A Royal Wedding(8)
She turned slowly, hoping to calm her face and her rapid breathing before he could see just how much he’d frightened her, but she was fighting a losing battle on slowing her heart-rate, given what his proximity was doing to her nervous system and his scent was doing to her defences. ‘You startled me,’ she admitted, licking her lips as she looked up at him in the torchlight, struck again by the difference between one side of his face and the other—one side all strong, masculine lines and sharply defined places, the other so monstrously scarred.
His left eye had thankfully escaped the worst, she was close enough to see, and his strong nose and wide mouth were blessedly untouched. It was as if the skin of his cheek and neck had been torn apart and rejoined in a thick, jagged line that snaked up his throat and cheek and tapered to the corner of one eye.
Both those dark eyes narrowed as they looked down at her now. ‘Come,’ he said gruffly, dropping his hand from her shoulder and turning away.
Her shoulder felt inexplicably bereft—cold—the warmth from his long fingers replaced with a bone-deep chill, and she hugged her shoulders as she trailed behind him through the maze of tunnels, trying not to think of the weight of rock above their heads. The tunnels had clearly been here for a long time—surely the ceiling could hold just a little longer? Especially when they must be getting close to their goal.
A surge of adrenaline washed through her. Could the pages truly be from the lost copy of the Salus Totus? How complete would they be? Could she really be close to solving the mystery of generations? The mystery of the contents of those lost pages?
‘Watch your step,’ he said, then asked her to wait as he descended a short steep flight of stairs cut into the rock. At the bottom he turned, holding the torch above him so she could see her way down the narrow steps, but it was the hand he offered to her that looked the more threatening. A large hand, she noted. Tapered fingers. Would it be churlish to refuse? But there was nothing to be afraid of—she’d survived the last time he’d touched her, hadn’t she?
And so she slipped her hand into his, felt his long fingers wrap around her own, and tried not to think too much about how warm they felt against her skin. How strong his grip. How secure.
‘Thank you,’ she said, lifting her eyes to his as she negotiated the last step, wondering at the suddenness with which he turned his face away, only to be distracted by the sudden space around them here, as the tunnel widened into a wide, low room. There were tables set around, and shelves built into the walls containing racks of bottles—dozens and dozens of bottles. ‘What is this place?’ she asked, stepping around him.
‘Welcome to my wine cellar. Here you’ll find every vintage of Vino de Volta going back to 1797.’
‘Hell of a place for a wine cellar,’ she mused, strolling past the racks of bottles, pausing to peer at a label here and there, the lover of ancient and even not-so-ancient treasures inside her completely fascinated.
‘There’s more,’ he said, ‘through here.’ He dipped his head under a low doorway leading to another room, this one more like a cavern, its walls similarly stacked.
She followed him in, made a wide circle as she took it all in. It was the perfect place for a wine cellar, the air cool and dry, with no telltale dripping. And a spark of excitement flashed through her. Because if it was the perfect place to store wine.
‘Are they here?’ she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘Is this where the pages were found?’
Her enthusiasm lit up the cavern more effectively than any amount of torchlight. She was like a child, excited about a present she’d asked Santa for and for which she’d promised to be good, her eyes bright with expectation, a dancing flame alive on their surfaces.
And he felt a sudden twist in his gut that made him wheel away, for she was so vibrant and alive and everything that Adele had once been—everything that he no longer was.
Blackness surged up and threatened to swallow him whole; not the black of the caves but the blackness that came from within, the blackness that had been his constant companion since that night. He’d thought he’d learned to control it, but it was there, lurking in the scars that lined his face and body, lurking on the very edges of his sanity, waiting to seize control, and he cursed himself for giving in to the urge to amuse himself with her. Cursed himself for putting a hand to her slim shoulder. Cursed himself for wanting more and for then finding an excuse to take her fragile hand in his own.
It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman he hadn’t had to pay.