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“I know, love, but let’s be honest: it’s a drop in the bucket. You said yourself you’re about to go into foreclosure. What if you lose the house before finding all of the clues your father left? It’s next to impossible to search when there are guests staying here.”
A heaviness weighed down on my chest. He was right on both counts.
“Not to mention there’s someone on the other side of this wall behind us.” He laughed softly. “We have to make sure we’re quiet if we want to be able to face the guests the next morning at breakfast.”
“Very funny.”
“You have to admit we were much more liberated in our sex life when we were living in your apartment.”
“My bedroom was on an outside wall.”
“Exactly,” he teased, lifting the edge of my nightgown. His hand slid up, over the z-shaped scar on my abdomen, tracing the underside of my breast. “Before I forget, one of the boarders said he smelled something bad in his room. Maybe we should get someone out here to look for rodents. It could be a dead mouse or maybe a squirrel or bird that got trapped in the attic.”
“Great,” I grumbled. “Just what I need. To spend more money.”
His fingers soon distracted me from my financial woes and had me panting with need. His lips skimmed along my neck and up to my ear. “What do you think about going out of town for a few days?” His voice was low and husky.
My eyes widened in surprise. “You’re seriously suggesting a vacation? Now?”
He laughed again as his hand concentrated on making me squirm. “No, not exactly a vacation. More like a change in scenery.”
“I’m listening,” I forced out, trying to concentrate.
“You know how I’ve asked several of my colleagues to keep an eye out and an ear open for anything about the Ricardo Estate? Well, I heard back from one today.”
I grabbed his hand to stop his torture so I could concentrate. “What did he say?”
“Shee-mailed tonight to tell me she’d been invited to see a collection of antiquities, and it was all very secretive.”
I bolted upright. “Is it what we’re looking for?”
He rolled to his side and propped his head on an elbow. “She can’t be sure. She already went to see the collection in Charlotte. She said it was mostly an assortment of weapons and pocket watches. It didn’t contain the candlesticks or other paraphernalia that you saw in those photos from Marino’s guy.”
“So it’s not the estate?”
“Not necessarily. She says she saw a watch similar to your father’s. I sent all of my colleagues a photo of it when I put out word about the collection.”
“The four-century-old pocket watch?”
“Yeah.”
That didn’t make sense. “So if itisthe Ricardo Estate, what happened to the other stuff?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something I should mention about Allison.” He paused and waited for me to meet his eyes. “She’s a history professor at Chapel Hill and she’s an expert on old weaponry, particularly from the Middle Ages. The curators of the collection asked her to examine one of their swords.”
“Swords? And isn’t that the wrong time period?”
“She says they told her this particular sword was rumored to have been blessed by priests for a knight to carry into the Crusades.”
I shook my head. “I’m confused. What would that have to do with the curse?”
“Ellie, the sword was blessed to fightdemons.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Oh, shit.”
“She took several pictures of the sword. And she says she has something she thinks I’ll want to see.”
I fingered the gold band on my right middle finger. “What is it?”
