as they were left alone.
Breathless with shock, Rose stared around her in dismay. By this time she’d almost been expecting to see a torture chamber. She’d never seen such a thing when she was a child, but circumstances now made her fear the worst.
It wasn’t a dungeon. Not even close. It was an austere room, whitewashed with a concrete floor, and she recognised it as one of a number of windowless storerooms under the castle. Two single beds were simply made with white coverlets. A small, wool mat lay between each bed, a solitary concession to comfort. Through a door on the other side of the room she could see simple bathroom facilities.
Austere, but not scary.
‘So much for me wanting to be a princess with tiaras and everything,’ she whispered, and she couldn’t keep her voice steady.
‘Rose…’
‘It’s alright. It’s still better than Yorkshire.’
Nick was right. This was her choice, she told herself. There’d had to be some imperative to give her the moral strength to walk away from Max’s life. Well, this was surely a moral imperative. And a physical imperative. She couldn’t return if she tried.
She touched the door, tentatively, putting pressure on the handle.
‘It’s locked,’ Nick said unnecessarily.
‘I guessed.’
‘Hell, Rose…’
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.
‘Would you mind very much if I hugged you?’ Nick asked.
‘I…’
‘You see, I don’t much like enclosed places,’ he confessed. ‘I think I’m claustrophobic.’
‘You think?’
‘I need a hug,’ he said, and he turned and took her into his arms.
He was claustrophobic?
She didn’t believe it for a minute. He was just saying it because he thought she needed a hug herself.
He was absolutely right. This was deeply, deeply scary. And where,
She let herself be drawn against him. Again. She was getting almost accustomed to it, she thought as she let him tug her into his arms, and then she forgot to think.
He needed a hug to drive away fear? Well, maybe he was right at that, for a hug from this man did drive away fear. It drove away everything. The strength of him, the sheer arrant maleness of him…This man had a reputation as a womaniser and she was starting to see why. What woman wouldn’t react to Nikolai de Montez exactly as she was reacting now?
He was gorgeous. And she was afraid. For all her bravado, for all his assurances of her long-term safety, she’d seen the look on Jacques’ face, and it had been hatred. She was being held a prisoner.
She’d lost Hoppy.
The last was the worst. She shuddered and he tugged her closer, his fingers raking her hair with gentle reassurance.
‘Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Rose. This is just a hiccup. We’ll get out of here, you’ll see.’
‘It’s you who’s supposed to be afraid,’ she retorted, but she didn’t pull away. Not when he was raking her hair, just as it should be raked.
‘Someone will take care of Hoppy,’ he said, and she froze against him.
‘I’m a vet,’ she whispered into the muffling anonymity of his shoulder. ‘Hoppy’s had a couple of his lives already. I shouldn’t care so much.’
‘If you didn’t care so much you wouldn’t be you,’ he told her. ‘Did you have to stay with your in-laws for so long?’
She frowned, but she was frowning against the warmth and strength of his shoulder. She had no intention of pulling away just yet.
‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’ she managed, and she felt rather than saw him smile.
‘Nothing. But we’re in prison. We might as well fill the time socially.’
‘By cuddling.’
‘And talking,’ he said gravely. ‘Saving me from claustrophobia.’
‘You’re not really claustrophobic.’
‘Let go of me and I’ll start climbing walls. And hollering. You want to see a grown man turn into a caged animal?’
She smiled, but she did manage to pull away. Just a little.
A lock of his hair had fallen over his eyes. He did look anxious. But there was a hint of laughter behind his dark eyes that belied the anxiety he was expressing. This man was dangerous, she told herself. This whole situation was dangerous, but the most dangerous thing of all was that she was locked in a single cell with Nick.
‘You’re on your own,’ she said, broke away and went to sit on the far bunk. She sat with the expectation that there’d be a bit of spring in the bed. There wasn’t. Her backside hit with a solid thud.
‘Ouch!’ Nick said, seeing the way her body reacted.
‘Hard as nails.’ Then as he made to sit beside her she slid along further so the area he’d attempted to sit on was blocked. ‘Bounce on your own bed.’
‘What fun is that?’
‘There isn’t any fun in what’s happening.’
‘Let’s assume there is,’ he said. He sat down on the other bed, seemingly obedient, and smiled at her with a smile that wasn’t the least bit obedient. ‘Just to stop me being claustrophobic.’
‘Cut it out with the claustrophobia,’ she told him.
‘Telling someone to cut it out isn’t exactly a tried and true therapeutic approach to the problem. Whereas my idea-distraction-is much more likely to work.’
‘So how long do you think they’ll keep us here?’ she demanded, and he shrugged.
‘This is unknown territory, Rose.’ His voice was suddenly serious. ‘But we’ve done all we can. We’ve presented our case to as many people as we could. As long as that message isn’t able to be suppressed, then things will happen. Erhard said this country has been suppressed for so long that it’s a powder keg waiting to blow.’
‘With us in the middle.’
‘No, because we’re an alternative to blowing,’ he said, still serious. ‘The people here don’t want anarchy-you just have to look at how long they’ve put up with dreadful rulers to see that. So with us they don’t have to change the status quo. All they have to do is insist on the application of the law.’
‘So how are they going to do that-ask Julianna and Jacques politely to let us take over?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You’ve gone into this as blindly as I have.’
‘Maybe not quite,’ he admitted. ‘I did have the reassurance of almost everyone else on the staff. And my brother.’
‘Your brother,’ she said, thinking things through and not able to work it out.’
‘I have six foster-brothers,’ he told her. ‘One of whom is Blake, who’s in the same law firm as I am. He was on the other end of the telephone. “If in doubt, ring and I’ll record”-that’s what he told me as we left. I did. So everything we’ve said since we landed has been recorded.’
‘So Blake will come with a battalion of armed SAS agents.’
‘It won’t come to that.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘And Blake doesn’t have an army, does he?’
‘Um, no.’
‘And my dog’s wandering the country, friendless.’
‘He won’t be.’
