“Because the price he could get for the Kohamba would be astronomical.”
She turned to look at him. “But won’t he get a handsome price for the Mandylion?”
Jack shook his head and glanced up at the sky. Rain was coming. He would have to raise the hood of the carriage if they were going to stay dry. “The Mandylion isn’t a sure thing. It’s a legend.”
Her expression turned quizzical. “Do you mean you’re going to all this trouble to chase a legend?”
“No,” he said as he brought the buggy to a halt. “We are.”
Chapter Seven
In spite of his accusations against her father, Dorothea was impressed by the speed and efficiency with which Jack raised the top of the buggy. Too demure to watch him openly, she observed covertly while he reached back to free the canvas top, then fit it on its frame, sheltering them from the rain. She felt her cheeks flame when his jacket pulled away and her face was even with his well-formed behind.
He drove the buggy under a canopy of trees to help shelter them from the downpour, then turned to her.
“You’d better move in or you’ll be soaked.”
He was right. Her left arm was getting wet, but just as she moved over, Jack placed his arm across the back of the seat.
“Let’s be careful with those,” he said, indicating the documents that she held in her lap.
She started to fold them, but he stopped her.
“Seems like a good time to try and decipher the rest of the lines,” he said, leaving his hand over hers. It was rough and hard, unlike her own.
His face was close to hers, and, for a moment, Dorothea forgot to breathe. His eyes met hers, then drifted down to her mouth. Every time he did that, her lips tingled expectantly. She couldn’t help but part them on a sigh, and when he tipped his head down and brought his mouth to hers, she could not resist meeting his touch.
Her heart fluttered, but not from weakness. She felt as if it had been set free, rather than fettered by the malady that had kept her so quiescent for most of her twenty-five years.
His arms went around her and he pulled her close, all while his mouth moved seductively over hers. Dorothea felt her bones begin to melt as one of his hands slid down her back. She did not care when he removed her hat and didn’t feel him take down her hair. But it was loose around her shoulders, and when he threaded his fingers through it, she shivered.
The rain poured down around them, but Dorothea felt warm, cocooned in the buggy within the shelter of his arms. Nothing mattered but his hands at her waist, his tongue touching hers. Shards of heat shot through her when she leaned into him, pooling in the tips of her breasts and low in her belly.
One of his hands slid up to cup her breast and Dorothea’s breath faltered. His lips trailed hot kisses from her ear to the niche at the base of her neck. Her fingers threaded their way through the dense hair at his nape and she felt him shudder with pleasure. She’d thought it an innocent touch, but his reaction made her realize that it wasn’t.
Moving her thumbs, she brushed them across his ears, eliciting a groan. She touched her lips to the sensitive spot and got a reaction that excited her nearly as much as his kisses. Emboldened, she traced the shape of his ear with her tongue and his breath rasped in his throat.
Suddenly, his lips were on hers again, his tongue sweeping in and possessing her mouth. Sensation pulsed through Dorothea, hot and thick and relentless. She placed her hands on his chest, slipping them under his coat. His muscles bunched at her touch, and she felt his strength again. Still, he was wonderfully gentle with her, even as he lowered her to the padded bench and worked at her buttons.
A sound in the distance startled the horse and the buggy jerked. Jack muttered something under his breath and grabbed the reins, leaving Dorothea for the moment. It was long enough for her to come to her senses. With color heating her face, she realized where she was and what she was doing. Her mother had not raised her to engage in such shameful behavior in a buggy with a man she’d known barely one day.
She sat up abruptly and righted her clothes while Jack wrestled with the horse. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the storm seemed to be worsening.
“We’d better get to some real shelter,” he said. He pulled off his jacket and rolled it up, stowing it under the seat of the buggy. Then he turned the horse and headed back in the direction from which they’d come. Dorothea started to look for hairpins and quickly found enough to repair her hair. She pinned her hat in place, and, regaining as much dignity as possible under the circumstances, she straightened her collar and cuffs.
Jack turned, looked at her and frowned. Dorothea allowed her eyes to skitter away. She did not know what to say to him or how to act after such indelicate behavior. Luckily, finding adequate cover from the storm occupied him and he drove the buggy back down the lane toward an old barn they’d passed earlier.
Lightning streaked the sky nearby, and thunder crashed in their ears just as the barn came into sight. The buggy didn’t entirely protect them from the rain, so they were already wet when Jack tossed Dorothea the reins and jumped down to go open the barn door. As soon as it was open, Dorothea drove the horse, following Jack inside.
He was soaked to the skin, his shirt and trousers plastered to his body.
While he shoved the barn door closed, Dorothea observed the play of thick muscles beneath the transparent cloth of his shirt. When he turned, she could see the shadow of dark hair upon his chest.
She was blushing again. Jack surely enjoyed that flush of color on her cheeks, even though he knew it meant that she was embarrassed. Though what she had to be embarrassed about now was beyond him. Probably just the thought of what had transpired before the downpour was enough to raise her color.
Hell, he’d be surprised if his own color wasn’t high. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a frenzied need to kiss a woman…to touch her and hold her. It was only because of those damn artifacts at Bright’s house and that dream he’d had.
Fortunately, the storm had kicked up right when it did, because Jack had no intention of getting involved with Dorrie Bright. And by her expression, he could tell that she wasn’t all that happy about what had happened, either.
It would be best if they both forgot it.
He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped down his suspenders. Taking off the shirt, he wrung it out, then raised the suspenders again.
“Would you hand me my jacket?” he asked, approaching Dorothea in the buggy.
It was bad form to be undressed in mixed company, but he hadn’t seen any other course. He’d known he was going to get soaked, so he’d spared his jacket in order to have something dry to put on. But by the look on Dorothea’s face, anyone would have guessed he’d lost his trousers.
“It’s under the seat,” he prodded.
She seemed to hear him that time and quickly bent down to retrieve the coat. He slipped it on and noticed that it was only slightly damp, and the map and key were safely in the breast pocket where he’d stashed them. Reaching up to help her down from the buggy, he was relieved that Dorothea had decided to ignore what had happened, too.
He stepped away from her. In the gloom of the barn, he located an oil lamp and lit it. Glancing around, he noticed there wasn’t much inside, other than a few wooden crates stacked in one corner. Jack pulled a couple of them down and brushed them off with the edge of his hand.
There was room enough for two to sit, but Jack didn’t want to risk being quite so close to her now. The trip back to York was going to be bad enough, and he didn’t want to think about the coming night. He’d gotten himself into a fine mess.
When Dorothea walked toward him, he gestured for her to sit down, then took a step back.
“Maybe we should look at the map now,” she said.
Agreeing that it was as good a diversion as any, he took the documents out of his pocket and handed one to her. Spreading it over her lap, she studied it silently. Jack walked over to the barn door and pu
lled it open.
The rain was still pouring down. They were going to be stuck here for a while.
“These medieval maps are awful puzzles,” she grumbled. “How was anyone supposed to follow them?”
“This one’s better than most,” he remarked from a distance. “At least York is marked.”
“Um, yes. Eboracum.”
A curly tendril of her hair slipped down unnoticed as she looked at the map, and Jack could almost feel its softness, smell its delicate fragrance. A part of him could easily imagine burying his face in her hair and filling his hands with her lush breasts.
“What makes you think that the cloth you seek is not the Shroud of Turin?”
“Pure instinct,” he said. He closed the barn door and walked part of the way back to her. “I have a feeling that after the order was disbanded, there were still Templar Knights who continued on in secret. No doubt they appreciated having the Turin cloth turn up and take the attention from their Mandylion. The Templars liked their secrets.”
“Wasn’t there some connection between the Templars and the man who first displayed the shroud? What evidence is there to make you think there’s more than one cloth?”
“One is the burial shroud,” he explained, impressed by her logical reasoning, “which has been at Turin since the late sixteenth century. The Mandylion is a much smaller cloth and would only have a facial imprint. At least, that’s how the legend goes.”
“And you suppose the imprint on the cloth is the model for the Templar heads in the churches?”
“Why not?”
She considered his words thoughtfully, then pointed at the map. “Where do you suppose the Mandylion is located? At one of these sites where the head is drawn?”
“I was hoping the key would tell me,” he replied, unfolding it. He joined Dorothea and laid the key on the crate next to her. “But all we’re translating is some sort of poem.”
“And a rather lame one, at that.”
“Hm.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing really,” Jack said, suddenly wondering if the poem didn’t hold any clues at all. Had the key been intended to throw interest away from the map itself? “How about another look at these lines?”
Dorothea bent her head again and translated, “Take care and guard this, er, chart.”
“Map,” he said. “Maps were often called charts in medieval times.”
She nodded and translated the next line from Greek. “While we at home.” She glanced up at him. “Defend?”
“Or protect. Maybe preserve. But you’ve got the gist of it.”
“I don’t think this is a key to the map,” she said. She bit her lip, then tapped her finger against it. “It seems more likely a letter that accompanied the map when it was sent to, well, to Rievaulx for safekeeping.”
“You may be right,” Jack agreed. “There sure aren’t any indications of what the markings on the map mean.”
Dorothea bent over the vellum and translated the next line. “Our Savior’s beloved face.”
“Beneath our heart’s domain,” Jack said, finishing it. He looked up and met Dorothea’s eyes.
“Well, it looks as though your efforts to steal the key from my father’s room were in vain,” she said, standing up and walking away from him.
It was entirely possible that she was correct. Except that if he hadn’t been confronted by her in the house, he’d have traveled to York alone and missed the hours in her company. He would definitely have missed that kiss in the buggy.
Jack didn’t think he’d forget that any time soon.
The ride back to town was slow, due to the ruts and deep puddles in the lane. They’d left the barn during a lull in the storm, but the clouds had opened again when they were just outside the city walls, and a fierce wind made the meager protection of the buggy ineffectual. When they arrived at the Ainwick Arms, they were both cold and bedraggled. Dorothea’s clothes were soaked and wrinkled, and Jack was still bare-chested under his jacket.
Dorothea was too miserable, cold and weary to think anything of it, other than how lovely Jack Temple’s roughly hewn chest had looked when he’d first removed his shirt. With suspenders looped at his sides, his trousers had hung loosely, just below his waist. A distinct line of hair ran from the thick pelt across his chest, down his taut belly and into his trousers. With that sight fresh in her mind, she had had some difficulty discussing the Mandylion intelligently with him.
Well, that and the kiss.
How she had allowed herself to indulge in such behavior, she would never know. But it would not happen again. Not only had she been raised better than to behave like the lowest of loose women, but Jack Temple was her father’s enemy. She could not allow herself to forget that the man had broken into her father’s house and stolen his property—the map to the Mandylion.
Jack was ruthless and unscrupulous. He’d told her himself that he was an adventurer—a man who lived on the road and the high seas and off the profits he made from the artifacts he discovered. Well, perhaps he hadn’t said quite as much, but Dorothea easily concluded it from what she knew of him. She had to remember that he was only keeping her with him to prevent her from alerting her father to his activities. She had no doubt that he could easily find another translator if she proved to be too much trouble.
Shivering with cold, Dorothea trudged up the steps to her hotel room, too weary to think of the mess her life had become. Nothing had prepared her for the last twenty-four hours, and she did not have the energy to ponder it now. She only wanted to get out of her wet things and crawl into bed.
Going on ahead of Jack, she hardly heard him ask the hotel clerk for a meal to be sent up to their room. She was short of breath by the time she reached the top and positively quivering with cold.
“Hey, your lips are blue,” Jack said when he caught up to her. He unlocked the door and pushed it open for her. “You’ve got to get warm and dry.”
She managed to get her hat off, but her hands were trembling so badly that she could not unfasten the buttons of her jacket. Jack shoved her hands away and did it for her. When he saw that her hands were still shaking, he cupped them in his own hands and blew warm breath onto them.
“Can you finish?” he asked. He’d never seen anyone get so chilled from a little rain.
“Of course,” she said, though he doubted it.
He turned away to give her a moment’s privacy and located his valise. Laying it flat, he opened it and took out a sweater. After removing his wet jacket, he pulled the precious sheets of vellum from the pocket and checked to see that they were undamaged. When he saw that they were still dry, he slid them into the bottom of his valise, then slipped the sweater over his head. When he turned around again, he saw that Dorothea was still struggling with her buttons.
He was amazed that she was so willing to get her clothes off in his presence, but he knew that she was just as anxious as he was to get out of the wet things.
“Having some trouble, Dorrie?” he asked.
She did not reply but continued to fumble with the buttons.
Jack moved her hands away and went to work, in spite of her protests. “I’ve already seen this much,” he said as he slipped the buttons through the fabric. “And we’ve got to get you warmed up so you can stop all this shaking.”
“I a-am p-perfectly f-fine,” she objected through chattering teeth, though she allowed Jack to continue.
“Once I’ve got these damn things undone,” he said, “you can get into your warmest gown and into bed. That ought to do it.” He wouldn’t let her know how the sight of her soft skin inflamed him or how her scent tantalized him.
The fact that they were sharing a hotel room meant nothing. He was going to bed down on the floor after they ate and forget the way her sweet mouth tasted, the way her ripe breast felt in his hand.
Jack helped her dig a soft flannel night rail from her bag, then turned his back while she finished undressing. After a few minutes, h
e heard the bed creak and knew that she’d climbed in.
One of the hotel’s clerks arrived with a tray laden with plates of warmed food and a pot of tea. “I’ll take that,” Jack said. He set it on a table, then tossed the boy a coin and shut the door behind him. “Hungry?” he asked Dorothea.
“N-not particularly,” came her muffled voice from under the blankets and quilt.
“Come on, Dorrie,” he said to the quivering lump under the bed. “A cup of hot tea will help to warm you.”
He poured the hot brew into a cup and took it to the bed. Sitting on the edge, he peeled the cover down her shoulder and looked at her. Frowning, he offered her the cup. She was as beautiful as ever, but he didn’t like her pallor.
“You’re not taking sick, are you?”
“Of c-course not,” she replied, still shivering. She pushed herself up enough to take the cup and sip the tea. “I just can’t seem to get warm.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take such a chill from a little rain.”
“It was a-awfully c-cold out there,” she said. “And not just a little rain.”
He didn’t disagree with that. It had been cold, but not enough to freeze a person to her bones. Jack got Dorothea to eat a little bit of the food on the tray and finished the rest himself. He considered taking the quilt in order to bed down on the floor but didn’t want to take any of Dorothea’s warmth from her.
The thought of shucking his clothes and crawling in with her to share his heat warmed him considerably. But Jack didn’t think Dorrie would appreciate that. That kiss they’d shared had been an aberration, and he knew she wouldn’t allow another one.
“Mr. Temple?”
“Jack.”
“Um, J-jack?”
He was sure the hotel would have extra blankets. He would just go down to the desk and ask for one. “What is it, Dorrie?”
“Would you d-do me a favor?” she asked.
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