Page 53 of Gambling with the Earl
“You came.”
She looked him straight in the eye and he wondered why he had doubted her. She had given him her word, and she was not one to do so lightly.
“Of course.”
Her voice was steady, but her arms trembled beneath the folds of his shirt. He put a reassuring hand to her slender shoulder as he reached into a crevice for the iron key he had found some weeks ago. The key was long and rusted with age, but when he slid it into the lock, it turned smoothly.
He should have brought candles. The tower room was small, circular and dark. Just two slit windows to relieve the gloom. Once inside, even the relentless crashing of the waves faded away.
Kitty crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in the sudden chill.
“The walls are so thick, the heat doesn’t penetrate,” he said.
“It must be freezing in winter.”
“Indeed.” He wanted to keep her talking of such mundanities. Anything to stop her eyes wandering around the infamous room he deeply regretted bringing her to.
What was he thinking? To bring an innocent maid to a place where such vile acts had taken place?
He closed the door behind them and then wished he hadn’t. Gloomy as it was, the stairwell had cast a shaft of light into the room. Now they were plunged into near total darkness. He could just about make out Kitty’s pale face.
“There must be candles,” she suggested, practical as ever.
“There must,” he agreed. He put out his hands and felt for the wall, remembering some wooden shelves on the far side.
This was madness. He should apologise. Let her leave.
“Here. I’ve found something.”
There was a rustling sound, then the spark of a tinderbox followed by the flickering flame and sour smell of a tallow candle.
His eyes found her. She stood with her back to him, holding the candle high to survey the room. Her beautiful hair rippled down to her waist. But what expression showed in her eyes, he dared not guess.
The newly lit candle cast dim light on a circular room hung with velvet drapes. Affixed to the stone walls were a dozen wooden cabinets. A cursory glance on his last visit had told him they stored a variety of objects, in themselves harmless. Though if the stories of the old earl were to be believed, the uses they were once put to would have been unsavoury at best. He should have emptied the room and burned the lot, including those antique chests in the solar. But he hadn’t deemed it important. Rossfarne Castle had been a place to convalesce. What care did he have for the props of the previous occupant?
But he’d never imagined he would be bringing a young woman here. Much less one so innocent, for whom he cared so deeply.
Clarity of thought gripped him anew. He cleared his throat. “Kitty, a girl like you shouldn’t be in a sordid place like this. I never should have suggested it.”
Her face was impassive. He imagined she was thinking of a way to concur, with grace of course. But when she finally spoke it was to issue an order.
“Lay down.”
“Pardon me?”
“On the bed.” She smiled suddenly, sunshine after rain. “I’m not letting you talk me out of this for a second time.”
Mercifully he had instructed the servants to strip the bed when he first arrived. “Are you sure?”
She nodded firmly. “Those are your orders.”
“I hear and obey, my lady.” He held his hands up in surrender, unable to resist a burst of laughter. Desire pricked him once again and he walked over to the bed willingly, even though he had only ever followed orders from the king.
She sat down beside him and placed her palm on his chest to lower him down.
“You must help me,” she said, her breathlessness betraying her nerves. “I’m not sure what should happen next.”
Longing surged through him and his need for her hardened as she lowered her sweet lips to the planes of his stomach. Her breath was warm, and her kisses were light, chasing all notions of restraint from his mind.
