Beyond Compare (26 page)

In the third room, Kyria found a man seated on the bed, leaning back against the wall, shoes off and collar opened, puffing on the pipe. It was Lord Herringford’s son, whom she had seen earlier downstairs. He looked at her with a sort of languid disdain.

“Here, what are you doing barging in like that?” he asked, his tongue tripping a little over his words.

Kyria just smiled and shook her head, backing out the door. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward a little. “I say, do I know you?”

“No,” Kyria answered in as low and gruff a voice as she could manage.

Tom popped his head in beside her, saying cheerfully, “Sorry, mate,” and they closed the door.

“Someone you know?” Rafe murmured.

“Not well,” Kyria whispered back. “It’s nothing significant, just a little surprising. His father is rather important in the government.”

They turned down another hall, which ended in a set of stairs. They opened the first door, which seemed to be a storeroom of some sort, with stacks of black material on shelves, along with more pipes and several boxes. Rafe started toward the boxes.

At that moment, a large man coming out of one of the rooms farther down the hall spotted Kyria and Tom standing at the storeroom door, and his brows rushed together.

“Ere!” he called, starting toward them purpose
fully. “Wot the devil are you doing? Nobody’s allowed back ’ere without one of us!”

“Don’t get yourself all in a pucker,” Tom said cheerfully, starting toward him as Rafe quickly stepped back out of the room. “We’re lookin’ for a room, like.”

“The devil you say! You’re up ’ere lookin’ for sommat to steal!” He reached out for Tom, who jumped back away from his grasp.

Faster than any of them could see, Rafe’s gun was in his hand and pointed at the man. The man stopped, his eyes on the pistol.

“Let’s go,” Rafe said quietly, jerking his head back in the direction they had come. Kyria and Tom turned and walked down the hall with Rafe following them, walking backward, holding the large man at bay.

The man edged after him, but Rafe gave a warning twitch of his gun. “Stay right there. If I see your face around this corner, I’m firing. Got it?”

The other man nodded, his jaw set and his eyes blazing with fury. Rafe hurried behind Kyria and Tom, half-turned so that he could see back down the length of the hall. When he got to the stairs, he faced forward and ran down the stairs after the other two.

As he reached the last step, he heard their opponent letting out a bellow, “Thieves! ’Elp! Thieves!”

Tom and Kyria were waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Rafe, and as he appeared, Tom flung open the door. The last thing they saw before they slammed the door shut behind them was a door opening at the other end of the hall and a turbaned man charging out.

The darkness in the narrow alleyway slowed them down, but when they reached the street, they broke into a run. Unfortunately, to reach their carriage, they had
to pass by the front door of the den, and before they could reach it, several men, including the large man who had stopped them in the hall, came storming out.

The sight of Rafe’s gun pointed at them made them check. They started to walk around the group of men, but suddenly a rock came whistling through the air behind them and slammed into Rafe’s shoulder, sending the gun flying from his hand. The gun went off as it hit the pavement, knocking a chunk of brick out of the building.

The men charged at them. Rafe threw himself in front of Kyria, shouting, “Run!”

“And leave you?” Kyria said with scorn, crouching down to pull the derringer from her boot.

She came up firing just as a man leaped at her, and he fell back with a shriek, clutching his shoulder. Rafe knocked one man out with a quick uppercut to the jaw, but another smaller man rushed in from behind swinging a knife and slashed out. Rafe spun quickly to the side to avoid the blade, but it managed to slice through his jacket sleeve, cutting his arm. He closed in quickly and grappled with the man, his hands clenched around the smaller man’s wrist.

Tom, meanwhile, was slugging it out with the man who had discovered them in the hallway. The other man was larger by far, but Tom was light on his feet and could dodge in and out, escaping the man’s swinging blows and landing a few punches of his own. Kyria’s small gun held only one bullet, and before she could dig another out of her pocket and reload, another man was on her. All she could do was swing her arm as hard as she could into the side of her assailant’s head, the small gun still resting in the palm of her hand.

But then the group of men who had emerged from
the door behind them were also upon them, and they were hopelessly outnumbered. A blow from behind knocked Kyria to the ground, sending her hat rolling and her hair tumbling free. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tom get knocked to the ground. Rafe gripped her wrist with one steely hand, yanked her to her feet and shoved her behind him, then lashed out at her assailant with the knife he had taken from its owner.

He swung wide, keeping their enemies at bay. Kyria fumbled a bullet from her pocket and into her gun. She raised it, and for a moment they were able to hold off their attackers, standing back to back, weapons at ready. But it was clear that their advantage would not last long; they were greatly outnumbered, at least six or seven men to their three, and there were more spilling out the front door. Tom, struggling to his feet, was blasted again by a blow from the large man’s fist, and he collapsed.

Kyria screamed at the top of her lungs to their coachman, hoping the sound would carry to him, and waved her gun back and forth, threatening the men edging closer to them. In a moment, she knew, their enemies would rush them, and it would be all over.

O
ut of the shadows came a loud cry as several white-robed men came running out of the darkness, shouting in an unknown language. They carried stout sticks, and when they reached the startled combatants, they laid about them with their cudgels, knocking out several of the men Rafe and Kyria were fighting before their hapless victims even knew what was on them.

Rafe tucked the knife in his pocket and jumped into the fray with his fists, a weapon he was much more accustomed to using. Kyria, still holding her gun to keep the enemy at bay, skirted over to where Tom lay on the ground and reached down with her free hand to help him up. Tom grasped her hand and stood up somewhat dazedly.

They heard the clatter of horses’ hooves on the brick-lined street, and Kyria glanced down the block to see the Moreland carriage charging toward them. At the sight of the four-horse equipage, the combatants scrambled to get out of the way. The coachman hauled back on the reins at the last moment and the horses stopped, shaking their heads and snorting. The coachman
wrapped the reins around one hand to hold the steeds and grabbed his long whip with the other.

He stood up, roaring, “Dare ye attack a Moreland?”

He brought down his whip with a mighty crack, catching three of the men from the opium den with it. It was the last straw. The enemy broke, running back into the building.

“Quick! Into the carriage. They may come back with reinforcements,” Rafe said, running over to pick up his gun.

Kyria opened the door and helped Tom inside. She turned to the white-robed men who had helped them, motioning them toward the carriage. “Come. You had better get away from here, too, you know.”

The men hesitated. Then one of them, apparently the leader, nodded to the others. He held out his hand in a courtly way to help Kyria up into the vehicle, then climbed in after her. The others scrambled up into the carriage, two of them hopping onto the back of the vehicle and the other two wedging themselves onto the seat with the coachman. Rafe, gun in hand and watching the front door of the opium den, was the last to climb in. The carriage took off, its pace more sedate because of the heavy load.

“Are you all right?” Rafe looked at Kyria with concern.

“Yes. What about you?” She reached over to touch his arm where the jacket was ripped and stained red with blood.

“Just a scratch,” he replied, peeling back the edges of the jacket and shirt to look at the long red streak across his arm. “It’s the blasted place where he hit me with that rock that hurts.” Rafe moved his shoulder, grimacing.

They glanced at Tom inquiringly, and he gave them a nod, rubbing his hands over his face. “That big brute packed quite a wallop, I’ll tell you.” His jaw tightened. “I’d like to get another crack at him.”

“You and me both,” Rafe said grimly. He looked at the man sitting beside Tom.

His hair was dark blond and worn rather long. His face was thin and narrow, devoid of facial hair, and dominated by a pair of piercing blue eyes. He was dressed in a robe of a coarse white material, with a hood hanging down the back. Over the robe hung a white linen surplice, wide-necked and open at the sides, and embroidered on the chest in purple was a symbol that looked like the letter
P
superimposed over the letter
X.
A rope was tied around the waist over both the robe and surplice. Still in his hand was the knobby, stout stick.

Kyria’s eyes were drawn to the symbol. It was, she felt almost certain, the Chi-Rho monogram that was said to have adorned the banner Constantine’s troops carried.

“Thank you for helping us,” Rafe said to the man. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

The man’s gaze flickered to Kyria and quickly away. Finally he said in a heavily accented voice, “We have been with you.”

“With
us?” Kyria repeated. She glanced at Rafe.

“I think they’ve been following us,” Rafe told her. “Once or twice I’ve noticed someone in white…”

“Why?” Kyria asked the man. “Who are you?”

He appeared to think for a moment before he looked at her, carefully keeping his eyes on her face rather than on her mannishly dressed body. “I am Brother Jozef. I am…we are the Keepers of the Holy Standard.”

The other three stared at him.

Finally Kyria said, “Do you mean to tell me…”

He gave a ponderous nod. “Centuries ago, our order was entrusted with the task of taking the Reliquary of the Holy Standard to a safe place and protecting it with our lives and honor. We retreated deeper and deeper as the years passed and the Ottoman Empire grew, swallowing all that had once been Byzantium. We kept to the true religion and kept safe that which we had sworn to protect with our lives.”

“But surely you would have died out long ago,” Rafe protested.

“We are holy men, sworn to chastity and obedience,” Brother Jozef went on. “As the brothers began to die, they realized that they must bring others into their fold. They did so, journeying out every ten years to bring in new novitiates, so that the task was handed down year after year. The brotherhood has dwindled over time, of course, but it never completely died out. We are sworn to protect the sacred reliquary, and so we have done—” his face darkened and he looked away “—until a year ago.”

“What happened?” Kyria asked gently when he did not speak for a few moments.

He straightened his shoulders. “One of us was chosen unwisely. He was impure of heart. Corruptible. Evil men, using the snare of a woman, lured him into stealing the reliquary. One morning we woke up, and we could feel that the sacred reliquary was gone. We went to the sanctuary and found that we were right. Our brother was gone, as well. We set out after those evil men, but they moved swiftly. We, as is traditional among our brotherhood, travel by foot. We were unable
to catch them, and the Reliquary of the Holy Standard disappeared.”

“I’m very sorry,” Kyria said, touched by the man’s forlorn expression.

“I have been entrusted with the task of recovering the reliquary. Without the Holy Standard, all the years, all the sacrifices, will have been for nothing.” He looked straight into Kyria’s eyes, his own blue gaze lit with the flame of fanaticism. “It is ours, my lady. We must bring it back to its rightful place. It is our duty, our desire. Next to it, our lives are worth nothing.”

Kyria blinked, somewhat taken aback by the man’s passionate statement. What was he saying, that they would take it from her by force?

The monk paused, drawing a calming breath, and went on, “My brothers and I have followed the trail of the holy reliquary, for wherever such evil men go, murder and mayhem follow. The box has been stolen from the thieves, sold and stolen again, until it wound up in the markets of Constantinople—Istanbul, as the heretics named it. There we learned that a man had bought it from one who did not fully realize what a treasure he had. And this man, this dealer, brought it here to England. To your house. We have followed the reliquary. It calls to us.”

Kyria decided not to even pursue this last strange statement. She asked, “Why did Mr. Kousoulous bring it to me?”

“I do not know. No one does. I know only that you now hold our reliquary. That is why we have followed you to this place tonight—to protect you. We cannot allow any harm to come to the Holy Standard while it is in your care.” He leaned forward, gazing earnestly into Kyria’s eyes. “My lady, I beg you to return the
reliquary to us. It is our sacred duty to look after the Holy Standard. We must have it. We must return it to its home. Please, return the reliquary to us.”

There was a long moment of silence in the carriage after he stopped talking. Finally Rafe released a breath and said, “That’s a good story, sir. The only problem is—how do we know that it’s true? Just about anybody could dress up in a white robe and call himself a Keeper of the Holy Standard. You are asking Lady Kyria to just hand over to you a very valuable item.”

“You accuse me of lying?” The man turned to Rafe, his eyes burning a hole in him. “I am a man of God. I have given my life to Him. I would not sully my name or His with a falsehood. How am I to prove to you that I am who I say? I have with me the order given to me by the head of our order, Brother Teodor, entrusting me with the task of bringing back the sacred relic. But I doubt that will convince a man such as yourself, who sees a liar in a man of God.”

“Such an order would be pretty easy to write out,” Rafe said.

Kyria shot him a quelling glance and turned to Brother Jozef, saying soothingly, “Of course, we do not think you are lying. It is just that we have to be very careful. You see, I don’t know you or anything about you except what you have said. There are others who seek the reliquary, too, and all have pressed their claims with me. Some have even been willing to kill a man to try to obtain it. Certainly they would not stop at deceit. So you can see that I must be very careful. We recognize that the reliquary is a very important object, a sacred one, even. And for that reason, I must be even more vigilant about taking care of it.”

The monk’s burning gaze held Kyria’s for a long
moment. “I sense that you are a good woman, my lady, that you understand the powerful responsibility that possessing the Reliquary of the Holy Standard places on one. But you must see that it does not belong to you. It is not yours to keep.”

“For whatever reason, sir, this box has been entrusted to me. I cannot shirk from that responsibility. I have to think very carefully before I decide what to do with it.”

“The Reliquary of the Holy Standard is ours,” Brother Jozef insisted. “We must have it back.”

Rafe straightened, his hand going to the gun inside his jacket. “Are you threatening Lady Kyria?”

Beside the monk, Tom Quick, too, stiffened, and he turned toward the man, watching him carefully.

Jozef shot Rafe a disdainful glance. “I do not threaten. I am a man of God. I have told you. But the reliquary is ours, and we will have it.” He turned back to Kyria. “You have seen what has happened to those who have taken the Holy Standard. Death and destruction have followed them. The reliquary belongs at home.”

“I will think about it,” Kyria assured him. “Very carefully. I promise you.”

He looked at her for a long time, then gave a brusque nod of his head. “Very well, my lady. We will give you time to think. Then we shall talk again.”

Having said his piece, the man sank once again into silence. They continued in that way until they reached Broughton House. The carriage pulled up in front and stopped. Brother Jozef jumped nimbly down, and Kyria and the others climbed out of the carriage. By the time they closed the carriage door and turned, Brother Jozef and his companions had melted away into the night.

Kyria looked all around them, and a shiver took her. She was glad when Rafe curled his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him.

“Well,” he said lightly, “this has been quite a night’s work.”

Tom was still a trifle wobbly on his feet and was glad to accept the offer of a cold compress for his jaw and a bed to sleep in. Kyria sent a maid for bandages and ointments, then propelled Rafe, protesting, up to his room.

She shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it aside. “I must say, there are some things I rather like about this mode of dress.”

Rafe cast her a look, one eyebrow going up wickedly. “I must say, there are some things I rather admire about it, too. For one thing, I had not realized quite how long your legs are.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” Kyria teased back, feeling a little giddy in the aftermath of all the excitement and danger. For a moment back there, she had thought she was about to die. It was difficult, therefore, not to want to simply fling herself on the bed and shriek out her relief.

Instead, she undid the cuffs of her shirt and rolled them up, then unbuttoned the collar and pulled off the constricting tie. “However, I do not understand how you can stand these collars and ties. They are the most ghastly nuisances.”

Rafe chuckled and started to pull off his own jacket. Kyria noticed the involuntary wince he made as he slipped it off his arm.

“I can see that you are hurt more than ‘just a scratch,’” she scolded, coming over to him. “Here, let me see.”

“It’s nothing really.”

“Don’t be nonsensical. Let me help you.” Kyria unfastened his cuff links and laid them aside. Her hair fell forward around her face and shoulders, and the scent of her teased his nostrils.

He could not help but think what a delightfully enticing picture she presented in the men’s trousers, her hair tousled and wildly curling, spilling invitingly all around her shoulders. Just the sight of her stirred his senses—admittedly not a difficult task, considering the fact that all of his senses had been exquisitely attuned to her ever since the evening before. Unfulfilled passion had simmered in him all day long, and the excitement of this evening had left him relieved and surging with life, not a state conducive to quelling his desire. What he wanted most to do now was to take Kyria in his arms and kiss her, but he knew exactly where that would lead. It was not the kind of thing a man of honor did.

But it was damn difficult to retain any sense of honor when she was bending over his arm, unfastening his clothes.

Rafe stepped back quickly. “It’s all right. I can do it.”

Kyria raised her hands in a conciliatory gesture and moved away. Having two older brothers, she was well accustomed to the male’s prickly demeanor when wounded.