A Wedding Story (9 page)

“I meant you’re light as a bird. A little bird. A feather, even. You just jump with, um, purpose, that’s all. And I was unprepared.”

“That’s better.” She loosened her hold. But only a bit—why risk tumbling off?

He moved through the water, his body shifting against hers. It was an intimate posture, her breasts pressed hard against his back, her thighs snug along his sides. His hair, sun-warmed, silky, was just beneath her nose. He’d dunked his head nearly every time they passed a stream. Every time they made camp, he’d disappear for a quarter hour and return dripping. And now his scent came to her, blotting out the stench of the moat. He smelled of clean water, warmth, man—
oh, what was it about a man that smelled so good?
She dropped her head, allowing her nose to just brush the top of one wave, as soft as it looked.

With each step he took, the muscles of his sides flexed against the inside of her thighs, the motion steadily rhythmic. Sometimes she bumped against his back, sending a jolt of pure sensation spearing through her.

“Stop that.” His words barely penetrated her lovely haze.

“Stop what?” she murmured.

“Stop wiggling, I’m going to drop—” At that, his arm whipped around, his hand coming up hard beneath her rump, and she yelped. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t aiming—I mean, I just wanted to keep you from falling, and…oh, hell.” He released her abruptly, forcing her to cling like a monkey, and charged across the moat. Water lapped behind them, dampening her trailing hem, but she paid it no mind. Speed now took on primary importance, for if she stayed plastered against his back for much longer, their little indiscretion in the gazebo was going to be the least of what they had to regret.

The instant he gained semidry land she let go, sliding down like a jelly released from its mold. Jim was puffing as if he’d run five miles instead of a mere thirty feet, his chest bellowing in and out—a chest that she was now far more familiar with than her peace of mind allowed. Her palms still held the feel of him, slab-hard, completely male. And she’d always been one to appreciate a well-made man, even if she’d never had the right to touch.

But why not now?
Foolish, treacherous thought; it whispered along the edge of her mind like a poisonous serpent, lurking, waiting, every bit as lethal. She was no longer a married woman, no longer a girl. Neither vow nor convention prohibited her from touching a man who appealed to her.

But if she did, the least she could do was choose a man who actually
liked
her. And no matter how attractive Jim was, no matter how sturdy and utterly lovely his muscles, that was an insurmountable flaw.

“Thank you,” she murmured, unwilling to meet his eyes. Good intentions, she’d learned long ago and to her everlasting regret, often failed beneath the power of Jim Bennett’s eyes.

“Forget it.”

She nearly laughed aloud. As if that were ever going to happen.

“We’d best get going,” he continued, and held out his hand, palm up.

“I—” She hesitated. She didn’t need any more evidence that touching him, having him touch her, was a very bad idea. But the bank above her was steep and slick, and she didn’t relish the thought of slipping back into the muck. She took a deep breath, trying to steel herself against the feel of him, and knew the instant that she placed her hand upon his that she’d failed utterly. There was no way to armor herself against him. His hand was warm, hard and rough and entirely gentle, his fingers wrapping around hers with firm possession.

“It’s all right,” he promised. “Do you think I’d let you fall in, now that I’ve gone to the trouble of getting you this far?”

He was as good as his word. They clambered up with little incident. Kate nearly forgot the treacherous slope beneath her—every sense she had, every thought, was too thoroughly occupied with the feel of her hand in his. His strength was so obvious, the skin callused from the work he’d done—not the hands of a pampered aristocrat at all. These were competent hands, hands that had done their share of work and done it well. Hands that could drag a man his size up the side of a mountain surely wouldn’t let her slip away.

“Here we are.” He gave one last pull, lifting her over the rim and setting her down in one movement. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re a little flushed.”

She snatched her hand away, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she’d left it in his too long. “I’m fine,” she snapped.

His mouth flattened into a harsh line. “Whatever you say.” He turned toward the doorway.

The big arched door that must have once filled the massive opening was long gone. They stepped inside and instantly the temperature dropped a good ten degrees, the light blotted away as if the sun had just dropped below the horizon.

“Well, isn’t this cozy?” Jim asked. The walls were dark and stained with damp, hung with the shredded remains of fake ancient tapestries. Two rusted crossed swords hung above a soot-blackened hearth flanked by the moldering heads of two unfortunate stags.

“Remind you too much of home?”

“More than you know.” And then he visibly shook off the gloom. “Ready to start? We’ve only got an hour or so of daylight left.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything that doesn’t belong.” He nudged a rotting carpet with his toe and it shredded at the first bump. “Something that’s not falling apart, maybe.”

“There can’t be much of that.” Kate wandered farther into the room, looking up at the swags of thick cobwebs that swung from every beam.

“Well, if we’re not in the right place, everybody else came here, too.” Trails ran through the thick layer of dust over the slate floor. A flurry of muddy footprints clustered in front of the hearth. “Seems like most of the action was this way,” he said, heading for the opening that led off to the left, a dark tunnel beneath the curve of the stairway to the second-floor gallery.

He paused in the shadow of the archway and waited for her. He hadn’t waited for her since they’d begun. Usually he just strode off with an impatience that implied he hoped she wouldn’t follow. But now he stood expectantly, hands on those narrow hips with an expression on his face that, while not exactly welcoming, no longer said: “The sooner you get away from me, and the farther, the better.”

She’d always thought she preferred polished men. Men with carefully combed hair and crisp white shirts and manicured nails.

And there he was, green and damp to his knees, hair badly cut, sporting whiskers that should have been shaved two days ago. A man who might have—and she had more than a few suspicions about that—been born to drawing rooms but who’d quit them a long time ago and thrown himself into the wildest, most uncivilized places he could find. And yet…he drew her now, even more than he had that evening he’d wandered into her gazebo and burned himself into her memories. There were twin gathers on the front of his shirt, the wrinkles where her fists had clutched him to hang on, and it all rushed at her at once, sensation, the smell of him, the feel of his body beneath her, however innocent it had been at the time. But there was nothing, ever, the least bit innocent about touching him.

“I think I’ll go this way.” She gestured awkwardly behind her and fumbled for the explanation. “There’s no sense in us going together, is there?”

No longer forbidding? The glower returned in an instant, brows drawn down, shadowing his eyes to the point that no expression could light them. “Meet back here in half an hour. If you’re not back, I’ll come looking for you.”

For the space of a heartbeat, she allowed herself to believe it, to sink into the promise contained in that one sentence.
I’ll come looking for you.
But his next words brought her back to reality with a nasty thump.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

H
e beat her back to that ridiculous great hall. She hurried in, out of breath, from the far depths of the house’s kitchen—and what a smelly wreck of a place that was—to find him posed
en guard
in front of a rust-coated, one-armed suit of armor.

“I’m pretty sure you could take him.”

He spun. For one second she surprised a moment of boyish happiness on his face and it froze her in place. “I’m really good with opponents that can’t move,” he said. “Find anything interesting?”

“Three mouse carcasses, an entire library of chewed up books, and a whole lot of bat droppings. You?”

“How did you get all the interesting stuff on your side?”

“Nothing useful at all?”

“Only the torture chamber. A complete collection of chains, manacles, and rotting leather. Interested?”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“You’re no fun at all.”

“Maybe when we get to know each other better,” she said. “So what next?”

“Nothing left but the tower.”

“The tower?” She hoped he didn’t notice the way her voice pitched up; one’s throat closing had that effect.

He shrugged. “We should probably have gone there first. The clue did mention ‘nest.’”

“But…the whole place is the nest, isn’t it?”

“If they’re sending us to a nest, I’m guessing they’re sending us as high as they can.”

She’d suspected at the very start of this venture that she’d be forced to do things that were out of her area of expertise. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? But really, shouldn’t one have an opportunity to work up to such things?

“It’s getting dark,” she pointed out. “Shouldn’t we wait until morning?”

“I found a couple of torches in the hall. Should give off plenty of light.” He grinned. “And atmosphere.”

“How clever of you.”
Darn.
“Won’t it be dangerous?”

He smiled wider, more cheerful than she’d seen him since they’d begun. In his element at last, she thought unhappily.

“Let’s just go take a look, shall we?”

He’s obviously scouted the tower already.

Jim, unhesitant, moved through a series of narrow tunnels that were completely confusing Kate’s unreliable sense of direction. Once she accidentally brushed up against a wall, shuddering when her hand came away wet.

“What?” he asked after she surreptitiously swept her hand down his back.

“Excuse me,” she said quickly. “Did I get you? There was a bug—most annoying—and I was simply trying to shoo it away. It didn’t bite you, did it?”

“A bug? What kind?”

“Does it matter?”

“I…no.” He continued down the narrow hall, a wide, dark smear marring the back of his shirt. Kate suppressed a twinge of guilt. It was not as if his clothes were perfectly clean to begin with, not after all the abuse they’d taken already. Why not protect her own?

The passageways grew darker. The narrow slits that served as windows, allowing brief glimpses of the crashing waves below, grew farther apart. Finally Jim lit one of the pitch torches, throwing flashes of inconsistent light around them, making the rest of the tunnel-like hallway look even darker in comparison. Only a few minutes later they ended up in a small round room at the base of a narrow stairway that clung to the wall and spiraled up into nothingness.

“It’s about damn time.” He stamped on the bottom stair, the sound echoing hollowly above them. “Seems solid enough.”

Kate tipped back her head. The torchlight gave her a view of only the first few turns of the narrow staircase. The rest disappeared into blackness until far, far above there was a narrow pinprick of starlight. Her head went light.

“Looks like the roof’s gone,” Jim went on, completely matter-of-fact, a businesslike catalogue of the situation. “And there’s not much of a railing left, so it’d be best to hug the outside wall. Keep your hand on the wall and you should stay away from the edge.”

“I really think it’d be wise to wait for morning.”

Holding the torch high in one hand, he turned to her. Shadows and light danced across his face, making the angles sharper, the hollows deeper. The torchlight was harsh, orange-red, reflecting an unholy glow in his eyes. It made him look dangerous, unpredictable, a devastatingly handsome creature of the night.

She hated danger. A heart that was already beating too hard knocked even more furiously, and yet her growing fear was edged with a sharp excitement that tingled in her fingertips, her toes, other places. She was
alive,
in a way that her safe and carefully comfortable world had never allowed.

“There’s not much point in it,” he told her. “The torch gives enough light to see at least the next couple of steps. If they become unstable we’ll have to reassess, but the danger’s pretty much the same either way.”

“Hmm.” It was easier, she discovered, not to think about it—the narrow walls and thick darkness that pressed too close, the empty space that spired overhead—if she thought about him instead. And, with that excuse, she watched him, the way she wanted to anyway. Light flickered in his eyes, turning the rich brown to gold, burnished his hair to fire. His mouth—how beautiful it was, the way he formed the words, a gleam of even white teeth that she found herself awaiting, breathless and fascinated.

“Stay close behind me,” he said. “I mean it, Kate. This is no time to ignore me as you’re wont to. And keep up against the wall.”

She could do this, she told herself, even as panic fluttered high in her chest. She had to do this.

“You don’t have to go,” he said, his voice soft, almost kind, and it nearly undid her. If he’d challenged her, insulted her, the affront of it would have prodded her up at least a half dozen stairs. This only made it harder.

“Yes I do,” she whispered. A year ago, she would have remained on firm ground and used all her wiles to prod him into doing as much of the work as she could. But her life was different now. It, and she,
had
to be different now.

“Kate—”

“I should go first,” she said, spewing the words so there was no time to change her mind mid-sentence. She focused her attention on the tiny triangle of light that illuminated his neck, the wedge of skin exposed by his open top button. No chance of looking at the stairs that way. “I’m lighter, so if a step breaks, it probably won’t do so quite as abruptly. And you could catch me.” She swallowed hard. “Probably.”

“I’ve never let someone in my party go into an unknown situation first.”

“Jim.” She lifted her gaze higher, looking directly into his eyes. “If you go down, you’re going to go down hard and fast. There’s no way I’m going to be able to stop it. And then I’m going to be stuck on that damn staircase until someone finds my dusty bones because I’m going to be too scared to move.”

There. She’d admitted it. And he didn’t sneer, didn’t tease, didn’t leave her behind. Just nodded and stepped aside for her to mount the stairs.

She took a deep breath and moved forward. And couldn’t help but stop, just at the base, as her foot refused to lift.

Then he was behind her, close enough for her to feel the warm wash of his breath against her neck as he spoke. He took her hand and placed it against the cool, rough stone of the wall. “Keep your hand against the wall,” he said softly. “It’ll keep you from getting too close to the other edge.”

She nodded, struggling to draw another breath. She gathered up her skirts in her free hand, told herself to concentrate on the fact that Jim was behind her, not that there were dozens of stairs shearing sharply up ahead of her, and took one slow step. She flinched, half expecting the wood to crack beneath her.

“There you go,” he said. “The first one’s always the hardest.”

“Hmm.” She was pretty sure the farther the floor got beneath her, the harder they were going to get, but she appreciated the attempt.

At the rate she ascended the stairs, they’d be lucky to reach the top by midnight. A step, a quick seizure of panic before she waited for it to collapse, a sigh of relief, and then a few moments to gather herself for the next one. And the next. Jim didn’t say a word, his warmth and even breathing a reassurance behind her. She concentrated on that, and on the solid cold bulk of the stones against her right palm—who cared if they were slimy now? They were stable. But the stairs seemed to narrow as they ascended, the walls coming closer, darker, until her breath began to labor. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more—the dark, the close quarters, the yawning emptiness she knew fell only a foot or two to her left—and she reminded herself by the second not to look that way.

“Oh!” She forgot herself for an instant, yanking her hand away from the wall to wave it wildly in front of her face, clawing at the thick drape of spider web she’d just walked into.

“Kate.” He was tight behind her in an instant, right arm around her waist, the solid reassurance of his bulk firm against her back. She felt the flare of heat from the torch and realized an instant later that neither one of them was touching the outer wall. She slapped her hand against it.

“Don’t let go, you fool!”

“You let go first,” he reminded her, calm, reasonable. “Are you all right?”

All right?
All right
was not her first choice, no. But she was no longer in immediate danger of pitching into hysteria, either. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There was a spider web, and—”

“Spiders?” He shuddered, body vibrating against hers. “I’m glad you’re in front.”

“You’re afraid of spiders?” She dared to twist slightly, peering at him over her shoulder.

“Afraid of spiders? No.” He frowned. “More like terrified. Of spiders and beetles and flies and every other of those damn, creepy little things.”

“Really?” She narrowed her eyes, trying to read him. “But there had to have been a lot of insects in the jungle.”

“No kidding. Big crunchy black things with veiny wings; crawly little ones with a thousand legs that kept wiggling into my shoes.” His arm jerked in reflex, tightening around her. And she realized they were very, very close, wrapped in the darkness, bound by their precarious position, his mouth mere inches from hers. “Why do you think my last expedition was to the Arctic?”

“I—” She was no longer sure exactly what was the cause of her breathing difficulty. Wasn’t sure whether it was worse to blame it on the tower or his nearness, and which weakness promised more danger. “That’s not true.”

“You think you’re the only one with fears, Kate?” His mouth was sober, serious. “Or that fears are always reasonable, or amenable to explanation, or easily willed away?” He shook his head. “They are what they are. You can face them or not. That’s really the only choice.”

She still couldn’t decide if he was telling her the truth. There were no outward signs of panic; his voice was even, his arm around her steady. And if perhaps his breath was a bit labored, she thought that maybe, just maybe, it had as much to do with her as a few fragile strands of web.

But it didn’t really matter if he’d confessed his phobia merely to soothe hers. It worked. She hesitated longer than sanity dictated in telling him that, because she wasn’t quite ready to surrender the feel of him close to her yet.

“I don’t want to hurry you,” he finally said. “But are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” she said reluctantly. An instant later his arm dropped, he moved back down a step, and she was once more facing forward.

Thirty more steps. Enough so that Kate began to feel the strain of it, short of breath from the exertion instead. Darkness pressed in from all directions. She’d lost track of how far they’d come, had no idea how much farther they’d yet to go.

“Are we nearly there, do you think?”

“Not yet.”

Automatically she looked up, searching for that sliver of sky that might give her a clue. At the same time, her right foot came down and hit air.

She screamed, pitching forward. The tiny blur of star she’d just located streaked across her vision and disappeared as she fell. But she plunged only inches before Jim caught her, hauling her back to safety. Back, once again, against him.

“Kate. Kate?”

Dimly, she heard him call her name, but it seemed far away. Her breath caught in her throat; she couldn’t pull it in, push it out, and her heart raced like a cornered rabbit’s.

“Kate?” His mouth was right against her ear. She made a slight motion with her head, all she could manage. The ocean roared in her ears, taking her down.
Down. Oh, God.

“Kate.” He spoke sharply now, breaking through the heavy darkness enveloping her. “Kate, you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Her limbs were stiff, frozen into position.

“Kate, do you know where you are?”

“Jim,” she managed. It sounded hollow, distant, as if someone else had said his name.

“Good. I’m sorry, I should have been watching more carefully. The stairs have been so solid that—”

“No. I wasn’t watching.” She couldn’t let him blame himself.

“But—”

“No!”

The sea pounded, sounding nearer than it was, the rhythm vaguely soothing, blending with the more labored sound of their breathing.

“We’re closer to the top than the bottom,” he finally said. “It’s only one step—the next one’s fine, can you see? We might as well keep going.”

“No!” The hysteria that had been seeping away boiled back.

“It’s all right,” he said, soothing as a stablehand calming a rattled horse.

“If that one broke, what makes you think the next one won’t, too?”

“It didn’t just break.” He held the torch out, casting flickering light before them, and the sight of the gaping hole had her swallowing hard to keep her bile down. “See? Nobody’s foot just went through that. Somebody smashed it away, just like the drawbridge. Just a little deterrent. The rest of the steps are fine.”

“Just a little deterrent?” If she could have brought herself to move she would have slugged him.

“Yes. If they’d wanted to hurt someone, they would merely have weakened the step, so someone would actually fall through, instead of completely removing it so anyone going up would notice it was gone. They just want you worried, discouraged, and slowed down.”