“I don’t really know you well enough to be surprised by anything you do.”
“I doubt that. You have this air of anxious wonder that makes me suspect I could shock you all night long.”
Nadine stared at him, mouth agape.
“You seem speechless, Nadine. Are you?”
“You don’t need to keep saying my name every two seconds,” she shot back.
“True. You could be saying mine. And on that note—” he swung open the door dramatically, and the squeak of hinges mirrored her little squawk of outrage “—this is my bedroom.”
Teasing aside, he was proud of this room. It had been decorated by him and he had consulted many auction catalogues trying to get the look of the furnishings just right. The bed was one of the original pieces of furniture that had been passed down through generations and it was hard to find good, gothic mahogany that wasn’t imitation or fake. Quality was always worth the wait.
Nadine entered warily, much more at unease here than she had been in any of the other rooms. She went right to his bookshelf, like she was looking for something, but her eyes skirted over the titles too quickly to be reading them. She paused at the raven pin he had worn at the wedding and if she had asked, he might have told her that it was mourning jewelry that had been worn by his great-grandfather after the death of his first wife and by wearing it to Ben’s nuptials, he often felt haunted by the idea that what had begun as a joke in poor taste now felt like a bitter omen.
“Does your room have a name, too?”
“The raven room,” he said. “Because of the blue-black wallpaper and counterpane.”
That was also original and carefully preserved. He didn’t sleep with it, folding it back every night so the fabric wouldn’t rumple or crease.
Nadine lifted her chin an inch higher as she marched past his bed, turning to examine the medieval tapestry that covered the hidden door. This, too, was an original, carried over with the family along with all of their other lordly trappings from England. The scene it depicted was that of a hunt, nobles sittingastride their horses with all of their various accoutrements as they gave leisurely chase to the small animals fleeing for the stitched border of trees.
“This looks old,” she commented.
“It’s medieval.”
“What?” She jumped back from it, hands clapped over her mouth as if she thought her very breath might cause it to crumble, and Cal felt himself softened by affection. “Really?”
“We’re a very old family. See, you can see the family crest woven here.” The old heraldry showed a raven issuant, with an escutcheon clutched in its glittering talons. CULLEHRAVEN had been stitched below that, in old English. Probably by one of the ladies while their men were at a hunt. “It’s been preserved. Don’t ask me how—my mother would know. This is wool, though. And these shining threads here are wrapped in gilt. Very expensive, especially back then.”
She backed into him and jolted when he reached forward—not for her, no, not yet, but for the tapestry itself, which made her gasp out of concern.You are concerned about so many things, aren’t you, darling?He gave his hand a tug, revealing the hidden door, and she looked over her shoulder. For permission, he realized, both surprised and pleased.
He nodded once,Go ahead.
Needing no further prompting, Nadine stepped forward eagerly, leaving behind a chill that he felt throughout his person. She took the knob in her own hand and twisted, revealing the three-foot long hallway where his great-grandfather had once summoned his wife for trysts in the night.
The hall was thick with cobwebs, which rippled in the draft. The maids didn’t clean this room. Most of them didn’t even know it existed. His own tracks were in the dust-covered floor,demarking the path he had taken to her bed. If she had looked down, she might have seen them, but she was too busy looking at the other door to notice she was erasing his traces.
“Where’s that one lead?”
Cal stepped forward, smearing a footprint she had missed with his shoe. “Try it and see.”
She was slower this time—warier. The hallway was scarcely large enough for two and when he followed her into it, he couldfeelher nervousness. She glanced back at him again, keeping him in her line of sight, and he rewarded her with a small crescent of a smile made sharp by hunger.
She scoffed, though her shoulders were nearly up to her ears—one of her anxious tells—and she gave the door a defiant yank. It stuck and then released with a loud pop, and he heard her inhalation as she found herself looking into her own bedroom.
When she backed into him again, he wrapped his arms around her waist, trapping her firmly in his embrace. “W-was this always here?” She wouldn’t look at him.
“Caledon Cullraven had this hallway built so he could come to his wife in the night.” He stepped forward from the hip, using the tip of his loafer to gesture at a lighter square on the floor, where some of the boards were scarred. The movement pushed his pelvis into Nadine’s pleasingly ample backside. “There used to be a little bench right here where she would wait. He liked making her wait.”
Nadine’s breathing was shallow and uneven. He turned her around in his arms, so that they were standing face to face. “What are you thinking right now?” he demanded, the words harsh and nearly unfamiliar. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m wondering if that door locks,” she blurted.
Cal laughed but it felt dragged from him. “Even if it did, do you really think, for even one second, that a door would be enough to stop me?”
He ran his thumb along the edge of her stubborn jaw.
