“You?” she asked.
“Yes. As a boy. The room was kept empty and dark. There are no windows, you notice. I had a hatch cut into the ceiling over there when I decided to take over this room. Turn it from my punishment cell to my contemplation chamber.”
“To defeat the bad memories and make new ones,” Gemma said, looking around and seeing the room in a new light.
“Precisely,” Nathan said with a smile.
Gemma drew up her feet and tucked them under herself. On an impulse that horrified her the moment after she did it, she reached out and took the glass from Nathan as he was raising it to his lips.
“We have a long night ahead of us. I think we will enjoy it more if we are able to converse soberly,” Gemma said, blushing furiously.
Nathan stared in her direction for a long moment, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Acold breeze stirred Nathan’s hair and pushed him to wakefulness. For a blissful moment, he could feel nothing. Then he tried to move a limb and found it cramped horribly. He was lying before the hearth, his back cold and his front nicely warmed by the fire and the body that had lain against him for a few hours. Reaching out, he felt only stone floor and the cushions that he and Gemma had stripped from the room’s furniture to soften their rather hard bed.
“Good morning!” Gemma called from somewhere behind. “My, what a view!”
Nathan’s sleep-addled mind cleared in an instant. He put together the cold breeze, in a room with no windows, the position of Gemma’s voice, and her comment about the view. He staggered to his feet.
“Please, tell me that you are not outside!” he said, reaching towards the hatch.
“No, well, not all of me,” Gemma replied.
“Good Grief!” Nathan barked. “Come back inside at once!”
Gemma giggled. He heard her moving and then felt her squeeze his upper arm.
“I am quite safe,” Gemma reassured him. “I just felt the need for some air and some daylight.”
“It is quite dangerous,” Nathan said shakily.
He went to the hatch and put his head to the frame, hearing Gemma join him. He drew in deep lungfuls of air, picturing the view of the castle from this vantage.
“Look to the left and down. That is the Water Garden. Modeled after a style common in Japan. The bridges and paths are zig-zagged to confuse evil spirits,” he said. “And to the right, beyond that copse of willows, is the Necropolis of Hutton Castle. Our very own City of the Dead. Each crypt and tomb has a portrait of the inhabitants as they were in life, at their very best. I have a group of artists refresh those paintings every few years.”
“The Castle is magnificent. Is it odd that I would like to see this city of the dead?” Gemma said.
“Exceedingly,” Nathan agreed. “But if so, then I am also odd as it is quite my favorite place in the entire estate.”
Gemma laughed. Nathan savored the cool spring air against his face. He felt at ease with this woman, a way he had not felt for a very long time.
Perhaps not since France. There was a time when I genuinely felt at ease. When the mission was clear and I was confident in my ability. Life was simple and clear-cut.
“Do you think that we are the most wicked of people?” Gemma asked.
Nathan considered their spontaneous intimacy the evening before. And the fact that they had slept alongside each other in the manner of lovers.
“My mother would be spinning in her grave. Which is among those willow trees over there by the way. She was almost Puritanical in her beliefs, which made my father an odd choice.”
“He was Catholic?” Gemma wondered aloud.
“He was the Devil himself,” Nathan said flatly.
There was silence between them for a long moment. Then Nathan continued.
“But I do not consider us wicked. Perhaps before the war, I would have considered such behavior as beyond the pale. But now…I have seen too much to believe that two lonely people seeking comfort in each other is wicked.”
