Bound by Dreams

“Because I prefer to keep my family private.” Calan smiled grimly. “And for the record, I do appreciate all the help you have given me over the years. My…adjustments haven’t always come easily, so I’m grateful for a place of safety and your sound advice.”

“I don’t want your gratitude. I want you to come home and stay home, damn it. Be normal. Be happy.” Nicholas cut off a sound of irritation. “Why can’t you just settle down and find a smart woman who loves you? Start a family before you forget what the concept means.”

“I think not.” Calan’s eyes hardened. “Wife, children and holidays in St. Tropez are not in my future.”

“You want to die in a wretched little shack at the mouth of the Amazon or crossing a minefield in Africa? What kind of end is that?”

Last night’s rain had washed the air clean. Calan watched a bird circle slowly above the moat. Looking for food, no doubt. Nicholas made it a point to keep the abbey’s waters well stocked with trout.

Predators and prey, always circling. This was the natural order of life. One day you were a predator, and the next you were the prey. “Since I won’t be around to notice if I’m dead, how it happens hardly matters.”

“I’m serious, Calan.”

“So am I.” Calan stood up, carrying his teacup to the window. In the clear sunlight the abbey’s slopes were startlingly green. Roses framed the path with a riot of color. In the distance the moat gleamed like a freshly polished mirror, three swans caught on the bright surface. “It’s…an old kind of restlessness. You could call it a curse of my blood. I can never manage to stay anywhere for more than a few weeks.”

He had no real home. Definitely no family.

Restlessness was a friend when you trusted no one—not even yourself.

In every sense his family was dead to him, their memory no more than ashes tossed on barren soil. His past was closed, his future bound by ancient laws that Nicholas Draycott would neither understand nor condone.

Some things were best kept secret.

“You make it sound like a medieval legend, Calan, but I don’t believe in fate or curses. You have a beautiful house in Norfolk. You have work that can be done wherever you like and enough money so that you need never work again. Yet you keep pushing, always restless. What are you running away from?”

Calan didn’t turn around, but his back stiffened.

“It’s none of my business, of course. But I count you as my friend, so I refuse to let you throw your life away, forever rootless among strangers. So come home. Stay home this time.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think I care to discuss that.” Calan’s voice was polite, but there was an edge of warning in his words.

“And that means back off and keep my mouth shut?”

“I’d have put it more graciously. But…yes.” Calan put his teacup down on the table, wishing for something stronger.

Don’t look back.

Don’t think about how the sea feels, clawing at your feet in a northwest gale. Don’t think about the voices in the night, come to administer clan law to a boy too young to understand.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Calan laughed shortly. “Simply the aftereffects of some tainted water in Azerbaijan.”

“You don’t look sick to me.” Nicholas leaned back and crossed his arms. “But since you’re determined to change the subject, so be it. You’ve come at an excellent time, as a matter of fact. It’s Kacey’s birthday in two weeks and I’ve just bought her a painting that may turn out to be a missing Whistler Nocturne.”

“You hardly need my help deciphering art, Nicholas. And why did you ask for my advice on your new wiring? Have you had any problems here?”

It was Nicholas’s turn to look uncomfortable. “The possibility always exists. Crime is everywhere. Civilization is going to hell all around us, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed.” Calan looked down at the scars on his hands, reminders of one grisly ordnance job in Serbia. It was hard to ignore the world’s problems when you walked through minefields on a regular basis. It was also hard to forget man’s capacity for villainy when you saw it up close, written in the faces of the victims.

“My wife believes that people are innately good. I wish I could feel the same. But the things I’ve seen make it hard to believe in goodness and innate human kindness.” Nicholas lifted a small photo in a silver frame. A grave woman with intense eyes and streaks of paint on her hands, Kacey Draycott was a recognized expert in nineteenth-century painting. Nicholas’s photo had caught her at her easel, holding a jeweler’s loupe to examine brush stroke and pigment layers of a suspect Whistler portrait. In a nearby photo, she stood holding a gardening spade, laughing with Prince Charles.

“She moves in good circles,” Calan murmured.

“I could barely tear her away that morning. The two of them were deep in a discussion about rose grafting and compost.”

“Your wife has an extraordinary ability to put anyone at ease.”

Nicholas carefully straightened the row of photos of his wife and their laughing daughter. His next words were spoken softly, almost to himself. “You try your best. You plan and you pray and you maneuver. But you never can keep them separate, can you?” He took a harsh breath. “On one side you have your work—your duty to your country. On the other you’ve got your family, and both of them deserve the very best you can give.” He traced his wife’s photograph, his eyes restless and worried. “But one will always affect the other. Whatever ties you to your family weakens you and makes you vulnerable to attack or influence. I, of all people, should know that.” His hand closed to a fist. “Now I’ve let myself be caught, trapped between duty and family. But I won’t have my family put at risk. I’ll walk away first.”

“Walk away from what?”

“A promise I made to someone in the government.”

“And this problem involves danger?”

“Yes. I’m already regretting my promise. No good deed remains unpunished,” he said coldly. “Then last week I thought someone was following me. When I ran the plates with a friend, he said the car had been reported stolen.”

“I’d call that a bad sign. Anything else?”

“A few weeks ago a man was in town asking questions about the abbey and my family. He claimed to be an old friend trying to locate me. At first I put him down as a tabloid journalist cruising for a story. Now I’m thinking he was about a darker game. So I’m going to beef up all our security. I’ve already hired protection for my family. As of tonight, I’ll be traveling with a bodyguard.”

“You’re doing the right thing to be careful. So you’re talking about a complete overhaul, gatehouse to rose garden?”

“Exactly. I haven’t told Kacey any details yet, just that she needs to be especially careful now. She’s been in London every weekend due to this new Whistler painting that has surfaced. Then it’s our daughter’s birthday at the end of the month. They’re staying at a friend’s town house in London now, and I’ll see they remain there until I’m certain of their safety.”

Calan didn’t like anything about this news. Kidnapping was an ugly business. The attack last night appeared to be planned by men who hoped to snare a member of Nicholas’s family. “You’re right to take any suspicion of a threat seriously. Of course I’ll do whatever I can to help. I’ve been toying with a new program that automatically monitors circuit stability. It will provide alerts when your response is impeded anywhere in your system.”

“English would be good.” Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “Not all of us are electronics geniuses, I’m afraid.”

Calan shrugged. “It’s still in the beta stage, but it would signal you if anyone tampers with your system. When do you want me to start?”

“What about right now? If you’re free for a few days.”

Free as the wind. Free as an ocean swell headed for a rocky beach.

“I’m at your disposal, Nicky. I’ll need a day to find a few things in my workroom in Norfolk—”

“Give me a list. I’ll fetch them myself.” The viscount frowned. “There’s something else you should know about that promise I regret making.” Vibrations shook the old mullioned windows. Nicholas turned, gesturing as a powerful motor thundered up the abbey’s long driveway. “Good Lord, not now. Does the man never rest?”

Calan glanced over the viscount’s shoulder at the black SUV pulling toward them. “Do you know the driver, Nicky? Because I need to tell you about last night—”

The SUV fishtailed abruptly to a halt and a tall man jumped down. Ramrod straight, he studied the front grounds of the abbey and then set a small metal box on the gravel. He pulled out a cell phone and began to talk loudly.