He swallowed and she saw the rigid movement of his throat above his neck cloth. “Last night I emptied the bottles in the drawing room and the library, but . . .”
Oh. “But there is a wine cellar belowstairs, isn’t there?”
He nodded, a ripple of a shiver crossing his shoulders quite visibly. She had not really understood until this moment.
Now she did.
She set her hands on her hips. “Then we must empty those bottles as well.”
“No.”
“Do you want to give up on this, then, after all? It would be easier, of course, at least while I am demanding that you—”
“No.”
They looked at one another for a long moment.
He took a tight breath. “Down to the cellar it seems we must go.”
“I can do it alone,” she offered.
“No.”
“I really should tally the number of times you say that word to me.” Beginning with the moment he had stopped kissing her in the inn at Knighton, then had done so anyway. The moment that had led them here.
Chapter 14
As it happened, he was little help after all, except in keeping her company, and at least this way she could watch him and make certain he did not expire on the spot. The wine cellar was small and dark but remarkably dry and removed from the kitchen where Mrs. Polley had fallen asleep.
He leaned against the doorjamb and seemed more at ease. But he traced the path of liquid from each bottle into the drain with an increasingly feverish stare.
“The clarets must go first,” he murmured.
“Why? Are they the strongest?”
“God, no. I simply don’t care for claret.”
“Then we should empty them last.” She took up the nearest bottle of brandy and glanced over the racks stacked with bottles lying on their sides. “Uncorking each is something of a chore. I don’t know how butlers do this every day. My fingers are already beginning to blister.”
“Break the necks.” His voice was tight.
She did not look at him. She would beg him to go upstairs, but she knew he would not. He was a very strong man. He had borne with her for days already, after all, and now he was doing this. For her.
“Break them on what?”
“A rock.” He looked grim.
“Outside?”
“Outside.”
“In the rain?”
“On the side of the well.”
“The well? Then the water will be—”
“It is dry.”
“How do you know that?”
He stared at her, his eyes slightly glassy now.
“All right,” she mumbled. “But then I shall have to carry them all out there.”
“I will help.”
She donned her cloak and he his coat, and armful after armful they lugged the contents of the cellar—five score bottles in all—to the well beyond the kitchen door.
He sat on the wall at the edge of the courtyard in the rain and watched her snap each bottle on the rock and pour its contents into the well.
“That one smelled horrid.” She wrinkled up her nose.
“It did not.”
“You cannot smell them from all the way over there.”
“Care to wager on that?”
“I suppose not.” She shook another bottle dry then threw it down the well shaft. “We shall have to compensate these poor people for the ruination of their cellar.”
“Indeed.”
Rain pattered softly now on the glistening gray stone of the well and the grass between them, the dusk advancing into night.
“You can go inside, you know. I can finish here quite well on my own.”
“I do not wish to go inside.”
She sighed. “You do not wish to leave sight of all these bottles of wine, I suppose.”
“I do not wish to leave sight of a pretty girl.”
Her pulse did a little uncomfortable leap, which was silly, because although she had thrown off her spots and fat she was by no means pretty. But he was possibly a little delirious.
“If you can smell the wine from such a distance,” she said, willing away her swift heartbeats, “what else can you smell?”
“You.”
Another leap, quite a bit more forceful. “R-Really? What do I smell like?”
“Fresh air.”
If he’d said something silly, like roses, she would have known he was flattering emptily. Instead, warmth invaded her in crucial places that she couldn’t like. He made her feel hot and off kilter, but she could do nothing to satisfy that feeling, so she wished he wouldn’t.
“You are being metaphorical, aren’t you?”
“No. You actually smell like fresh air.”
His words pleased her far too much. Perhaps Mrs. Polley was right and he was the devil sent to frustrate her.
The remainder of the wine flowed down the well. She shook out her weary hands and wrists and followed him into the house.
“I am exhausted.”
“I am rather exhausted myself, and I only watched.” He drew the thick bolt on the front door and it thunked into place.
“How do you feel?”
“Do not ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, contrary to expectations, I don’t care for you in the role of nursemaid. To me.”
Expectations? “Why not?”
He looked down at her and his eyes seemed for a moment at peace, gently silver in the candlelight. “You ask too many questions, minx.”
“I like it when you call me minx. No one ever has, you know.”
“I confess myself somewhat shocked.”
“I am not yet out in society and there is no one around Glenhaven Hall or the Park that would call me such a thing. Except you. But you have so rarely visited.” She thought then an astounding thing, that perhaps she had not been entirely honest with herself about her memories of him, that perhaps she had remembered her brief encounters with him too well. “Will you turn in now?” she managed over the sudden hammering of her heart. “You do look tired.”
“I am, rather.” He bowed. “Good night, minx.” He turned and made his way up the stairs.
