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Whoever they were, his sexual secrets did not seem to concern them. The details of the Earl of Rutherford, however: those held these monstrous people in thrall. And when he repeated the strange words Elliott had shared with him about life and death and kings, the man and woman before him both took a step forward, wide-eyed fascination in their expressions.

All thanks to a king. They made him repeat this phrase several times.

And, oh, how it pained him to include the details of the letter written by Elliott's son. The betrothal party at their estate in Yorkshire. The names Julie Stratford and Reginald Ramsey. But he was also a son, and his mother, his poor, sweet mother's life hung in the balance.

"Say this name again," the woman interrupted him.

"Which one?"

"Ramsey, you say? A Mr. Reginald Ramsey?"

Michel nodded fiercely, and for the first time, the man and woman who held him captive looked away from him and stared piercingly at each other.

"All thanks to a king," the woman whispered.

*

His mother's legs gave out by the time they reached the hill that led to his apartment.

Michel was still stunned they had been freed so quickly. Impossible not to keep looking over his shoulder as he and his mother had hurried from the harbor.

When they'd first left the boat, he'd pleaded with his mother to contain herself and stay quiet. The worst thing they could do now was to alert others as to what those terrible people had done.

But she'd been desperate to rush into the whole terrifying tale, to tell him how they'd simply entered her tiny house and taken her as if she weighed nothing, was nothing. Mattered for nothing. Soon after he'd convinced her to stay silent, exhaustion overtook her.

Now he was forced to carry her up the hill in both arms, like a groom hoisting his bride over the threshold.

She was delirious by the time he got her inside his apartment. But she managed to say dazed things about what a beautiful apartment it was, even though it was no more than a single room. About how proud she was of him. How very, very proud. How she had always been so proud. And he could sense that she knew the story he'd had to tell her captors was one of which he thought she would be ashamed, and she was now trying to rid him of his fear and guilt, and this brought tears to his eyes.

He set her down on his bed, filled a glass with water, and encouraged her to drink. As she did so, he felt the hard lump of the emerald ring in his pants pocket. He withdrew it and gently took her right hand in his. At first she seemed confused by this, then she saw him sliding the ring onto her finger, and a smile broke across her face and tears filled her eyes.

"My boy," she whispered. "My darling boy, you have saved me. You saved me again as you always do."

He embraced her quickly so that she would not see his tears, so that she would think him as strong as she needed for him to be, now and always.

After a while, drowsiness overtook her, and by the time he settled her on the bed, she was breathing deeply and evenly.

He felt suddenly alone, and once more afraid. He was sure this terrible affair was not over. That soon there would be another knock on the door and another awful gift. But when he got to his feet, he saw his partial view of the harbor across the tumble of neighboring rooftops.

He saw the ship on which his mother had been held captive sailing out onto the vast, dark sea.

Elliott, dearest Earl of Rutherford. May you be a mystery strong enough to hold back the dark force I had no choice but to unleash upon you.

9

The Mediterranean Sea

They sailed through the night.

Their destination was a craggy pile of rocks, several hours from the coast of Greece.

Few would dare call it an island. Fewer still even knew of its existence.

But deep inside its central cavern, their maker slept, walled off from the sun.

Throughout their journey, they argued over the implications of what they had been told.

When their brothers and sisters in London had cabled them weeks before about a mysterious Egyptologist in London--a man who had appeared out of nowhere, it seemed, only to suddenly stand at the center of a great scandal surrounding a recently unearthed sarcophagus from Egypt--they had accused their dear siblings of nurturing desperate, childish fantasies.