"Jeanie London - Retrieval" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jeanie)

These men had been dead a very long time. They were Nina's protectors in life and death.
Though distinctly different in features, these men were similar in age, size, and attitude. Mid-thirties.
Powerful. Grim. They struck Roman as converse forces. Two sides of the same coin, the light and dark reflections of the same soul. One man was more muscularly built with a somber expression.
Gray Talbot, Earl of Westbury, a British nobleman.
The other was taller, leaner with distinctive hair that rebelliously escaped a long queue.
Damian Hart, an artist of Scottish descent.
The men stood a little too close, giving Roman the impression they were wary, perhaps defensive. Why?
Because a stranger had contacted them about their missing companion.
And exactly who were they to Nina?
He'd been told Gray Talbot had been her guardian in life, a necessity of an era when a young unmarried woman didn't operate independently of a man.
So who was Damian Hart?
A family friend? Her betrothed? Roman knew only that they'd all died together and had shared a long and

RETRIEVAL

busy death ever since. Other than that he didn't have a clue, and there were only three people who could clarify the matter for him--two of whom were standing right here.
Roman was surprised by how much he wanted to know.
Nina had blazed a trail through the afterlife for nearly three centuries. He didn't know half of her story, but from what he'd heard, she was an interesting woman of unique ability and great courage.
He'd looked for that kind of woman during his life.
A woman strong enough to fit into his work with Sanctus. A woman with her own interests that he could admire and respect. An equal.
A woman he'd never found.
Catching Gray Talbot's gaze, Roman inclined his head in greeting. Instantly, he found himself eye to eye with the somber men. Again that effortless movement.
They didn't disappear and reappear. Nor.did they flash forward in a rush of motion. They simply repositioned themselves in tandem, proving the laws of time and space didn't bind this realm.
Roman resisted the impulse to extend his hand. The dead didn't observe the civilities of the living. He'd been told they avoided contact, but the memory of his life still pulsed strong inside him, a recollection he guessed would fade only with time.
"You sent the message?" Gray Talbot spoke with the clipped authority of an English nobleman.
Roman held the lord's gaze steadily. "I did."
There was no need for introductions. These men would have investigated the newcomer who'd contacted them with a claim they would never have been able to ignore.



12

JEANIE LONDON

I've found her.
In the afterlife, Gray Talbot and Damian Hart had the advantage of an extensive network of resources.
They might not have been able to locate the missing Nina, but would surely know everything there Was to know about Roman Barrymore, newly-dead soul.
"That's impossible," Damian Hart said in a voice that held the mellowed burr of Scotland. "The man who sent that message hasn't been dead a month."
"I look as if I've been dead longer." Not a question.
"What are you trying to pull?"
"Nothing, 1 assure you." Roman spread his hands in entreaty. "I sent that message and died less than a month ago."
"Look around you." Damian swept a hand around to indicate several lingering souls flitting past, their motion erratic as if controlled by someone gone wild with the fast-forward button on a remote. "See them? You can almost see through them. They're newly dead. Takes a while to learn how to hold an echo together." He raked a narrowed gaze pointedly over Roman. "I can't see through you."
Death gifted souls with new abilities, angelic abilities, and Roman understood the longer a soul lingered in the passage, the stronger and more effective it became. The process had been sped up in his case to help him accomplish mission objective and he'd been given skills no newly dead soul should possess.
"I can't explain why 1 don't appear like other newly dead," he said simply. The truth.
"How did you know to contact us?" Gray asked.
"Your answer had better be good or else this conversation ends right now." Roman understood their hesitation, and respected

their wariness, so he weighed his words carefully. He only had pieces of the overall situation and some need-to-know information, most of which these men didn't need to know yet.
"Let me tell you about the day 1 died." He paused and glanced between the men for effect. "I assume you investigated me after receiving my message, so you know 1 directed a covert national security organization while 1 was alive." Gray inclined his head. "Sanctus."
"People called you 'The Saint,' " Damian added.