Where Serpents Sleep

She twisted around to look up at him. “You know of her work?”

“That surprises you?”

“Yes.”

He said, “She married.”

“I know. I’ve never been able to figure out why.”

He smiled against her hair. “You wouldn’t.”

A silence stretched out, filled with awareness of things said and unsaid. And then the big bell of St. Clements began to toll the hour, followed by its echo. Five o’clock.

“Oh, God.” She pushed away from him, thrusting up from the ledge to stalk across the shadowy chamber to where the pile of rubble separated them from the river. She stood with her back to him, her hands coming up to rake the loose hair from her face, her fingers clenching together behind her neck. When the chimes of St. Clements began to play “Lass o’ Glowrie,” she shifted her hands to cover her ears, as if to block out the sound. “I don’t want to die. Not yet. Not here. Not like this.”

He went to her, drawing her back into the comfort of his arms. She turned toward him, her face lifting to his. Her kiss was a maiden’s kiss, driven by fear and desperation rather than lust. And he clung to her as fervently as she clung to him, because he knew her horror, and shared it.

He heard her breath catch, felt her body arch against his as the bells of St. Clements echoed away into stillness. He knew a strange sense of wonder, like a man awakening from a long, drugged sleep. And he thought, This is what life feels like. This is what a woman feels like. Skin soft, heart pounding against his, her hand guiding his to all the secret places she’d never been touched. No restraints now. No strictures of society that could stand in the face of looming death.

Picking her up, he carried her back to where the lantern cast a pool of golden warmth. He felt her eyes watching him as he eased her down beneath him. He said, “Tell me this is what you want.”

In answer, she slid her hands up to his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist.

She kept her eyes wide-open when he entered her. She cried out once, sharply, her breath coming in quick little pants. He tasted the tears spilling wetly down her cheeks. He said, “I can stop.”

She said, “Don’t stop,” and closed her eyes.

Fiercely, she held him to her as if she could in this last act of defiance and by sheer force of will hold on to life itself. He’d thought himself dead within. Had at times found himself wishing for death. Ironic that he should be so aware of the life coursing through him now, when he was about to lose it.

“Hold me,” she whispered, her breath warm against his ear, her fingers curling into his shoulders.

He’d known somehow that she would taste like this, feel like this. As he loomed over her in the flickering darkness, she said, “The French call it le petit mort. I’ve always wondered why.”

And he said, “What could be more intimate than to die together?”

Afterward, he smoothed the damp hair away from her high forehead. His hand shook, his breath still coming hard and fast. Then he stilled, his attention caught by a distant sound.

She seemed to sense his tension. “What is it?” she asked, or started to ask. Except by then the sound was unmistakable. It was the relentless surge of rushing water.

Chapter 42

Thrusting up from the ledge where they had lain together, Sebastian scrambled into his breeches and reached for the lantern. The candle was nearly gone now, guttering in its socket as he held the lantern high. For a moment the light dimmed and almost went out.

The water was a black torrent seeping through the rubble fill. He grabbed Hero’s hand, dragging her with him to the iron gate. Already he could feel the water cold against his feet. “Climb up onto the crosspiece of the gate,” he shouted.

She clung to the iron bars, her eyes huge in a pale face, her hair loose around her. She said, “Throw the lantern.”

His gaze met hers.

“Throw it,” she said. “It might ignite the clothes.”

It was one last crazy gesture of defiance. He eased the battered tin and horn cylinder between the bars, transferring his grip to the base. It was awkward, throwing it that way, the hot metal burning his fingers. The lantern soared up the stair shaft, the light flickering over stone coffers and worn steps. Then it slammed against the wooden door in a rending of tin and horn and they were plunged into darkness.

He moved to stand behind her, his body close to hers. The water was already lapping at their ankles. He said, “When the water gets too high, you must stand on my shoulders.”

Her teeth were clenched so tightly against the numbing strain of cold and fear that she could barely push out the words. “To buy myself an extra minute? No.”

He rested his cheek against her hair, his body bracketing hers, his grip on the iron bars tightening as he felt the tug of the water swirling around his legs.

She said, “I never liked you. What an irony that we should die together.” And he laughed.

The water was at his hips when he heard the scraping of a bolt being drawn back above. He stiffened, anger surging through him. “It seems our murderers have misjudged the tide,” he said softly against her ear.

Her head came up, her body jerking as sunlight flooded in from above and a man’s puzzled voice echoed