An intruder had entered the grounds.
She jumped to her feet and gripped the window ledge, waiting tensely for Stone to appear and confront the newcomer.
Seconds passed. A second man joined the first. The lantern winked out but there was enough moonlight to allow Evangeline to watch the two dark shadows. They were moving toward the gazebo and the entrance to the Night Garden.
There was no sign of Stone. Something was very wrong. Her intuition flared, sending her already jangled senses into a frenzy of alarm.
She struck a light and lit the bedside taper. Candlestick in hand, she went out into the hall and down the stairs. At the foot of the staircase she hurried toward the rooms near the kitchen that Stone had claimed. Perhaps he was not outside after all, she thought. Perhaps he was still asleep.
She rapped sharply on the door. There was no response.
“Mr. Stone,” she called softly. “Mr. Stone, are you in there?”
Silence reverberated.
She wrapped one hand around the doorknob and twisted tentatively. The door opened easily. She hesitated. Both she and Stone would be equally horrified and dreadfully embarrassed if it transpired that he was still in bed.
There was nothing for it. She could not waste another moment. Holding the candlestick, she peeked around the edge of the door. The flickering light of the flame revealed the empty, still-made-up bed. Stone was gone.
Her first reaction was relief. He was outside in the garden after all. He would surely spot the intruders. He and Lucas were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
But what if Stone didn’t realize that the two men were on the grounds?
The feeling that something very bad was about to happen out in the gardens got stronger and more disturbing.
She closed the door to Stone’s room and went swiftly along the hall to the kitchen. Blowing out the candle, she opened the door and moved outside onto the terrace. The cool night air flirted with the hem of her wrapper.
The luminous gazebo loomed in the moonlight. She looked around for Stone and saw no sign of him. Searching for him would take precious time, but he was her best hope. Stone would know how to protect Lucas.
There was no alternative. She was very good at finding that which was lost. Tonight Stone had gone missing. She summoned up her psychical impressions of the man and focused her senses on the search.
When she looked down she saw a faint fog of energy stirring at her feet. She knew in a way she could not explain that this was what she was searching for, Stone’s psychical trail.
Senses raised, she circled the pond, taking care not to look directly into the moonlight-silvered water. The disturbing energy tugged at her but she suppressed the urge to walk to the edge and look down into the depths.
She hurried along the path between two towering hedges, ignoring the massive night-blooming flowers that glowed on the green walls.
She exited the hedge path and rounded a wildly overgrown rosebush. The flowers radiated an iridescent light. She was in the Day Garden, not the more dangerous Night Garden, but her intuition told her it would be unwise to brush up against the small thorns or pause to inhale the scent.
She was concentrating so hard on staying well clear of the roses that she did not notice the pulsing energy currents on the ground until her slipper-clad foot collided with a large, immovable object. She tumbled and went down, landing hard on her hands and knees. Jolted, she gasped for breath. It took her a second or two to realize what she had tripped over.
“Stone.”
She crouched and studied Stone’s too-quiet form with all of her senses. The strong, steady currents of energy around him assured her that he was alive, but the subdued heat in some of the key wavelengths indicated that he was deeply, unnaturally asleep. Her fingers shook a little. Stone would never fall asleep on patrol and certainly not so profoundly.
She struggled to her knees and searched his body for signs of a wound. To her relief there were none, but something traumatic had happened to Stone. He lay face up in the moonlight, eyes closed. He did not stir.
“Mr. Stone,” she whispered.
Gingerly she shook one massive shoulder. When she got no response, she pressed her fingertips to his throat. Relief surged through her when she discovered that his pulse was steady and strong. It was clear, however, that he was not going to be of any use to Lucas tonight.
There was no point wasting time going back into the house to summon Florence and Beth. Neither of them could go more than a few steps into the gardens at night without becoming disoriented.
She went back along the hedge path, past the rim of the pond, and pushed through a curtain of orchids and creepers to enter the gazebo. Her senses were flung wide, focusing on the new search. She had to find Lucas.
She had no difficulty detecting the cold, fiery energy of his prints on the glowing stone floor.
She stepped off the far edge of the gazebo and followed the trail of prints to the entrance of the maze. The iron gate stood open. The interior of the maze was lit with dark energy.
She moved cautiously into the luminous passageway formed by the living walls of plants. In her heightened state of perception she could have sworn that she heard the foliage breathing and whispering around her. She knew it was impossible but she could not shake the sensation that the maze was somehow aware of her presence.
She paused just inside the entrance, listening for footsteps or voices. But she heard nothing. The atmosphere was oddly hushed, as if the paranormal foliage absorbed and muffled normal sound.
The floor of the maze was composed of a carpet of oddly shaped green leaves. The ceiling and walls were formed by thick foliage that bristled with red-tipped thorns and blooms that resembled gaping mouths.
No moonlight penetrated the maze, but the paranormal luminescence of the leaves and the ominous flowers that studded the walls provided enough light to allow her to see where she was going.
She followed Lucas’s hotly seething prints deeper into the labyrinth, following the trail through an impossibly complicated pattern of twists and turns. There was no sign of the intruders.
A short time later she arrived at yet another intersection and saw that Lucas had gone left. She followed, hurrying more quickly now. Her slippers made no sound on the green carpet.
She rounded the corner and crashed into Lucas. He clamped an arm around her waist and put a hand over her mouth before she could cry out in surprise.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he said into her ear.
At least she could hear him now that he was so close. She tried to respond but that proved impossible with his palm covering her lips.
“Mmmph,” she said.
“Keep your voice down,” he warned. “Sound doesn’t carry far in here, but if they come close enough they will be able to hear us.”
Cautiously he took his hand away from her mouth.
“You know about the two men who followed you in here?” she whispered.
“I sensed them a few minutes ago. What are you doing here?”
“I saw the men enter the garden. I came to warn you.”
“You should have sent Stone.”
The irritation in his voice was more than a little annoying.
“Believe it or not, I thought of that,” she said coolly. “Unfortunately Mr. Stone is incapacitated.”
“What?”
The question was asked in a rather absent manner. She realized that he was focused on listening for the intruders.
“Stone is lying unconscious out in the Day Garden,” she said quietly.
“What?”
She had Lucas’s full attention now, she thought.
“I think those two men must have done something to him,” she added. “That is why I’m the one who came to warn you.”
“Hush.” Lucas put his hand across her mouth again. “Here they come. It didn’t take them long to realize that they made a wrong turn a while ago.”
She nodd
ed to show that she understood the need for silence. Lucas freed her mouth. Now she could hear the ghostly voices in the maze. There was an eerie distortion, as if the men were conversing in another dimension. It was impossible to tell how close they were, let alone estimate their position in the labyrinth. But as they drew nearer, their words became more distinct.
“What if the guard is dead?” The voice was masculine and laced with anxiety. “There will be a search in the morning when he is found.”
“There is nothing to be done about it now. If he is dead, it will no doubt appear that he died of a heart attack or a stroke.”
The second man spoke with impatience and authority. He was the one in command.
Evangeline realized she had been expecting to hear the unpolished accents of street criminals. But the intruders sounded like respectable, educated men.
“I told you it was dangerous to come here tonight,” the nervous man said.
“It is not as if we have a choice. It was one thing to wait a few days in hopes that Sebastian would not stay long. But they’re saying in town that he has opened up an entire wing of the abbey. Damnation, three women and a lady’s maid are now in residence. He has hired day help. It is obvious that he means to settle in for the summer.”
“We can wait until he leaves,” the anxious man said hopefully.
“We cannot take the risk. There is every indication that he is planning to make the gardens his country house and the locals are saying that he is as mad as his uncle. We must find the gold before he starts looking for it himself. At the rate he is accumulating houseguests and increasing staff, it will soon be impossible to obtain access to the grounds. We were fortunate to get past the guard tonight. There may not be another chance.”
“I understand, but we must be away from here as soon as possible.”
“I’m no more eager to remain here than you are, believe me.”
“Nothing in these gardens is natural,” the anxious man warned, “especially this maze.”
“Be grateful,” the other man said. “If not for the paranormal energy in the vicinity and Chester Sebastian’s botanical experiments, the gold would likely have been found and removed long ago.”
The pair would come around the corner in a few seconds. There was nowhere to hide, Evangeline realized. That left two options. They must either confront the intruders or flee deeper into the maze.
Lucas’s hand closed around her upper arm. He drew her toward another intersection in the maze and around the corner.
“Stay here,” he whispered into her ear. “Do not touch any of the foliage.”
She nodded again to show that she understood the instructions.
He moved to the entrance of the passageway and stood just to the side of the opening. She knew then that he intended to confront the pair. Her intuition spiked.
“I do not think this is a good plan,” she whispered.
He ignored her. Perhaps he had not heard her. There was no time to say anything else. The ghostly voices were coming closer.
She watched one of the intruders walk past the entrance. In the otherworldly illumination of the maze he was little more than a silhouette. She saw enough of him to note that he was tall and thin with a sharp, narrow profile. He held an oddly shaped miniature lantern in both hands, carrying it before him like an offering. The device emitted a narrow beam of paranormal light. The man’s entire attention was on the beam. He did not even glance into the intersecting passage.
Lucas let him pass.
“Hold on.” The nervous man sounded as if he were succumbing to panic. “If I lose sight of you I will never be able to find my way out of this damned maze.”
“Then you’d best hurry, Horace,” the other man said.
“I’m coming. I don’t dare move quickly in here. The thorns, you know.”
The one called Horace hurried past the opening. He was a head shorter than his companion and on the plump side. Light sparked on the lenses of the spectacles perched on his nose. He was evidently sweating profusely, because he kept dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief.
Lucas glided out into the passageway behind Horace. Evangeline felt the sudden heightening of ominous energy—not the foliage, she realized. Lucas was generating the dark currents of power. She shivered even though the waves of energy were not focused on her. Nightmares stirred in the atmosphere.
“What the bloody hell?” Horace’s voice rose on a crescendo of fear. “Burton, wait, there’s something here, something dreadful—”
The words were cut off abruptly. They were followed by a solid-sounding thud. Evangeline knew the intruder had just collapsed on the floor of the maze.
“Son of a bitch, you must be Sebastian.” Burton’s voice echoed eerily. “I had hoped to avoid using this again tonight, but you have left me no choice.”
“I do not encourage treasure hunters,” Lucas said. “I should let the gardens deal with you, but these damn plants don’t need any more food. They are flourishing too well as it is.”
A sharp, intense beam of green paranormal energy flashed in the passageway. Evangeline realized it was a more powerful version of the ray given off by the odd lantern device. Simultaneously, Lucas’s nightmarish energy roiled the atmosphere.
Psychical fire exploded in the passage. Shock waves reverberated through the heavy foliage. There was a fearsome rattling of leaves and vines, as if long-quiet skeletons had awakened and started to dance.
Ghostly winds began to howl.
Evangeline ran to the entrance of the passage. A dark storm was coalescing, filling the green corridor.
“Lucas,” she screamed. But her voice was lost in the thunder of the rapidly evolving paranormal tornado.
A dark figure moved through the churning gale. A second later Lucas emerged from the shrieking storm. He stumbled into the passage where she stood. A searing rainbow of energy enveloped him. His aura, she thought. He had somehow used it to protect himself from the violent forces. But she sensed that the psychical shield would cost him dearly. He had to be employing a vast amount of energy to maintain it.
“Lucas.” She could not even hear her own voice above the crashing winds of power. She grabbed his arm. He stumbled and went down hard on one knee but managed to stagger back to his feet.
A small object rolled through the entrance behind him. She recognized the lantern that the intruder had carried. Without thinking about it, she stooped and seized the handle.
Lucas clamped his powerful fingers around her other hand and hauled her upright. His palm was warm against her skin. Too warm, she thought. At least the hot rainbow had disappeared.
“Run,” he ordered.
She needed no urging. He drew her toward the far end of the passage and around the corner into another avenue of the maze. She thought she heard a panicked shout behind her but she did not turn around to look. She could feel the energy of the storm at her back now. The violent winds were being channeled into the intersecting corridors of the maze. The foliage writhed like nests of snakes on all sides.
Lucas pulled her swiftly around another intersection.
“Whatever you do, don’t prick yourself on any of the red-tipped thorns,” he said. His voice was harsh, as if it required enormous effort just to speak.
“Trust me, I’m doing my best to avoid touching anything in this place. What happened back there?”
“I think those two were using the energy of that lantern to navigate the maze. But when one of them turned it on me he did something to intensify the beam. It became a weapon. But there is a great deal of unstable energy in the atmosphere in here. I suspect that the lantern beam touched off the paranormal firestorm.”
She realized that the hand he had wrapped around her wrist was growing warmer, as if a high fever were heating his blood.
“Lucas,” she gasped, stumbling to keep up with him, “are you all right?”
“We can’t go out through the gate because of the storm. We need to get to the baths in the Night Gar
den.”
“You were injured in the explosion, weren’t you? I can feel the fever in you. Tell me what is happening, I beg you.”
“I don’t know what happened back there,” he said. “It felt as if my psychical senses were being seared.” He shook his head and blinked several times, as if trying to focus.
“We must get you back to the house.”
“Not tonight,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re trapped in here until morning. I told you, that storm is blocking the only exit. Given the amount of energy in this place and the fact that the forces in here are so powerful at night, it will take hours for things to calm sufficiently to allow us safe passage.”
“Dear heaven.”
He yanked her around another intersection. The lantern she was carrying rattled.
“What is that sound?” Lucas asked.
“The weapon that man used against you. He dropped it and it rolled into the passage where I was waiting for you. I thought we might want to examine it.”
“What the devil?” Lucas glanced down at the lantern. “Have a care with that thing. We don’t know how it works or what it can do.”
“Of course I’ll be careful,” she said very coolly. “I’m not a fool, Lucas. I grew up in the household of an inventor. I am always cautious around unknown devices.”
Lucas’s jaw tightened. He plunged down another narrow passage, hauling her with him. “My apologies. I will, indeed, want to take a closer look at it after we get out of here.”
“No apologies are necessary. I do comprehend your concern. And I realize that you are not accustomed to working with a woman who is also a trained investigator.”
His mouth twisted into a grim smile. “I appreciate your making allowances for me.”
“Do you have any idea who those two men were?”
“No. Never met either of them. Treasure hunters from the sound of it. I think it’s safe to assume that they were involved in my uncle’s death.”