10. Chapter 10

It'd taken far too long to finally discover where Nemity kept disappearing to.

Days, and it wasn't until he pretended to not be paying attention to her and then followed her from a good distance behind that he finally found her hiding spot.

Deep in the forest that surrounded Springfell Manor.

The pathway through the woods had twisted and turned, but there hadn't been very many forks on it and he managed to stay on her trail. For as slight as she was, her boots still left footprints and broke sticks in the path just like anyone else's.

He'd found her.

But he hadn't been expecting this. Hadn't even imagined this.

The brook that ran through this side of the estate cut into a shallow ravine in front of him, and just beyond the pathway, the water disappeared over a waterfall. From his spot higher up on the trail, he could see the wide pool beneath the waterfall. The black shawl that Nemity had been wearing when she slipped out of Springfell when she thought he wasn't looking was now neatly folded and set atop of a large boulder. That boulder was one in a set of three at the side of the waterfall pool that looked like they had been rolled into place on purpose for their odd positioning next to the water.

But no one would put the effort to roll boulders of that size in the middle of a forest.

The sound of the waterfall in his ears, he moved off the main trail and onto the pathway that lined the brook and then swung out a short distance to go down the hillside beside the waterfall.

It wasn't until the pathway veered back inward toward the pool of water that he realized the trail had twisted outward to go around what was a large cave next to the pool.

The entrance to the cave faced the pool and from this angle, he could see that the water of the pool bled into the cave.

But where was Nemity?

He moved toward the three boulders near the edge of the water and picked up the corner of Nemity's shawl. A waft of citrus and honey floated up to him with the touch.

Her shawl. He'd know the scent anywhere.

Was that her dress folded under it?

Her boots at the base of the boulder.

He looked around.

No movement. Only the gentle cascade of the water splashing downward in the short waterfall.

Hell, she couldn't have drowned in there, could she?

His look frantic, he searched the water, desperate for any sign of Nemity when a shard of sunlight cut through the overcast sky, shining through the trees, and something bright reflected into his eyes.

He turned toward the cave, only to see a bright white light reflecting directly into his face.

"What in the…" he muttered to himself as he moved toward the entrance to the cave.

He stopped. Frozen in place.

All along the interior walls of the cave, shells were mortared into the rock wall. Shells of all sorts—shiny ones, white ones, iridescent ones. All of them mortared onto the walls in intricate designs that created beautiful motifs. Circles and swirls and flowers created with the varying shells.

A shell grotto.

And standing in the middle of it, Nemity.

Faced away from him, her wild hair tied back with a string of leather, she stood in the water that reached up to her mid thighs, without the slightest clue he was standing behind her. Her white shift floated about the water around her before pulling inward to cling to her legs, fully transparent in the light that came in through the other opening of the grotto to his left.

His cock jerked to life.

A damn Venus emerging from the sea. A goddess.

A goddess he wanted to drag down onto his shaft, have her riding him until screams came from her lips.

Bloody errant thoughts. Lock them down.

He swallowed hard. Now was the time to exit. Get out of here while he could.

He didn't need to replay the scene from two nights ago in the study. It had taken a monumental effort to walk away from her when she was willing and mostly clothed.

To walk away from this—he'd be stark raving mad to do so.

Except wait.

What was Nemity holding in her hands? Why were her shoulders heaving?

His gut dropped.

She was crying.

Crying, every breath sending a shudder across the smooth plane of her bare shoulders. And what was in her hands?

He squinted. In her right hand, a bucket filled with something thick and white, and in her left…were those shells?

His look flickered back to the interior of the cave.

The grotto was full of the shell designs, but in front of her, the cave wall was still bare.

She was finishing the grotto.

Her shoulders gave a heave, and an audible sob reached him.

All thoughts of backing away before she knew he was there left him.

Until the other night in the stairwell, Callum didn't think her capable of sadness. He'd only seen her happy. Lighthearted. Teasing. Not a care in the world.

His mistake.

Everyone was hiding something.

She was just better at it than most.

His stare not moving from her, he pulled off his boots, his coat and waistcoat, and then rolled up the sleeves of his lawn shirt.

His focus refusing to shift away from her slumping shoulders, he moved to the edge of the cave, where the ground gave way to the water gently lapping against the rocks that formed natural steps down into the pool.

"Why are you crying, Nem?" His voice was low, soft, set not to scare her.

She jumped, whipping around.

So much for not startling her.

Her eyes went wide as she met his stare and she shook her head, swiping at her cheeks with the back of her wrists. White mortar speckled her hands.

Her look dropped and she spun away from him, the water sloshing along her thighs and making her shift cling tight to her upper thighs. Her movements jerky, she shuffled to the far end of the cave where a pile of shells and mortar were balancing on a stack of flat rocks near the other entrance to the cave.

Callum stepped into the pool. Warm.

The water was unnaturally warm. A hot spring.

A hot spring tempered by the water running through the cave from the brook.

No wonder she could sit out here well into the chill of the evening air.

No wonder her dresses always looked wet when he would see her coming back into the main house. Just like that first day he met her.

He moved across the water, sending it sloshing as he got to her before she could set down the shells and bucket of mortar in her hands. He grabbed her arm, stopping her as he rounded her.

"Why are you crying, Nem?"

She glanced up at him. Then looked away. "'Tis nothing. Nothing." She forced out a bright smile, but her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy, red splotches dotting her forehead.

"It is something."

She pulled her arm free, taking three steps around him toward the mound of shells, and she dropped the three white cone shells in her fingertips onto the pile and set the bucket of mortar down.

Her head bowed, she stared at the pile of shells for a long time. "This is where I disappear to. Obvious to you now, I imagine."

He looked around at the cave and the bright white shells glinting light where there should be none. "It is beautiful. Though it doesn't explain your tears."

Her look cast downward, her arm shifted outward at her side, her fingertips trailing along the water top, sending little swirls scattering. "My mother started this project two years before she died. We always loved to swim and play in this hot spring—no matter the time of year—it was our favorite place." She pointed to the entrance closer to the main pool of the waterfall. "We can move the rocks on this end so the cold water doesn't invade in the winter."

She heaved a sigh, her look skittering about. "This place was laughter. It was silence. It was peace."

She reached out to a wall, her fingertips running along the edge of an iridescent shell. "When she died, this was where I came. I sat in here and would sleep by the rocks with my toes in the water. Mrs. Jorge sent Mr. Youngstrom out here to bring me blankets. I stayed in here for three days."

"Were you wrinkled?"

Her gaze jerked up to him, her brow scrunched. "What?"

"At the end of three days—I imagine you were wrinkled."

She laughed, sudden and wholeheartedly, shaking her head at him. "I—I guess I was. Mrs. Jorge eventually came herself and pulled me out of here. I don't remember much during those days."

The laughter was real, and his chest warmed at the thought that he'd somehow managed to produce it, but he was almost sad to see the melancholy in her dissipate. The sadness had been real—a true glimpse into her—and he already knew she covered up far too much with smiles and laughter and nonchalance.

He nodded. "Why do you come here if it makes you this sad?"

Her bottom lip jutted upward in the middle of her melancholy smile. "It doesn't make me sad. Not usually. I was just overwhelmed by thoughts of my mother today. I found something of hers in my room that I thought had been lost. But I'd had it all along."

"What did you find?"

"A missing earring. From her favorite pair. A broken pair for the last four years, now reunited. It's a pearl drop—big, but still elegant, with diamonds surrounding it and leading upward to a simple diamond stud."

"Finding it didn't make you happy?"

"It made me happy, until it made me sad." All energy seemed to drift out of her and with a long exhale, she moved to sit on the bench submerged along the side of the grotto, her white linen shift pooling about her. The bench was low enough that the water came up just past the peak of her breasts.

Callum locked his stare onto her face, not allowing his look to drift downward.

He did that, and he'd have one hell of a painful walk back to the main house.

Her arms swished back and forth under the water and she flecked off a piece of mortar that had stuck to her hands. "As long as that earring was still missing, I had hope."

The lower half of his trousers was already under the water—he may as well fully commit. He yanked off his lawn shirt and stepped back to the opening, tossing it back to the pile of clothes at the entrance to the grotto. Moving through the water toward her, his toes searched the way along the pebble-filled bottom of the grotto to the bench that lined the back half of the cave and he submerged himself, sitting next to her. The smoothest curved shells pressed into his back—a gentle massage.

His gaze centered on her. "Hope for what?"

She looked down at his bare chest and the slightest hitch of her breath made her lips part. "I looked for it right away after her death—the missing earring—but it was gone." Her gaze lifted to meet his. "One was in her ear. One was missing. I always thought that someday I would find the missing earring and it would give me answers—or at least a clue—as to who killed her."

"Where did you find the lost earring?"

"In my room. I didn't even know she had been in my room that day—we had taken different carriages from London, and she arrived here earlier than intended—no staff was here and our driver had gone into the village and the countryside beyond to fetch cook from her cousin's home, our footman and butler, and the other maid from her daughter's home. Mrs. Jorge and I were only hours behind her, but we arrived before anyone else. Mrs. Jorge went down below to see if staff had returned while I went looking for my mother." She heaved a shaky breath. "You know what I walked in on."

He nodded gravely.

"That was the only thing out of place on her, other than the knife wound straight to her belly. The only thing that wasn't where it was supposed to be. Her earring."

Could be a clue. Could be a completely random happenstance.

But he was beginning to wonder if her mother's death had anything to do with the men that had abducted her.

His mind started to churn, listing out the things he needed to do.

He needed to get on Rory and Seth to push them on their search for Nemity's abductors. Needed to find out why Thomas—or Charley—never mentioned Nemity's mother dying in such a way. Needed to find out why no one ever caught whoever murdered her mother—if it was even investigated.

Thomas was as cold as an iceberg, so Callum could see why it wouldn't register with him how devastating losing her mother in that way had been for Nemity, or even that she would still be feeling the loss this many years later.

Nemity hid so much between quips and smiles and laughter that Thomas probably never even thought to ask her about her mother after he returned to England.

Charley might have information. That was an option he needed to explore.

His mind had rambled off into work and he didn't notice it was happening until he saw it plain on Nemity's face—she was near to crying again.

He didn't want her to have to sink into it. Not when she expended so much energy trying to hide the sadness—when she clearly didn't want to feel it.

He looked around, his elbow dipping into the water as he lifted his hand to touch the wall between them. "This truly is artwork. How long have you been working on it?"

"Years." Her look followed his and she took a deep breath, then smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling. "It should be done by now. But I often come out here to work on it, then end up just sitting in the waters. Silent. It is peace that I don't get anywhere else."

"I can see why."

She nodded, reaching between them and running her fingertips over the smooth back of several shells in the wall, her gaze centered on the curve of the line of tiny round shells that swooped into a giant fleur-de-lis. "It is the peace that slows me—or it may very well have taken me this long because I just don't want to finish it. It is my last real connection to my mother. I can trace where her fingertips pressed shells into the mortar. Remember watching her do so as I sifted through the pile of shells finding just the right size she needed next."

"You sound like you were very close with her."

"We were." Her gaze shifted to him and her eyebrows drew together. "Is this how you find out answers from an unsuspecting maiden? Pretend to care?" She grinned, flicking water at him, and the droplets landed on his chest.

"I'm not above it." He grabbed her hand before she could splash him again, and he met her gaze, his stare piercing into her. "But in this instance, no. I find myself, against my own staunch intentions and moral code, caring. Caring about you. Caring about the smile on your face and the sadness in your eyes. And not able to stop it."

Her jaw dropped slightly in a sudden breath, her right eyebrow quirking as the tip of her tongue slid out to wet her lips. Her hand in his palm twisted around and she slid her fingers up the length of his forearm.

For the life of him, he couldn't quite stop himself for wanting—needing—to slip his tongue past those parted lips to taste her again.

A force there was no defense against, he dipped his head down toward her, his lips meeting hers in a kiss that started soft.

Just one taste.

One and he would be done.

Her lips parted to him and the kiss deepened. His tongue touched the tip of hers.

In that instant—with one taste—he was lost.

Useless against his own code of valor and right and wrong.

The softness in the kiss was discarded as quickly as it began, the kiss turning searing, rabid. She met him as an equal with every breath, every guttural moan deep in her throat echoing his.

Her reaction to him only goaded him onward, willing him to ignore every speck of decency that managed to still live within him.

There was no pulling back, and the kiss turned feral, his need to devour her from toe to the crown of her head overwhelming.

She didn't deserve to have a monster like him in her arms, yet here he was.

His hands ran down the sides of her torso, locking onto her hips, and he lifted her through the water, sliding her onto his lap. A satisfied growl vibrated deep in her throat and he plunged his tongue deep into her, then left her mouth, his lips dragging down her neck.

Her legs straddling him, she arched back against his grip as his lips moved downward from her neck, onto her chest, and he pulled free the right strap of her shift, baring her breast to him.

He locked onto her nipple, teasing the bud, sucking it, until it was hard and taut under his tongue. Her fingers threaded behind his neck and she pulled the crux of her against his raging cock in his trousers, her bent legs clamping against the outside of his thighs.

Hell, the woman was going to be the death of him. Yet he couldn't pull his mouth away from the sweet taste of her skin.

She shifted, her fingers dragging slowly down his bare chest, setting his nerves on fire, and she slipped her hands down between them. Flicking free the buttons to his fall front, his hard cock spilled into her waiting fingers and he had to still himself for the heaven that was coursing through him.

As much as he wanted to sink into her, he wasn't convinced she was ready for that—so he'd settle for her coming under his hands instead—not that she needed any help. Her hand had slid down the length of his shaft, pressing it into her folds and she slid up and down along the length of him, holding him tight to her.

Damn glorious.

She gyrated up and down, her lips parted, ragged breaths coming from her at every peak until he slid his fore and middle finger between his cock and her folds, finding her nub. Her body jerked at the touch, her scream hitting the air as her head dropped back.

Up and down, teasing along both sides of the nub until she was writhing, every cry from her mouth a begging please.

Except she didn't need to ask, didn't need to beg.

He was taking her there—taking her breath away—if it was the last thing he did.

His tongue swirled along her left breast, and he clamped down lightly on her nipple. A scream, louder than the rest, and he bit down harder.

An instant reaction, and her body tensed, then shuddered a violent release, her savage scream echoing off the grotto walls.

The sound of it, the feel of her body under his fingers, the way her nails scratched into his back, and he was sunk. She was the sun exploding all around him, and he'd never been in light like hers before.

So caught up in watching her come, his cock had strained to painful proportions.

She rode his fingers for a second more, then looked down at him, her lips parted with shuddered, rapid breaths. "I'm not doing it alone." A raw whisper, but he heard it all the same.

Her eyes flooded in pleasure, a smile came to her lips and she descended on him, her hand sliding in along his cock and she pressed the length of him back against her folds. Riding out her own pleasure, her fingers held his shaft tight against her, rubbing up and down along the back side. Pressure one way and then the next, until he was growling, grabbing her hips to grind his shaft hard against her.

His balls started to tingle deep, rabid, and her lips met his, swallowing his roar as he exploded under her hand. Surge after surge mixing in with the warm water surrounding them.

He was in hell or heaven, it didn't matter which in that moment.

Her head dropped alongside his face, her lips burying into the crook between his shoulder and neck, her breath hot and rapid on his skin.

"That." She purred out a satisfied groan into his neck, her hips still shifting back and forth, drawing the last vestiges of pleasure from her release. "That took longer than expected."

His fingers wrapped around her lower back as he chuckled. "Longer? I thought I had you screaming in record time."

She laughed, full and hearty, her body vibrating against his, and something deep in his chest cracked at the sound.

Cracked, merely because he had put the laughter in her throat.

He hoped to hell and back the crack didn't have anything to do with the solidly crafted stone walls he had firmly in place to protect him from feeling any emotion. Those walls were thick on purpose and had never been breached.

Never would be.

Her body still shaking with laughter, her wet hair landed on his shoulder as she turned her face toward his, her lips along the line of his jaw. "You did perform better than expected. Or maybe it has been a long time since I've let a man touch me." She angled her face to look up at him. "No. I meant I thought I might corrupt you sooner than I did. You held on an admirably long time to your morals."

"You've been seducing me this entire time?"

"When I wasn't trying to get rid of you." Her finger came up to sweep along the line of his jaw. "Once I accepted that you were here whether I liked it or not, I decided I may as well make the best of it. And can you blame me? Society is not here to judge me and you are a rather handsome warrior. How could I resist?"

"Minx."

He leaned down and raked his teeth along her neck in a mock bite. Damn, she tasted good. Like the water from the spring on her skin somehow quenched a thirst he never knew he had.

She squealed, trying to squirm out of his grip, but she was only able to pull back, looking at him. Her eyes dropped to his torso as her fingers traced the tattoo on the left side of his chest. "This—what is this?"

He didn't need to look down at the ink to know exactly what line in the circular emblem she was following. "The past."

She nodded, leaning forward and kissing a circle around it. Not pressing for answers.

Her lips trailed upward, across his chest, along his neck, and she pressed the most gentle kiss he'd ever experienced onto his lips. A kiss that could have gone on a thousand years and he wouldn't have dared stopped it.

With a giggle, she pulled away and the slippery little water sprite managed to slip out of his grip and was to the opening of the grotto in a flash.

"Come. We should get back to the manor. Mrs. Jorge was expecting me a while ago and I don't want her to rouse Mr. Youngstrom to come find me. I feel bad enough that his arm is broken."

He stilled, staring at her. "They always know where you are, don't they?"

"They do." She tossed the words over her shoulder with a smile.

He should have known.

She wasn't an idiot. Wasn't completely careless—though she was still far too careless for his liking.

Her staff was loyal to her above all else. Especially above the constant questioning of a rogue gentleman always inquiring after her whereabouts.

That alone was telling. People didn't inspire loyalty if they hadn't earned it.

Nemity waded out of the water, her transparent shift clinging to every curve of her body. The glow of dusk lit up her body like an ethereal being emerging from the depths of sin and debauchery.

Bloody hell, he wanted to drag her back into the hot spring for another go.

Which told him volumes.

He wanted her. Again.

And that was never a good thing.