by Tessa Candle
He nodded. “And you never call her by her real name, even out of company?”
“We call her Kitty, Kitty Miles. Rosamond thought of the name.”
“Good enough name. Plain and unassuming.” He clasped her hand. “Miss Dawling, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your kindness to her. And thank you for the pains you have taken with our friend in the cave.”
Delville’s grasp was so warm—a little rough and strong, yet his grip was gentle. She sighed when he remembered himself and let go.
Then she recalled that she had been derelict in her duty. “As to that, all the extra company we have had lately has prevented me from going to him. I gave him extra provisions in advance. But it seems cruel to leave him in that place with no company at all—especially when he has told everything he knows.”
“Why? Has he told you something?”
“Yes, of course. Did you not get my letter?”
Delville’s icy blue eyes seemed to freeze over entirely and his tone of voice became suddenly sharp. “You sent me a letter?”
“Yes. He told me where he thought Red Martha might be keeping her secret files, and so I wrote to you right away.” She felt uncertain. “That was the plan, after all.”
“Yes… it was. Only I did not think he would tell you anything. A letter.” Delville passed a hand over his face. Something was not right. “I suppose you addressed it from Fenimore?”
“Naturally.” She was suddenly nervous. Perhaps that had not been the wisest thing to do.
“Did you mention the cave?”
“I…” Had she? “Perhaps I might have referred to him as our friend in the pirate cave. Though he identified himself to me, by the by.”
“He should not have done—it was against all his training.”
Eleanor was about to enquire what sort of training he meant. But Delville waved a hand impatiently. “But never mind that. How long has it been since you last saw him?”
“Early morning, the day before yesterday.” Eleanor did not like the look on Delville’s face as she spoke. “But I gave him a lot of extra provisions—”
She had not finished the sentence before he was dashing away. Eleanor was plunged into confusion. Had she done something wrong? She did not dare follow him, and yet she needed to know what was going on.
Perhaps if she slipped quietly away, the others—for surely their visitors would have by now arrived—would not spy her through any windows. She teetered a moment, balancing on a point of indecision.
She looked around to make sure no one observed her, making her way gradually, almost as if idly meandering toward the path that led to the cave. Once past the trees that concealed her from any view afforded by the manor, she picked up her skirts and sprinted onward.
When she at last hurtled through the back passage and arrived at the entrance of the prison, she paused, pressing the stitch in her side and gasping. She was accustomed to a great deal of walking, but running was not part of her regular exercise. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she gasped as she beheld the door lying on the floor. It had been partly dug, partly bashed out of the wall surrounding it.
Lord Screwe was nowhere to be seen, and Delville stood inside the empty cell, holding his head in his hands. “My God, she will kill him, and it is entirely my fault.” He was beside himself—a man overcome with guilt.
Eleanor’s heart broke for him, and without thinking, she hastened to his side. “You must not blame yourself. The fault is wholly mine!”
His gaze locked with hers. She had never seen his eyes look so wild, and it took her breath away.
Then he grabbed her and pulled her close to him.
For a moment she thought he would kiss her again. She melted into his arms. This time she intended to enjoy it properly.
The sound of falling stone thundered just behind her, and she realized he had only pulled her out of the path of a fallen chunk of the ceiling. Then he was suddenly pushing her to the floor, and throwing his body over hers. The next moment a roar and rumble was all around her, and she was plunged into darkness.
Chapter 26
Delville opened his eyes only to find it was still dark. He could see nothing, but could feel he was on the floor with the soft, fragrant body of Eleanor lying beneath him. His arms were still wrapped around her, which felt very good, but it was the only good thing about the situation. The ceiling must have collapsed. Panic gripped his insides, what if Eleanor was hurt?
He moved his weight off of her and shook her gently. “Ele—Miss Dawling, please tell me that you are well.”
She stirred. “What happened?”
“Thank God!” He embraced her, but not too hard. He thought the liberty was justified under the circumstances—she had already been in his arms, after all, but if she was hurt, he did not want to make matters worse. “I think the ceiling has collapsed. Are you injured?”
“I do not know.” She moved her arms and legs, then sat up. “I have some bruises, but I do not think anything is broken. I will know more if I can stand. Do you think it is safe?”
“I think the part of the ceiling that collapsed was where the doorway was—behind us, and on the east side. We were pelted by some falling rock—but at least the whole thing did not come down around our ears. The structure was undermined by whoever dug out that door, but I think our half of the chamber is holding—at least I hope.”
He supposed he should do the gentlemanly thing and move away from her to explore the room, but he did not want to. She was warm and so close beside him that his body was touching hers. And she smelled good. Maybe he was losing his mind, but he was so happy that she was alright, all he wanted was to stay as close to her as possible.
Closer than was decent, in fact. He swallowed. This would not do. She must be scared out of her wits. He had to mind his manners or he would frighten her even more. “You stay here. Let me explore a little bit.”
“Be careful! I gave him extra provisions. If they have not been smashed, there may be a jug of water and even some food on the floor. We will need it—don’t trip over it.”
He could see that he need not have been worried that she would become hysterical—though he certainly would have forgiven her for it, if she had. She had taken in the situation, and was already assessing resources and how best to preserve them to survive.
Delville did not hide his admiration. “That is good news. You could not have known it, at the time, but you might have saved our lives. Water is the most important thing. I shall be careful.”
He stood up and found the ceiling was not sagging low in this part of the cave, which was a good sign. As he moved around, shuffling his feet to detect anything on the floor, he contemplated what a marvellous woman Eleanor was.
But he was angry with himself. His actions could have got her killed. He deserved a thorough thrashing for putting her in this situation, but she was handling things so well. If they ever got out of this place, he was going to kiss her—and properly this time.
His foot brushed the tray. He bent down and felt the provisions on it. They were all intact. “I found the tray.”
“Thank heavens!”
He crawled back toward her voice, pushing the tray in front of him. “One of the jugs is full, and there seems to be about six pies here. If we ration ourselves, this could last us for several days.”
She reached out and touched his hand to guide him back to her side. So she did not mind being close to him. That was good, it felt better to be near her. He wanted to protect her, of course, but it was something more. He supposed human contact of any kind was crucial at a time like this, but she was so special.
He took her hand in his, and she did not pull away. “Miss Dawling, I beg your forgiveness for endangering you like this.”
“It was I who came running after you—I who walked into the cave, though I could see the door had been bashed in.”
“But you would not have been involved in all this if it were not for me.”
“I force
d you to let me be involved. And as I recall, it was my idiotic letter that led Red Martha straight here.”
“I should have warned you not to write your true address. I was in too much of a hurry and too convinced that you would never extract anything more from Screwe. In short I was negligent and arrogant, as I have been most of my life.” He knew not how, but by some magic, she was drawing out his confession without even trying.
Ever since his father had died he had been taking liberties and tempting fate. The ridiculous gambling was only one aspect of a truly reckless life. This wonderful woman made him desire to start being responsible. He wanted to be the sort of man who could deserve someone like her. The realization was frightening, and at the same time filled him with joy.
Her voice was contrite. “I should not have needed any warning. And if I had followed my schedule of visits, I might have frightened Red Martha’s men before they could get to him. If anyone is to blame, it is I.”
He had to make her stop saying such things. He forgot his own resolution and pulled her close to him, whispering in her ear. “I thank God that you were not here when they arrived. You would never have frightened them away, and I shudder to think what they might have done.”
When he made to release her, she spoke a breathless plea, “Do not let go. After all, we might not make it out of this. And being close to you is so nice and warm and comforting.”
How could he refuse such a sweet request? He kissed her then, as he had wanted to before, as he should have done the first time in the wine cellar. He teased her mouth with his tongue, and when she turned the tables on him, teasing him back, his member grew hard and his hands dropped to her waist to pull her against his erection.
She responded by flexing against him. It was not at all what he expected. Indeed, he had been anticipating a slap, but his desire not to scare her was fast becoming undermined by his desire to have all of her.
He pulled out of the kiss, panting. “You must think me an utter cad. I beg your pardon, but please do not banish me to my side of the cave. I am doing things all wrong, but I have wished for some time that I had kissed you properly on that first occasion.”
She chuckled. “I have been wishing the same thing. Far from banishing you, I hope you will stay close to me. If we are going to die here, I do not want to be alone. And besides, it will be the best way to stay warm.”
“We will not die here. We have food and water, and someone will come to find us.” He was not at all sure about that, but there was no way he was going to let this beautiful, brave creature lose faith.
“I know you are saying that for my sake. Do not misunderstand me, I think it very sweet that you would try to spare me the fear, that I may remain hopeful for as long as possible. But I have a penchant for confronting matters as they are and facing facts. The facts are that we have a limited supply of everything, including air, and the only other people who even know of this cell are certainly far away by now, and probably wish us dead in any case.”
He winced. What could he say against that? What could he do to be a comfort to this intelligent, exasperatingly pragmatic woman? “Do not tell yourself that. If they come to look for us here, and find the back chamber collapsed—”
She interrupted, “But why would they even look in the back passage? No one goes there. And if they did, would they look behind the tapestry?”
“The hall behind the tapestry might have collapsed as well. It might be visible.” It was somewhat weak, and he knew it.
“If someone looks in the back passage and sees the collapse, and they decide to risk lives to dig for us on the off chance that we are behind the pile of rubble, how long will it take them to dig us out? We have a finite supply of air.”
That might not be true. He had, after all, dug a chimney into this chamber. If it had not caved in, they had an indefinite air supply that she was overlooking. But he was distracted from telling her of this because she was kissing him again, worming her fingers under his collar and removing his neck cloth, stroking the skin on his clavicle. “Mm. Not that I object in the least, but I am afraid I must stop you before I become ungentlemanly.”
“Let us be honest, now: you have never been terribly gentlemanly. I believe it may be one of your principal charms.”
He laughed. “Thank you, I think. But I have even better charms. I would love to introduce you to them, sometime when you do not think you are about to die.”
She was now unfastening his shirt, and she suddenly had the attention of all his anatomy.
“Oh God, darling, you must stop now. You do not know what you are doing to me.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea. I am not some over-protected Miss of the middling class, you know.”
“Indeed, but I think your education cannot have gone quite so far as all that.”
“It has gone far enough.” She paused, then huffed. “Is it possible that I am addressing the one person who does not know that my mother was a courtesan before my father married her?”
“A courtesan?” He winced at his own voice, for he sounded shocked, and she began to pull away. He pulled her back. “You cannot escape that easily. I know I sounded like I was judging you, but I am not. Only I realized for the first time how deeply I must have insulted you when I mistook you for…”
“A bird of paradise?” She sounded defensive, but then her voice softened. “Knowing that you did not know about my mother does make me feel better.” Her lips brushed his in a sweet kiss that communicated forgiveness.
“I think I am in love with you.” As he said it, he had to laugh at himself for only realizing it in the moment. “Indeed, I am a beef-wit for taking this long to figure it out.”
“That is all very well, as long as it does not make you so sentimental that you start pretending to be a gentleman again.” Her voice sounded hot and did not brook disagreement. “If we are going to die in this cave, anyway, I think I should at least enjoy the comfort of knowing your other charms, as you put it.”
His head was spinning so violently that he began to doubt his own theory about their air supply. “Do you mean to say that you wish to know Delville, the rogue?”
“Carnally, yes.” She was undoing his trousers.
His voice was a growl, “Well then, let me do this properly.” He stripped off his pants, then laid out her fur cape on the floor, lowering her onto it gently.
He lifted her skirts and slowly kissed every inch of her thighs, working his way up to her womanhood.
How he loved the way her back arched as he began teasing her with his tongue. Her moans of pleasure mounted and it drove him mad. Just when he thought he would lose control entirely, she stroked his hair affectionately and whispered, “Take me, I want all of you.”
He needed no further invitation, but entered her slowly, reading her body, waiting for her to adjust to the pressure before increasing it.
When she began to move her hips and pull him further into her, he started to thrust deeper. She was so wet and so hot, yet her moans were tender.
The sweetness of it almost made him lose control. But he kept his rhythm and purred sweet utterances in her ear for every thrust he made.
"God how I want you, even now, when I am inside of you…"
He connected ever more forcefully with that spot that made her gyrate.
The sensation of all this love and heat was driving him to the edge, and he did not know how much longer he could hold himself back. But at last she began to cry out, louder and louder as each wave of pleasure hit her, and he let go and thrust frantically into her, joining her universe of unrestrained ecstasy and filling her with his passion.
This sweet thrusting together was like poetry washing over them, and as the pleasure subsided, and they lay dozing in each other’s arms, Delville knew how completely his heart had been stolen away.
He made a resolution. They would get out of this cave, and then, by whatever means necessary, he would make Eleanor his wife. He would get out of the Home Office work
, refuse every offer from the Foreign Office, and settle down to make a life for her—one that was worthy of her.
He drew her closer to him and kissed her hair. "We will get out of this, my love. You shall see."
She sighed, but her breathing told him she was already asleep.
Chapter 27
Eleanor awakened from her doze. She was surprised how little shock she felt at what she had just done. In fact, it was the perfect defiance. Everyone in town thought of her as a fallen woman because of her mother’s prior profession. Why should she not commit the crime for which she had been punished every day of her existence in society? Besides, Delville was delicious. They should have done this sooner and not wasted so much time.
A gloomier quarter of her heart reminded her that they would not live more than a few days, at most, so none of it mattered.
She comforted herself by burrowing into the great winter cape upon which they lay and fondling the muscular chest of Delville. She was grateful for the fur. It would keep them warm in the chill of the cave.
Were they really going to die? She was not as philosophical about it as she pretended to be. The thought of expiring without seeing her father again, without writing another letter to Colette… It was too terrible. And she discovered another source of pain, losing Delville. They had only just found their way together. It was unfair that their love should so soon be thwarted by death.
She was suddenly very aware of his naked skin and the hard muscles of his thigh. If Eleanor were going to die anyway, she was definitely going to do that again.
He stirred beside her. “Are you awake, Miss Dawling?”