before she could finish, but I have a feeling she was talking about Wayne’s attack.”
Thane shrugged. “You never know. These hills are full of folklore and superstition. Even the educated aren’t immune. You heard the way Catrice and Bryn talked about the mountains.”
“They do seem to hold them in reverence. Luna, too, I think. She told me her mother used to say that she would wither and die if she left this place.”
“I somehow think Luna would survive,” he muttered, and I wondered if he knew about her relationship with Hugh. “Actually…” he said slowly, “she was the girl Wayne went up to the falls to meet that night.”
I swung around in surprise. “Luna Kemper?”
“There’s only one Luna around here,” he said. “She and Wayne were close back then. Inseparable, people say. Then my uncle came back from Europe and…well, you’ve seen him.”
“Wayne is an attractive man, too. I’m sure before the accident he was a real heartbreaker.”
“But he’s not an Asher.” Thane’s voice was so matter-of-fact, I wondered if I might have imagined a slight edge.
“That certainly explains Wayne’s attitude,” I mused. “He was very contemptuous when I mentioned that Luna was the one who made all the arrangements for the restoration. I had the distinct feeling there was bad blood, at least on his end. But you said his accident happened years ago before you came here. That’s a long time to hold a grudge.”
“Grudges are like superstitions. You know they don’t make sense, but you cling to them, anyway.”
We walked along in silence for a moment, and I became overly aware of the forest sounds. The scurry of tiny feet through the underbrush. The rustle of leaves in the treetops. I glanced up, almost expecting to see hundreds of birds staring down at us, but the branches were empty.
“When did Maris come into the picture?” I asked.
“A few years ago. She was in town visiting a cousin and someone introduced her to Hugh.”
“Was he still with Luna?”
“They were together off and on for years. But by that time, Maris had a certain attraction that Luna could no longer offer. Namely, youth. Her money was a bonus.”
“That sounds—”
“Cold? Mercenary? I told you we Ashers are a self-serving lot,” he said grimly. “Grandfather was the one who pushed for the union. Hugh had turned forty without producing an heir, and God forbid the Asher bloodline die out.”
“And yet there’s been no baby.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
“What about Edward?”
“He and my mother had no children. I can’t speak to his past before they married. Although I think he and Bryn were together for a time. That was long before she had Sidra, though.”
“Bryn and Edward…Luna and Hugh. What about Catrice?”
“Odd woman out, I guess.” He shrugged. “There’s been no Asher offspring for a whole generation, so you can imagine Grandfather’s impatience.”
“Blood and land,” I murmured.
“Aw.” He slanted a glance down at me. “So he shared his philosophy with you.”
“Yes, and it all sounds so archaic. So seventeenth century.”
“It is archaic,” Thane agreed. “And I’ve always thought it resembled the Fisher King myth. Grandfather’s visions of the family and himself are nothing if not grandiose. In his eyes, land and family are inexorably entwined.”
“Restore the bloodline, restore the kingdom.”
“Something like that.”
“Who’s the Grail knight in his story?”
“Well,” Thane said softly. “They do call you the restorer.”
I tripped over a root and would have gone down if Thane’s hand hadn’t shot out to steady me. “I restore old cemeteries the hard way,” I said and held out my palms. “See? I have lots and lots of calluses. There’s nothing mystical or mythical about what I do.”
His eyes glinted. “I was teasing.”
“Oh.” I tried to take it as such, but something niggled at the back of my mind. That same feeling of destiny that had plagued me in the clearing. That unsettling notion that I had been brought here for a reason.
“Anyway,” Thane was saying. “I suppose Grandfather still has hope of an heir, but I’m not so sure the marriage will last that long.”
A divorce would probably make Luna happy.
I thought of that overheard rendezvous, the intimate murmuring and animalistic moans of pleasure… .
I drew a sharp breath. That day at the library, I couldn’t leave those sounds behind fast enough, but now I found the voyeuristic memory titillating. And that in itself was disturbing.
As we neared the summit, I felt something in the air, an odd vibration that thrummed through my veins and teased like a feather along my nerve endings. The breeze lifted my hair and stroked my face like a lover’s caress. I closed my eyes on a shudder. Then slowly I turned my gaze upon the man beside me. For a moment, his face seemed to morph into…
Thane scowled down at me. “Are you okay?”
“Do you feel something in the air?” I asked, pulling my jacket tightly around me.
The frown deepened. “Rain, maybe. I noticed storm clouds moving in earlier.”
That could explain the vibration, couldn’t it? The electrical shock that had pulsed through my body when I looked up and saw Devlin’s face?
Thane’s gaze lingered. “Are you sure you’re all right? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Why don’t you wait here for me? I’m sure I’ll be able to find the grave on my own.”
“No, I’m fine. Something strange just happened.”
“What?”
How could I explain what I’d experienced when I didn’t understand it myself? Maybe it was all the talk of bloodlines and fertility, but the vibration seemed to stir something deep inside me, almost akin to a sexual excitement. “It was…” I paused and started again. “For a moment, when I looked at you…I saw someone else…”
He studied me curiously. “Who?”
I glanced away, unable to hold his gaze. “No one. It doesn’t matter.”
“Lack of sleep,” he pronounced. “Fatigue can play strange tricks on the mind.”
I willed my heartbeat to slow. “I guess you’re right. Kind of like a waking dream. Anyway, I’m okay now.”
He cocked his head. “Listen.”
“What is it?”
“You can hear the falls from here.”
We were silent, heads turned toward the summit. Over the distant rush of water, another sound came to me. A whisper that undulated like a gentle wave through the trees.
We crested the hill and started down the rugged incline toward the laurel bald, the sun at our backs. We were not that far from Thorngate and the highway, but it felt as if we’d been transported a million miles into nowhere. I saw a lizard sunning on a rock, and high overhead, a lone hawk floated serenely on an air current. But no other living creature stirred as we made our way down the slope.
I was favoring my ankle now, though it didn’t really hurt. But an uncomfortable stiffness in the joint made
