Temptation and Surrender (25 page)

Curious, she struggled up onto her elbows.

Just as he lifted the back of her skirts, tossing them high, over her waist.

Exposing her bottom.

The cool air of the buttery washed over her already heated skin.

She caught her breath, started to turn her head.

Just as his palm touched her fevered curves.

She froze, then sucked in a breath, held it. Bit her lip against a moan as his hand boldly cruised, fingertips tracing every line, possessing every inch of skin, sending damp heat flushing hotly beneath. Then his hand slid down, around; beneath the curve of her bottom, between her thighs, his fingers pressed into her slick heat and probed.

The moan escaped, a shivery sound; she pressed back against his hand, wanting more, wantonly demanding. Begging for deeper, more satisfying penetration.

She was scalding hot, so ready and willing, Jonas could barely think as with his other hand he undid the buttons at his waist. His erection sprang free, fully engorged; he wasted no time positioning the empurpled head at her entrance, then with one solid thrust, he filled her.

Felt her clamp tight about him, walls closing in eager welcome to hotly embrace him.

Felt more than heard her gasp, sensed in the sound her delighted shock.

He hadn’t entered her from behind before, hadn’t taken her like this, with the ripe globes of her bottom bare before him, delectable and beyond arousing.

She shifted her hips experimentally in a slow, rolling motion, caressing the length of his rigid shaft, making his eyes all but cross with lust. Closing them, he withdrew and thrust in again, deeper this time, letting her feel his strength, and her vulnerability, her relative helplessness.

Not that she seemed at all bothered; the little gasp she uttered was all feminine excitement, fascination, and enthrallment. Again she shifted her hips, more blatantly urging him on. Accepting her invitation, he withdrew and thrust yet more forcefully into the scalding haven of her sheath, then settled to a measured, relentless rhythm—one that quickly escalated beyond his control.

Braced on her forearms and elbows she pushed back, forcing him deeper, rolling her hips with each long thrust, rocking as he filled her, working her sheath over him until he felt the tension in her coil, tighten…her head came up, he thrust strongly in and she shattered.

The contractions of her sheath pulled him in, on, milked him greedily until he couldn’t hold back. With a smothered roar, he pumped his seed deep inside her, then collapsed forward, arms braced to keep from crushing her.

Head bowed, lungs sawing, he tried to take in, to absorb every sensation. To drink in the wonder of her body slumped so illicitly pleasured beneath his. To let the feel of her bare bottom pressed to his groin while he was buried so deeply inside her imprint on his memory—one memory he intended to reexperience frequently.

His arms wouldn’t hold him; slowly he let himself down to his elbows. She humphed, turned. He quickly disengaged. The movement threw him off balance; trying to right himself he leaned too heavily on the sacks and they started to slide…

She giggled. Continued to snicker, then to laugh as, cursing, he tumbled with the sacks.

He pulled her down with him. She landed atop him, now helplessly giggling. He couldn’t help but smile, then laugh, too.

Lying back on the sacks, he gathered her to him, settled her on his chest.

Just lay there and savored the moment, with the dim warmth of the buttery all about them, the musky scent of their joining another aroma among many, although none were as sweet as her, lavender and roses and some other fragrance he couldn’t define.

She lay in his arms, quiescent, sated. Undemanding.

Accepting.

After a moment, staring up at the ceiling, he asked, “What are you searching for? Is it in the cellar?”

She stilled, but somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t tense.

So he waited.

Em knew why they’d elected to keep their quest for the treasure a secret; they’d assumed the village would be populated by strangers—by people who might pose potential threats, who might want the treasure for themselves.

That had been their vision before they’d reached Colyton. Now…now they knew the people, had been accepted by them. The villagers of Colyton, high and low, were a close-knit group—as close as an extended family. And her family had been embraced and taken in, accorded a place in the larger whole. Was there any longer a need for absolute secrecy?

It was a matter of trust, and she’d come to trust in the good of the villagers of Colyton. As for Jonas…here she was, lying in his arms, having taken him into her body, having trusted him physically, and to some extent emotionally as well.

She already trusted him. She already knew he was an honorable man.

Regardless of whether she married him or not, he would help her, and he posed no threat to her or her family—of that she was absolutely sure.

She drew in a long, deep breath. Where to start?

“I told you my name is Emily Beauregard. My full name is Emily Ann Beauregard Colyton.” His body started beneath hers; before he could interrupt, she went on, “My great-grandfather was the last Colyton to live in the village. My grandfather and father—”

Briefly, succinctly, she outlined her family’s history; the story of the treasure held him in the same fascinated silence as it habitually held the twins. She kept nothing back; there seemed little point. Her native caution was perfectly sure she had nothing to fear from him.

She concluded with, “So that’s what I’ve been trying to locate—the treasure box only a Colyton would open, on the lowest level of the house of the highest.”

He shook his head in amazement. She’d wriggled around so she could watch his face as she made her revelations; all she’d seen in his eyes and expression was sincere, honest, intrigued astonishment.

Meeting her eyes, he grinned. “So you’re really a Colyton—one of the Colytons of Colyton.”

“Yes.” She wasn’t sure why that point so delighted him; to her it was a pertinent but less important detail. “So—will you, can you, help me find the treasure?”

He blinked. “Of course.” He looked away, across the buttery in the direction of the house, then he urged her up. “No time like the present. I agree that the Grange is most likely your ‘house of the highest’—my family’s been the magistrates for the area for centuries, so that fits. Let’s go and search the cellar.”

They got to their feet, rearranged their clothes, then he opened the buttery door and they headed for the house.

Mortimer met them in the hall beside the kitchen.

“Just the person,” Jonas said. “Miss Beauregard is searching for a long-lost box her family might have left here—possibly for safekeeping—centuries ago. Her information is that if it’s here, the box will be in the cellar. Do you know of any such mystery box?”

Mortimer shook his head. “No, sir. But we can certainly look.”

Em pushed past Jonas. “I’ll help.”

“We’ll help.” Jonas caught her hand and held her beside him as he waved Mortimer ahead of them. “Lead on.”

He led them into the kitchen. Em greeted Gladys and Cook, then turned to the heavy door Mortimer had opened.

Lighting a lantern, Mortimer raised it and led the way down the stairs. Jonas waved Em ahead of him, then followed.

The cellar of the Grange was in daily use; Jonas couldn’t see how any unknown box of any sort would have escaped Mortimer’s, Cook’s, or Gladys’s notice, much less that of their numerous predecessors. But they had to look nonetheless.

Mortimer and Em went ahead, Mortimer lifting the lantern high as he explained what each room—each successive cavern separated by stone arches from the ones flanking it—now contained. They reached the far end of the cellar, which ran under most of the house.

“Right, then.” Em looked around, eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “Let’s start searching here, and work our way back to the stairs.”

They did; it wasn’t hard to be thorough because everything in the cellar was frequently rearranged, re-sorted, and tidied—as Mortimer mentioned—at least twice a year.

He glanced at Em, puzzled. “Are you sure your box was left here, miss? If it was supposed to be hidden away, then this cellar isn’t a good hiding place. It’s been in constant use for centuries—the kitchen doesn’t have enough space, and the staff have always relied on the cellar for storage.”

From the disappointment evident on Em’s face, she’d come to the same conclusion. “I’m not sure, no.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “As far as we know, the box was put wherever it is around 1600, maybe a bit earlier, and hasn’t been moved—at least not by the family—since.”

“1600? Hmm.” Mortimer pursed his lips, then suggested, “The most likely place for something that old—if it’s here at all—is the small rooms off the wine cellar.”

They decided to be thorough and finish the search they’d started, ending back at the stairs to the kitchen with nothing to show for their efforts. Then Mortimer unlocked another sturdy door and led the way into the wine cellar. They searched it, and all the smaller caves off it, to no avail.

“It’s not here.” Em knew that was true. The Grange cellars were simply too tidy to imagine they’d missed anything. The only possibility…she glanced at Jonas. “Is there any other separate place—like another coal cellar reached from some other point—or perhaps a priest hole under some room?”

He shook his head. “There is a priest hole, but it’s on the second floor, and the secret stair leads—used to lead—to one of the tunnels.”

“What about the entry to the tunnels?” She looked around. “Where they join the cellar, perhaps?”

“No. Apparently when the tunnels started crumbling, they were completely cleared, then solidly filled.” He walked over to one wall, tapped an unremarkable piece of stone. “The tunnel from the stable came out here.” He pointed to the edge of the stone, and then followed the line around. “If you look carefully, you can see the outline of the archway which was later filled in.”

She looked, saw, then sighed. “It seems this isn’t the right house after all.”

Jonas studied her face, then reached out and took her hand. “Buck up. We’ve other houses that might fit. If I can suggest…?”

She met his eyes, then raised her brows.

“I think we should go and tell Phyllida and Lucifer what we know. They’ll help—and the manor library is the place to look for clues.”

She hesitated, considering, then nodded. “Yes—all right. Let’s go to the manor.”

I
simply can’t believe—” Phyllida broke off, then, eyes shining, continued, “Well, of course I believe, but I’m just so
thrilled
to learn that you’re Colytons. Colytons of Colyton. It’s wonderful to have some of the original family return to the village.”

Em mentally shook her head. Just like Jonas, Phyllida had focused on the family, not the treasure.

She and Jonas had climbed out of the Grange cellars, paused to check with Gladys and Cook, neither of whom knew of any mysterious box anywhere in their domains, then they’d set off for the manor via the path through the wood. They’d found Lucifer and Phyllida both at home. Leaving Aidan and Evan with Miss Sweet, at Jonas’s suggestion they’d repaired to the drawing room; with the door shut, Em had retold her story.

To her relief, Lucifer seemed more inclined to concentrate on the real issue. “So the treasure’s not at the Grange—and I have to admit I’ve never heard the phrase ‘house of the highest’ applied to either the Grange or the manor—but are you sure it isn’t here? Even though we don’t have, and as far as I know have never had, cellars, but a sprawl of outbuildings instead?”

Em grimaced. “This was the family home—the rhyme seems expressly designed to point to some other place.”

Jonas nodded. “If the treasure were here, the rhyme would probably not exist—there’d be no need for it, certainly no need to specify a house.”

Lucifer nodded. “True enough. So it’s not the Grange, not the manor, and you’ve already established it’s not Ballyclose because of its age. So what does that leave?”

A question no one could answer.

Lucifer leaned forward, his harshly handsome face serious, his expression focused. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we need a house that was here in the 1500s, exactly when you’re not sure, and by 1600 it was known as ‘the house of the highest’—presumably meaning the house of the person with the highest standing in the area or district at the time.”

“There’ve never been any princely retreats or royal residences of any sort in this region.” Phyllida glanced at Lucifer. “I remember checking long ago, when I was a young girl.”

“Kings and princes being the sort of thing girls dream about.” Jonas pulled a face at his sister, who merely smiled back superiorly.

Lucifer shook his head. “I keep thinking of the way that phrase ‘house of the highest’ is couched in the rhyme. In 1600, this would have been a very small, relatively isolated community. The house of the highest—the rhyme uses that phrase as if it should be obvious which house is being referred to, suggesting it
was
obvious to the locals in 1600.”

They were silent as they considered that point, then Phyllida looked at Em. “You’ve already looked through a handful of our books and found no reference to this mystery house. Let’s go through the others.” She glanced at Lucifer and Jonas. “It won’t take long with four of us, not if we concentrate on the time around 1600.”

The other three exchanged glances, then all nodded. Rising, Lucifer led the way into the library.

Over the next hour, they scoured the collection, finding a number of travel diaries that described Colyton at that time, and two other village descriptions from the early sixteen hundreds, but none mentioned any large houses other than the Grange and the manor, nor made any reference to any “house of the highest.”

“Nothing.” Em sighed. She’d hoped…Swallowing her disappointment, she glanced at Jonas. “What now?” She looked at Phyllida and Lucifer. “Any suggestions?”

Lucifer seemed as stumped as she and Jonas, but after a moment Phyllida, head tilted as she thought, raised her brows, then she met Em’s eyes. “If I were you, I’d let your family’s real name become known. It’ll gain you more support from the locals—and on the back of that, I’d ask around the village, especially among the older folk, to see if anyone has ever heard the phrase ‘the house of the highest.’ Chances are it’ll mean something to someone. Others will have stories handed down through their families—we might find someone who knows of the place in some other context.”

Jonas nodded; he looked at Em. “I’ll second that suggestion. Let people know who you really are.”

Em frowned. “What excuse would I give for initially concealing our identity?”

“That’s easy,” Phyllida said. “You wanted the job of innkeeper and to be accepted by the village for the people you are, not just embraced and put on a pedestal because of the name you bear.”

Em raised her brows, considering.

Lucifer nodded. “That’s eccentric perhaps, but not inconceivable.”

She glanced at Jonas, who nodded, too. She drew in a breath. “All right. We’ll let it be known that we’re Colytons.” She frowned again. “How long do you think it will take for word to spread?”

Phyllida smiled. “We can help with that.” Crossing to Em, she drew her to her feet, wound her arm in hers, and turned them both to the door. “Let’s leave these gentlemen racking their brains, while you and I have a little chat with Sweetie.”