Christmas at Draycott Abbey by Christina Skye Page B

that Clair had always loved, rich with history, veiled in magic and the memories of power long gone.
    History had been her passion and her profession until the terrible news of Nina’s death two years earlier. There was violence in history. Cunning, betrayal and cruel deception.
    Clair never expected to find those things invading her own prosaic life as a teacher in a small community college in Maine.
    Another bullet.
    This one tore along her knee. Grimacing, she twisted sideways, throwing her body down a narrow slope and into a deep circle of high bushes. The sharp burn of thorns made her want to scream out in pain. The sharp barbs dug deep, but they hid her well. Her pursuers would not look for her here.
    She heard the hammer of footsteps in the mud. Angry voices followed the flash of lights that bounced up the slope and across the dark tangle where she hid.
    Her heart seemed to explode. Her fingers shook. She didn’t move, though the pain in her forehead hammered like a hollow drum. Maybe the bullet fragment had been more than a scratch. For long moments the night blurred. The air seemed to weigh her down. The sky flashed to gray.
    Dizziness left Clair weak and nauseous. She drove her nails into her palms to hold back a moan.
    A man’s tall shape stopped just outside the brushes. If he turned his flashlight now, he would see her. No escape.
    She saw the flash of a cigarette. She knew the outline of that arrogant, perfect nose outlined in the flame. Nina’s lover.
    Nina’s killer.
    “Not here. Try back up the slope.” The voice was clipped, cool and arrogant in the way the English did best. “If you lose her, I will shoot you.”
    The cigarette glowed, cupped in his hand against the rain. He looked up the hill, inches from Clair’s shivering, sodden body.
    And then he walked back the way he had come.

     
    She didn’t move, couldn’t move. It took her ten minutes to calm her ragged breath.
    Another ten minutes to convince herself that they were finally gone and it wasn’t another one of their clever traps.
    Blood trickled in her eyes and down her forehead as she forced her shaking legs to move. Clumsy, she stood up and pushed through the thorns, too frozen and tired to feel the pain as they dug into her legs. Dizzy and weak, she forced her steps forward.
    The slope changed, rising gently. In the distance Clair saw the canopy of a great oak. She crossed a high stone wall, pulling herself up with bloody fingers. And then she stopped, studying the rolling lawns before her.
    Impossible…and yet this place felt familiar in some strange way. Probably from the English history volumes and guidebooks she had devoured before her first innocent trip to England five years before.
    No hope in remembering that calm, normal life.
    It was gone forever.
    Through the rain she saw light. The flickering shape called to her, and her hands reached out almost as if she knew the path. Yes, a rock here. The brush of an old oak tree, comforting and dry beneath the hammering rain.
    And without knowing how, Clair imagined the sweep of a silver moat. Somehow she knew it would stretch just beyond the hill, pristine and restless in the rain.
    And there would be swans. Seven of them.
    Pain shot through her temple. She closed her eyes, groaning at the sticky trail of blood from her forehead. Dizziness made her bend double, coughing.
    The light flickered again. A lantern seemed to burn against the night, calling to her.
    Safe haven. We’ve been waiting for you.
    I’m coming , Clair wanted to call out. Her hands moved, but the words blocked, caught in her throat. Her bare feet hit the mud and she fell sideways.
    After that was only darkness.

     
    The dog found her first.
    Churchill stood alertly at the top of the woods, signaling her presence in rigid silence. And the figure on the grass was indeed a her , Ian saw. Slim white legs lay sprawled sideways. He frowned at the dark marks of blood covering the pale skin.
    Why in God’s name was a