He might not have talked, but her seduction hadn’t been useless. She now had a key that might lead to clues. And an angry, painfully aroused male tied up across the hall. That part made her nervous. She’d have to free him eventually, but he was royally pissed off now so it would be best to wait.
She forced him out of her mind and stared hard at the key, willing it to reveal its secrets. Considering that signs pointed to his being the man from her dreams, it could be important to her. But what did it fit? The doors in the house didn’t have locks. A chest or armoire, perhaps?
She mulled over possible hiding places while she showered and quickly dressed, then began her search. The two main floors of the house revealed no matches for the key. But then she found a door that led to an attic at the end of the hall. It would be up there. It had to be.
The attic was a museum. The old armor, paintings, sculptures, and trinkets made her fingertips itch to explore. But no chest.
Then she spied a crumpled tapestry that looked like it was draped over something, and with nowhere else to look, she pulled at it. Dust billowed. Her coughing turned to a gasp.
There it was. The chest was big and old, made of dark and beautifully carved wood. It was much older than the lock that had been fitted to it. She knelt reverently next to the chest, goose bumps pricking on her arms as she laid her hands on the cool wood that covered the top.
A low buzz sounded in her head. What was in here could change everything. It could be nothing more than an illegal collection of antiquities or his family’s old hunting rifles, but she doubted it. Her hand shook as she fitted the key to the lock. It caught slightly, but finally opened with a snick.
Her breath came short and hard, dragging into her lungs but not filling them as she lifted the lid. With sweaty palms, she reached in and clasped the hilt of a sword. The moment she gripped the smooth handle, an unseen force punched her in the chest.
She tumbled onto her back, and the little air she had rushed out of her lungs as she hit the floor. The vacuum that stole her breath took her vision and hearing as well. The real world faded away.
Memories assailed her, one after another jumbling into her mind and fighting for supremacy. A woman clothed in a plain brown dress stood over a fire built into the middle of a roundhouse, smiling at her and beckoning her closer. Mother.
Warmth billowed from the fire and the smoke stung her eyes. A baby wailed in a crib near the wall and the woman turned from her to hurry over. I had a brother.
Diana lay helpless as the scene changed. She stood outside in a glen, dressed in a fine wool cloak fastened with a straight bronze pin, looking up at the man who would be her husband. He smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners and mist gathering in his hair as he encouraged her to step forward. She didn’t love him, was too young to love such an old man, but he would make her queen of her people. And she wanted to lead. Oh, how her young heart yearned to be a good queen to her people, the Iceni.
She was Boudica.
Time shifted forward and she sat on a grassy knoll, watching two girls of perhaps twelve playing in a stream. Her daughters. The bright sun warmed her face, but she and her husband, now a truly old man, spoke furtively of the future as their daughters splashed in the water. The world was closing in on them.
“It will never succeed, Prasutagus,” she hissed to her husband. “We must fight them! The Romans will never honor your will.”
“No, my queen.” He shook his head slowly, white hair flowing around his shoulders. “You are brave and wise, but in this you are wrong. My daughters will succeed me on the throne. The Roman emperor will be satisfied to be co-heir. They are so far away.”
“No! Rome encroaches farther every year. We agreed to their terms when they came to our borders the first time, as did the neighboring kingdoms. Our line shall hold only until your death, then our kingdom is Rome’s. By law, the emperor becomes your heir. They will not accept this move and will come down upon our heads.” She shook him to make her point, glancing at her daughters to see if they noticed. “We must attack first, and drive them from Britain. It is our only hope. Or remove our daughters as co-heir to the throne so that Rome will not atta—”
Diana realized that the scene had moved forward when a shadow of pain lashed across her back. Roman legionnaires held her by the arms, pinned to the ground in front of her people, as their leader swung a whip at her back. Her husband was dead of old age, and the Romans were at their doorstep intent on collecting on her husband’s debt.
She heard her daughters’ screams, and strain as she might, all she could see were the feet of the bastards who held her to the ground. Though the pain burned through her, she fought to hear her daughters, to know they were alive. But when their screams stopped abruptly and the Roman legion cheered, she knew.
Dead.