by Annie Stuart
“So I can respond to a kiss, Rohan,” she said, using his name in a deliberately informal manner. “I’m human, you know. And you kiss very, very well. Not that I’m a connoisseur, of course, but I expect you’re one of the best kissers around. I should take a survey from my girls, see what they think.” Her voice was cool, dismissive.
His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Now you’ve put me in my place. Sweet Charity. You don’t need to discuss me with your gaggle. I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“Doves don’t come in gaggles.”
“Yours do. And I think you’re a very dangerous woman, Lady Carstairs.” He reached for a sandwich himself, and she had to admire his tanned, graceful hand against the white of the bread.
“You do? How lovely!” She beamed at him. “What else can I do to terrify you?”
“You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?” He glanced at the ruins. “I’ve already taken a quick look around the house. There’s no sign that anyone’s been there, and I don’t think the footing is safe. I expect I’ve seen enough. We should probably go back once we finish eating.”
“Don’t be absurd. We came this far for a purpose, one I intend to fulfill. You can’t fob me off with stories about uneven footing. You’ll find I’m hardier than most women of your acquaintance.”
“I expect you are…” he murmured. “Very well. But stay behind me and walk only where I walk.”
“Of course,” she said.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” she said again. “You may follow me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. It was dark, long and curling slightly, and she wondered what it felt like. It looked soft, like the fur on a wolf cub. “You really are driving me mad,” he said.
She smiled sweetly, getting to her feet. “Then I’ve succeeded in my goal. Why don’t you clean up the mess while I go look around the ruins? It’s only fair since I set the food out in the first place.”
He jumped to his feet, going after her. “The mess will wait.” He took her arm in what might have seemed a polite social gesture, if it weren’t for the hard, possessive grip of his hand. And they started toward the towering spikes of the ruined building.
He should have been in a foul mood, Benedick thought, trying to hide his smile. After all, she’d insulted him, lured him, challenged him and even threatened him. She’d wept all over him, and he despised tears. He considered them a feminine weakness used to manipulate men into doing what the female in question wanted.
He couldn’t really blame Melisande, though. She seemed to want nothing but her bad-tempered husband back again, astonishing as that notion seemed. She also seemed to believe she really wasn’t interested in the sins of the flesh, even if her body rose to his every time he touched her.
He had no problem with allowing her to keep her delusions. She was safer believing she had an intrinsically cold nature, even if she burned hot against him. As long as she was convinced that celibacy was, to paraphrase the Shakespeare his mother was so addicted to, “a non-consummation devoutly to be wish’d,” then he had a much greater chance of being able to keep his hands off her. He had absolutely no idea why he found her so tempting, but the unfortunate truth was that he did. And he needed to get her back to London and to her gaggle of soiled doves so he wouldn’t be able to give in.
She’d already started off, without her bonnet, which she’d discarded at some point, and the sun had kissed her cheeks with a soft blush. He scrambled to his feet and followed after her. Damnable woman.
Whether she liked it or not he took her arm when he caught up with her, but to his surprise she didn’t yank away. It was rough going over the scattered rubble, and they picked their way carefully.
There wasn’t enough left of Kersley Hall to provide shelter for a family of mice. The fire had torn through the old place, devouring everything not made of stone, leaving only the outer walls and chimneys in place. She stopped in the cavernous front doorway, staring into the rubble beyond, and shook her head. “I don’t think anyone has been in here since the fire,” she said.
“I agree. Now can we…”
“What is that building?” She pointed to a neat cottage set off away from the house. The roof was partly burned, but most of it was in solid shape, and curtains were drawn across the deep-set windows.
“I have no idea. These outlying cottages can be used for any number of things. It might house a gatekeeper, or the head gardener, possibly the gamekeeper. It’s possible it might serve as a dairy or a laundry, though I would think there would be more chimneys. Perhaps it was simply a home for the housekeeper, though most often they prefer to live in the main house. If you’re thinking the Heavenly Host meets in such humble surroundings, you’re mistaken. For one thing, there would scarcely be enough room for a full-blown orgy in such a small place. For another, the Host only likes to pretend to endure privation. In truth they like warm bedchambers, plenty of the best wine and comfort above all else. They would hardly sink to the level of a housekeeper’s cottage.”
“Indulge me,” she said and started toward it.
He muttered a curse under his breath and started after her. “Wait.” An odd feeling was coming over him. She had already reached for the doorknob of the derelict building, and he caught up with her, catching her arm roughly. “Let me go first.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the ground beneath them gave way. He saw Melisande sink, and he flung out his arms to grab her, going down with her, deep, deep into the darkness, her body held tightly against his.
16
Benedick managed to turn them as they tumbled, so that he landed beneath her, his body protecting hers from the brunt of the fall. He let out an inelegant “oof” as he landed, the combination of the fall and her body bouncing on top of his knocking the wind out of him. He struggled for a moment, still holding her, and then it came back with a whoosh of relief, and he could breathe again. She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to let go of him. She wasn’t moving, clinging tightly, and he had the sudden fear that she might be hurt. He moved his hands, touching her carefully, looking for broken bones, when she rolled off him, slapping his hands away.
He sat up, wincing slightly. “Melisande, are you all right?” he asked urgently.
There was dust and dirt in the air, and she coughed. “I seem to be,” she said finally. “What happened?”
He looked around him, slowly, taking it all in. “I believe we may have found where the Heavenly Host meets.”
“In a cellar?”
“Look around you. We’re not in a cellar. We’re in the middle of a tunnel, with torches and crude drawings on the walls. Not the kind of thing they use for mines. The combination of the fire and the elements must have weakened the ground overhead, enough so that our combined weight collapsed it.” He began to brush the dirt and dust from his abused coat, then realized it was a lost cause. Richmond would kill him.
He saw her shiver. “I don’t actually like enclosed places,” she said in a small voice.
He’d gotten to his feet, shaking himself slightly, but he paused, looking down at her. He’d known people to became half-mad with fear when forced to be in a confined area, and the memory wasn’t a happy one. “Exactly how much do you dislike enclosed places?” he inquired politely. “Do they make you uncomfortable, or do you curl up in a ball and start screaming?”
She looked at him indignantly, and he breathed an inner sigh of relief. “Do I strike you as the type who would scream?”
I could make you scream, my girl, he thought. I could make you scream and weep with pleasure.
“No, I suppose not,” he drawled imperturbably. “Then you’ll simply have to bear it until we find our way out of here.” He held out a hand to her. There was a streak of dirt across her cheekbone, her tawny hair was halfway down her shoulders and there was a delicious rent in the side of her riding habit. Apart from that she appeared relatively unscathed, thank God.
&
nbsp; She considered him for a moment, considered his proffered hand, and then, reluctantly, put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet.
Wherein she immediately let out a shriek of pain and began to buckle, but he caught her before she could fall, holding her against him, too close, and they were frozen for a moment.
She was looking up at him, all magnificent blue eyes and soft mouth trying to hide the pain she was clearly feeling, and he had the sudden absurd urge to shelter her from any danger or discomfort, to fight dragons for her. He ignored it and went for deliberately provocative. “Apparently you do scream.”
She was white with pain and dust from the chalk caves. “My ankle,” she said with a tight voice. “I must have twisted it when we fell.”
He glanced upward. The light was unlikely to be much better anywhere in the tunnels—at least here they had the filtered sunlight beaming in from overhead. He levered her back down on the hard ground, knelt at her feet and flipped up the hem of her riding habit.
She flipped it back, kicking at him with what must be the undamaged foot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Checking for damage. I assure you I’m quite capable. I had to patch up my brothers and sister any number of times before our parents discovered what kind of trouble we were getting ourselves into. We had a tendency to climb cliffs and play pirate. I can at least ascertain if your ankle is broken.”
“And what good would that do? If it’s broken it’s broken.”
“If it’s broken the sooner you get it bound and splinted the less likely you are to have permanent damage. How would you feel if you could never dance again?”
A moment’s consternation showed on her face, then quickly disappeared. “There are certainly worse catastrophes in a woman’s life,” she said stiffly. “I’ve never been much for dancing.
“I remember. You did learn quite quickly, though, once you relaxed.”
“It hardly matters when you think about the women I care for…”
So tiresome. “How would you feel if you couldn’t storm around saving your wounded doves? A crippled ankle could effectively damage your charitable activities.”
And it was that easy. “All right. That makes a certain amount of sense.”
“If it’s broken, I’ll get you to the nearest doctor. There has to be one in the nearest town, and your ankle can be properly dealt with. If it’s simply a sprain we can ride back and you can summon your own doctor. Surely that sounds reasonable?”
“It does.” She looked at him from beneath her furrowed brow. “But I don’t trust you.”
“Very wise,” he said. While they spoke he’d managed to get his hands beneath her skirt and clasped around her riding boot. At that moment he yanked, hard, and it came off, and she let out another shriek of pain, this one louder than the first.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, a fact he viewed with surprise. In matters like these, one usually did what one had to do and didn’t stop to consider how much it hurt. Charity Carstairs had an unfortunate effect on him.
She’d fallen back on her elbows, pale and sweating. “You could have warned me!”
“That would have made it worse.”
“Impossible.” Her foot jerked as he put his hands on it, gently, his fingers probing for damage. It was a nice foot, narrow, with surprisingly pretty toes. He’d never found feet particularly enticing, but hers were another matter. Then again, he was coming to the unfortunate conclusion that he found almost everything about her enticing.
“All right,” he said, keeping his voice impersonal, “this is going to hurt.”
She managed well enough as he poked and prodded, only muffled groans letting him know when he’d reached a particularly tender spot. He began to slide his hands up her shapely calf, and she jerked, glaring at him. “You don’t need to go any higher.”
He ignored her protest. “The pain might come from your knee, sweet Charity. I need to rule that out.”
It was a lovely knee. He could just imagine pulling them around his hips. And he needed to stop thinking about bedding her and concentrate on the dilemma at hand, no matter how preferable the former was. Her ankle was already beginning to swell, and there was no way he’d be able to replace her boot. Which meant he’d have to carry her, which he didn’t mind but she would doubtless find maddening. He smiled.
“Not broken,” he said. “I can’t be completely sure, but I expect it’s nothing more than a sprain. You need to get it elevated, and iced, if possible.”
“I can do neither at the moment,” she said reasonably, sitting up. “Hand me my boot so I can put it back on.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my lady. Regardez là.”
She glanced down at her swelling ankle and cursed most impressively beneath her breath. So she’d learned at least one useful thing from her gaggle. “How am I supposed to walk with only one boot?” she said with some asperity.
“You aren’t.” He rose, bent down and scooped her up effortlessly. She was fairly light, and he was strong, used to controlling difficult horses. He could handle her with ease.
“I don’t like this,” she said in a warning voice, her usual serenity deserting her. A good thing, that. Her usual calm infuriated him, when he wanted to see her as rattled as she made him feel.
“I know you don’t,” he said with great good cheer. “One of the few blessings of this afternoon.”
He expected that would make her ire rise even higher, but to his astonishment she laughed. “You,” she began, “are a very bad man. Though I don’t know why that should surprise me—you’re one of the wicked House of Rohan, are you not? I imagine your family’s perfidy predates even the Heavenly Host.”
“Most assuredly. We’re devotedly incorrigible. Which direction would you prefer—right or left?”
She put her arms around his neck. It was a simple gesture—clearly this enterprise would go a lot better if she held on. For some reason, though, it touched him. It was a gesture of trust, of acceptance, whether she knew it or not. She glanced in both directions. “Let’s head to the right,” she said at last.
“Left it is,” he replied. And started off.
She should be a great deal more upset, Melisande thought as she clung to Viscount Rohan’s strong neck. Her ankle throbbed like the very devil, she’d lost her boot somewhere and she was being carted around by her arch-enemy as if she were nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
They were in the middle of nowhere, stuck inside a tunnel with no discernible way out, and he’d called her “Melisande.” He probably didn’t even realize that he had. It had come out spur of the moment, when they’d tumbled down into this subterranean passageway, which made it all the more interesting. When he wasn’t taunting and teasing her, he thought of her as Melisande?
He’d started down one corridor, where they’d swiftly been enveloped in first shadows and then darkness as he’d turned a corner. There was no artificial light down there at the moment, though she could see unlit torches set into the walls as they passed, and scorch marks on the white cave walls. He carried her easily enough, as if she weighed no more than a feather, which she knew was a far cry from the truth. She was, admittedly, curvaceous, even bordering on plump. Carting her around would be a strain on a lesser man. Rohan wasn’t even breathing heavily.
It was getting darker. She wanted to cling more tightly to Rohan’s strong body, but she resisted the need. Really, she had no choice but to let him carry her, given the condition of her ankle, but there was no excuse for cuddling. “Are you certain we’re going in the right direction?”
He let out an irritated growl. “I’m not certain of anything. I was going on instinct.”
“Instinct being that you do the opposite of what I suggest?”
It was too dark to see his expression, but she knew he would be amused. “Indeed. I wonder…” His voice trailed off as he came to an abrupt halt.
“You wonder?” she prompted, only to be dropped from his arms su
mmarily, though he still supported her, and a hand came over her mouth, silencing her.
And then she heard it. Voices arguing, and a growing pool of light heading in their direction.
He moved, fast, as the light came around a bend in the tunnels, and she felt herself being pushed into a dark hole, onto a padded surface, with his hard, heavy body on top of hers, his hand still covering her mouth. “Don’t say a word,” he breathed in her ear.
She nodded, or tried to, though his imprisoning hand made it difficult, and he moved it away, keeping perfectly still in the darkness.
She could see light in the tunnel beyond, and the voices were clearer now. “Did you see someone?” The voice sounded vaguely familiar. A man, in his middle years, clearly of the ton.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The next voice was younger, slightly petulant, and that of a stranger. “We didn’t see any sign of horses near the ruins, did we? Who else would be down here? We came in the only entrance and it was locked when we got here.”
“I thought I saw someone moving. Over by one of the training rooms.” The voice and the light came closer, and Rohan pushed her back into the corner of the alcove with his body, pressing her face against his shoulder. He stayed very still, but Melisande could sense the light beyond him, and panic swelled inside her. They’d been discovered.
Apparently not. “It’s black as pitch in there,” the older man said. “Nothing but bedding and rags.”
“You could always walk in and look,” the younger voice taunted him. “I promise not to lock you in.”
The light moved away, and Melisande felt relief flood her body. “Do you seriously think I’d be fool enough to trust you, Pennington? Your sense of humor has always been a bit outré.”