Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (3 page)

Baird’s newfound attraction to the sea was
odd, really, given that he had been raised in the southwest, far
from a sea of any kind.

“
I think it’s beautiful,”
Baird said mildly, earning a scathing glance from Beauforte’s legal
counsel.

Julian snorted. “Beautiful. Far from
it.”

“
Just look at the sea. It’s
quite a soothing place.”

“
Ha! I don’t have to look
any further than my own stomach. This is no place for a vegetarian.
No country that willfully murders innocent vegetables could be
beautiful!”

Baird had to grin despite himself. An ardent
vegetarian, Julian should have become accustomed by now to having
culinary adventures whenever he ventured far from a city’s bright
lights. “It’s not that bad.”

“
Oh, yeah? Last night in
that horrible dark pub in town - you know the one - the only
vegetables they could give me was this heap of something called
clapshot.” Julian flung out his hands in exasperation. “Clapshot!
Even the name is horrible! What the hell is clapshot?”

“
You should know.” Baird
returned to his clipping with a philosophical shrug, more than used
to Julian’s monologues on the subject of food. “You’re the one who
ate it.”

“
I did not!” Julian
grimaced. “It was orange and lumpy, like it had been put through a
blender or something. Baby food.”

Baird grunted as he conquered a particularly
thick vine and cast it aside, only to find another right behind it.
A more whimsical man might have thought the briars were
deliberately blocking his way. “Could be neeps and tatties together
in one.”

“
Neeps and what? I can
guess that tatties must be potatoes in some overcooked form, but
what the hell’s a neep?”

“
Turnip. Or rutabaga. Those
orange things, whatever they are. Mashed.”

Julian shuddered with mock horror. “Just
like mother used to make. Ugh! I’m glad I didn’t eat it.”

Baird’s mouth quirked. “Maybe we should bill
this as a weight loss resort for vegetarians.”

“
Very funny.” Julian folded
his arms across his chest and tapped his toe. “I’m not asking for
much, you know. Why not a few roasted red peppers? A little
rosemary? Maybe they could let some daylight in the place, instead
of all that brooding dark wood. Ferns. Brass. Here’s a thought -
attractive waitresses.”

Baird spared his friend a glance that spoke
volumes before turning back to his clipping. He cleared another
step. “Just like some chichi bistro in North Hollywood?”

“
Well, yeah. I mean, why
not?”

Baird shook his head. “Because it’s not
California. Wouldn’t the world be boring if every place was the
same?”

“
Hardly.” Julian snorted.
“We’d eat better, at least.”

Baird decided to offer Julian a choice
morsel of news. “If it makes you feel any better, Sebastien’s
coming to manage the restaurant here.”

“
Sebastien? Here?” Julian
looked incredulous. “You’ve convinced Sebastien to leave Manhattan?
To come here?” The lawyer glanced about himself in amazement, as
though he had been magically transported somewhere other than the
Orkney Islands, then scrutinized his employer. “How did you manage
that?”

“
He thinks it’s
‘elemental’.” Baird watched Julian struggled to come to terms with
the concept.

It was obviously an uphill battle.

“
Well, maybe it could be,
with Sebastien cooking,” he conceded reluctantly, then closed his
eyes in rapturous recollection. “The things that man can do with
portobello mushrooms!”

Julian sighed, then fixed Baird with a
bright glance. “When is he coming?”

Baird shrugged. “A couple of weeks.”

Julian groaned. “It’s like an endurance
test,” he muttered, then snapped his fingers in recollection. “Oh,
hey, Darlene called. That’s why I came looking for you.”

“
Again?” Baird was glad he
had missed another worried call from his secretary.

“
She wanted to know when
you’d be back in head office.”

“
Soon,” Baird said,
emphasizing the word with a decisive snip of the clippers. “Very
soon.”

“
Great.” Julian’s tone
implied that the news was far from that.

“
I thought you hated it
here.”

“
I do! But now we’ll be
gone by the time Sebastien gets here.” Julian scuffed his toe.
“It’s just not fair.”

Julian pulled a determined branch away from
his face and frowned at it. “These thorns are unbelievable. Look at
this thing!” Baird obediently looked at the thorn offered for his
perusal, a thorn not unlike the hundreds of others that had already
made a grab at him today. “It must be three inches long!”

“
And probably too tough to
sauté in unsalted butter.”

“
Very funny.” Julian let
the branch go with a snap and peered into the shadows below for the
first time. “Where does this staircase go?”

“
That’s what I’m trying to
find out.” They had to be a dozen feet below the surface of the
ground, the skyward view tangled with healthy briars. Baird grunted
as he cut back a final tough curtain of branches.

The two men froze and stared at the heavy
stone portal that was revealed.

The doorway was made of three massive
rough-cut stones, two standing on end to support the weight of the
third. The darkness within was complete, though cold air wafted
towards them. It smelled like wet stone.

“
Where does it go?” Julian
whispered.

“
Let’s find out.” Baird
stepped through the doorway. Julian glanced about himself, then
tentatively followed suit.

The sound of dripping water echoed loudly in
the small space they entered. It was bone-chillingly cold here, the
smell of the dampness and the silence emanating from the stone
making Baird feel as though he had entered a strange, maybe
enchanted, world far from the one he knew.

Julian shook the rainwater out of his
Burberry trench coat and looked around the dim, roughly rectangular
room. His words revealed that his mind had not taken the same
fanciful turn as Baird’s.

“
Doesn’t look like much.
Are you going to put the sauna down here, or something? It could be
expensive for heating. And you’d have to run some sort of covered
walkway for guests who didn’t want to go out in the
rain…”

Baird switched on the flashlight he had
brought.

Hotelier and lawyer gasped aloud
simultaneously. A slab of stone, as tall as Baird and covered with
fantastic carving, filled the wall directly before them. They
gawked silently at the treasure that just a moment before had been
hidden in secretive shadows.

The slab was made of the same local gray
stone as the rest of the castle ruins. At the top was a massive
crescent carved in relief, almost like the curve of a sundial,
points down, its interior writhing with Celtic knots.

On closer inspection, the knots were made of
fantastic animals, all twined around each other. The imagery
reminded Baird of the illuminations in the Book of Kells.

A bent arrow made a V across the crescent,
its crook at the lower center of the crescent, its head pointing to
the top right corner, its fleche to the top left.

Below this was a backwards Z, about a foot
high, which seemed to have flames erupting from either end. On
either side of this character were two disks, again filled with
knots made of entwined creatures. A snake writhed around the
perimeter of these elements, its body an intricate braid, the end
of its tail in its own mouth.

The lower half of the stone was graced with
the image of a woman in repose. Though her features were not
clearly etched, it was obvious that she was a beauty. She looked to
be sleeping, her hands folded across her chest and garments pooling
about her slender form.

“
Whoa!” Julian breathed.
“It would be good to move that somewhere more visible in the
resort.”

Baird bent and ran his fingertips over the
row of crosshatched lines that ran up the right side. “It must be
an inscription,” he mused, recognizing runic letters and wondering
what they said.

Julian showed no interest in such mysteries.
He shivered and shrugged, throwing Baird a smile as he shoved his
hands into his raincoat pockets. “Definitely worth a visit. Now,
let’s get a brandy.”

“
Not until we see what’s
behind it.” Baird pushed on the slab, but it did not give in the
least.

“
Behind it? It’s just a
frieze, Baird.”

“
No, it’s a
door.”

“
A door? Come on, where
could it go? It’s just a wall mural or something, maybe some kind
of pagan altar.” He shuddered elaborately and looked around himself
as though expecting hostile pagans to spring from the shadows. “Do
you think they slaughtered things here?” he demanded in a horrified
whisper.

“
It’s a door,” Baird
repeated. He was oddly convinced of his conclusion, though he
refused to think further about that. “Now, are you going to
help?”

Julian winced. “It doesn’t even look like a
door to me. I mean, where’s the knob? How do you open it?”

“
It’s a door. Trust me.
We’re just going to have to figure out how it opens.” Baird set his
lips grimly, resolving that he would not leave before seeing what
was behind this door. “Then, you can have your brandy.”

Baird turned back to the carved stone,
scanning its width and breadth. There had to be a lever or a hinge
somewhere, likely hidden away if something precious was hidden
behind the door.

And Baird knew in his heart that there
was.

Julian cleared his throat, an annoying habit
that usually indicated he was going to be particularly lawyer-like.
“If it is a door - and I’m not in the least bit sure that it is,
mind you - there is some question as to whether there might be
historic artifacts within. As your legal counsel, I would strongly
suggest we summon authorities of antiquities to be present - “

“
Forget it, Julian,” Baird
interjected crisply. “We crossed every t and dotted every i
acquiring this place. I’ve had it up to the eyeballs with
paperwork.”

Julian inhaled sharply, but Baird tossed his
friend a wry grin. “Come on, what can it hurt to look? You know me
better than to worry about the fate of anything we find here.”

“
You are painfully
scrupulous, much to my ongoing disappointment,” Julian acknowledged
with a rueful smile.

“
So, how can we open this?
Any ideas?”

But Julian was not prepared to abandon his
argument so easily. “Baird, we could get someone down from PR, you
know, and manage this opening as an event…”

“
No!” Baird was surprised
by his own vehemence. “Forget PR!”

“
We never forget
PR.”

“
This time we will.” Unable
to explain his need to do this alone, Baird turned back to survey
the door. “Look, the sooner we get this open, the sooner you can
have your brandy.”

It was troubling to feel so strongly about
something he knew nothing about, especially when he made it his
business to feel as little as possible in the course of life.
Feelings got a man into trouble. They were unpredictable,
unreliable.

They made a man hope for things that could
never be.

But still Baird couldn’t even consider
walking away from this door before it was opened. This was the root
of his fascination with Dunhelm. Baird knew it. He couldn’t turn
away and leave the job half done.

He had to solve this puzzle now.

When Baird said nothing more, Julian did not
hesitate to warm to his theme. “Baird, this is about more than
brandy! You can’t simply barge in and do whatever you want here.
We’re in a foreign country, after all, and it won’t pay to step on
any toes.”

“
It won’t hurt to look, if
we can even get the door open,” Baird corrected with growing
impatience. “And if there isn’t anything there, summoning anyone
would have been wasting their time, as well as our own.”

“
We shouldn’t do
it.”

Baird’s lips set in a tight line. “Look,
Julian, I don’t have to tell you that we’re way behind on this
restoration, mostly thanks to bureaucrats. And I am not going to
spend another six months in government offices getting the right to
open a door on an estate when the title to that estate is in my
pocket and the bill for the property taxes lands on my desk,
especially when there’s probably nothing in it!”

“
Well!” Julian’s nostrils
flared. “I don’t know what you pay me for, if you aren’t going to
listen to what I have to say!” The lawyer smacked the wall to
punctuate his frustration.

Julian swore, Baird turned to argue, then a
low rumble stole away anything either man might have said. They
pivoted to find the carved stone sliding slowly to the left,
revealing a dark space.

Baird glanced back to find Julian nursing
the back of his hand, his eyes round. “What did you do?”

“
I hit that thing.” Julian
pointed to a gargoyle grimacing on the wall beside him. It was the
only decorative detail in the small space at the foot of the stairs
and Baird only now noticed the oddity of that.

Baird shone the flashlight on the gargoyle.
He touched its outstretched tongue and discovered that it was
actually a lever. When he carefully depressed it, the door slid
closed with a grating of stone on stone. Baird repeated the move
and the door opened once more.