Dark Temptation

by CHASE, ALLISON

  ‘‘Why?’’

  The answer lodged in his throat as a sudden fear rose inside him. Fear of her tenacity, her unquenchable desire to root out the truth of everything.

  Her probing gaze held him for another moment. Then she blinked and leaned back against the pillows, stretching her naked body in a way that made the clothing he had donned feel exceedingly uncomfortable. ‘‘Never mind,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve no wish to argue. Not now.’’

  Palpable relief left his heart thumping.

  ‘‘I’d forgotten all about that.’’ She pointed to the sword he’d placed on the dresser. His shirt had fallen open around it. ‘‘You found it in the tunnel?’’

  He retrieved the weapon and held it flat in his hands, feeling the slight vibration against his palms. ‘‘This isn’t the only thing I found in that tunnel. There were two bodies, skeletons draped in the remains of what once had been clothing, lying not far from this sword.’’

  ‘‘How ghastly!’’ She shuddered. ‘‘And there you were, trapped along with them.’’ Sitting upright, she leaned closer to run her fingers over the curly silver brackets that enclosed the hilt.

  ‘‘The odd thing is,’’ he said, ‘‘this sword is nearly the duplicate of the one that used to hang over the shield downstairs in the drawing room.’’

  ‘‘Used to hang?’’

  He nodded. ‘‘It appears to have gone missing. I don’t know if my father did something with it or if it’s been stolen.’’

  She leaned closer to examine the hilt. ‘‘My word. Do you know what this sword is?’’

  ‘‘Only what I’ve been told. According to legend, the Keatings owned identical rapiers made to fit each of their hands perfectly. This larger hilt would have been Jack’s, except that it should have gone down with him and his ship.’’

  Her startled gaze met his. ‘‘Could one of those skeletons . . . be Jack’s?’’

  ‘‘Good God. If it is, that means Jack made it home before he died.’’ He turned the sword over and back, trying to ignore the hum traveling through his hands and into his wrists. ‘‘I suppose it’s possible he escaped his ship before she went down, and someone pursued him into the mouth of the tunnel. They might have fired guns at each other, causing the ceiling to fall in. And then both died there, trapped.’’

  ‘‘To think Jack might have been mere floors below Meg in the end, but unable to reach her, and she never knowing.’’ Sophie shivered.

  ‘‘Then again, you know how legends grow and take on a life of their own. Both swords might have belonged to anyone at any time during Edgecombe’s history.’’

  ‘‘Not any time.’’ Sophie took the sword from him, cradling it in her hands with an air of reverence. Then her expression changed, became perplexed. ‘‘Such a strange sensation . . .’’

  ‘‘You feel it too?’’

  ‘‘So peculiar . . .’’ She gave her head a shake, as if to dismiss a nonsensical notion. ‘‘This is an espada ropera. Spanish-made, probably of Toledo steel, judging by how little it has warped or rusted even down in a damp tunnel.’’ She frowned and murmured, ‘‘Perhaps the steel is reacting to the metals in the cavern rock, and that’s why—’’

  ‘‘What makes you so certain of what it is? What did you call it?’’

  ‘‘An espada ropera. See the hilt, how these thin silver bands are curved to form a decorative webbing? It’s a primitive design by later standards, but even so it made an effective guard around the hand. The espadas roperas were among the first basket-hilt swords in Europe. Solid baskets weren’t devised for another hundred years or so.’’ She looked up and met Chad’s gaze. ‘‘This sword hails from the early to mid-sixteenth century. Exactly when the Keatings lived.’’

  ‘‘And how the devil would you know all that?’’

  Tossing her dark hair behind her, she wiggled to the edge of the bed, hopped down and moved to the window. ‘‘I know quite a lot about a great many things. Comes with being in the newspaper business.’’ As she held up the weapon to examine it in the light, Chad used the opportunity to study the exquisite silhouette of her naked body.

  Unaware of his perusal, she flipped the rapier over. ‘‘Can it be possible? Can this truly be Jack’s, and the missing sword Meg’s? It would all make sense with what’s happening now, wouldn’t it?’’

  He pushed off the bed and went to stand beside her. ‘‘I don’t see how. What difference whose swords these were, or if the Keatings once owned this house or not? I’m not searching out sixteenth-century pirates; I’m looking for smugglers here and now. Surely you’re not suggesting the ghosts of the Keatings are at large.’’ He reached for the weapon. She whisked it aside.

  ‘‘Don’t be absurd.’’ She treated him to a scowl, but a short-lived one. ‘‘But what if there is a connection? Couldn’t the incidents of today be a continuation of the piracy begun by the Keatings, taken up generation after generation all this time?’’

  ‘‘That’s far-fetched and you know it.’’

  ‘‘Do I? So much would make sense. We need to go back into that tunnel and follow where it leads.’’

  ‘‘Not on your life. Or mine.’’ He grasped her shoulders and pulled her close. Her rosy nipples grazed his chest, but he bit back desire and scowled. ‘‘It’s too dangerous. Besides, if someone has been smuggling goods through Edgecombe, they haven’t been doing it through that tunnel. Not for a good long time.’’

  He expected her enthusiasm to wane. Instead excitement illuminated her gray eyes. ‘‘According to the legends, the Keatings built a maze of tunnels. There’s likely another entrance elsewhere on the property or close by. Perhaps the farmstead . . .’’

  ‘‘Too far inland.’’

  ‘‘Then we’ll need to search the shoreline again.’’ She tapped a finger against her lips. Lips he had a good mind to still with kisses, to stop her from making plans that could get her killed. ‘‘I cannot believe this is all an incredible coincidence.’’

  He fervently wished it were, wished those men last night had no connection to Edgecombe . . . or to him. But he knew better than to hope for the unlikely. As he watched her ruminate over rapiers and tunnels and ancient pirate legends, regret stabbed deeper than he knew it could. Soul deep. Heart deep. If only he had made different decisions two years ago. If only . . .

  ‘‘Chad.’’ She stood glaring out the window. The light from outside gilded the delicate lines of her profile, the inviting curves of her breasts and belly. One elegant hand pressed the glass; the hand holding the rapier had dropped to her side.

  He moved beside her, seeing nothing but the usual vista of gardens, headland and sea.

  Her finger pointed. ‘‘The hothouse.’’

  He looked again and saw nothing remarkable, not even Nathaniel.

  ‘‘We’re seeking another tunnel entrance, one that could be used today.’’ She faced him, features taut. ‘‘As you said, according to legend, the Keatings owned identical swords. Chad, look at the weather vane on the hothouse roof.’’

  They were dressed and outside in a matter of minutes, armed with a garden hoe, a lantern and a small canvas sack containing flint, steel and a tinderbox. A crisp wind had kicked up, scattering intermittent raindrops. Sophie had tossed her dress over her head without bothering with corset or petticoats, and her bodice twisted uncomfortably on her torso as she descended the gardens. The rainy gusts penetrated the thin muslin of her day gown, the chill blending with her excitement and raising shivers.

  She hurried to keep up with Chad’s long strides until he noticed her exertion and slowed his pace. Little knots in her inner thighs clenched and ached with each step, a sharp reminder of what they had done, of how her life had changed today. Irrevocable, he had called it. Yes. And though perhaps that made her as wanton and rash as her family believed, she didn’t regret a single moment in his arms.

  Of letting herself love him.

  Did he love her? Knowing him as she did, she believed that yes, he loved her, or
at least had loved her through every caress and every inch of the passage of his body into hers.

  Would that love last? He had said their lovemaking bound them as nothing else could, but when they no longer lived with danger, when he no longer felt the need to protect her, would he seek his freedom?

  She pushed her blowing hair from her eyes as they reached the hothouse. Perched at the apex of its sloping roof, the weather vane with its two crossed swords topped by a sail squeaked as the wind sent it spinning. She touched Chad’s shoulder as they came to a halt and pointed up at it. ‘‘Still think everything is merely a coincidence? The harbor lights, the approaching ship, the cargo you found secreted at the farmstead . . . and let us not forget those poor sailors, killed by the same means once used by the Keatings.’’

  When he didn’t answer she moved forward and gripped the door handle. The door stuck, shuddered twice from the force of her tugs, then swung open. The wind caught it, threatening to slam it into the glass panes of the outer wall. Chad moved quickly to catch the door before it struck and shattered. With a roll of his eyes that accused her of undue haste, he strode past her and entered the octagonal structure.

  Little remained of the plants that had once flourished there. The planters stood empty but for stalks and rotted remains. Sophie wrinkled her nose at the putrid odors of decomposed vegetation.

  Chad turned to study the door behind them. ‘‘I’ll admit the opening is wide enough to allow easy access in and out.’’

  She nodded her agreement. His focus shifted to the floor. The planters began wide at the perimeter of the hothouse and tapered inward around a statue of a mermaid at the center. In between, flagstones paved the narrow walkways.

  ‘‘Search for the illusion,’’ he murmured.

  ‘‘Sorry?’’

  ‘‘In the wine cellar the tunnel’s trapdoor was concealed beneath a layer of tile to match the rest of the floor. I’d never have noticed it unless—’’ He broke off, toeing the nearest box frame that held the planting soil in place. ‘‘If there’s anything here to be found, my guess is it’ll be right under our noses.’’

  Upending plant stands, rapping their garden hoe against countless flagstones, they searched until the sun pushed through a break in the clouds and flooded through the hothouse windows. Inside the glass the temperature climbed until Sophie’s back beaded with perspiration.

  ‘‘It’s grown as airless as a catacomb in here.’’ With a grin, she pointed at the carved marble mermaid. ‘‘No wonder she wears so little.’’

  Leaning as he tapped the hoe along a footpath, Chad froze. Sophie regarded him in puzzlement as he slowly straightened and leveled an alarmed expression at the statue. ‘‘In most hothouses of this sort, wouldn’t that have been a fountain?’’

  ‘‘I couldn’t say. We only have a conservatory at home. Perhaps the brook isn’t near enough to power a fountain.’’

  Dropping the garden hoe, he strode up the pathway, stopping in front of the mermaid’s curving fin. ‘‘Like the altar.’’

  ‘‘What altar?’’

  ‘‘In the village. The vicar showed me how his pulpit can be moved aside to reveal the entrance to a tunnel.’’

  ‘‘I don’t understand.’’ She hurried down the aisle to his side. ‘‘The smugglers are using a tunnel right in the middle of the village? Beneath St. Brendan’s?’’

  ‘‘No. At least, not the smugglers we’re looking for. The tunnel beneath the church was used by Penhollow’s sailors and fishermen who occasionally ran goods in from France. But those men we encountered last night are of a far more dangerous variety of smuggler, and their methods are obviously much more insidious.’’ He sank to his knees, feeling frantically about the statue’s pedestal. ‘‘Help me push.’’

  Standing, he leaned and gripped the top edge of the plinth. Sophie moved beside him. Together they dug in their heels and shoved. To her astonishment a shrill grinding chafed her ears as the pedestal slid across the flagstones. Her amazement grew tenfold when she found herself staring down through a hole in the floor nearly identical to the one in the wine cellar.

  ‘‘This is it.’’ Chad’s fingertips trembled against the marble base. ‘‘I’ll get the lantern.’’

  While he did, Sophie glanced up at the vaulted ceiling, thinking of the crossed-sword design of the weather vane above. ‘‘It’s almost as if the Keatings were deliberately trying to send us a message. How did you find the tunnel entrance in the wine cellar? One would have to be crawling on hands and knees and have known where to look.’’

  He set the lantern down by the opening and crouched. ‘‘An odd turn of luck, I suppose.’’ He drew the flint, steel and tinderbox from the bag he had brought. He struck the flint to the steal, but no spark fell into the tinder. He tried again with no success. After a third try he slammed the flint to the floor. A chunk went flying. ‘‘Blasted thing.’’

  ‘‘Oh, here, let me.’’ With a doubtful shrug, he relinquished the steel and flint into her hands. A few strikes sparked the tinder, and within moments the lamp was lit. At his reluctant thank-you, she smothered a smile and closed the tinderbox to douse the tiny flame.

  Her pulse pattered in her wrists as she held the lantern over the shaft. ‘‘Let’s see where this leads, shall we?’’

  He grasped the lantern handle and took it from her hand. ‘‘I think I should do this alone.’’

  ‘‘Chad, please—’’

  ‘‘You saw what happened in the other tunnel.’’

  ‘‘Yes. You might have been killed because you foolishly ventured down alone. If I hadn’t come along when I did . . .’’

  He raised his free hand to cup her chin. His thumb brushed across her lips, evoking the sensual memory of his kisses. ‘‘You saved me and I’m grateful. But things easily might have gone quite differently. More of the ceiling might have fallen in, and—’’

  He broke off, set the lantern on the floor and roughly pulled her into an embrace. ‘‘Damn it, Sophie, tides, cliffs, bullets . . . I won’t risk you again. Please grant me the peace of mind of knowing that no harm will come to you.’’

  She pressed her cheek to his shirtfront. ‘‘But what if something happens to you?’’

  His arms tightened, imprisoning her against his solid length. The places at which their bodies met pulsed, throbbed with a frantic, rising need. The pressure of his lips filled her mouth with the taste of him, and with a heat that spoke of urgency . . . and fear.

  ‘‘It is my task, Sophie. Not yours. You must allow me to do this alone.’’

  Her heart squeezed. Was his anxiety a result of their making love, of her relinquishing her virginity to him so recently? Or did his concern stem from something more lasting?

  ‘‘I shall wait for you up at the house,’’ she said.

  ‘‘No. Go back to your relatives’ farm and wait for me there. Later tonight we’ll carry out your plan to search the premises.’’

  She felt his embrace begin to recede and wanted to hold on to him all the more tightly. Instead she reluctantly allowed gaps to open between them. ‘‘I’ll find your man Nathaniel before I go and send him here to keep watch. I don’t think the hothouse will frighten him as the cellars did.’’

  Chad’s fingers grazed her cheek. ‘‘Yes, send Nathaniel. Or better yet, have him escort you home first, and then tell him to come down to the hothouse.’’

  Again the ghost of a now familiar emotion flickered in the downward cast of his eyes.

  Apprehension gathered like a growing storm inside her. ‘‘It’s there again. The fear. I can see it.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I’m afraid. As I was last night and again this morning. Terrified you might be hurt, or worse.’’ His hands gripped her shoulders, fingers digging in. ‘‘I don’t wish to carry that fear around inside me any longer. That’s why I want you to go home.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘That isn’t the sort of fear I’m taking about, and I think you know it.’’ Despondency wrapped itsel
f around her. After what they had done, all that they had shared, he still held back, refused to be completely honest. She saw it in his face, and felt the harsh truth of it as keenly as she had felt the piercing of her maidenhead. That pain she had welcomed. This one splintered her heart.

  She grasped his sleeves. ‘‘You said our lovemaking connected us. Look me in the eye, then, and ask me to trust you.’’

  ‘‘Sophie . . .’’

  She would not back down. If there was some dreadful thing hidden inside him, no matter how dark or shocking, she must know of it. ‘‘Tell me I can trust you with my life, my heart, and everything I hold dear. If you can speak those words I shall gladly do as you say.’’

  ‘‘Go home, Sophie,’’ he whispered. His hands slid from her shoulders, down the length of her arms, and swung to his sides.

  ‘‘You cannot say it, can you? You cannot reassure me.’’ She released him. Her hands, her heart, all of her let him go as she stepped back. The man she had met in the chapel . . . who had saved her life countless times . . . and taken her virginity with breathtaking gentleness . . . this man she could love with the whole of her being.

  But that man was not the whole of Chad Rutherford. Another part of him existed, aloof, isolated, swathed in shadow. That man was not hers and never could be.

  ‘‘If I see Nathaniel I’ll send him down,’’ she said, and turned to go.

  Chapter 18

  Through the hothouse windows Chad watched Sophie climb the garden lawns, and used every ouce of willpower he possessed not to set off after her.

  What could he have said? With his silence he had lied to her, denied the very thing she so clearly perceived in him, though she did not have the facts that would enable her to understand what she saw.

  With each passing day Edgecombe became a more dangerous place for both of them. Eventually the person or persons who had summoned him here would make known their demands. He’d been mad to risk keeping her here for so long today.