.”

“And he is sleeping.”

“Sleep is the ticket all right, and I gave him something to be sure he did just that.” Brother Timothy chuckled. “But he’s been fighting it. Not a man who likes to be helpless, I’m thinking.”

Scratching the fringe of graying hair below his tonsure, the monk gazed at her, as if wondering whether she had anything further she wanted to know.

There was a great deal that Jennifer did want to know about Leo McKenzie, but Brother Timothy wouldn’t be able to provide that information. Nor, while the monk remained here keeping his vigil, could she attempt to learn it on her own. She would have to wait for her answers.

“Well, since he’s in such good hands…”

Wishing Brother Timothy a good night, Jennifer retreated to her room.

Tomorrow, she promised herself as she closed the connecting door behind her.

IT WASN’T DAYLIGHT, however, that awakened her some hours later. Nor was it the desire for those answers. This was something else. And though Jennifer initially resisted the summons as she drifted back to consciousness, in the end she could no longer ignore its urgency.

She needed a bathroom.

You might as well give in, because it’s not going to go away.

“Fine,” she muttered, fully awake now as she emerged from the covers under which she was burrowed.

But, of course, it wasn’t fine at all. Not when it was the middle of the night. The blackness at her window told her that even before she peered at her watch, after almost upsetting the lamp when she fumbled for the switch. And the room was frigid.

When her feet hit the icy floor, she couldn’t slide them into her slippers fast enough. She reached for her robe and bundled into it, snugging the belt around her waist.

Better, but a hotel accommodation equipped with its own bathroom would have been better still. This was not a hotel, she reminded herself. It was Warley Castle, and private bathrooms were nonexistent.

There was a single bathroom reserved for guests. That is, if she could remember how to get to it. One of the brothers had conducted her to the facility shortly after her arrival. Jennifer had hoped not to have to visit it again before morning, but the call of nature wasn’t going to be denied.

The wind continued to snarl outside, muffled by the thick walls. She could barely hear it in the passageway that stretched away in front of her, cold and gloomy in the dim light.

Warley Castle was a big place. Its stone-vaulted corridors seemed to meander in every direction from level to level, so medieval in character that flickering torches mounted on its walls would have been more appropriate than the electric lights that were located at inadequate intervals.

It was either by chance, or because her memory was served by necessity, that Jennifer found the bathroom. But once she had used the primitive plumbing and was on her way back to her room, that memory failed her.

She realized after several minutes of wandering that she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. There was nothing familiar now about the route. She was lost. Coming to a stop beneath one of the weak lanterns high on the wall, she tried to get her bearings.

Jennifer thought of herself as a realist and not easily unnerved, even about things she couldn’t readily explain. So maybe what happened next was simply because of the setting. The absolute stillness of this dim passage was certainly eerie enough to activate the imagination, making her suddenly aware of her aloneness here.

Except she wasn’t alone, because without warning a figure appeared down at the end of the corridor that stretched away into the shadows, moving toward her. His long, pale robe identified him as one of the monks. Help at last!

“I can’t seem to find my way back to my room,” she called out to him. “Can you direct me, please?”

He must have heard her, but he didn’t answer her. Didn’t so much as pause as he continued to glide along the passage.

“Hello,” she called again.

Still no response. How could he not be conscious of her presence? And his gait…there was something not right about his gait. It was so slow and smooth, as if he weren’t walking but floating. Like a wraith.

Jennifer was no longer relieved by his arrival. In fact, she was far less than that when he turned and suddenly disappeared, as if he’d passed through a solid wall. Alone again, she shivered.

Not a ghost, she told herself firmly. There had to be an explanation, probably a cross passage down which he had vanished. But she was in no mood to investigate that likelihood. All she wanted was to get away from here and back to her room.

Swinging around with the intention of retracing her route, Jennifer slammed into a wall. It was a barrier composed not of stone or timber but of hard flesh.

Uttering a little cry of alarm, she threw up her hands in a gesture of self-defense. Her palms came into searing contact with a warm, naked chest. Although he had managed to sneak up behind her without a sound, there was no question of any apparition this time. He was very real.

Her gaze collided with his, and for a long moment she found herself trapped by a pair of whiskey-colored eyes that burned into hers with a disarming intensity. She wasn’t sure at what point she realized it wasn’t only his gaze that held her. A pair of strong hands grasped her by the elbows, locking her against him.

Her palms, still flat against that tantalizing chest, seemed to sizzle. She removed them with a breathless “Let me go.”

But he didn’t release her. He went on staring at her with a harsh expression in his eyes. Then, in a slow, gruff voice, he warned her, “It won’t do you any good to run. Wherever you go, I’ll find you.”

There was something about the way he said it, something in his entire manner that—

It struck her then. Leo McKenzie didn’t know what he was saying, probably didn’t know how he had managed to slip away from Brother Timothy and catch her here. He was disoriented. Was it the result of whatever kind of sedative the monk had given him, or—

Disassociated fugue.

A condition caused by a trauma, like a blow to the head. It could leave the victim confused, not responsible for his actions or his words, even rob him of any memory of his behavior afterwards. Leo McKenzie had suffered such a blow in the accident.

Was he dangerous like this? Maybe not, but the situation was far too intimate for comfort. She was suddenly conscious of things she hadn’t noticed before. Unsettling things, like the stubble on his jaw and the tattoo of a salamander that wrapped itself halfway around his right bicep. They made him look tough.

And, admit it, sexy.

Uh-uh, much as she longed for the answers, this was definitely not the time to ask him how and why he had pursued her to Yorkshire. Even if she wasn’t afraid of him, and that was not a certainty, he was in no state for any rational conversation.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised him as gently as possible, “so you don’t need to hang onto me any longer.”

Those hypnotic, whiskey-colored eyes continued to search her own eyes, narrowing now as if he were wondering whether he could trust her.

“Please,” she added softly.

For a moment she wondered whether he understood her plea. Then his hands on her elbows slowly relaxed. Taking a deep breath, Jennifer removed herself from his grip and put several safe feet between them.

He looked so suddenly bewildered that she felt sorry for him. Especially when, able to look down his full length now, she saw that he wore nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that Brother Timothy must have dug out of his suitcase.

Jennifer was no expert on what the modern man wore to bed. From her limited experience, guys either slept in the raw or in T-shirts and boxer shorts. But Leo McKenzie’s hard body in those bottoms could have started a whole new craze for pajamas.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked him, noticing that his feet were bare against the stone-flagged floor.

He didn’t answer her.

“You must be cold. Come on,” she coaxed him, “let me take you back to your room.”

Would he go with her, or would he resist? He hesitated for a few seconds when she started to edge away along the passage, but then he willingly fell into step beside her. Good. Now she had only one other problem. Exactly where were their rooms?

She needn’t have worried. Dazed or not, his sense of direction was better than hers. She ended up following him, and by some instinct she didn’t understand, maybe the same one that had led him to her, he took them straight back to their rooms.

A worried Brother Timothy burst out of Leo’s room when they arrived. “Praise the saints, you found him!” he welcomed Jennifer. “I went and dozed off in that chair, I’m ashamed to say, and when I opened my eyes again he was gone.”

“I ran into him on my way back from a visit to the loo,” Jennifer said, using the British term for a bathroom for the sake of clarity. She didn’t feel the need to offer any further explanation about the whole episode. Brother Timothy looked worried enough.

“He’s all right then, is he?”

“I think so. Just…well, not with it yet.”

“That’d be the medicine.” He turned to his patient. “Come on, matey, you’ve been busy enough for one night. Let’s get you back to bed where you belong.”

Silent and docile now, Leo permitted the monk to take him inside the bedroom. Brother Timothy thanked Jennifer, wished her a good night, and closed the door behind them.

Jennifer entered her own bedroom, threw more peat on the smoking remains of the fire in the grate and crawled into bed. She, too, had had enough for one night.

Her brain refused to shut down, though. It was infuriatingly busy with the image of Leo McKenzie. That encounter with him in the passage had impacted her far more strongly than she cared to admit. Her hands still tingled from their contact with his chest.

Damn. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

Chapter Three

No more midnight spooks, Jennifer thought with relief, opening her eyes to the first gray light of morning seeping into the room.

Or maybe she wasn’t relieved. A glance in the direction of the window showed her that the snow was still coming down. Just how bad was it?

Very bad, she decided when, leaving her bed with her robe clutched around her, she went to the glass and looked out. Or tried to look out. The snow was so thick that she could barely glimpse the savage, white landscape. Father Stephen hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her the storm would leave them isolated, perhaps for several days.

Jennifer was tempted to climb back into bed and bury herself again under the warm blankets. Except…

Turning her head, she gazed at the closed door to the room that connected with hers. If this should turn out to be the opportunity she’d been hoping for, she couldn’t afford to waste it.

Crossing the room, she listened at the door. She could hear nothing but the eternal moan of the wind. The hour was very early. Chances were the occupants of that room were asleep. It was worth the risk. But this time she wouldn’t make the mistake of sneaking in there and getting caught by an alert Brother Timothy, who might not regard a second visit as innocent.

Jennifer’s rap on the door was soft enough not to rouse anyone but loud enough to be heard if one of them was awake. There was no response.

Turning the iron ring that served as a handle, she inched the door open and peered around its edge. Like her own, the room was murky with shadows. But the light from the window, feeble though it was, revealed that Brother Timothy had departed. He must have determined that his patient no longer needed his presence.

Leo McKenzie was not restless this morning. His tall figure stretched out on the bed never stirred as Jennifer crept across the room. Reaching the chair at his bedside, she looked down at him, wanting to be sure he was as deeply, peacefully asleep as he appeared to be.

That was evident with a glance. There was no reason for her gaze to linger on his face, to be interested in those square-jawed, craggy features softened by a wide, sensual mouth. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a small, crescent-shaped, white scar high on his left cheek. A result of what? she wondered.

What was she doing? This man could be her enemy, probably was, and here she stood being susceptible again to his masculinity while wondering about a scar on his cheek. What difference did it make how he had come to have the scar?

Just get on with it.

Crouching down beside the chair, she considered the collection of his personal belongings spread out on the seat. A handful of coins, a comb, a belt, a set of keys, sunglasses tucked into a case, his passport and his wallet.

The wallet seemed the likeliest prospect. Jennifer started to reach for it, and then hesitated. She hated this. Hated the necessity of having to mine someone’s privacy, to dig out whatever secrets he might be concealing. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? It was necessary.

Smothering her guilt, she snatched up the wallet and opened it. It was a bulky thing that carried his American driver’s license along with the usual credit cards. Folded among them were two kinds of currency, American bills mixed in with British pound notes of various denominations.

But what was this?

Tucked between the bills were several identical business cards, probably ignored by Brother Timothy who must have looked no further after satisfying himself with the information provided by the passport and the driver’s license. Jennifer removed one of the cards and read the bold print.

Leo McKenzie, Private Investigator.

Apprehensive now, her gaze flashed from the face of the card to the face of the man asleep on the bed beside her.

Leo McKenzie was a P.I.? But what was an American P.I. doing over here in England? More to the point, why should he be after her?

She supposed she could have waited until he was awake and then demanded an explanation from him. Assuming, that is, he would be in any state today to make sense. Or that he would be willing to tell her.

But she was in no mood to wait. She had waited long enough. She wanted answers now. Still hoping that the wallet could give them to her, she turned her attention back to its contents.

There was a series of plastic windows, the kind that displayed insurance cards and photographs. Jennifer rapidly flipped through them, passed the only photograph they contained and then, seized by something familiar, came immediately back to the solitary picture.

The once clear plastic was clouded from long use, blurring the photo. Removing it from the sleeve for a better look, she stared at it. It was a snapshot of two young men still in their teens, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders as they gazed into the lens of the camera.

The taller of the two wore a cocky grin. Jennifer judged that nearly two decades must have passed since he’d posed for that snapshot, but she was able to recognize him. It was Leo McKenzie. And the other one…

She sucked in her breath and then released it slowly.

Oh, yes, she was able to identify him, too. Guy Spalding, the man whose murder back in London she feared that sooner or later she could be charged with.

Leo and Guy. This was the connection. They’d known each other. But how could Leo McKenzie have—

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She’d been so intent on examining the snapshot that she’d forgotten to be cautious. Had failed to be aware that the man on the bed had awakened and discovered her investigating his wallet.

Alarmed, her gaze shifted from the young face in the photograph to its mature, coldly angry counterpart.

“If you’re through snooping,” he said, his voice early-morning husky, “then I’d like to have those back.”

His hand shot out, plucking the wallet and the snapshot from her fingers. With both of them back in his possession, he shoved himself up against the headboard, those mesmerizing, whiskey-colored eyes wearing a challenge as they glowered at her.

“Satisfied yourself, have you?”

“I haven’t even begun to be satisfied.” Jennifer herself was angry now as she got to her feet. “I saw one of your business cards in that wallet, and unless you’re licensed to operate here in the U.K., and I very much doubt that you are, then you have no right to investigate me, much less the authority to follow me to Yorkshire.”

“You think that’s what I’ve been doing and that it entitles you to answers?”

“You bet I do. And you can start with the snapshot. You obviously knew Guy, but I can’t believe you were friends, long-time or otherwise.”

“Why not?”

“Because, frankly, I don’t see how you could have had anything in common with him.”

“Meaning that he had cultivated tastes and I’m some kind of a lout who wouldn’t know Chinese Chippendale from Chinese checkers? Maybe you’re right. But we had something in common all right. Our mother.”

Jennifer stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying you were brothers? But how is that possible when—”

“He was a Spalding, and I’m a McKenzie? Half brothers, Jenny.”

No one called her Jenny, but she didn’t bother to correct him. “I didn’t know,” she said.

Not that Guy would have had any particular reason to mention it to her. Their relationship hadn’t reached the stage of intimate confidences, whatever his efforts in that direction. But she was still very surprised.

“Didn’t you?” he said.

She didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if she weren’t to be trusted about anything she said.

“So, okay,” he relented, “I guess it’s understandable he didn’t tell you about me. Why should he when Guy and I didn’t see a whole lot of each other after our mother died. We were separated when her first husband, who was English, took him back to London, and my own father kept me in the States. But there was always a bond between us, maybe because we were the only family each other had after our fathers were gone.”

All of which meant he must be determined to bring his brother’s murderer to justice, and if he was somehow convinced that she—

But she didn’t know that was his reason for following her. Not for sure. She wasn’t even certain that he had recovered his memory of yesterday’s events, though he seemed entirely lucid this morning.

“Do you know where you’re at, or how you got here?”

“Testing me?” His slow smile wore something of the cocky grin in that photo. “I’ve a pretty good idea, yeah.”

Brother Timothy must have explained it to him at some point. But whether he had any recollection of his encounter with her out in the passage last night was another matter. Maybe not. Maybe it had just been some P.I.’s instinct kicking in so that, dazed though he’d been, he’d left the room to search for her. Whatever the explanation, she had no intention of reminding him of that uncomfortable episode.

“What are you wondering now, Jenny? Whether I’m going to be okay, or whether I’m a candidate for the nearest hospital?”

He was observant all right. He had caught her eyeing the injury on his forehead, where the swelling was considerably diminished, and the tape wrapped around the lower half of that sinewy bare chest.

“I hate to disappoint you, but it’s like this….”

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up on its edge. There was something provocative about the way he leaned toward her so earnestly, his dark hair tousled, his unshaven face flushed, as though he’d spent a long night doing more than just sleeping.

Damning her treacherous imagination, she backed several inches away from him. There was no question of it. Leo McKenzie was a threat to her on more than one level.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he finished informing her emphatically. “Nothing that a monk’s medicine and a night in bed haven’t already fixed. So, while I’m grateful for both your rescue and your concern, if you think I might be too helpless to keep you from running again—”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you after me?”

“My brother was murdered. I’d kind of like to see that his killer pays for that.”

“And you think that I’m the one who murdered him?”

“It occurred to me that you might know something about it anyway, especially after what Barbara had to tell me.”

“Barbara?”

“Yeah, Barbara, his wife. Or do you want to pretend that you didn’t know Guy was married?”

“I didn’t, not until the day before his death.”

“Funny, because Barbara seemed to think you knew all about her. She was in a bad state when she called me at home and begged me to fly over to try to talk some sense into Guy.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Enough to worry me. I got the full details on the way into London when Barbara picked me up at Heathrow the night before last. How Guy had told her he was crazy about you and that he wanted a divorce. How you were already so wildly possessive of him that you’d do anything to have him, including breaking up his marriage.”

Jennifer was dumbfounded. She knew that Guy had been in love with her, or foolishly claimed to be, but to tell his wife such outrageous lies…

“And you believed what she told you?”

“I believed she believed it. As for me, I wanted to talk to Guy before I got real serious about it. Only I never got the chance. The police were there to meet us with the bad news when Barbara and I got to his shop.”

Guy’s esteemed antique business on Great Brompton Road where he had been murdered. The scene haunted Jennifer.

“And you immediately assumed I was the one who killed him? How could you? Or weren’t you told that the police questioned me and were satisfied I wasn’t a suspect?”

“Neither Barbara or I assumed anything. And, yes, I was told you weren’t a suspect. But a P.I. likes to ask his own questions, especially when they concern the death of his brother. Went to your mews cottage the next morning, Jenny, to ask those questions. You weren’t there. A neighbor told me you were in a big hurry when he saw you coming away with your suitcase. Said you went tearing up the street in a small, green Ford. Kind of suspicious to run away like that, wouldn’t you say?”

“And that made me guilty?”

“Not guilty. Not yet. Let’s just say your action makes you a strong possibility. After all, you were involved with Guy. But if you’re so innocent—”

“I am innocent.”

“Then why are you on the run?”

“I have my reasons. Good ones.” But Jennifer wasn’t ready to share them. She still wanted answers. “Just how did you find me?”

“You were careless, Jenny. You must have called directory assistance and then jotted down the number they gave you.”

On the back of an old bill next to the telephone. She remembered that and how afterwards she had crumpled up the bill and tossed it into the wastebasket.

“I called the number,” he said. “Turned out to be the King’s Head Inn in Heathside. I took a chance and told them I was Jennifer Rowan’s husband just checking to be sure they had my wife’s reservation for a room. It paid off. They were happy to verify your reservation.”

“You broke into my cottage and went through my wastebasket? You had no right,” she accused him, resenting the man’s total brashness.

“Now how else could I look for some evidence of where you might have gone?”

“And, of course, you didn’t share that evidence with the police.”

“Didn’t think they’d like hearing I entered your cottage.” His eyes narrowed. “Besides, it had become very personal by then.”

So personal, Jennifer thought, that she realized Leo McKenzie would go to any length to see his brother’s killer convicted of his murder. And if she was his chief suspect, maybe his only suspect at the moment, then maybe he was prepared to wring the truth out of her, no matter what it cost either of them. And the police be damned.

Guy and Leo. She was still shaken by the revelation that they had been half brothers. There was nothing about their characters or looks that were alike. Except for one thing. Guy, too, had been single-minded in his determination to go after what he wanted.

“I’m waiting, Jenny,” he said, sounding patient about it.

But she knew he wasn’t patient at all. He had given her his story, and now he demanded hers.

“What’s the point?” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Haven’t you already condemned me?”

“I don’t remember saying that. Hell, I’m a reasonable man, willing to listen to all the arguments. Maybe you’ve got a good one. So, go on, tell me, and if I like what I hear—”

“What?” she cut him off sharply. “You’ll reconsider your judgmental opinion of me?”

“Depends on how well you explain what made you run to Yorkshire. And while you’re at it, don’t leave out the Warley Madonna.”

He had surprised her again. “You know about the Madonna?”

“It’s no secret it’s missing. What do you know about it, Jenny?”

But whatever she told him, if she decided to tell him anything at all, would have to wait. They were interrupted by a tap on the hall door. Before either of them could answer it, the door opened and the cheerful face of Brother Timothy poked around its edge.

“Looks a rare treat, this does. The both of you awake, and my patient sitting there like he no longer needs me. Feeling better, are you, lad?”

Leo grinned at the monk. “The cure would be complete, friar, with a cup of strong coffee.”

“If you’re up to it, I’m thinking we can do better than that.” Brother Timothy came into the room. “There’ll be breakfast waiting for the two of you in the guests’ dining parlor. Or a tray here for you, lad, if you’re of a mind to keep to your bed for a bit.”

“No trays,” Leo said firmly. “I’m ready to join the living.”

“That’s the ticket. Give you a chance to meet the others in your dining parlor.”

“There are other guests in the castle?” Jennifer asked him.

“There are.”

This was certainly unexpected. Maybe it was what Father Stephen had meant last night when he’d mentioned that other matters had delayed him in welcoming her to Warley. Had he been attending to those guests?

“The lot of you will make a regular party,” Brother Timothy said. “Now, they’ve had their turns in the bath, so I’m guessing you’ll want your own, and then I’ll take you down.”

Not only unexpected, she thought, but another complication.

A SHOWER AND A SHAVE had Leo feeling halfway human again. Getting the meal inside him that Brother Timothy had promised them would be even better.

Not that breakfast was the most important thing on his mind, he thought, eyeing the closed door to the room that adjoined his as he tucked the tail of a fresh shirt inside the waistband of his jeans. She was on the other side of that door, waiting for the monk to come back and conduct them to the dining parlor.

Yeah, she was on his mind all right. More than he wanted her to be, and that worried him.

Jennifer Rowan was not what Barbara had led him to expect. The treacherous seductress who had stolen her husband. Oh, maybe she did physically fit the image, with that shoulder-length hair the color of rich mahogany, a pair of jade-green eyes and a body that a man would eagerly welcome into his bed.

He could see why Guy had been captivated by her. He was susceptible to that allure himself, and if he didn’t watch himself…

The thing of it was, though, nothing else about Jennifer smacked of a conniving woman. She struck Leo as being intelligent, independent, not lacking spirit and scared. Scared with good reason, considering the circumstances.

Okay, maybe all that vulnerability, the kind that made a man want to be protective of such a woman, was nothing more than an illusion. Her face alone could be responsible for that. He remembered that his ex-wife had angelic features like that.

But there had been no angel underneath, he sourly reminded himself, dragging a sweater over his head.

Leo hadn’t trusted a sweet face and a hot body since then.

Anyway, he knew from his work that what people were on the outside seldom matched what they were inside. Look at how he had caught her going through his things. Maybe just an act of desperation. Or maybe she was guilty of something. Because if she were so damn innocent, why had she run? He kept coming back to that.

Sliding his feet into a pair of loafers, he looked at the closed door again.

He could swear Jennifer had been relieved by Brother Timothy’s interruption, and afterwards she couldn’t escape into her own room fast enough. Why? Had she been panicked by Leo’s demand to hear her version of her involvement with Guy and the explanation for her flight from London the morning after his murder? Had she needed to get away from Leo long enough to put together a convincing story?

He wasn’t certain of anything at this point except his frustration. As hungry as he was, breakfast meant a delay, and he wanted to hear Jennifer Rowan’s story. Needed to hear it.

Only that wasn’t completely true. There was one other certainty. He couldn’t stop thinking of that enticing mouth of hers and how they were stranded here together.

Hell, none of this was going to be easy.

“YOU’RE SURE of it now, are you?” Brother Timothy asked as he escorted them along the corridor.

“I’m sure, friar,” Leo answered, trying to be patient with the monk’s excessive concern. “No headache and no chest pains. Just a little tenderness around the ribs.” He didn’t add that he was relieved to be rid of the tape in that area, which he had removed before his shower. Brother Timothy might not be happy with him if he knew about that.

“You’ll do then.”

The monk played guide as they continued along the route to the dining parlor, pointing out things and telling them there were many areas in the castle that the monastery rarely used. Leo could believe it. The place was immense, and probably rooms like the great hall would be impossible to keep comfortable in weather like this.

Jennifer beside him was quiet, offering no comment. She was close enough to him that he could catch whiffs of her fragrance, something subtle but seductive. Damn. It was bad enough that he had to be aware of everything else about her that was desirable.

She didn’t look at him, but Leo sensed that she was equally aware of him. And nervous about it.

“Turned real nasty again, it has,” Brother Timothy observed as they paused at an embrasure where a window in the stone wall looked down into a courtyard. There was a snow-covered sundial in its center surrounded by a formal arrangement of elevated beds framed by clipped hedges.

Or at least that’s what Leo thought he was seeing. It was hard to tell through the curtain of driven snow that had resumed after a brief lull in the storm. Even in this enclosed place the wind had the force of a gale. Not the kind of weather you’d choose to be out in, and yet there was a solitary figure down there pacing the paths. Head bent inside his cowl, he seemed oblivious to the conditions. Strange.

Leo noticed that Jennifer was intently watching the small, stoop-shouldered figure, whose habit identified him as one of the monks. “He doesn’t seem to be minding the cold,” she murmured.

“Not even noticing it, I’m thinking,” Brother Timothy said. “Our Brother Anthony has a deal on his mind these days. Only permits himself to leave his cell to exercise a bit in the cloister yard there or to pray in the chapel on the other side.”

“That is Brother Anthony then?”

“It is.”

Jennifer obviously knew about this Brother Anthony and was interested in him, though Leo couldn’t imagine how or why. And it didn’t look as though either she or Brother Timothy was going to bother to explain it to him.

So just what was that all about? Leo wondered as the three of them moved on along the passage.

He was to ask himself the same thing a moment later about another mystery when, pausing as they arrived at the top of a spiral stairway, Jennifer turned to the monk with a sober “Brother Timothy, I have another question for you.”

“If it’s about my days in the ring…”

“No, nothing like that.” She hesitated before asking what was clearly a self-conscious “Have there…well, ever been any tales about Warley Castle being haunted?”

Leo stared at her. Hell, was she serious?

The monk looked amused. “A ghost at Warley? Never heard of any ghost being sighted here. But if one was to turn up, I don’t see our Abbot Stephen tolerating him. Mind the stairs now. They’re a bit steep.”

There had been her interest in Brother Anthony, Leo thought as they descended the coiling flight. And now she was worried about a ghost? She seemed too levelheaded for that one, but something was up.

Okay, this made two more questions, among all the rest, that he intended to put to her when they were alone again. He just wished that, breakfast or not, he didn’t have to wait to ask them.

When they reached a landing less than halfway down the flight, Brother Timothy opened a door on the right and led them through a stone archway into the guests’ dining parlor. Leo could see why it was named that. There was a sitting area at the far end of the long room. It was furnished with easy chairs and a sofa.

The seven people who occupied the room were all gathered at this end, which served as the dining area. Some of them were busy helping themselves from a breakfast buffet laid out on a sideboard while others were already seated with their plates at a long trestle table.

Leo was surprised. Considering the weather, he hadn’t expected to find these number of guests at the castle. Or maybe it was just because of the weather that they were here. He could feel glances of curiosity directed at Jennifer and him.

“No need to go and worry about names,” Brother Timothy assured Jennifer and Leo. “Time for that when you’re settled with your plates.”

Of all the company, only one of them hovering near the sideboard wore a habit. Leo noticed, however, that he lacked a monk’s tonsure. Brother Timothy asked the young man to join them.

“Here now, this is our Geoffrey,” he said. “A novice, Geoffrey is, who has yet to take his final vows.”

Which explained why the young man with his fair hair and pale, melancholy face didn’t have a tonsure yet, Leo guessed. But it didn’t explain why he looked so unhappy when Brother Timothy turned them over to him with a hasty “I’m off to prime.”

“Prime is one of our daily communal prayers,” Geoffrey said when the monk had departed. “I’m excused. It’s because of Patrick.” He indicated another young man who waited for him at the sideboard. “Patrick is here because he wants to join our order, but he isn’t permitted into the monastery side of the castle until he’s certain of his calling. Father Stephen has asked me to look out for him.”

And Geoffrey, Leo decided, isn’t any more happy about playing nanny to Patrick than he is about Jennifer and me.

“Don’t worry, Geoffrey, we can take care of ourselves.”

An introduction to the breakfast buffet wasn’t a problem anyway. There were more than enough dishes to choose from when he and Jennifer helped themselves at the sideboard. Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausages, toast and fish. Why the English had a taste for fish at breakfast was something Leo had never understood. He took some of everything but the fish and the oatmeal. Jennifer, he noticed, had very little on her plate.

An introduction to the others when they joined them at the table was another matter. They struck Leo as a quirky bunch. Edgy, too, if he wasn’t mistaken, and his work as a P.I. had taught him to be fairly accurate in his observations about people. But the weather was probably responsible for that edginess.

“Any of you have a working mobile phone?” the woman seated across from him asked. “Mine absolutely refuses to cooperate.”

The others shook their heads.

“Well, there you are. We’re not only stranded here, we’re stranded without communication.”

“Have a battery-operated wireless,” a man down the table said. “A lot of crackle on it, but I was able to raise a weather forecast. More of the same filthy stuff on the way, I’m afraid.”

“Then we might as well make the best of it.”

Ignoring Jennifer, she smiled at Leo across the table. A smile that was more than just polite. Hell, was the woman flirting with him? Well, she was attractive enough, if you went for the brittle, consciously elegant type. He wasn’t interested. And wouldn’t have been, even if she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Sybil Harding,” she introduced herself. “And this is my husband, Roger.”

She indicated the man beside her. He had a moustache and wore a stolid expression on his lined face.

“Once upon a time Roger was one of the brothers here,” she went on to explain, “which is why he comes back to the monastery on retreat twice a year. A bit excessive, but I think he regards it as a holiday from me. One can only imagine his disappointment when, after dropping him off, a blocked road forced me to turn back.”

Roger Harding’s face reddened. “These people aren’t interested in hearing this, Sybil.”

“Dear heart, we’re all in this together, so why not be friendly?” She turned her attention back to Leo. “Let me see now. You’ve already met Geoffrey and Patrick, haven’t you?”

Leo glanced in the direction of the two young men. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the novice had shadows under his eyes, as if he’d slept badly. His charge beside him, skinny, round-shouldered and with a face suffering from acne, looked equally miserable. Maybe because he was painfully shy or because Geoffrey pointedly ignored him.

“And the other couple there,” Sybil went on, “are the Brashers. Fiona and Alfred, I believe.”

A timid-looking pair, they nodded by way of acknowledgment.

“If they have an exciting tale of their own,” Sybil said, “then we have yet to hear it.”

Alfred Brasher cleared his throat before responding with a quiet “Just travelers on our way to the coast and caught on the road like the rest of you.”

The group seemed to have already been told beforehand who he and Jennifer were, Leo thought, helping himself to more coffee from the pot on the table. And maybe how they had ended up at Warley themselves. No one asked, anyway.

“And our friend with the battery-powered wireless,” Sybil continued, gesturing toward the balding, thick-waisted fellow at the end of the table, “is—”

“Harry Ireland,” he introduced himself. “In sales. I call at the monastery every few months to take orders on goods the brothers like delivered to their gate, then move on to the next place. Some people still like the old-fashioned door-to-door service.” A laugh rumbled out of him. “Couldn’t move on this time, what?”

All of us trapped here in this isolated place, Leo thought, finishing his eggs. Was there something just a little too coincidental about that, or was he imagining it? And the edginess in the company he had noticed earlier…he was sure now he wasn’t imagining that. You could almost smell the tension in the air. Just the weather, or was there another explanation?

He didn’t have to wonder about the tension of the woman at his side. He already knew. Jennifer hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered the dining parlor. But those wary green eyes of hers said a lot whenever he caught her watching him. She was definitely worried.

“Have I left anyone out?” Sybil wondered. “No? Then Mr. Ireland concludes the introductions.”

“Just Harry,” he insisted.

“Yes, just Harry. Well, it makes us a cozy party, doesn’t it? Although,” she added, looking around the room, “one could have wished for a cheerier setting.”

Leo hadn’t paid much attention to the surroundings before this. He had to admit that the time-worn, dark paneling made the room a somber place. But then the whole castle was like something out of a vampire movie. Count What’s-his-name would have felt right at home here.

“Roger told me that in centuries past this used to be the solarium where the family gathered after meals,” Sybil informed them, “which is why it has a good fireplace. I suppose one must be grateful for that, although that chimneypiece is a horror.”

This was something else that Leo hadn’t noticed until now. Carvings on the stone chimney breast depicted strange beasts and leering monsters, all of them crowded together and tumbling over one another. Not exactly what you’d expect to find in a monastery. Nor was the grotesque mask fitted into the paneling of the wall adjacent to the fireplace.

Jennifer, noticing him gazing at the hollow eyes of that stone face, spoke up for the first time. “It’s a squint,” she said.

Leo turned to her. “A what?”

“If this used to be the solar in the medieval days,” she explained, “then the great hall must be on the other side of that wall. A squint permitted the lord of the castle to look through those eyes down into the great hall.”

“A spy hole? Why?”

“It was a method for checking on the activity of his household to be sure they weren’t getting too boisterous in his absence.”

Leo had forgotten that Jennifer would know about this stuff. His brother’s wife had told him that, like Guy, Jennifer was connected somehow with the antiques trade.

“Aren’t you clever to know that?” Sybil cooed, then abruptly dismissed Jennifer with a casual “I’m not interested in solariums, but I do care about loos. And the scarcity of them in this place, along with the state of the plumbing, is not my definition of comfort.”

“Sybil, please—” her husband murmured pleadingly.

“Dear heart, it’s true. I don’t know how all of us will manage.”

If any of the rest of them had any feelings on the subject, none of them bothered to contribute them. There was a long, awkward silence while they concentrated on their plates.

Sybil Harding, looking around the table, ended the silence after a few moments with an exuberant “I do hope some of you play bridge.”

Leo could sympathize with her husband. The woman was an embarrassment.

“Sybil, perhaps—”

“Roger, hush. If we’re to be stuck here, we must pass the time somehow.” She leaned provocatively toward Leo. “Roger refuses to play, which always leaves me looking for a partner.”

“I don’t play bridge. Poker is my game.” Leo had had enough. He wanted out of here. Scraping his chair back, his hands on the table to support himself, he got slowly to his feet. “But right now,” he muttered, “I think I need to go back to my room.”

“You feeling off again, old man?” Just Harry asked him.

“Yeah, maybe a bit.”

“Bloody shame.”

Jennifer looked up at him, this time with concern. “Would you like me to find Brother Timothy?”

“Not necessary. But if you’d go with me…”

He left the rest unsaid, knowing she would be convinced that someone should be with him in case he started to black out on the way back to his room.

She came immediately to her feet. “Of course. Excuse us, everyone.”

Jennifer waited until they were out of the room before she started to fuss at him. “You pushed yourself too far too soon.”

“I’m not having a relapse,” he assured her.

“Well, you need to rest.”

Leo didn’t argue with her. She waited until they gained the corridor at the top of the stairway before asking him, “Are you feeling light-headed? That climb—”

“No,” he growled, feeling guilty for worrying her.

She was silent again until they passed the window embrasure.

“You’re going too fast,” she complained.

But Leo was in too much of a hurry to slow his long-legged stride. Nor did he offer an explanation for his urgency until they were back inside his room with the door closed behind them. Then, a grimness in his voice, he swung around to challenge her.

“All right, we’ve wasted enough time with that bunch downstairs. I want the truth, Jenny, and I don’t want to wait any longer for it. So go ahead and convince me that you didn’t murder my brother before you helped yourself to the Warley Madonna.”

Chapter Four

In the slow, measured voice Jennifer used whenever she was very angry and trying not to show it, she confronted Leo with his deceit. “You tricked me. You’re not feeling ill at all.”

“Interesting,” he said. “I’ll have to remember that about you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That purr in your voice just before you go and blast someone. I noticed it earlier. Dangerous.”

He didn’t miss much, Jennifer thought. And she didn’t want him to be so observant about her, reading her moods and then analyzing them. It meant she would have to be on guard with him every minute. She had enough to worry about with the idiotic way he affected her whenever he got anywhere near her. Like now.

“Come on, Jenny,” he coaxed, moving in close, “you know you’re going to have to tell me your story sooner or later. Might as well be now, huh?”

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