Naughty in Nottinghamshire 02 - The Rogue Returns (27 page)

He stepped deeper into the darkness and she understood that, rather than seeking her touch, he wanted to be certain she followed. They could easily lose each other in the pitch black.

Roane moved the candle up and down as they walked, searching a rock wall to their right. “James hated caves about as much as you do,” he murmured.

“Then why would he leave the gold here?”

“He knew where I would look.”

“What are you, a bat?” she grumbled.

Roane laughed, unaffected by her mood, and inched deeper into a cave. He turned a corner then stopped short. She bumped into his back.

“What is it?” she breathed, fear in her voice.

“A seam in the wall.” He held the candle up, and she could just make out a crack that ran vertically through the stone. “Hold this.”

He handed her the candle, then crouched down. A soft sound filled the cool air as he rubbed his palms together. “I’d rather I have my gloves for this.”

“What are you—” Helen held back her squeal as Roane thrust his hand into the dark crack. Certainly he would be bitten by a snake, or a spider, or some other creature of the dark.

Then she heard it. A soft clank. A distinctive snap of metal against metal.

“I cannot believe it,” she breathed.

“I can.” Roane’s smile split his face as he pulled a dirty sack from the seam in the wall. He unknotted the ties and Helen shone the light on his hands.

Gold.

Bars and bars of gold.

“We did it!” She felt like dancing. Like kissing him. “We found it!”

“Careful with that wax,” Roane admonished, just as the light to the candle snuffed out.

***

D
ARKNESS SWALLOWED THEM.
A darkness so complete, up could be down and down could be up.

Helen gripped onto his arm but did not seem as terrified as she might have been. Her breaths were even, the pressure of her hand steady.

“That was not well done of me.” The woman sounded like she was going to laugh. Where was the fancy lady from London who shrieked at spiders and shied away from caves?

“We’ll have to follow the wall.” Roane tested the weight of the sac in his hand. Just to be certain, he found the crack in the stone and searched it once more. There was nothing more within but a disturbing amount of spider webs. “Shall we?” he asked, as if inching though a dark cave were nothing more than an easy stroll.

“Let us onward.”

“Keep close.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. For she pressed the length of her body against his, and he could feel the heavy curve of her breast, the tip of her hipbone.

It was all too easy to imagine her naked beneath him, here in the dark.

He hefted the gold into his left hand. Then, stepping forward, he slid his right fingers along the wall. He really ought to have his gloves on.

“Can you see anything?” Helen whispered.

“No.” They had taken a turn down one of the tunnels. He only hoped he could find it.

“Neither can I.” Her voice was mere breath. Any more space between them and he wouldn’t even have heard her.

“Caves do tend to be dark,” he murmured.

“So I am learning.”

Roane smiled despite himself. “Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t want to…you know…”

“No, I don’t know.” The wall was cold and damp. He hated to think what he was touching, living and dead. He focused on Helen instead. “You don’t want to what?”

“Arouse anything.”

He choked on his own breath. Surely she couldn’t mean him. Hell, he was in a state of near arousal all the time around her. And her whispery, feathery soft words were not helping. Not here in the dark, where she kept bumping into him. And not after she praised him, even knowing the truth about him. Hope dared to well in his breast, a powerful aphrodisiac. “I see.”

“You see what? Light?”

“No, I mean, I understand what you are saying.”

“About waking up the things in the dark?” She pressed herself closer to him. Now, panic edged her voice. “Do you agree, then? I have cause to worry.”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“I think something is behind me.”

“What?” Instinctively, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her against the wall. “Did you hear something?”

The movement of her braid was a faint whisper.

“Did you hear something, Helen?” he asked again.

“I shook my head no. I simply had a… a feeling.” She shivered in his arms.

Roane leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers, fighting a laugh. Or a sigh. Or a kiss. All three, really, for this woman had a way of tangling him up inside.

“I’ll go first.” She stood up tall, and he was forced to straighten. “I still have my gloves on.”

He’d rather not touch the wall barehanded. He shifted the weight of the gold into his other hand. “Very well. Run your fingers along the wall. It will take us to an intersection where we will turn right. The entrance to the cave is close beyond that.”

She didn’t say anything, merely shifted in the dark.

“Helen?”

“Sorry, I nodded again.”

He smiled. “You make a fine companion in adventure, Lady Helen Gladstone.”

She took a tentative step forward. “Why thank you, Mr. Grantham.”

Silence settled, only the sound of their feet shuffling on gritty stone echoed through the cave. Roane shifted the heavy bag again. He ought to be thinking of the gold, and the next step in getting it to safety, but Helen was far too distracting. He lowered his hand and, when she stopped, he
accidentally
brushed her arse.

She sucked in a breath.

“Pardon me.” Was that him? He sounded like a fool.

“The wall ends here,” she whispered.

“Can you turn right?”

“I shall try.” Her feet shuffled, then “Oh! I see light!”

It ought to have been prophetic, or biblical, or some such. The reformed thief coming out of the darkness and into the light. But hell if he felt reformed, his lascivious thoughts were far from pure. As soon as he could see, he trained his gaze on Helen’s arse. Her lovely, rounded, luscious arse.

He couldn’t wait to see it bare. And he would.

Before this adventure was through, he would.

For he had need of the gold. His future depended on it, as seed money for his breeding operation.

But what he felt for Helen had gone beyond need. One did not
need
breath. Just as a fish did not
need
water. She was simply part and parcel of his being.

He reached out and stopped her before she stumbled into the light. “Wait. Give your eyes a moment to adjust, here between the sunlight and the darkness.”

She turned toward him. He knew he sounded odd.

“You are too vulnerable otherwise. Blinded by the sun, anything could happen.” Panic, or something like it, flayed the edges of his attention. He had the gold. He was victorious. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. But he didn’t have
her
. Hell, he didn’t even deserve her. “It’s best to take time to adjust to the change,” he continued.

“Very well.” Helen looked out into the afternoon, then back at him, where he lingered in the shadows. “What next?”

She sounded as lost as he felt. A bit at loose ends, without the chase and the destination. Now, the world opened herself. Anything was possible.

Or perhaps life would just go back to the way it had been before.

“What would you like to happen?” He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach by his own damn question. Would she leave him straightaway?

“I would love a bath. I’m positively wretched.” She hadn’t understood what he had asked. Or she had deliberately misunderstood. Either way, he was relieved. For now.

“You have eight thousand pounds in gold, Helen. How wretched could you possibly be?”

She flashed him a warm smile. “Very.”

He smiled back. He was an idiot.

“Oh, shouldn’t we count the gold? Just to be sure?”

“Yes, of course, yes.” Damn, he should have thought of that, rather than standing around like a fool.

He untied the sac and withdrew four velvet purses. Helen grabbed a purse from his hand, a laugh bubbling through her. She picked apart the ties and sat, then poured coins—gold coins, sovereigns all— into her lap. Roane weighed the other three bags in his hands.

Helen’s laugh was as free as the birds swooping beyond the cave’s entrance.

“There should be fifty pounds there.” He nodded toward her skirts. “And I should have the rest here.”

He sat next to her, there in the dim light between darkness and sunshine, and crossed his legs as she had done, as if they were children playing a game.

Though this was no game.

He opened the first bag and dumped out a handful of gold bullions. The bars were twenty-two carats and stamped by the Bank of England.

Helen’s eyebrows lifted and she leaned against him, examining the pile before him. “Bars of gold? How lovely.”

Roane dumped out the other bags, then exhaled a whoosh of breath.

James had done it; he’d really left the gold. All of it. Truth be told, Roane had doubted his good friend.

“You thought my brother would have tricked you?” she asked as if she could read his thoughts.

He looked up at her. “Did you not? Did you expect he would have left all the money intact?”

“No.” She twisted her lips and shook her head. “I expected nothing of James, in life or death, other than trouble.”

“It seems he has surprised us yet again. I truly think it is all here. Or most of it, anyway. I cannot recall exactly how many bullions there were.”

“There is a note.” She pulled a folded scrap of parchment from the pile of gold bricks. “Do you mind?”

He waved his hand. “Go on, read it.”

She unfolded the paper and leaned toward the light.

Treasure is as treasure does.

Use it wisely, use it well.

Be sure my portion goes to my kin.

I ken you will.

May the wind be at your back, old friend.

I’ll await you down below.

Roane scrubbed a hand over his forehead. Christ, he missed James.

But what would James do if he knew the thoughts his
old friend
was entertaining about Helen? James would come back from the grave to haunt him, no doubt. Younger sisters were not to be trifled with.

No one knew better than James that Roane was not worthy of Helen. She deserved a man with a secure future. A man who could keep her safe. And, while he had dreams and goals, they were still just castles in the air. In the end, he was still a gambler, betting his fortune on horseflesh.

He would see she returned home safely with her treasure, and that would be it. Things could not go any further between them.

“We’d best bundle it back up and put it away.” Roane scooped the gold back into the bags and scanned the cave entrance. “We need to get to a safer location.”

The laughter fell away from Helen’s eyes. “Are we in danger?”

As long as she was with him, she would always be in danger. “I know somewhere we can go. An inn, owned by a good friend. You will get your bath there. And a warm meal.”

“And a bed. Please say there is a bed.”

“Of course. After this, it’s all luxury and comfort for you, my lady.” Roane stood and walked into the light.

R
OANE LED THEM ON A CIRCUITOUS,
ambling route that left Helen wondering if they were being followed. Or worse yet, lost, for she knew Roane did not take well to being lost. She felt curiously empty and adrift as she followed closely behind. All this searching, all this frantic worry about the gold and the future, and now it was over. She should feel happy and relieved, but she didn’t.

She felt rather sad, truth be told. Her heart ached something terrible.

Emotions made no sense at all.

Finally, they rode into a small village and, using a passage of narrow alleyways, slipped into the back entrance of the stables belonging to Roane’s friend.

“We will go in the servants’ door,” he murmured as he helped her down. “My good friend owns this establishment and will be sure to keep our identities secret. No one will know we are here.”

They left the horses munching hay in their stalls and, keeping out of sight, entered the brick building that was almost completely covered by ivy. The cook barely looked up as they walked through the kitchens and into the private dining room. The room was dark, but a fire in the fireplace gave off comfort and light.

“By my own eyes. The prodigal son is returned.” A man, seated by the fire at the back of the room, stood and came toward them with open arms. He was tall and elegantly dressed, his boots shining and his cravat well pressed. His gaze flicked toward Helen and swept over her unconventional attire. “And with a beautiful woman.” He took her hand and bowed gallantly, as if they were in the finest of ballrooms. For a moment she worried he knew who she was, and half expected a ‘milady’ to roll from his lips. But then he winked at her, and she recognized his actions for what they were—the playful antics of a flirt. “Mr. Tiffen, at your service.”