Free Dreams of Stardust by Lynn Kurland Page A

could keep his lack of breakfast down where it should be. He
moved his fists from off his eyes and anchored them firmly under his
chin where they could do the most good in holding up his aching head.
He opened his eyes slowly and hoped for the best.
    Well, it was for damn sure he wasn't in a hospital. That was a good
thing. The downside was, he had no idea where the hell he was.
    He looked around him slowly, trying to absorb the details of his
surroundings. He was, from what he could tell, in some sort of study.
But it looked nothing like Seakirk's study. The glaring omissions were
the big-screen TV and comfortable couch. There were wooden chairs, and
though he had to admit that there were cushions on them that looked
relatively comfortable, they were not of Seakirk's ilk. Under the deep
window stood a desk littered with papers of all kinds.
    Parchment kinds, actually.
    A bookshelf stood against one wall. There were, and he could count
them from where he sat, ten books. The other shelves were filled with
what looked like ink pots, several wooden boxes, and other kinds of
study paraphernalia allowed by a man who didn't particularly care for
knickknacks.
    Heavy wooden shutters were pulled back from the windows and folded
against the walls. Jake almost wished they were covering the windows,
for the cold was numbing. The chill came up from the stone floor as
well, a floor devoid of a good, thick carpet, but instead strewn with
straw. He frowned, then shrugged. It took all kinds, he supposed. He
followed the floor as it led to a fireplace across the room that was
unfortunately devoid of a good fire.
    All in all, the place could have done with a good remodel.
    Then again, if the owners were going for bona fide medieval, they
had it nailed. Jake had been through enough castles to appreciate the
authenticity of the place. He just wished he was appreciating it with
the promise of a pint in front of a roaring fire at day's end to look
forward to.
    Well, the only thing he could surmise was that somehow he had been
liberated from his car and brought to the closest house for a little
recovery. That didn't bode well for his Jag, but he seemed to be free
of injuries, outside of a colossal headache, so perhaps the Jag had
escaped as well.
    He got to his feet, swayed, then waited until his head cleared. He
patted his pockets and then realized something quite unsettling.
    He was standing there in his boxers.
    No wonder he was so cold.
    Good grief, what had happened to him? He speculated quickly. Maybe
he'd been robbed. Maybe he'd been abducted. Maybe he'd been robbed,
then abducted.
    Or maybe he'd just been taken in by some kind soul—hopefully that
stunning woman he'd hallucinated—who had taken his clothes to give them
a good cleaning and would soon be handing them back to him with his
keys and his wallet. He would then leave the house and find his Jag in
pristine condition outside.
    It could happen.
    He took a deep breath and crossed the room to the door. He was
feeling great. He would feel even better when he was back in his car
and on his way. Maybe he could call the earl of Artane and apologize
for the delay and thereby buy himself another couple of days'
recuperation in the Boar's Head Inn. He seemed to be sadly lacking in
sleep hours of late.
    And he could trace the beginning of that directly back to his
father, damn him.
    Jake took a hold of the door handle and pulled. It didn't open. Not
good.
    He tried again, to no avail. He then realized that he had been
locked in. And for some reason, that was a very unhappy confirmation of
his worst fears.
    Fortunately for him, he had collected a wide variety of rather
unsavory skills during his long and illustrious career as hunter of
gems and other items requiring difficult and semilegal acquisition.
Thad, a man whom he had hired as a guide on his first trip into the
depths of South America in search of the perfect bit of sapphire, had
taught him a few of the more innocuous things he himself