Blackmailed Bride. Sylvie Kurtz

I’m close to a breakthrough. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to…leave.”

      “That sounds awfully cold.”

      The pencil stilled; the eyes didn’t. They seemed to bore deeper and deeper, past the cracks in her mask, to her soft inner core, and anchor. What was he looking for? What did he want from her? Jonas’s unwavering scrutiny narrowed the room, making her edgy and stifling her breath low in her lungs. She smoothed the skirt of her dress to remind herself she was indeed fully clothed.

      “There are mitigating circumstances,” Jonas said.

      “Such as?”

      The corded tendons along his jaw drew tight, relaxed, then tightened again, but he didn’t say anything.

      “What if she comes back?”

      Jonas dropped the pencil and stood up abruptly. He walked to the window, but Cathlynn could have sworn he didn’t see the mad dance of snowflakes falling past the windowpane. The iron-stiff set of his face frightened her with its severity. Something ate at him. Guilt? What had happened between him and Alana to cause such unbending grimness? His skin had paled, making him appear even more formidable.

      “What if she comes back?” Cathlynn found the courage to ask again, not sure she really wanted an answer. Her mind had already worked overtime on sinister conclusions.

      “I doubt she will.” His voice grated with something close to hatred. His jaw tensed, raising tiny knots along the muscle. He didn’t amplify. Or was the harshness due to his loss? Could she be mistaken? Had he loved Alana, and were the ominous feelings snaking through her just a product of her fertile imagination fueled by the house’s ghoulish grimness?

      Cathlynn digested the information he’d given her while a dozen questions popped into her mind. If he loved Alana, why had she left? Why wouldn’t she be back? Was it because of Jonas, or something else? Something permanent…like death.

      Some even say he killed her himself…

      “What about the people in the village, won’t they know the difference?” Cathlynn asked, trying to sway her thoughts away from their direful direction.

      “Alana rarely ventured there, and there’s no need for you to leave the monastery. All your needs will be taken care of. Only Valentin, my butler, and David Forester, my assistant, will need to know the truth, and they’ve both proven their trust.”

      Trying to slow down her mind and make sense of the bits of information he fed her, she focused on the tapestry over the fireplace. A medieval battle took place. Knights in shining armor on trusty steeds fought for the Holy Grail, killing for their perception of Truth and Right.

      Well, that didn’t help at all. The bloody carnage darkened her already dismal thoughts. There were always two sides to everything, weren’t there? Perceptions changed truth. Didn’t all the wars in the name of God prove that? Would she really be compromising her honesty by accepting the role in exchange for her heart’s desire? And there was Gram’s to think of. A week, a month. The doctors weren’t sure how long she had left; they could only say that her time was near. Would two weeks be too long?

      Cathlynn studied the room, looking for an answer to her dilemma among the sullen whispers of the past swirling about the room. The stones seemed to pulse again with unseen life.

      Beware.

      The whisper into her brain chilled her to the bone. She looked around the room, but saw nothing out of place. She shook her head, and put the perceived thought to a figment of her overtired mind.

      Oh, Gram, what am I getting myself into?

      Could she live for two weeks in the coldness of this grim stone house, among the austere monks’ ghosts and the cloak of sadness permeating the walls?

      “Can’t you get your funding elsewhere?” Cathlynn asked, trying to fill the heavy silence while she thought her alternatives through.

      “My options are…limited. The income from the monastery’s various holdings isn’t enough to support the monastery, let alone my research.”

      “The Monastery Company. That’s you?”

      “Yes.”

      “Why stay here then?” Cathlynn asked. “Why not sell this place?”

      He sat down, leaned his elbows on the chair’s armrests and tented his fingers. “You want the Aidan Heart, don’t you?”

      She nodded.

      “And there’s no logical reason for it, right?”

      “No.”

      He lifted his hands. “I love this place, and there’s no logical reason for it.”

      For an instant, his eyes showed the truth of his words and his face softened. Just as fast, the fleeting impression vanished, leaving Cathlynn to wonder if she’d simply imagined it.

      “As for my research,” he continued, “I do it for a very personal reason, and the trust would enable me to keep it—and the monastery—going without worry. I won’t be the only beneficiary of your kindness. A lot of people depend on me for their livelihoods, and maybe even their lives.”

      The reasoning seemed noble enough, yet Cathlynn sensed there remained much untold. Did she really want to know the truth? Shadowed fear fought with her soul’s deep yearning.

      “I can’t afford to take two weeks off work,” Cathlynn said, mirroring his seated stance. Years of dealing had taught her the fine art of negotiation. “I have to keep buying and selling merchandise.” But they had been lonely years. “I have to keep visible.” They hadn’t taught her to manage these strange gut feelings, or the way this man’s mere presence could short-circuit her usually ordered thinking. She fought now for her edge, for the safety of her professional mask, for the knowledge that his need matched her own in ferocity. How far would he go? “As much as I want the Aidan Heart, I do have to make a living. Then there’s the complication of my grandmother. She may not have two weeks to live.”

      His cold, gray gaze fixed on her. She didn’t flinch. The silence grew between them until Cathlynn thought she would suffocate from it. His pointed stare made her want to squirm, but instinct told her she couldn’t let her discomfort show. She kept very still outwardly, but inwardly everything buzzed.

      Staring back at him didn’t help, because she saw so much and yet so little in the vivid gray pools. Everything about him seemed so contradictory—sensuous lips and a hard demeanor; eyes that thawed and iced over with no rhyme or reason; a seemingly logical approach to everything and an illogical love for a place. Which was the real Jonas? The murderer of village gossip who’d killed his wife in a fit of rage, or the driven researcher looking for some mysterious cure?

      “Over the years, I’ve collected a fair amount of antique glass,” Jonas said finally, breaking his mesmerizing eye contact. Cathlynn swallowed her sigh of relief. “I’ve put off my collection’s appraisal for far too long. I’d like to hire you to do the job.”

      “I—”

      “I’ll pay you your going rate, and I’ll also give you free title to the Aidan Heart when you leave after the Christmas Fete.”

      Jonas Shades was no fool. He knew exactly which string to pull. Cathlynn was sorely tempted. She wanted the sculpture.

      She couldn’t leave without it.

      “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve earned,” Jonas added, leaning back in his chair. “I’d hate to see it go to my wife’s cousin, who hasn’t worked a day in his life and would squander it, when it could be put to good use. How much care does your grandmother need?”

      “She’s cared for physically. What she needs is my presence to tie her to reality.”

      “Would a visit every few days work?”

      If she accepted his offer, she’d have her treasure and money besides to increase