Free Claimed by a Scottish Lord by Melody Thomas Page A

He‘d given Jack a message for her: Go. Now. I will find you at the cemetery .

    Why? Had he been so worried for her safety because she had ridden the stallion without permission? She doubted it.

    She should go back.

    All these thoughts tumbled through her mind as she took a step backward and leaned against the tree, her heart pounding like the steadily increasing thump of a Gypsy‘s tabor. Her gut told her something was terribly wrong.

    Go, Roselyn. Her mother‘s long-ago words. I will find you. I promise .

    She had not come back for Roselyn. She had died.

    Jack dropped to the ground. ―I‘m hungry.‖

    Attempting to quiet her inner turmoil, she sat and tweaked Jack‘s nose as if that would dissuade her from fear. ―You need not worry about supper. Sister Nessa always saves you a plate.‖

    The breeze stirred the grass, and turning her head, she listened to the distant, lonely bark of a fox. All that lay out here among the sod and the sheep was an abandoned cemetery, unmarked graves of fallen English who had died fighting Scots, men on both sides of the border who never made it home to their families. She saw no sign of another‘s presence, no shadow lurking in the moonlight, and breathing easier, she reached into her pocket and removed the coin she had put there. ―Look what I found today,‖ she said.

    Excitement banished the worry from his eyes. ―Where?‖

    ―Near the crossroads. The mountebank must have dropped it.‖

    Jack laughed and gave her a hug. ―Thank you, Miss Rose.‖

    He believed the lie, never thinking she could be dishonest with him. He trusted in all things, which was why that mountebank could take advantage of him. But his unerring faith in her made her question her own character, something she rarely did. A lie was still a lie even if spoken with the best of intention.

    She had been living one her entire life.

    At the thought, the breeze seemed to strengthen, stirring the treetops. Moonlight washed over her—like the wings of an angel. A strange current of electricity rippled through her body and caused her to pull the sorcerer‘s puzzle box from her jacket pocket. The wood seemed to absorb the pale light.

    ―What is it?‖ asked Jack, leaning over.

    ―I have no idea.‖

    She walked down the hill to the rusted wrought-iron fence that safeguarded the hallowed grounds of the cemetery.

    Holding the puzzle box, she peered up at the sky. The clouds were playing on the wind‘s invisible currents and the moon had suddenly come out of hiding.

    Heart racing, Rose looked for clues on the box similar to what had been revealed when she had set the box in sunlight. The transcriptions on the box began to disappear until only the circle of the sun and the moon remained. The circle depicting the moon had darkened considerably.

    As the moonlight grew in strength, heat pooled in her palms, increasing in intensity. She pressed her thumbs against the sun and moon circlets.

    Each side opposite the other yet coexisting. Both shall reveal the path.

    ―You‘ve been staring at the box a long time,‖ Jack suddenly said from beside her.

    She startled. Having not heard his approach, his voice nearly frightened her to death.

    ―Are ye nervous?‖ he asked.

    ―I am more nervous nothing will happen.‖

    ―I don‘t want ye to leave us.‖

    She smiled gently at the anxious boy. ―Then perhaps I shall wish only for our happiness.‖

    Maybe that was all a person had a right to ask for.

    Rose pressed one thumb first against the sun circlet and then against the moon. ―Light to darkness,‖ she said.

    To her shock, the pressure she exerted crushed the sides of the box as if it were made of parchment. The wood cracked and the lid sprang open.

    She hadn‘t expected the box to open, much less pop its valuable contents into the air. She gave a low cry as she glimpsed a spot of silver appear in a band of moonlight and then vanish behind her in the grass. She whirled and dropped on all fours