“Near the front entryway.” Clio squeezed herself into a corner. “This is my favorite part of the castle.”
“This.” He plucked a bit of moss from a jutting stone. “This is your favorite part.”
She tilted her gaze upward. “See that lever up there?”
“Aye.”
“Can you reach it?”
He reached up and grabbed the ancient iron handle. His giant hand fit around the lever as if it were made for him.
“Go on, then. Give it a pull.”
Uncertainty drew his brows together. “What happens when I pull it?”
“You don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“If the surprise is a spike through the chest, I do.”
“Trust me. You’re going to like this.” Clio went up on tiptoe and put both her hands over his one, pulling down with all her weight.
The centuries-old mechanism groaned and creaked.
“Now come see. Hurry!”
She waved him out of the alcove just in time to watch. From a slot above the archway, an iron grate began to descend. Like a massive, sharp-toothed jaw biting through stone.
“Get back.”
Rafe’s arm whipped around her waist. With a gruff curse, he yanked her backward, well away from the gate as it crashed into place.
The echo reverberated through them both. Exhilaration pulsed through her veins. Clio loved that sound. That sound declared this wasn’t just a house.
It was a stronghold.
“Well?” she asked. “Isn’t that something?”
“Oh, it’s . . . something.”
“You sound displeased.” She turned to face him. “I thought you’d like it. Do you know how many castles in England still have a functioning portcullis?”
“No.”
“Neither do I,” she admitted. “But it can’t be a great number.”
He still hadn’t let her go. His arm remained lashed about her waist, protective and crushing. And his heartbeat pounded in his chest, sparring with hers.
Goodness. He’d truly been frightened. Coming to chest to chest with the proof of it . . . Well, it made her feel safe in some ways and utterly defenseless in others.
“Rafe,” she whispered. “It wasn’t going to hit me.”
“I wasn’t going to take chances.”
“You needn’t worry so much. You do realize, if I end the engagement—or if something ends me—Piers will find another bride. The ladies will queue up by the score. I assure you, I’m very replaceable.”
He shook his head.
“No, truly. I know our fathers desired a connection between the two families. But they’re both gone now, and I don’t think they’d—”
He put his thumb to her lips, shushing her. “That’s absurd. You are not replaceable.”
“I’m not?” The words were muffled by his thumb.
“Hell, no.” His thumb slid over her lips, and his gaze seemed to hover there, too. His voice dropped to a low, impatient growl that simmered in her knees. “I swear to you, Clio. Somehow, I’m going to make you see—”
Footsteps clattered from the direction of the corridor. Oh, drat.
At once, Rafe stepped back, releasing her.
No. No!
Somehow, I’m going to make you see . . .
What, precisely? What was he going to make her see? His point of view? The error of her ways? His collection of seashells and sealing wax?
Now she’d lie awake all night, wondering.
And thinking of his arm lashed about her waist. His touch on her lips.
“Good heavens.” Daphne’s high, unmistakable voice rang down the corridor. “What was that unholy racket?”
“Just the portcullis.” Clio fluttered one hand in the direction of the gate. “Lord Rafe wanted a demonstration.”
“Yes. And Miss Whitmore was good enough to oblige me. Despite how eager she is to begin on the wedding preparations.” He gave her a pointed look. “For the remainder of the week.”
Clio had no choice now. She would suffer through a few days of wedding plans. What else was there to do? She couldn’t announce she’d broken the engagement unless the dissolution papers were signed. And the days had to be passed in one fashion or another.
In fact, as she succumbed to the inexorable pull of the drawing room, Clio began to worry this task wouldn’t take a full week. Surely a simple country wedding could be planned in a day or two.
How difficult could it be?
Chapter Five
I’ve drawn up a list of seventeen tasks. And a schedule.”
Rafe would say one thing for Phoebe Whitmore. She was startlingly efficient. She presented this list at breakfast the next morning before he’d even touched his coffee.
How old was the girl now? Sixteen or so? If Rafe had drawn up a list of tasks at Phoebe’s age, he could only imagine it would have looked thusly:
1. Skip lessons.
2. Chase girls.
3. Any excuse for a fistfight.
4. Is that a squirrel?
End of list.
As he sat down to the table, a servant placed a bowl containing three speckled eggs beside his plate. “For your coffee, my lord.”
He tugged his ear, bemused. Clio didn’t miss anything, did she? He didn’t know how to take it, that she’d been thinking of him that morning. Doing him this small kindness. He’d woken thinking of her, too.
But his thoughts were anything but nice.