Immortal Trust (6 page)

Chloe looked up. Sure enough, five students, along with her brother and Caradoc, stood near the wall closest to the forest. Three knelt on the ground, laboring with their trowels and small brushes. A fourth held the digital camera poised at an angle that gave him a clear view of the area they’d concentrated on the last week. The last student leaned over the three on the ground, anxiety lighting his face.

Julian looked on, arms folded over his chest, his expression flat. But the slight lift he made to his toes and the way he tipped his head to see through the gathered heads betrayed his interest.

Caradoc remained the only one disinterested in what came out of the earth. His back to the crowd, he watched the trees.

The dark presence slammed into Chloe’s awareness with so much force her breath caught. She gripped the door handle, unable to move. In all the time she’d felt the demons, they’d never plagued her during daylight hours.

A weight settled on her thigh, slowly drawing her from the grip of fear. She glanced down to find Lucan’s hand on top of her leg. He stared at her as if he expected her to respond. As if he’d asked something she’d missed.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, are you all right?” Laden with concern, his eyes searched her face.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’m fine.”
Just terrified of my own shadow.
To emphasize her lie and divert his attention, she pushed open her door with the retort, “Let’s see if they’ve found this legendary cloth you seem to think exists.”

“Know.” He stepped outside and looked over the top of the car. “What I
know
exists, Chloe.”

The conviction in his voice added to the chill in her veins. She huddled into her coat, unwilling to admit even to herself that a relic like the Veronica would warrant the presence of three of the Church’s experts. Without another word, she trudged down the narrow gravel path.

When Lucan joined her, she barely felt the press of his hand against the small of her back.

CHAPTER 5

Lucan caught Caradoc’s knowing gaze over the top of Chloe’s head. The grim set of his brother’s jaw spoke all the words they dared not.
Be alert. Azazel might strike at any moment.

He returned his attention to the rich soil the students dug in, and the knot in his gut wrenched down tighter. For nearly five hundred years the Veronica lay asleep beneath the earth, free from the hands of those who would bring it harm. Now, one small team of archaeologists who knew nothing about the dark means of Azazel would bring it out of its sheltering grave.

He glanced at the people surrounding him. Eagerness brightened the students’ expressions as the young man with the small brush dusted bits of frozen earth off a golden corner. Three inches of the reliquary protruded from the ground, enough to tell anyone who witnessed the exposed edge that they uncovered something priceless. Beneath Lucan’s palm, Chloe’s back stiffened.

He followed the path of her gaze, lifting an eyebrow when she looked not at the excavation but at the dense forest beyond. Her wide eyes, coupled with the way she chewed on her lower lip, betrayed her unease. Visibly, she shivered. The same ashen color he had witnessed in the car paled her cheeks. Aye, indeed she
did
sense Azazel’s dark presence. Could she hear the low murmuring within the thick trees as well? The voices that rose just beneath the shiver of tall branches? The sudden fierce urge to protect her battled with Lucan’s natural suspicions. He stiffened against it, unaccustomed to such unexplainable contradictions.

“What do you think it is?” the young man holding the brush asked.

Another student moved in closer and pointed over his shoulder. “Brush off this corner, Tim. I think that’s a face sculpted into the overlay. Maybe that’ll tell us more.”

As Tim diligently bent forward to follow the directive, the freckle-faced man with the camera spoke up. “Wait. Back off a minute. Let me get a picture of that. The last one was just the tip of the corner.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, would you just dig out the damn thing? We haven’t got all fucking day,” a voice snapped from behind everyone.

The sharp bark was enough to draw Chloe’s attention away from the forest and back to the happenings in front of her. She frowned at the blond man who bore a striking resemblance to her. “Julian, lay off. Hurrying will only risk damaging the artifact.”

Julian’s gaze cut to her. The severe set to his jaw was enough to reveal his annoyance. But what flashed behind his blue eyes set Lucan’s nerves on edge. Malice glinted there. Not aggravation, not mere impatience with his sister’s reprimand, but unadulterated hate. Enmity that vanished behind a flat, unemotional expression that smoothed over his face as he blinked. “Sorry, sis. Just a bit excited, I guess.”

Chloe answered with a short nod. The smile she gave her brother, however, held no hint she shared whatever animosity had possessed him. Bright and warm, her eyes sparkled with familial love.

Odd. Lucan well knew discord between siblings. But experience taught him when one could look at the other with such obvious hate, ’twas not a simple one-sided misunderstanding. When emotions ran to such depths, good cause flowed between them. Yet Chloe’s smile contradicted the obvious. Could she mayhap be ignorant of hidden resentment?

As alarm bells rang in his mind, visions of his brother’s treachery took life. He witnessed again the lifeless forms of his father, mother, and young brother sprawled on the cold stone floor of Seacourt’s great hall. They bathed in their own blood.

He closed his eyes to cease the flow of memories and breathed deeply. In that moment, all the taint of suspicion rose from the depths of his soul and centered on Chloe’s brother. Every suspect act Lucan had accused Farran of, every ounce of mistrust he had harbored for his brother Tane, amounted to naught as he opened his eyes and stared at Julian Broussard.

“Look! It’s an ankh. Chloe, this is up your alley,” Tim exclaimed as he rocked back on his heels.

Spurred into motion by the calling of her name, Chloe edged free of Lucan’s hand and climbed into the four-foot-deep hole to inspect the reliquary. Her melodic voice drifted to Lucan’s ears, stirring an unfamiliar warmth in his veins. He held in a smile.

“Those are Egyptian marks, yes. This is Anubis standing over Osiris. It’s a depiction of the first embalming. Here, let me see that trowel.”

Though her voice held authority, her tone remained encouraging and kind as she related to her students. It also held a slight note of respect, as if she did not consider herself above those she educated, as so many in her field were apt to do. Lucan’s own pride stirred.

As he listened to Chloe, he watched Julian. Impatience marked his tight mouth, crinkled the center of his brow. He shifted his weight and stuffed his hands into his pockets. For a few seconds he rocked back and forth from heels to toes, then he withdrew a cell phone, flipped it open, and passed his thumbs over the keys. A blink of light indicated a quick response from whomever he had messaged. Julian scanned the screen, slid the face over the keys, and jammed the phone back into his coat. “Chloe, can you speed this up? It’s going to snow any minute. You can look at the box inside the trailer.” Again irritation edged his voice.

Lucan moved to stand at Caradoc’s side. Lowering his voice, he instructed, “Mind him carefully.”

“Aye, he has behaved most strange all morn. It began when he instructed the students to dig. I gather they waited on Chloe’s directive, as the man holding the camera protested they should wait for her arrival.”

“How soon did he instruct them to begin?”

Caradoc’s hazel eyes reflected the same unease that stirred in Lucan’s blood. “Within moments of arriving.”

Hardly time enough for anyone to assume Chloe was running behind. ’Twas as if Julian sought to omit Chloe from participating. And from what Gabriel had disclosed about the Broussards, ’twas most unnatural for Julian to take such a measure. Chloe had handpicked the team. Applied for and signed all the licenses. Her brother, per Gabriel, willingly deferred to her, his preference that of support, not leadership.

What then had brought them to odds?

A low hiss from within the trees behind them lifted the hairs on the back of Lucan’s neck. He dropped his hand to his waist, reaching for the sword he did not bear. A firm bump against his elbow drew his attention. He looked down to find his forgotten blade in Caradoc’s outstretched hand.

“’Tis no time to concern yourself with appearances. If she asks, tell her I retrieved it from the blacksmith’s shop for you this morn.”

Grateful that Caradoc had thought on the important matters, Lucan buckled the plain silver scabbard around his waist, and the ever-tightening knot of apprehension in his gut unwound by several degrees.

*   *   *

Excitement bubbled through Chloe as the front face of a two-foot-square, gold and silver overlaid trunk broke through the ground. The artistry, typical of the famous Mosan style, defied the imagination. Across the top and the facing side, masterful reliefs depicted religious iconology throughout different cultures, including the Egyptian scene of Osiris she’d first observed on the top right-hand corner. Beside it, dirt packed into the grooves around a stunning figure of Athena framed by two elaborate columns crowned with laurels. To the left of her, an oak tree, complete with intricate leaves, stretched massive roots beyond the goddess’s feet. On the lid, the Virgin Mary knelt in prayer. All four perfectly centered. All four surrounded by tiny jewels and hand-painted beads that had somehow escaped the wear of time.

“This has to be the work of Nicholas of Verdun,” she murmured as she carefully etched the dirt away from the left-hand side. “But even his aren’t so … perfect.”

“It’s like Michelangelo on a box. Only not,” Tim commented from her right.

She chuckled at his summation. Of all the things Tim excelled in, vocabulary wasn’t one. Sometimes it was hard to remember his skull housed a genius’ brain. He’d go far in the field if this dig yielded anything important. All of them would.

“Hurry
up,
Chloe,” Julian grumbled for the third time. “It’s starting to snow.”

Grinding her teeth together, she tamped down an exasperated retort. What the hell was
with
him anyway? He hadn’t even said hello. In fact, the last three days he’d been almost intolerable on site. Pushing the team to dig, dig, dig—no other time had he particularly cared when they finished their work or how much they accomplished. As long as he got to visit new places, sample the wine and the local women, and add his name on a few papers to prove he’d done something useful, he didn’t give a damn. One of the reasons she could trust him. The other—behind all his playboy attitudes, Julian revered his field of medieval culture and shared the same love she did for artifacts. He’d never take risks with priceless pieces of history.

Which made his current demands to hurry up that much more of a mystery.

She scraped away another clod of frozen soil and slipped her fingers into the shallow crater along the trunk’s edge. A firm tug loosened the box. She glanced over to Tim. “How’s your side coming along?”

“Just…” With the tip of the trowel he flicked aside a large chunk. “Got it. Try now.”

Chloe fitted her hand into the narrow crevice on the opposite side, and with gentle pressure wiggled the box side to side. Her training rebelled against the forced extraction. Any archaeologist would have her head for trying to pull the box free. She could be dislodging beads on the backside. Pulling loose parts she couldn’t see.

But the thick flakes that sprinkled on her shoulders and face warned of a heavy snowfall. She couldn’t risk this box to exposure, nor did she dare leave it sitting out for anyone who happened by to notice it sticking out of the ground. While this part of France saw few visitors this time of year, she didn’t dare take that kind of risk with such a priceless artifact.

She hoped Lucan and Caradoc would feel the same and not argue with Julian’s insistence she hurry. She couldn’t deal with testosterone today. Not with the overwhelming presence in the trees. Demons were bad enough. A fight between opinionated men would only delay their efforts further.

Another shimmy, and the trunk pulled free. She toppled to her bottom, the heavy object thumping into her abdomen. She inwardly rolled her eyes. So far, in twenty-four hours, she’d tripped up the stairs, overslept, neglected her makeup, and now a box off-balanced her. To Lucan, she must look like a class-A idiot. Lord, what she’d give to go back to yesterday and start over.

With a sharp frown, she reminded herself she didn’t care what Lucan thought of her and struggled to her feet. By the time she gained her balance, Julian stood in front of her, his hands reaching for the trunk. “Here, I’ll carry it inside.” His fingers closed over hers.

Perturbed, she jerked away. “What is wrong with you? You know it’s got to be cleaned, and
you
gave that task to Andy. Go in the trailer. Find something to do before you drive me crazy and I throw this at your head.”

As she emerged from the pit, her gaze locked with Lucan’s, and her breath caught. Deep and intense, his eyes filled with silent messages. Everything from praise, to understanding, and above all, desire, flooded into her. She shivered under his intense perusal. Good grief, how could one person say so much without ever opening his mouth? And how in the world could he know she
liked
the way his appreciation lit her up on the inside—for certainly the self-satisfied upturn of the corner of his mouth indicated he was all too aware of how he affected her.

She turned away before she did something else foolish, like step on the shovel four inches from the toe of her boot. “Tim, log the site measurements. Andy, finish up the pictures here, then join me inside. Chris, Jeff, and Kevin, get everything inside before those clouds break.” She glanced at her brother, took in his annoyed grimace, and decided not to give him a duty.

Avoiding Lucan’s heated stare, she started for the double-wide trailer that housed the large bathing tubs and the rest of their equipment. But as she stepped onto the pebbled path, Caradoc’s voice drifted to her ears.