Page 98 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Two
Impossible, but it certainly explained why Adrian had left the States without signing the divorce papers. He’d been too eager to get back on the job. Since the dig in Tunisia, this legend had a hold on him. “What on earth makes him think that? On the other side of the world? How can he still be obsessed with this after three years?”
Dr. Vigil folded his hands over his stomach, eyes twinkling. “My dear, if anyone should know about obsession, you would.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. Her father had been obsessed with pre-Columbian history in the Andes. She’d spent most of her life in camps in the mountains of Peru and Ecuador. Learning Spanish and English at the same time, then learning how to interpret glyphs led to her proclivity for symbology.
And life in tents had led to her longing for a home of her own.
Then she’d married Adrian and pushed aside that longing because she loved him.
“What makes him think he’s found one?”
“Perhaps you should ask him that.”
“I don’t think he’d tell me.”
“You underestimate his feelings for you. You’ll probably find him out by the dunes.”
Mallory folded her arms under her breasts and watched Adrian’s silhouette as he sat on the beach in the moonlight, looking out over the ocean, arms looped around his raised knees. Curiosity brought her to the water, a curiosity she’d tried to bury along with her feelings for this man.
That thought had her taking a step toward camp, but he turned and saw her. Now she couldn’t retreat without looking foolish.
And she did want to know the story.
She headed down over the dunes and onto the beach, wishing she’d removed her boots so she could feel the sand between her toes. The last time she’d been to the ocean was in Pensacola, before she moved. She’d forgotten how soothing the waves could be. Even Adrian’s expectant gaze didn’t make her as anxious as it might have.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked when she got closer.
She looked at his boat bobbing at the end of a long portable dock and squinted to make out the name.The Mysterious Miss M. Who was Miss M? Probably the Constantinople witch he’d become obsessed with three years ago. “I want to know what you’re looking for.”
“So you can go tell Valentine?”
She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have a clue how to find him.”
“Really. He wasn’t too far from your side last time I saw him.” He reached into his breast pocket for his beef jerky.
“I haven’t seen him in months.” She lowered herself a careful distance from him. “What’s out there, Adrian?”
He kept his attention on the surf. “Robert already told you.”
“He said you found a second casket. How can that be, all the way over here?”
“Don’t know for sure. We haven’t gotten that deep.”
She pushed her windblown hair out of her face. “Then what makes you think you’ve found another?”
He braced his arms behind him. “Do you know the legend?”
As if she’d had a choice. Adrian had immersed himself in the legend after he’d discovered the casket. The research left a lot of holes, however, including details of the symbols.
“You told me about the witch Mavaris who lived in Constantinople nine hundred years ago, that people believed she could control the weather and the sea after her lover was killed at sea. I remember something about necromancy too. Have you learned more?”
“Not really. The legend’s pretty obscure.” He sat forward, dragging one hand over his hair. “When she couldn’t raise her lover, she turned to the elements. Apparently she thought she was getting revenge on the gods of the sea or something, taking their power from them. This priest Theophilius had occult leanings, I guess. I don’t know how he figured someone was controlling the weather, how he figured it was her, but he managed to kill her, and then he cut her apart and burned her.”
“Lovely.”
“Yeah, well, she was a witch and it was nine hundred years ago. So he took her ashes and sealed them in ivory caskets. And he sent the four boxes on four ships out of Constantinople.”
