“Thank you for the tour. It was fascinating. I think I’ll go to my room and get my notes together.” And see if I can’t get my composure and emotions together, as well.
Donovan escorted Taylor inside the manor house, then watched as she ascended the staircase to the second floor. As soon as she was out of sight he returned to his suite of rooms to seek privacy and some much-needed solitude. He poured a glass of water from the carafe before sinking into the large chair. He rubbed his temples as he took several deep breaths. He desperately needed to sort things out, especially the mysterious pull she exerted on his senses whenever he was around her, which had expanded to include every time he thought about her. And those occasions seemed to be occurring with increased frequency with each passing hour.
He tried to collect his thoughts. First there was the shock of his father’s death—his father’s suicide—two months ago, a situation that still caused him great emotional pain. Then there were the blinding headaches that would strike from out of nowhere followed by periods of disorientation—the same symptoms his father had experienced before his suicide. Then came the disturbing dreams. Next came the bizarre happenings at the crypt.
And finally the appearance of this very disconcerting, yet very familiar, woman.
He could not dislodge the feeling that some sort of mysterious thread tied all of these events together. If only he could figure out what it was. Taylor’s countenance continued to haunt his mind—the set of her eyes, the shape of her face, the sensual mouth…the deliciously sensual mouth that tasted of everything he had ever wanted. The nagging feeling that he had encountered her somewhere continued to confound him. There had to be an answer. He closed his eyes. An image began to form, a faint vision of a woman’s face. He tried to bring it into focus, but it refused to completely materialize.
Donovan opened his eyes, the disturbing image having faded completely. His gaze landed on his father’s trunk. His father had always kept it locked and he had never known what was in it.
When his father committed suicide he had left a note. Donovan found it the next morning when he discovered his father’s body. The note was only an apology and did not shed any light on the reason the elder Sedgwick had committed suicide.
Donovan had found the key to the mysterious trunk in the nightstand next to his father’s bed. He had done a cursory check of the contents following his father’s funeral and had been disappointed in the routine items he found. The way his father had kept the trunk locked had led him to believe that it contained something pertinent. However, he had not inspected anything in depth.
He emitted an audible sigh of resignation, then rose from the chair and took the key from his dresser drawer. Now would be as good a time as any to do a more thorough check of the contents. Maybe upon closer inspection he would find some clue that would help him figure out why his father had committed suicide, and lead to some answers about what had been happening to him.
A cold chill made its way up his spine. A sense of foreboding seemed to permeate the very fabric of the house as if something menacing lived in the walls and stalked the hallways. He had never felt it before and had first became aware of the odd sensations about the time his father began to suffer the blinding headaches and disorientation. And now it was happening to him in the same manner. A stab of fear sliced through him.
He still did not understand what had driven his father to commit suicide. The two of them had been very close. James Sedgwick had been well over forty years old when he and Donovan’s mother had married. Donovan was their only child. His mother died when he was six.
Even though his grandfather, and later his father, had sold off part of the land and had leased out some of the buildings along the main road, the estate was still quite large and diversified. Unlike many other large land holdings in England, it was not mired in financial problems. Quite the contrary. Due to intelligent and enlightened management, combined with shrewd investments and business dealings, the estate had shown an above-average return for the past several years. That was one of the reasons why his father’s suicide had been so difficult to accept. Nothing about it made any sense.
When Donovan had originally looked inside the trunk he’d found some handwritten journals that he’d only skimmed, some old photographs he’d merely glanced at, and what appeared to be blueprints and architectural drawings for the addition to the manor house his great-grandfather had built. As well, there were the plans for the modernization of the estate his grandfather had completed, and finally the most recent changes his father had made.
He picked up one of the journals. It was dated one hundred years ago—the year his great-grandfather had committed two murders. The journal had his great-grandfather’s name on the inside cover. It was filled with notations that revealed his obsession with Emily Kincaid and his plans to make her his mistress in spite of the fact that she was married, had a young daughter and had repeatedly turned down his advances. His plan called for Emily to give herself to him the night before the start of the festival—willingly or otherwise.
Donovan set the journal aside. The subsequent events and resulting murders had been well documented in the local village newspaper along with the Treadwells’ personal bias against the Sedgwick family, a bias that did not exist in the news articles published by the London Times. And Byron Treadwell had maintained that personal bias since taking over as managing editor and publisher of the village newspaper.
There were two journals with his grandfather’s name on them. And finally four journals with the name James Sedgwick on the inside cover, the most recent one dated just a couple of months before his suicide. There had to have been some reason for Donovan’s father to have kept those specific items locked away. And some reason for him to have stopped making journal entries two months before his death. He hadn’t hidden them in the trunk because they had monetary value.
One thing Donovan knew for sure was that none of the journals belonged in the library as part of the family archives, where someone else could have access to them. And that would certainly extend to Taylor MacKenzie and her research. The last thing he wanted was to see mention of the family’s evil deeds in a book on British country festivals.
He picked up a large envelope and removed the photographs. He selected one of the photographs, a very old one. On the back, in his father’s handwriting, were the words Emily Kincaid. He turned it over and stared at it.
It was as if someone had landed a solid punch to his body, knocking all the breath out of him. A hard lump formed in his throat and a knot tightened in his stomach. The face reached out to him, grabbing his reality and twisting it into a mystifying tangle.
The eyes were large and expressive just like Taylor’s. It was the same nose and identical smile from the same sensual mouth. The hair in the photograph was long and dark, but it was Taylor’s face. His attention remained riveted on the old photograph, held captive by a force that tugged at his senses and seemed to be pushing him closer to the brink of the unknown.
Who was Taylor MacKenzie? What was the real reason for her being at his house? What did she want from him?
He squeezed his eyes shut as the pounding headache struck from out of nowhere, then the darkness descended around him.
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