Duncan's Rose Read Online Free

the old man?
    The four men climbed in the car, two in the front and two in the back, where she sat sandwiched between two. They all had muscled bodies and the same expression, as if they were constantly mad at something or someone. She hoped that anger didn’t spell her name. The car pulled away quickly, leaving Adair and the crowd behind. She glanced over her shoulder to get the last view of the fading crowd, burned plane, and Adair. Her stomach flipped and her nerves shook as anxiety kicked in. Adair and the plane suddenly looked safer than her new companions.
    “You all work for Mr. Wardlaw?” She smiled softly to ease the tension.
    Silence—scowls were all the response she got.
    “Welcome, Miss Blair. I’m relieved to know that you are safe,” a gentleman’s voice greeted her.
    She searched every scowling face, but their lips hadn’t moved. She definitely had not heard those words coming out of any of them; in fact, that soft voice couldn’t have come out of one of those humongous bodybuilders. It belonged to an articulate gentleman. The voice swept over her ears like warm honey. “Excuse me, who said that?”
    “I’m Mac Wardlaw. I apologize for this introduction, but I had to welcome you, and to assure you that you’re in safe hands. You’ll find that, despite their appearance, my men are most professional and as tame as kittens. So there’s no need to be alarmed. I’ll see you soon. Until then, relax and enjoy the ride.” The sound of a click announced the end of his conversation as she realized the gentleman’s voice had been coming from a speaker planted somewhere in the limo. He hadn’t even allowed her to ask any questions. Miranda didn’t think the voice belonged to old Mr. Wardlaw; this seemed to be the voice of a younger man. Although he hadn’t said what his relation to Mr. Wardlaw was, the voice had a strong, commanding nature that was mellifluent and enchanting. “Who is Mac Wardlaw?” she asked.
    Silence. Frown.
    One of the “kittens” poured a softly colored rose wine into a shining crystal glass and offered it to her; she accepted it with a shaky hand. Another man switched on the radio to soft, relaxing music. All the while, the two men beside her stared at her sipping her wine in silence. She almost choked on her wine, remembering the voice’s description of those men as kittens; hell, maybe he wasn’t aware that his kittens had grown into huge panthers.
    From the window of the limo, she saw they were on a hill near the ocean, closing in on a huge, dark wall. When the car stopped, she heard a sound of metal grinding, then of chains rolling.
    Jeez, what was that? A loud bang of a heavy object dropping echoed in the silent air. A drawbridge! The wooden bridge spanned a ditch leading to a gateway.
    The limo continued on the wooden surface, slowly. The water underneath them flickered in blue and gray. They reached another gate, which opened onto a long, narrow driveway; shadows of trees stretched across the road. After a few minutes ride, the car stopped.
    Miranda considered her situation: if she were killed in cold blood here, no one would ever know. She took a deep breath and gulped down the rest of her drink in one swallow.
    The bald man beside her opened the door, stepped out, and stretched his hand to help her, but she refused politely and struggled to her feet by herself instead. She glanced all the way up the dark gray blocks of smooth, square, stone walls, noting the wide, triangular windows at the top and the few flickers of light that escaped through the stained glass.
    Oh Jeez! The same castle she’d seen in her visions. She breathed in sharply. The mansion in her visions and many of her dreams had haunted her since the day she started documenting the murder case of the little boy, Marcas Wardlaw. She couldn’t help thinking of the way he died: burned alive.
    She had asked for it, and she wanted to be here. Although she’d traveled as part of her research for her books