He glanced around, as if remembering where he was, and then pushed open a thick wooden door reinforced with iron bars. “The dungeon is in here.”
She stepped inside.
Lighting illuminated the space. The ceiling was higher than in the smaller room. The air wasn’t as musty, but the temperature had to be ten degrees cooler.
She shivered. Goose bumps covered her skin.
“What do you think?” he asked.
No skulls and bones or blood and guts. She sniffed. “Cleaner than I thought it would be. Smells better than the staircase.”
He rattled thick black chains that hung on the wall. “This is where people were kept before being tortured.”
“I don’t see any awful-looking devices.”
“My mother had them removed after Jacques got trapped in one.”
“Uh-oh.”
“We weren’t allowed down here, but Jacques thought it would be a fun place to play. It was, until we couldn’t remove him from the rack.”
“Ouch.”
“That’s what Jacques said.”
Engraved placards hung on the wall and described what had been there once upon a time. Nearby were photographs or sketches of the devices.
Kat read a placard. The “boot” was used to crush feet and legs. She took one look at the contraption and cringed. “I can’t believe people used these things on others.”
He was watching her, but the accusation and suspicion she’d grown used to seeing in his gaze had disappeared. That made her happy she’d mentioned what Sophie had been doing all these years.
“Barbaric,” he said. “But it’s a part of history.”
He walked around the area, pointing out scratches on the wall and discoloration in the stone where something had been attached before. “Public tours are given twice a year, and they always sell out. Mother has museum pieces brought in to show. Actors do skits. It’s quite entertaining.”
“Entertaining torture? You, sir, are a pirate in disguise.”
He laughed and then bowed. “Pirate prince, at your service.”
She giggled. Something she hadn’t done in forever. “Just my luck to be down here with a pirate prince and not a gallant knight.”
“Truth be told, I don’t own an eye patch or parrot, but I have a suit of armor.”
Her attraction quadrupled in an instant. That was what she got from watching all those princess movies. “Do you wear it?”
“I have, but it’s uncomfortable and heavy. Hard to move covered in all that metal.”
“But armor is sexy.”
“If you think so, I may have to don the suit.”
Tension crackled in the air. She experienced that same connection she’d felt at Christmas Market. A pulse between them that she couldn’t explain, let alone rationalize.
She walked the inside perimeter of the room. All she wanted to do was move closer, but he’d given her no sign he felt the same way. Call her old fashioned, but she didn’t want to make the first move without knowing how he felt.
Kat focused on the equipment that still remained. So many chains with thick links. She touched one. Impossible to lift.
“What’s this place used for when you’re not doing the tours?”
