So he yanked his head from her neck, dropped his hands and stepped back to lean against the roughness of a birch trunk, abraded his palms against the rippled bark, relishing the pain.
For he must take them both from this place of bewitchment and return Hebe to the castle.
And solely dream of what could be…
27
CARPE NOCTEM
Confusion tore at Hebe as they strolled over the moat bridge lit by a string of lanterns.
Turmoil ripped as they silently meandered through the stable courtyard, the stone cool beneath her bare feet.
Since their kiss beside the river, Ernest had been…distant. No entwinement of fingers or sweet flirtation, and the heated night now felt like a suffocating blanket.
They passed from the courtyard and ahead the castle rose, the sky encasing it in a deep-navy velvet framed by scattered sequins of silver. Light glowed from a few of the lower windows but torches of fire blazed either side of the main door like a scene of medieval salutation.
Their meander became a dawdle, and at the juncture where the path diverged, their dawdle came to a halt.
Over Ernest’s shoulder, some twenty paces from where they stood, was the Tower, its door festooned with a St Roch’s posy of heliotrope, honeysuckle and red carnations.
Whilst ahead lay the castle, its imposing iron-studded door also festooned with its own posy of white carnations, thyme and willow.
She shuffled her feet on the stone, could smell mint and almond. Would Ernest kiss her goodnight? Perhaps ask her to the Tower as he had done the night of the races?
Yet his demeanour was still distant, eyes unfocused, and those twenty paces might as well be a mile.
“Well,” she declared quietly, “good night, Ernest.”
Without the Feast to buoy her spirits, Hebe felt rather silly now in her flowery coronet.
She’d vowed never to let herself be hurt by a rake again, yet here she was wounded and dispirited, for no valid reason.
Because he had ceased? Perchance realising her naïve kiss wasn’t worth the bother?
Because he stared off to his door as though longing to be there…alone?
Such self-pity straightened her shoulders. “Thank you for a wonderful day.” And she twisted away to the castle door, a rush to her stride. Tomorrow she would sketch all day long – the new foal with her delicate legs and playful eyes and–
“Hebe?”
She hastened on. Didn’t care to be teased.
“Hebe.” A firm hand caught her waist, spun her, lips descending in a ravishing maelstrom, calloused fingers to nape and solid chest to breast. All too soon, his mouth wrenched away, breath panting. “Sweet dreams, Hebe Locke,” he rasped before dipping his head to impart the softest of chaste kisses to her lips.
Then he stepped back, turned and strode the path to the Tower. She watched him snatch the posy from its clasp, open the door and then slam it shut behind him.
She stood motionless.
Bemused.
Brought fingers to her still-tingling lips.
“Well,” she at length muttered before whirling to face the castle. Ahead those flaming torches cast demonic shadows upon the majestic, pitted door.
Yet…
Sleep would not be forthcoming, that she knew, his fierce then chaste kiss so confounding her.
