Christmas at Draycott Abbey by Christina Skye

Sussex, England
Draycott Abbey
Three weeks before Christmas
     
    Ian Sinclair stood in the darkness, watching rain hammer at the French doors and the ancient granite bridge. Tonight the abbey was quiet. There was no laughter from the Viscount Draycott and his family. The broad front doors were decorated with a single small wreath. Inside all was deserted and dark with no glittering social events or charity gatherings.
    Tonight there were only shadows. Only silence and a sense of history so strong it was almost physical. This was how Ian preferred the old abbey.
    Lightning tore at the sky, outlining the great oak and the home wood beyond. Wind lashed at the old casement windows as the storm's fury grew. Odd weather for December, Ian thought. There had already been flooding reported near Winchelsea and Rye. But no snow.
    Very odd.
    Suddenly the dog near his chair sat up. Dark ears pricked back as the big animal stared out into the night. Then the dog shot upright, racing forward to press against the glass doors.
    "What is it, Churchill? What do you hear?"
    Ian stood up slowly and rubbed his leg. Was it more terrorists?
    More people from one of a thousand missions he had carried out for the government over the past ten years?
    The tall man by the fire closed his eyes. He was twenty-nine, damn it. He was getting too old to run down assassins and jump off roofs. The last mission in Paris had proved that.
    The big brown dog turned and then sat down, body rigid. He was well trained, experienced from long years working with Ian. And that single movement meant only one thing.
    Danger.
    Ian's face was grim as he slid his Beretta into his holster and went to calm the dog at the door.
    No one was expected here at the abbey. No visitors or deliveries of any sort.
    As he smoothed his dog's lean, angular head, Ian sensed the keen intelligence and the need to hunt.
    Ian understood that need too. Sometimes, when the madness came in the late hours and the dark memories piled up, he too needed to hunt. Only the feel of the cold night air and the pounding of his blood would help him forget…
    So they would hunt tonight.
    “Go. Find them,” Ian ordered, throwing open the door. "I'll be right behind you."
    The dog bounded out in one powerful leap.
    Ian stood for long moments, studying the distant woods. Was there a light, up near the Witch's Pool?
    He pulled on his old tweed coat, feeling a sharp stab of warning. Wind swirled through the room and the firelight jumped dizzily behind him. His eyes hardened as another light brushed the darkness on the high ridge beyond the moat.
    He prayed that the hunting would be good this night….

They were holding her in the back seat. Two men to her right. Two men in front, close enough to grab her.
    The ties at her wrists had been hard to remove, but the metal file hidden in her zipper had done the job. Now her nails were broken and bleeding. But Clair Haywood forced away all thoughts of pain.
    Right now pain was good. It meant she was still alive.
    Lightning cut a violent path in front of the car. The driver turned sharply, leaning forward as the first drops of rain hammered at the windshield.
    Clair knew this area. She had seen it in all the guidebooks. She remembered the rolling hills and the wooded ridges above the levels near the sea. But those memories belonged to a different life—a million years and a lifetime ago, before her sister had been killed.
    Before the cascade of betrayals.
    Before she had taken a dangerous job with men who knew no honor.
    The government had promised her identity was impregnable. A simple kitchen worker in a crowded private hotel, no one would scrutinize her.
    But someone had, soon after her arrival. And Clair was nearly certain that there had to be a traitor somewhere in the government’s security team. She had almost picked up the nervous whispering of the bodyguards as she stood outside on the patio, pretending to smoke but actually observing license plates of the line