A Royal Wedding

by Trish Morey / Caitlin Crews / Nina Harrington / Raye Morgan

  ‘No, I’m not finished with our charming guest, Bruno.’ And this time he directed his words at her. ‘In fact, I do believe I’ve scarcely begun. Come, Dr Hunter, and I’ll show you to your precious documents.’

  She left her luggage and briefcase where he directed, following him through a tangle of passageways, down wooden stairs that shifted and creaked under their footfall, and then down again—stone steps this time, that were worn into hollows by the feet of generations gone before—until she was sure they must be well below ground level, and the walls were lined with rock. And finally he stopped before a door that seemed carved from the stone itself.

  He tugged on an iron ring set into the stone. ‘Are you scared of the dark, Dr Hunter?’ he asked over his shoulder, and she got the distinct impression he would love it if she were.

  ‘No. That’s never been a particular phobia of mine.’

  ‘How fortunate,’ he said, sounding as if he thought it was anything but. Then the door shifted open and she got a hint of what was to come—a low, dark passageway that sloped down through the rock. When he turned to her the crooked smile she’d seen in his office was back. ‘Every castle should have at least one secret tunnel, don’t you think?’

  ‘I would have to say it’s practically de rigueur, Count Volta.’

  His smile slipped a little, she noted with satisfaction, almost as if she hadn’t answered the way he’d expected. Tough. The fact was she was here, and with any luck she was on her way to the missing pages of the Salus Totus. Although what they were doing all the way down here.

  A slow drip came from somewhere around her, echoing in the space, and while she wished she’d at least grabbed a jacket before descending into the stone world beneath the castle, it was the book she was more worried about now.

  ‘You are taking me to the book?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But what is it doing down here?’

  ‘It was found down here.’

  ‘And you left it here?’

  His regarded her coldly, as if surprised she would question his decision. ‘The caves have guarded their treasure for centuries. Why would I move it and risk damaging such a potentially precious thing?’

  Plenty of reasons, she thought. Like the drip that echoed around the chamber, speaking of moisture that could ruin ancient texts with mould and damp. Something so ancient, even if it proved to be a forgery, should be kept where the temperature and humidity could be regulated and it would be safe from things that scuttled and foraged in the night. She didn’t expect the Count to necessarily know that, but she would have expected him to have had the sense to move the find somewhere safe.

  Inside the chamber there was just enough light to see with the door open. She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but then he pulled the door closed behind them with a crunch and the light was swallowed up in inky blackness and there was nothing for her eyes to adjust to.

  Afraid of the dark? No, she wasn’t, but neither did she like being holed up in it. Not with him. She could hear his breathing, she could damn well smell that evocative masculine scent of his, and she dared not move for fear she might brush against him in the dark. She heard the scratch of something rough, caught a hint of phosphorus and saw a spark that burst into flame atop a torch he held. The shifting yellow light threw crazy shadows against the walls, illuminating a cable running overhead with light bulbs hanging sporadically.

  ‘You couldn’t have just turned on the lights, I suppose?’

  ‘A storm last night knocked out the cable from the mainland, which is no doubt why your Professor could not contact me. Power is back on in the castle, but the caves will take longer. Don’t you like the torchlight, Ms Hunter. I find it so much more—atmospheric.’

  He had just enough accent to curl around the word, transforming it in a way that turned it somehow darkly sensual—something that put a peculiar shiver down her spine. Peculiar, because instead of the chill she’d expected it warmed her in places she didn’t like to think about. Not around him. Shadows danced on the walls of the tunnel, light flickered against the unscarred side of his face, highlighting cheekbone and forehead and that sharply defined hairline, throwing his eyes into a band of black from which only a glint of amusement escaped.

  And she could tell he was laughing at her.

  Damn him.

  ‘It’s fine, I guess, if you’re interested in atmosphere. Right now I’m more interested in getting a look at those pages.’

  He gave a mock bow in the shadowed darkness. ‘As you command,’ he said, and led the way down the tunnel. Deeper and deeper through the winding channel through the rock they walked, footsteps echoing on the dusty floor, the yellow flame of the torch flickering in the cool air, lighting the way, but never far enough to see more than a few feet at a time. They passed other tunnels that dived away, left and right, and she wondered how you would ever find your way out if the light went out and you were alone down here. She paused to look over her shoulder at one such intersection, trying to get a glimpse of the path behind, but the darkness had swallowed up the view, along with her sense of direction, and she realised that she’d never find her way out alone.

  Great. So she had no choice but to trust a man who didn’t want her here and seemed to delight in making her uncomfortable—a man who was leading her through a maze of tunnels a Minotaur would be happy to call home with nothing but a lighted torch to find their way.

  Bad call. Did she really want to think about Minotaurs and labyrinths now, when she was down here with a man whose broad shoulders filled the width of the tunnel? Especially when she thought about what had happened to the seven youths and seven maidens from Athens who’d been thrown into the labyrinth to their doom as a tribute to the Minoan king.

  Maybe she should have brought a ball of string …

  Something clapped down hard on her shoulder—his hand—and she panicked, every instinct telling her to flee. It was only its weight that kept her anchored to the ground.

  ‘You don’t want to get lost in here,’ whispered a deep voice in her ear, his breath fanning her hair, warm in the cool tunnel air. ‘We might never find you again.’

  She turned slowly, hoping to calm her face and her rapid breathing before he could see just how much he’d frightened her, but she was fighting a losing battle on slowing her heart-rate, given what his proximity was doing to her nervous system and his scent was doing to her defences. ‘You startled me,’ she admitted, licking her lips as she looked up at him in the torchlight, struck again by the difference between one side of his face and the other—one side all strong, masculine lines and sharply defined places, the other so monstrously scarred.

  His left eye had thankfully escaped the worst, she was close enough to see, and his strong nose and wide mouth were blessedly untouched. It was as if the skin of his cheek and neck had been torn apart and rejoined in a thick, jagged line that snaked up his throat and cheek and tapered to the corner of one eye.

  Both those dark eyes narrowed as they looked down at her now. ‘Come,’ he said gruffly, dropping his hand from her shoulder and turning away.

  Her shoulder felt inexplicably bereft—cold—the warmth from his long fingers replaced with a bone-deep chill, and she hugged her shoulders as she trailed behind him through the maze of tunnels, trying not to think of the weight of rock above their heads. The tunnels had clearly been here for a long time—surely the ceiling could hold just a little longer? Especially when they must be getting close to their goal.

  A surge of adrenaline washed through her. Could the pages truly be from the lost copy of the Salus Totus? How complete would they be? Could she really be close to solving the mystery of generations? The mystery of the contents of those lost pages?

  ‘Watch your step,’ he said, then asked her to wait as he descended a short steep flight of stairs cut into the rock. At the bottom he turned, holding the torch above him so she could see her way down the narrow steps, but it was the hand he offered to her that look
ed the more threatening. A large hand, she noted. Tapered fingers. Would it be churlish to refuse? But there was nothing to be afraid of—she’d survived the last time he’d touched her, hadn’t she?

  And so she slipped her hand into his, felt his long fingers wrap around her own, and tried not to think too much about how warm they felt against her skin. How strong his grip. How secure.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, lifting her eyes to his as she negotiated the last step, wondering at the suddenness with which he turned his face away, only to be distracted by the sudden space around them here, as the tunnel widened into a wide, low room. There were tables set around, and shelves built into the walls containing racks of bottles—dozens and dozens of bottles. ‘What is this place?’ she asked, stepping around him.

  ‘Welcome to my wine cellar. Here you’ll find every vintage of Vino de Volta going back to 1797.’

  ‘Hell of a place for a wine cellar,’ she mused, strolling past the racks of bottles, pausing to peer at a label here and there, the lover of ancient and even not-so-ancient treasures inside her completely fascinated.

  ‘There’s more,’ he said, ‘through here.’ He dipped his head under a low doorway leading to another room, this one more like a cavern, its walls similarly stacked.

  She followed him in, made a wide circle as she took it all in. It was the perfect place for a wine cellar, the air cool and dry, with no telltale dripping. And a spark of excitement flashed through her. Because if it was the perfect place to store wine.

  ‘Are they here?’ she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘Is this where the pages were found?’

  Her enthusiasm lit up the cavern more effectively than any amount of torchlight. She was like a child, excited about a present she’d asked Santa for and for which she’d promised to be good, her eyes bright with expectation, a dancing flame alive on their surfaces.

  And he felt a sudden twist in his gut that made him wheel away, for she was so vibrant and alive and everything that Adele had once been—everything that he no longer was.

  Blackness surged up and threatened to swallow him whole; not the black of the caves but the blackness that came from within, the blackness that had been his constant companion since that night. He’d thought he’d learned to control it, but it was there, lurking in the scars that lined his face and body, lurking on the very edges of his sanity, waiting to seize control, and he cursed himself for giving in to the urge to amuse himself with her. Cursed himself for putting a hand to her slim shoulder. Cursed himself for wanting more and for then finding an excuse to take her fragile hand in his own.

  It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman he hadn’t had to pay.

  Such a long time …

  He dragged in one breath and then another, forcing the blackness back down, refusing to give in to its power, determined not to succumb. Not here. Not now. ‘This way,’ he managed to grind out, through a jaw that ached with the effort of those two simple words.

  Behind him she blinked, letting go a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. What had just happened? For a while she’d imagined he was loosening up a bit around the edges, losing some of his antagonism and resentment towards her. She’d even sensed he was getting some kind of sick pleasure from his teasing about secret passageways and the atmospherics of torchlight.

  And then suddenly he’d changed. In the blink of an eye his entire body had set rigid, his skin pulling tight over a face in which his eyes had turned harder than the stone walls that enclosed them. As he’d turned from her she’d witnessed the tortured expression that strained his features and in the shadow-laden light had turned the scarred side of his face into the mask of a monster. A legend, she told herself, her heart thumping as she was reminded again of the story of the Minotaur. Just a legend.

  But she must have gasped, she must have made some small sound, for he turned back, studying her face, his eyes strangely satisfied with what he saw as he leaned closer to her. ‘What’s wrong, Dr Hunter? Do I frighten you at last?’

  ‘No,’ she said shakily, praying for composure, trying to block out thoughts of monsters and Minotaurs and the twisted maze of passageways that lay between her and freedom, wondering if he would chase her if she ran. Wondering what he might do if do if he caught her. ‘No.’ This time she said it with more certainty, even though her heart was still pumping furiously and her breathing too shallow. Once again she sought to regain control. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Count Volta.’

  He drew back momentarily on an intake of air, his lips curling to bare his teeth, before he exhaled in a rush as he came closer again. ‘Then you should be, Dr Hunter. You should be.’

  He was too close. She could feel the heat from his face and his breath against her skin. But, while her heart was thumping loudly, she realised it wasn’t fear that was making her blood pound and her heart race.

  It was the man himself.

  And in spite of herself, in spite of his implicit threat, she felt herself drawn towards him, her skin prickling with awareness, her breasts strangely, achingly full.

  And from somewhere deep inside her, some dark, dangerous place she hadn’t known existed, she managed to summon a smile. ‘If you want to frighten me, you’ll have to do better than that.’

  The torchlight flickered gold in his dark eyes, until she could almost imagine it dancing with the devil within—the devil that made him grind his teeth together as if he was battling with himself even as he leaned still closer. So close that his face was scant millimetres from hers. So close that his lips were a mere breath away.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE heard his growl of frustration as he swung away, leaving her with only heated air scented by his musky scent and wondering shakily why she was trying to bait him, what she was trying to achieve. What was happening to her?

  ‘Do you want to see these papers or not?’ he said, already heading deeper into the secret cellar, and she thanked her lucky stars that one of them was thinking straight. For what had she been thinking? That he was going to kiss her? A man she’d met barely an hour ago? A man who had made it plain she was not welcome here, who had objected to her presence and then set out to make her uncomfortable in his?

  Difficult? The description didn’t come close. The sooner she was finished with her assessment and away from the Isola de Volta, and its scarred Count, the better.

  Tentatively she followed him into a smaller cavern, the doorway rammed firm with beams the size of tree trunks. The room was sparsely furnished, with an old table and two chairs. There was a well-thumbed pack of cards in one corner, and what looked like a bunch of old ledgers on a shelf nearby.

  ‘Over there,’ he said, indicating towards the shelf. ‘Do you see it?’

  Her hopes took a dive. Surely she hadn’t been brought all the way out here—surely she wasn’t being subjected to all this—for a bunch of mouldy old records? But then to one side she saw something else—what looked like some kind of cleft in the rock-face, almost invisible except for the shadow cast by the torch he’d shoved into a ring set into the wall. Intrigued, she took a step closer. Could that be what he meant?

  He was already there—impatient to be rid of her, she guessed—his hand seemingly disappearing into the rock-face before it re-emerged, this time holding a flat parcel.

  In the flicker and spit of torchlight she held her breath, excitement fizzing in her veins as he brought the package to the table, depositing it more gently there than she could imagine someone his size doing anything. And then he stood abruptly. ‘This is what you want so desperately to see?’

  He was angry with her, but right now his bad mood rolled off her. Her eyes, her senses, her full attention were all focused on the parcel on the table. She licked her lips, her mouth dry with anticipation, her eyes assessing. A quick estimation told her the size was about right for something containing the long-lost pages, but that didn’t mean this was it.

  She took a step closer, and then another, the man besid
e the table and his disturbing presence all but forgotten now as her eyes drank in the details of the worn pouch that looked as if it was made from some kind of animal skin, of the rough clasp that had been fashioned to keep the parcel together.

  A pin of ivory, she guessed, stained yellow by the passage of time.

  ‘May I?’ she said, with no more than a glance in his direction, unwilling to take her eyes from this precious discovery for more than a second lest it disappear in a puff of smoke. She should wait until they’d brought the package back to the castle and she had the right lighting and the right conditions. She should wait until she had her tools by her side.

  She should wait.

  Except that she couldn’t.

  Adrenaline coursed through her. She had to look. She had to see. So she slipped her arms from her backpack and pulled a new pair of gloves from the pocket where she kept them and drew them on, fingers almost shaking with excitement. Calm down. She heard the Professor’s voice in her head, heeded it, and willed herself to slow down. To breathe.

  She knew what she was looking for. She’d studied what little remained of the Salus Totus. She knew the language and the artwork. She knew what inks the artists had used and how they’d been sourced, and she knew what animal’s skin had gone to make the parchment. And nothing on this earth—nothing—was more important to her than the thrill of seeing what could be those missing pages and seeing them now.

  With gloved hands she gently prised the clasp open and pulled back the leather wrapping, folded like an envelope around the treasure within.

  A blank page met her hungry eyes, but the bubble of disappointment was happily pricked in the knowledge that, whatever their purpose, whoever had taken these pages had realised they needed some form of protection.