The Daredevil Snared (The Adventurers Quartet Book 3) (26 page)

And because one couldn’t escape fate, and at some fundamental level, he knew she was his.

He’d known that from the first, and in his usual way, he’d elected not to fight but rather to travel with the tide.

And now she and that tide were tugging him on.

Into a sea of passion.

Katherine wanted—quite what, she couldn’t have said, not in words, but need of a kind she’d never felt before sank claws into her flesh and drove her on. She’d parted her lips and welcomed him in and gloried in her bold confidence—and in his as he claimed all she offered. Sensual hunger grew, his and hers, a complementary compulsion she now recognized.

Her arms looped over his shoulders, she backed and drew him with her, and he obliged. Step by step, she waltzed them across the floor, until her back hit the edge of the raised table and a stool, dislodged, scraped the floor alongside them.

Neither of them broke from the all-absorbing kiss, but one of his hands left her waist. She sensed him tugging the stool closer, then his hand returned, and he gripped her waist and hoisted her up. Her hands sliding to his throat, his jaw, she clutched and held him to the kiss and felt his lips curve against hers.

A second later, he flipped her skirt above her knees, parted her thighs so he could push between, and stepped closer.

Her breath caught in her chest. The sudden play of cooler air on her bared limbs sent awareness prickling over her skin. Sent her nerves, her senses, spiking. Compelled, she shifted her hands to his cheeks, framed his face—and held him steady as she kissed him with an ardor she hadn’t known she possessed.

Or perhaps the flaring passion possessed her—it certainly seemed to drive her, to wield a power all its own. Regardless, he patently welcomed it; with a muted growl, trapped between their lips, he deepened the kiss and met her fire with his own. Yet he let her play, let her enjoy having the ascendency and direct the exchange for several heady heartbeats, but then his lips firmed, and he took control.

He leaned into her, tipping her until her back met the edge of the table.

Then his hands left her waist and rose to close about her breasts, and she stopped thinking, her mind, her wits, overwhelmed by feeling.

By the sensations he so knowingly stoked, that he drew forth, then sent rushing through her.

It might be wanton to so welcome his touch, yet the feel of his hands stroking and caressing and possessing her flesh, even muted by two layers of fabric, sent pleasure and delight coursing through her veins. And when his fingers firmed about her nipples, a delicious thrill spiked and shot straight to her core, igniting a wave of warmth low in her belly.

Caleb sank into the moment, into the pleasure of the exchange, a direct and straightforward foray into delight. Into the myriad little ways he and she could enjoy each other, could—for just those moments—take themselves from this world.

Away from the reality that neither could predict, neither could control, yet both prayed to counter.

To survive so that they could go forward.

He kneaded and caressed and rejoiced in the flaring heat of her response. He angled his head and ravaged her mouth, and her response—so fiery and demanding—nearly rocked him back on his heels. Before he’d even thought, his fingers had found the laces of her gown. A few quick tugs and he’d loosened the bodice enough to peel it down. By touch, he discovered that her fine chemise was held in place by a drawstring—one tug, a little pushing, and he slid his fingers, his hand, over her fine skin and cupped her breast.

They both stilled.

Stunned by the sensual jolt, by the sheer intensity of the tactile impact.

Their lips parted. From beneath their lashes, their eyes met. Just for an instant, they were both caught, flung adrift on a sea of physical feeling. Then her lids fell; a soft moan escaped her lips, and she pressed her breast into his palm.

He dove back into the kiss, and she met him. Her fingers tangled in his hair and then gripped, holding him tight, urging him on.

He needed no urging.

Katherine’s senses were spinning—giddy and drunk on pleasure. She felt flushed, hot, her breasts swelling beneath his hand—hands, now.
Oh, God
. She wasn’t sure she could cope with so much feeling—so much sensation sparking down every nerve—yet the thud of her pulse drove her on.

His hands were so hot, burning against her skin, yet the fire itself seemed to come from within. Like flames, that hot sensation licked over her flesh, spreading from her breasts over her limbs and washing lower through her body.

She could so easily lose herself in this, with him. Some distant part of her brain was mildly surprised that she felt no shame, not even any awkwardness. This—this closeness, this sharing—simply felt new, with all the attraction of a novel activity. She felt hesitant, but only because she didn’t know what came next, what was appropriate, and was having to rely on instinct to guide her. Yet above all else, this closeness, this sharing, with him, felt right.

In this, with him, she was where she should be.

So she let go. Set her senses free to whirl and dance and savor.

Through the communion of their kiss, Caleb realized her direction and was only too happy to follow. To oblige. The feel of her skin, so silken and warm beneath his callused palms, held the promise of bliss, of glorious satisfaction.

He tightened his fingers about her nipples just enough to distract and focus her attention, then he drew his lips from hers and sent them cruising. Over the delicate curve of her jaw and down the slender column of her throat. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the spot where her pulse beat so strongly, so hotly. Then he trailed his lips down over the gentle swell of her breast. Down to where his fingers rolled one tightly furled nipple.

With the tip of his tongue, he circled the tight bud, then gently laved—and heard her breath catch, felt her fingers dig into his skull as her nerves leapt.

He lipped her nipple, then drew it gently into his mouth—and her spine bowed, and her gasp filled the silence.

Inwardly smiling—gloating—he set himself to minister to her senses, to her needs and desires. She made those easy to read, conveyed by the pressure of her fingertips on his skull and by the breathy little moans she uttered.

His own needs, his own desires, welled and leapt, provoked by those evocative sounds. He was fully aroused, his erection a rigid rod restrained beneath his breeches. He shifted, restless, his baser self alive, awake, and intensely aware, but he told himself to forget the temptation her splayed thighs presented.

Easier thought than done, yet despite her ardent responses—despite her open encouragement—he knew acquaintance of mere days was not long enough to even think of ravishing her.

Much less there, in a place of no softness.

Manfully, he quashed all such thoughts, raised his head, found her lips, and reimmersed himself in the kiss. He returned his hands to her breasts, to their worship, and told himself again that, to this point, that was enough.

He hadn’t expected her to disagree, yet as if she’d been privy to his inner argument, she made an incoherent sound; even trapped between their lips and muted by the kiss, it was clearly a sound of protest.

Then she squirmed closer, her thighs parting further, and she freed her hands from his hair and reached for his shirt.

Before he could react—before he realized her intent—she closed her fists in the fabric and hauled it up, then her hands dove under, and her greedy fingers and palms were on his skin—hungry and grasping, claiming and possessing...

Her touch burned with the silver flame of intense sexual desire. He felt seared, energized—shocked into a higher state of passion. Involuntarily, his hands firmed about her breasts, fingers tightening about her nipples—she just gasped through the kiss, and her sweeping, grasping, greedy hands urged him on.

Who was ravishing whom?

Then her hands drifted lower.
Oh, no, no, no
. Her palms molded themselves to his abdomen, her touch oddly innocent, tentative yet determined. Then with wanton deliberation, she slid those questing hands lower still.

He released her breasts and, without breaking the kiss, shifted back and caught her wandering hands. He found her wicked fingers and twined them—locked them—with his.

He drew her arms out to her sides, pressed their locked hands to the edge of the table—then stepped close again, angled his head over hers, and kissed her with all the searing passion she’d evoked in him. So much more than any other before her.

In that moment, he understood and fully accepted that Fate had brought him there—to her, to this.

To this moment of awakening.

To this second in which he finally comprehended what it was to desire, to want, to need, one specific woman.

To the recognition that his destiny lay inextricably entwined with hers.

And that there was
no limit
to what he would do, what he would give, to protect her. So that ultimately they could and would reach for and seize that destiny together.

He pulled back from the kiss.

His breath was coming in short, shallow pants.

Her lips were swollen, the delectable curves glistening, lush and ripe.

Her eyes, when she raised her lids and looked into his, were huge and passion drenched.

As he watched, her gaze turned quizzical.

He groaned, closed his eyes, and dropped his forehead to hers. “Kate.”

“Caleb?”

He was in pain, and yet... It took serious effort, but he managed to find strength enough to straighten and say, “Not here. Not yet.”

The words were gravelly, but at least they were clear.

Only then did she seem to recall where they were. She blinked and glanced around. “Oh.”

Then she brought her gaze back to his face.

He met her eyes, his gaze steady. “Later.” And just in case she doubted it, even after that incendiary kiss, he stated, “I want you.
After
we survive this, I want to and will ask you to be my wife. But not here, not yet.”

Kate.
Only he had ever called her that—only he had ever seen the woman she was inside. In her head, she used to think of herself as Kate; Kate was the woman she’d expected to be, that she’d thought she could be and should be, but everyone else had always called her Katherine. She’d never corrected them. And since her mother had died, she’d forced herself to be Katherine even in her mind. More formal; more proper and correct.

I want to and will ask you to be my wife.

She looked into his eyes and saw the unswerving commitment behind the words. Simple words—not a proposal but the promise of one.
After...

He could have taken advantage of her with her enthusiastic blessing, but of course, he hadn’t. Not him.

Not the man she—Kate—had already fallen in love with.

“Yes.” Her eyes on his, she said that one word—the only word she could say in response.

He blinked, then his features eased, and the reckless smile she’d seen the first time she’d met him resurfaced.

“And you’re right.” She tugged, and he eased his hold on her fingers, and she drew them free.

He let his arms fall and stepped back, allowing her to slip from the stool and stand before him.

She wriggled her gown into place and swiftly tied the laces while he tucked his shirt back into his breeches. Then she smiled, stretched up, and brushed her lips across his.
“After.”
Dropping back to her heels, she held his gaze. “We’ll continue this after we win free.”

CHAPTER 15

Arsene returned to the compound with the replacements for the women’s tools in just four days. Immediately thereafter, Cripps left with four other men to fetch more lamp oil and other supplies.

Kate—she’d reverted to thinking of herself by that name—wasn’t surprised when Dubois carried the new tools to the cleaning shed himself. He laid them out along the raised table, then coldly looked at the women, calculatingly meeting each one’s eyes. Finally, he returned his gaze to Kate’s face. “You will all work from sunrise to sunset—as long as there is light. Only you and...” He glanced at Annie.

“Miss Mellows,” Kate supplied.

Dubois refocused on her. “Only you two are excused for one hour each afternoon to attend to checking the children’s work. Immediately that task is complete, you will return to your work here. There will be no ambling about while there is light enough for you to work.” He glanced around the six women. “Are those instructions clear?”

None of the others spoke, although all of them nodded.

Kate waited until he returned his gaze to her, and nodded, too. “Quite clear.”

She hadn’t been there when Dubois had allowed his men to brutalize the young girl, but she’d seen the shadows in Harriet’s eyes; neither she nor any of the others would willingly tempt Dubois, and they’d all heard of the letter he’d recently received from the mysterious backers.

Dubois held her gaze for a pregnant moment. Then, as if accepting her submission, he nodded. “Excellent.” He turned for the door. “While there are diamonds to be cleaned, you will continue to work for as long as possible at the best possible pace.”

The women waited until he’d left the shed, then waited for a full minute more. Even then, they held their tongues and waited until Gemma went to the open door, looked out, and confirmed Dubois had, indeed, returned to the barracks and that there were no guards lurking before they let down their guard.

Then they slumped onto their stools. They grimaced; some muttered. Grimly resigned, Kate reached for the new hammers and chisels, sorted them, and then shared them around the table.

Perched on her stool opposite, Harriet accepted the new tools and met Kate’s gaze. “So what do we do now?”

Kate raised her brows. She reached into the basket sitting beside her, lifted out a large piece of ore, and started turning it between her fingers, searching out the planes between mineral concretion and diamond. After a moment, she said, her voice low, but strong enough to be heard by all the women, all of whom were listening and following her lead, “We obey Dubois’s orders and work. We work at the same pace we always have, for the hours he stipulated. Meanwhile... I’ll have a word to Frobisher and Lascelle about their idea.” She glanced up and met Harriet’s gaze.

Brightening, Harriet murmured, “The pieces of canvas?”

Kate nodded. “As long as Dubois and his men continue not to count the individual diamonds coming into the shed, I can’t see how they can have any specific expectations over how many cleaned diamonds come out.”

* * *

“Until Cripps gets back with more lamp oil,” Caleb said, “the men are on short shifts, so Phillipe and I will see what we can do about creating pockets under your stools.”

He and Kate—she was now Kate to him; that name fitted the woman who was his better than the primly reserved Katherine—were sitting on one of the logs about the fire pit, surrounded by the other captives. They’d just finished their usual meager meal of meat of some kind, eaten with what passed for bread in these parts. Water, at least, was plentiful. He raised his tin mug and sipped.

“At least we can only work while there’s sufficient sunlight.”

He lowered his mug. “True. But you’ll have to make a visible dent in that pile of rock outside the shed.” Turning the mug between his hands, he thought, then said, “I suspect you’d better ensure that you and the ladies fill that strongbox at least a little faster than you were before—before you had a backlog to work through.”

“Indeed, and the new tools will help us accomplish that.” Kate caught his gaze. “But given the size of the backlog, we can keep our output at the higher levels Dubois will expect while also holding back a decent number of cleaned stones in case of later need.”

Dixon, seated on Kate’s other side with Harriet beyond him, had been listening. He leaned closer. “Harriet mentioned your notion of using canvas for the pockets. There are some old sails tucked away in the supply shed. If you tell me what you need, I can cut the pieces for you—easier to bring out the pieces than the whole sail.”

Caleb called Phillipe over, and between them and the women they estimated the size of the canvas squares they would need.

Dixon nodded. “I’ll make time tomorrow morning to cut them.”

Caleb glanced at Kate. “Phillipe and I will drop by in the afternoon and set up the pockets. Ten minutes is all it will take.”

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “It might be best if you came while Annie and I are with the children.” She met his gaze. “Less chance of one of the guards thinking something might be going on and coming to investigate.”

“We’ll keep watch anyway,” Harriet said. “But I agree with Katherine—better you come when she and Annie aren’t there.”

Caleb discovered he agreed and nodded. Anything to minimize the chances of raising Dubois’s suspicions, especially over anything involving Kate.

With that decided, they settled to discuss the current state and rate of the mining. Ultimately, that led to everyone wanting to know how much longer it would be before Dixon managed to get into the lower level and—they all fervently hoped—confirm that the rock face there was as densely packed with diamonds as in the upper level, so that they would face no insurmountable obstacle in keeping the mining going long enough to be rescued.

For them
all
to be rescued.

Ever since September the seventh had been flagged as the date, Kate had been counting the days. Today had been August the fifth, so they needed four weeks’ grace—four weeks’ more steady, straightforward mining.

According to Dixon, Caleb, and the others working on opening the lower level, they were hoping to sufficiently brace the crawl space they’d created to allow Dixon to check the quality of the vein of diamond-bearing ore sometime during the next day.

So by tomorrow evening, they would know.

Know if they would be safe—if they would be able to keep the mine going until the rescue force arrived—or if their lives still hung in the balance with an uphill battle before them.

Kate sent up a prayer that all would prove to be as they needed, and she was certain she wasn’t the only one addressing the Almighty on their behalf.

Then it was time for the men to return to the mine. It was a part of Dixon’s assumed role to chivvy them up and back to work. Although the others grumbled and cast him dark looks, that was all for show.

Kate rose to her feet as Caleb stood.

He looked down at her, hesitated, then reached out and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “It might be better if you got what sleep you can. You’ll be working under increased pressure from now on, and my group is going to push as hard as we can tonight to get the lower level shored up.”

She frowned. “Won’t you have to stop because of the lamp oil?” Dubois had had Dixon set up a rationing system to ensure the groups actually mining would have enough oil to keep production as high as possible through the shortage. Dubois had appointed Arsene to oversee the allocation of oil each day, so what Dubois regarded as non-essential works had limited hours of light.

He grimaced. “Yes, but we’ll go for as long as we can.”

Over recent nights, they’d enjoyed a quiet amble about the compound before retiring, but after their last interlude, perhaps he was right and they should play safe. She met his gaze and nodded. “All right.” She touched his arm, then let her hand fall. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

With a nod, he turned and joined the other men, who under Dixon’s urging were straggling back into the mine.

She watched until Caleb vanished inside, then returned to sit with Harriet and the other women. They chatted and watched over the children as, gathered in their smaller groups, they, too, talked about this and that. Just how much the younger ones truly understood, Kate didn’t know, but the older ones...the expression in their eyes suggested that they understood the situation all too well.

Diccon came to sit at her feet and leaned against her legs. Kate smiled down at him even though he couldn’t see, then gently stroked his fine pale hair.

After an hour of desultory activity, the children agreed to the women’s suggestion that it was time for bed. There were rarely any arguments. The work the children did was strenuous and tiring, as well as largely boring; sleep was, to them, an escape from their waking hours—their dreams were doubtless better than their reality.

With the other women, Kate herded the children into their hut and into their respective hammocks. She busied herself wrapping the fine mosquito netting over and around each hammock; many of the children were already asleep, eyes closed and breathing softly, by the time she and the other women had them protected.

Then the women got themselves into their own hammocks. In the circumstances, they didn’t divest themselves of their gowns but slept in them.

Gradually, the hut grew quiet, a quiet composed of the gentle murmur of thirty individuals breathing, punctuated by the occasional raucous call of some nocturnal animal hunting beyond the compound’s walls.

Enveloped in the now-familiar dark, Kate lay in her hammock and stared up through the netting. She couldn’t see the ceiling, but wasn’t actually looking. Her mind had turned inward, following paths she hadn’t trod for more than three years. Ever since her mother had fallen ill and she—Kate—had retreated from all contact with others to nurse her ailing parent. That had been when she’d finally and, at least in her mind, deliberately turned her back on marriage, but in truth, her view of that state had been equivocal at best from far earlier. Specifically, from the day her wastrel, always-laughing father had died and left her and her mother so deeply in debt.

So very alone, facing a largely hostile world.

But the one thing she’d never quite understood was the love—never dimming no matter what he did—that her mother had borne for that wastrel profligate. Even as young as Kate had been, she’d seen it—had felt the all but tangible force of it, that power people called love.

Her mother had loved her father, and despite all his flaws, he’d loved her truly, too. In that, he’d never been inconstant.

He’d just been him, and sadly incapable of dealing adequately with the practicalities of life.

And then he’d left them.

In her heart, she’d never forgiven him for that.

In her soul, she still blamed him for her mother’s early death.

Men, she’d believed, were just variations on her father—lovable, but ultimately unreliable.

Nineteen days ago, she’d met Caleb.

And she now had some inkling of what had driven her mother’s devotion to her father. Now she had a clearer vision of what it was to love a man.

And yet...from somewhere deep inside her, a little voice whispered, questioning how this could be. How could she have fallen so definitely in love in just days? Was it really love—the sort of love that wouldn’t die no matter what the loved one did? And if it was, did she truly want it?

Did she have a choice?

Or was she, like her poor mother, doomed to being swept away—by a handsome face, a cheery smile, and circumstance?

How much of her attraction was due to their situation?

How much of his?

Unanswerable questions all, yet she knew she wasn’t like her mother, and regardless of her distrust of most men, she knew—to her bones—that Caleb wasn’t like her father.

She could trust Caleb. She could rely on him.

Was she up to trusting him forever? With her future, her life—her forever?

And what did it say of her and him that, after the past years of adhering to the name Katherine even in her own mind, it had taken Caleb two weeks to anchor her back in her true self, the self she referred to as Kate?

She stared upward into the darkness and found precious few answers there.

Especially to her most fundamental question: When it came to Caleb, did she trust herself—or was she simply clinging to him and the safety he exuded because of the dreadful threat hanging over them?

All those questions, but especially the last, left her restless and unsettled. She wasn’t going to fall asleep any time soon.

Accepting that, she rolled out of her hammock, fought her way out of the netting shroud, then silently wended around the children’s hammocks to the partially closed door. They always left it slightly ajar so if any of the children awoke, they would see the sliver of light and not panic.

She slipped out of the hut into the cooler night air. She sank onto the single stool they left on the small, uncovered porch—more a landing at the top of the two steps. She leaned her shoulders against the hut’s wall and let the quiet of the night wash through her.

Let her questions go, let them fade from her mind. She looked up at the stars, shining like the proverbial diamonds in the black velvet of the night sky, and let the constellations, so very far away, remind her of how infinite and ageless they were—and how finite and inconsequential she was in comparison.

Her mind had wandered to recalling the pattern of stars in the night sky over Aberdeen when the sound of men’s voices reached her. She looked across the compound and saw the men who had been working the last shift leaving the mine. They made for their hut. With her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see well enough to confirm that Caleb wasn’t among them.

Nor was Dixon or Lascelle.

Even after the emerging men had tramped into their hut and the compound had fallen silent again, the glow of a lantern—distant, but still detectable—shone from the mouth of the mine.

She waited.

Gradually, the steady glow of the lantern started to fade.