Jumping in Puddles

by Barbara Elsborg

  He took Ellie into the turret room, and she gasped. “This is gorgeous.”

  She spun round with her arms outstretched, and as her hair shone in the sunlight the breath caught in his throat. She was gorgeous and smart and—oh God, I want her.

  “An artist would love to work in here. Or a princess with a spinning wheel or a girl with very long hair and a good-looking guy down on the ground she fancied.” She looked out of the window and gave an exaggerated sigh. “No one out there today.”

  She chuckled, and Jago couldn’t remember when he’d been that happy and carefree.

  “There was a leak in here yesterday.” He looked up at the ceiling. A mushroom-shaped yellow stain circled the light fitting.

  “Was that why you were on the roof? Fixing the tiles?”

  “Ah, it was you skulking in the garden.”

  “I never skulk. I was singing and dancing. I love the rain.”

  “I hate it.”

  “I could make you love it.”

  She stared straight at him, and Jago’s stomach clenched.

  Chapter Five

  As Ellie stared at Jago, her heart galloped out of control. She needed to step back, and she could feel herself readying to step forward. This guy had been hurt too much. She’d make his pain worse. But I could at least make him happy now. And myself as well.

  One small step. Ellie lifted her heel, and he turned away. Disappointment clawed at her chest.

  “While there are still holes in the roof, I’ll never love the rain,” he mumbled.

  “We’ll see,” she whispered.

  On the next floor down, he showed her the long gallery, faded rectangles revealing where paintings had once hung. The bedroom he was about to paint had cans and brushes waiting in the middle of the floor.

  “Those rooms are occupied by my lodgers.” He gestured down the hall. “The rest I have to get ready for wedding guests. I have no idea how.”

  The list of work was repetitive: plasterwork, skirting boards, architrave, painting, papering, floor repairs. She didn’t see anywhere obvious to look for the Kewen. He was either hiding it, or he didn’t know he had it. Ellie erred toward the latter; otherwise wouldn’t he have sold it? So why had just the ring surfaced? She could simply tell him she’d bought it and ask if there was more, but since she intended to steal the rest, she’d be the prime suspect. Would that matter if she was back in Faerieland? Her head buzzed.

  “What’s in there?” She pointed to two closed doors.

  “Things I’ve saved to go back into the rooms once they’re finished.”

  “Can I see?”

  Jago unlocked the first, motioned her in, and switched on the light. The curtains were drawn.

  “Wow.”

  The room was packed with artifacts: chairs, tables, wardrobes, and an enormous four-poster bed covered with bubble-wrapped packages.

  “One of my ancestors spent a fortune while he was doing the Grand Tour in the nineteenth century.”

  “Thank goodness they had bubble wrap then.”

  He shot her an incredulous look and then cracked a smile when he realized she was joking.

  “There’s a lot of stuff. Did he ship back everything he came across?” she asked.

  “Probably. He was certainly an eclectic collector. Some of the items are attributed to Pompeii, and I don’t know whether they’re actual relics or copies. Either way, they’re antiques.”

  Oh God, had the Kewen already been sold and the money spent? The ring all that was left? Ellie swallowed. That couldn’t be true; otherwise, pieces would have turned up before now. Unless they’d been looking in the wrong place all these years, and the Kewen had been taken abroad. It said in the book it couldn’t travel over water, but Ellie wasn’t sure the book told the truth.

  Was it in this room? She looked under sheets at paintings and furniture, and ran her gaze over tapestries hanging on the walls. When she bent with her butt toward Jago, she heard him give a quiet groan, and she smiled.

  “This fat guy on the gray horse is a bit hideous,” she said.

  “My grandfather.”

  “Oops.” Ellie inspected the painting and the one next to it more closely, and then glanced back at him and frowned. Where was the resemblance?

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Nothing. Have you had to sell much?”

  “Bits and pieces. Nothing desperately important. I repurchased some items my father sold, though not everything I’d wanted.”

  Maybe his father had sold some of the Kewen and whoever bought it had put it in a bank vault and then died. There were so many possibilities that her head ached. Certainty that it was somewhere here began to fade.

  “Is your intention to make the house look as it once did?” she asked.

  “If I don’t have enough interesting artifacts on display, no one will pay to look round, and the only way I can see to make this place viable is restoring it, dressing the rooms, and charging people to tour while I live in a small corner.”

  “Is there anything here you’d considering selling?” She glanced around.

  “Almost everything has a price.”

  “Even you?”

  He frowned. “I don’t think I’d fetch much.”

  “No local slave market?”

  Jago gaped at her, and she laughed.

  “Some women would like a title. In the old days you’d have wooed a rich heiress and solved all your problems.”

  “Are you a rich heiress?”

  “Neither rich nor an heiress.” She looked around. “Maybe you should make a list of everything, put the items in order of importance to keep, and sell off a few things.”

  “I’m still not going to be able to raise enough capital. No point in repairing the house if there’s nothing left to show inside it.”

  “What about jewelry? Did your mother leave anything?” Her heart rate increased.

  “Some.”

  She licked her lips. “Unless it has sentimental value, you should consider selling it, especially if it’s old.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Ellie had to press the point. “Have you sold any?”

  “Nothing that belonged to me.”

  The ring hadn’t belonged to him, but was he aware of that?

  “I know quite a lot about jewelry. I could take a look and give you a valuation.”

  “Right.”

  She’d hoped for more than “right.”

  Jago locked the rooms again, and they went down to the ground floor.

  “I hope you’re not keeping anything very valuable up there. It’s an invitation to thieves to put everything together like that. Do you have a burglar alarm?”

  “Can’t afford one, but I rarely leave the house. There’s always someone around, and now if anything goes missing, yours will be the name I give the police.”

  He might be smiling, but he didn’t trust her. Can’t be stealing when it doesn’t belong to you. That wasn’t the way the police would view it, though she had to find it first.

  Jago unlocked a door at the end of a corridor, reached in to switch on the light, and illuminated steep concrete steps leading down.

  “Torture chamber?” she asked.

  “You wanted to see where we used to chain the dragons.”

  The look on his face sent sparks swirling in her belly.

  “It’s next to where the ghost lives,” he said.

  “Bit of an oxymoron.”

  He laughed. “True.”

  Jago led her through a maze of musty arched rooms, past line after line of empty wine racks. The cellar was dark and creepy, but she’d have to come down on her own and search more thoroughly. Judging by the way she’d responded to the rose-gold ring, she’d assumed if any piece of the Kewen was near, she’d have some sort of reaction. Tingling, going hot, fainting, though that didn’t happen now when she held the ring, so she couldn’t be certain it would happen again. Plus how near did she have to be to the Kewen to feel it? Assumi
ng she could.

  The problem with the theory of feeling its presence was that her heart had been thumping from the moment Jago opened the door and scowled at her. She couldn’t trust her own senses.

  “Did you ever play down here?” she whispered.

  “Sometimes. Why are we whispering?”

  “In case the ghost hears us.”

  He moved closer. “Shall I tell you the story about the ghost?”

  The sensation of his breath brushing over her ear dampened her panties. Damn. “As long as it ends happily.”

  Jago shook with laughter. “Ghosts are dead people. How can that have a happy ending?”

  “Well, pretend it does,” Ellie said.

  “You’re in luck. This story should make you smile. When my brother and I were in our teens, we were convinced someone was living down here.”

  She shivered.

  “Things were disturbed from one day to the next, and we heard weird noises. We told our mother, but she didn’t believe us, so we planned to sleep down here and take a photo as proof.”

  She stared at him without blinking. He looked so serious she wondered how this story could make her smile.

  “Denzel wimped out and went back to bed, but I curled up in my sleeping bag with a flashlight. Everything was fine until I heard scratching, and then something rustled close by my ear.” He shuddered. “I didn’t know whether to wriggle deeper into my bag or run for it. Then…the ghost appeared right in front of me. A guy in an old army uniform.”

  Ellie gasped. Ghosts didn’t appear to many people. They were very shy. She’d only seen one once. Did Jago have some sort of gift?

  “I opened my mouth to scream, and he said, ‘I’m your great-great-grandfather, and I saved my men at the battle of Arnhem. No one knows.’” Jago gave a rueful smile. “I figured one of my ancestors wasn’t going to hurt me, so I asked if it was okay to take a photograph and promised I’d let people know what he’d done. He agreed. I took loads of shots, and he disappeared. Denzel didn’t believe me, but I had the camera. I had proof.”

  “Wow.” How had he managed to take a picture of a ghost?

  “Except when the photos were developed, they were black and underexposed.”

  “Darn it.”

  “Yeah, the spirit was willing, but the flash was weak.” His voice and expression were deadpan.

  Ellie gaped at him and then laughed. “You had me there.” There was a sudden scraping sound behind her, and she squeaked. “Is that the dragon?”

  “Could be. Shall I hold your hand?”

  Ellie smiled. “Is your other name Saint George?”

  He stared at her intently, his eyes even darker in the gloom. “Does it matter?”

  She reached out to him as he reached out to her. Their fingertips touched, and Ellie felt as though she’d been caught in a brush fire. Heat raced along her veins, and her skin prickled. He slid his thumb onto her palm, and then his fingers moved over the backs of hers, and he curled his hand around her hand.

  They might only be holding hands, but she knew this was far more than that. He was the one meant for her, no matter how impossible it seemed, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  “Feel brave now?” he asked.

  Was that a catch in his voice?

  “Maybe if you had a sword in your other hand.”

  His face lit in a smile. “That could be easily arranged. Or maybe you’d like to hold it.”

  Ellie blazed.

  “Come on. I don’t like it down here. I used to worry about getting trapped, and now, thanks to you, I have to worry about dragons too.” He tugged her back along the maze of corridors to the stairs, his hold tightening to the point of pain.

  But when they reached the narrow concrete flight, he let her go. “You first,” he said. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

  His gaze seared her bum as she walked up. As she emerged into the corridor, she saw a guy walking toward her carrying a basket of laundry. Jago came up at her back, and the hard outline of his cock pressed against her butt.

  “Watch what you’re doing with that sword,” she whispered, and Jago snorted.

  “Pretty lady been beating you up where we can’t hear the screams?” the man asked.

  “This is Baxter,” Jago said. “Baxter, Ellie.”

  Ellie held out her hand. “You’re so lucky. I love the idea of living here for less rent and working on the house in my spare time. Want to show me what you and the others have been doing? I’m looking forward to joining your work teams.”

  Baxter winced. “Need to get this washing in the machine, sorry. Talk some other time.”

  “I’ll draw up a schedule,” Ellie called to his back. “We’ll get more done if we cooperate.”

  Jago sighed as Baxter fled. “He’s a lazy arse.”

  “Perhaps you’d better buy me that whip.”

  “Mmm. Come and look at the ballroom. That’s one room that has been renovated.”

  She hoped he’d take her hand again, but he didn’t. When he pushed open the double doors, Ellie stopped and exhaled. Ahead was a long rectangular room with massive mirrors at either end, capital-topped marble columns running down the sides. The floor was a light polished wood, the blue walls lined with frieze panels filled with frescoes. It was like stepping back into a different century. She wished she could waltz, though how hard could it be with the right man leading?

  Ellie peeked at him and then glanced up. A spectacularly ornate ceiling arched overhead.

  “Each of the chandeliers contains twenty thousand sections of cut glass crystal and weighs over a ton. I washed and dried every damn piece.”

  “Did you restore this room?”

  “I made new moldings to replace the acanthus leaves and scrolls where they’d been damaged, and I did the gilding and the painting, but the plaster work I paid for. Luckily the frescoes were in good condition.”

  “Imagine dancing in here.” Ellie twirled around the room. “If you look in the mirror, you can see yourself reflected into infinity. Actually, that’s kind of spooky. Hundreds and thousands and millions of me.” She spun to a halt and found Jago in front of her.

  “I only need one,” he whispered.

  His arms hung by his sides, and Ellie knew this was up to her, that she could walk away, that she should walk away, but she couldn’t.

  You’re mine. You don’t know it, but you are. I don’t know how that could be, but it is. Ellie waited.

  Jago released a ragged breath and stepped back.

  Bloody hell. Again? What game was he playing?

  “We haven’t finished looking round yet. Few more rooms on this floor to see, plus the baron’s hall and then the outbuildings.”

  Something inside Ellie curled up in pain, but she donned the brightest smile she could and only let it fade when he couldn’t see her.

  She followed him out of the ballroom, and he showed her the other rooms on that floor. Easy to see why he’d been overwhelmed by what needed to be done.

  “The kitchen isn’t too bad. My mother insisted on having that replaced with something more modern.”

  “It’s lovely.” But a mess with dirty pans piled up, newspapers and magazines everywhere.

  A long oak table dominated the room with chairs on one side, a bench on the other. Old wood had been used to make the cabinets, and the crumb-strewn countertop was brown granite flecked with turquoise. A stove sat in an alcove, an old leather couch near the window. All it needed to look perfect was a dog. They’d never been allowed pets because Pixie was allergic.

  “We share it,” Jago muttered.

  “And presumably no one takes responsibility for cleaning it up.”

  “I’m not picking up after my lodgers,” he snapped.

  Oops. “Where do they lead?” She nodded toward the doors on the far side of the kitchen.

  “Breakfast room and utility room.”

  “Is that everywhere inside?” she asked.

  “I haven’t shown you the
baron’s hall yet.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “In a room upstairs.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  She opened her eyes wider. “Please?”

  He scowled and stormed out. What bit him on the butt? She followed him up the stairs, distracted by thoughts of biting his butt, though when he opened the door of his room, she understood his reluctance. Swallowing the temptation to comment on the piles of clothes and heaps of books, she looked for something positive to say. Her gaze settled on the surfboard. “I wish I could surf. I wish I could swim.”

  “You can’t swim?”

  “Twelve inches freaks me out.”

  Jago spluttered.

  “Lots of people have tried to teach me, but they all gave up.”

  “The answer might be skinny-dipping. Tried it?”

  “Only in eleven inches of bathwater.”

  He laughed. “Do you not like getting your face wet?”

  “It isn’t that. I practiced sticking my head in a bucket and holding my breath, and that didn’t bother me. It’s expanses of water I can’t handle. The way it looks solid and isn’t. I feel as though it’s going to swallow me.”

  Jago stared at her. “You have a very weird mind.”

  “Thank you.” Ellie smiled as they headed downstairs.

  “I think you must be the strangest woman I’ve ever met. I have this vision of you now with your head in a bucket.”

  “Not one of me skinny-dipping?”

  Ellie reached the bottom and stopped. He took several more steps before he realized she wasn’t with him; then he turned to face her across the checkerboard floor. As he stared, his Adam’s apple shifted in his throat, and his cheeks flushed. Her gaze dropped.

  “Do you think the place is beyond hope?” He took a step toward her. Black square.

  “You could tidy this in no time.”

  He took another step. White square. “I mean the house.”

  “Nothing is ever beyond hope,” she said firmly.

  Black square. “Really?”

  She sighed. “Well, unless you’re in the middle of a shark-infested sea and bleeding profusely. I think things would be pretty hopeless then.”