Page 97 of How to Tempt a Duke

Every day took them on a new adventure. Even if they had not yet discovered the Coeur de Feu, she was happy to continue to search every inch of India to find it.

At present they were staying in the opulent rooms of an Indian inn decorated with lights that shone through cut sheets of fashioned metal. They ate food spiced with flavors that tingled on Eleanor’s tongue, and they slept and loved on a bed heaped with pillows and felt decadently colored silks against their bare skin.

Charles’s hand found hers and he threaded his fingers between her own. He moved through the mass of twisting vines and overgrown trees without pause, his confidence evident in the ease of his stride. This was the element in which her husband thrived.

He smiled at her, his teeth a flash of white against his tanned skin, which had become all the more golden in these past two months of their searching.

“Why are you grinning at me like that?” she asked, smiling in return in spite of herself.

“Because you’re lovely.”

Eleanor self-consciously brushed at the sweat-slick curls plastered to her face. She was quite sure she was not lovely, with her cheeks flushed beneath a new smattering of freckles and spots of perspiration darkening her dress.

“I fear you may have touched some poisonous plant.” She slid him a glance. “You’re delusional.”

Charles chuckled. “It’s no poison, my Duchess. You are the most beautiful woman in this entire jungle.”

Eleanor laughed at that—a clear, bright sound that carried unabashedly around them. And she didn’t give a fig that it wasn’t a bit ladylike. “I believe I am the only woman in this jungle at present.”

“Yes, but you’re the loveliest woman no matter where we go.” He stopped and gave her an appreciative glance over. “By God, you make me a happy man, Eleanor.”

Sahil appeared behind them suddenly and began speaking rapidly. Eleanor had only just begun to learn the exotic language but managed to recognize the words for cave and near.

He pulled at Charles’s sleeve and then ran forward into a deeper portion of the jungle.

Charles glanced back at Eleanor and his blue eyes flashed. “I think this is it.”

Together they followed the boy, their pace fast despite the thickness of growth.

Sahil gave an excited squeal and leapt into the air. “Yahaan.” He pointed vigorously. “Yahaan.”

Here.

Charles moved forward and pulled at the vines covering the bulk in front of them. They fell away to reveal a wall of rough-hewn stone. Eleanor’s pulse quickened. Perhaps this truly was it.

Charles pulled a flat metal bar from his pack, slid it into a crack at the side of the stone and pulled with all his strength. It gave with a grinding, popping sound and slowly slid open. The sound echoed within, indicating a large, empty depth.

“It’s a chamber,” Charles said excitedly, and stuck his head inside. The air whooshed out from his lungs as he pulled Eleanor to his side.

She stared into the vast darkness with awe. There, lit by a sliver of sunlight, was a vast room lined with columns along either side and a massive structure toward the back. Clumps of color showed on the columns.

“Go in,” Charles encouraged. “I’ll ready the torch.”

Eleanor shook her head. “We go in together.”

He smiled proudly at her and captured her hand in his. “I’ve never been so eager to see a discovery in all my life.”

“It is the Coeur de Feu,” Eleanor said with a lift of her brows.

He shook his head and stared down at her in wonder. “No, it’s you. It’s us. I’ve never had someone to share this with before. You give this experience a power and excitement it never before possessed.”

Eleanor found herself blushing “Shall we?” she asked.

Together they entered, and bore witness to the remnants of colorful paintings along the columns, where colors were still recognizable as gold and russet and white and blue. The ceiling arched high overhead and echoed their scraping footsteps back at them.

An intense feeling of reverence fell over Eleanor. For what care must have been placed in creating such a structure, what love and time spent on each carefully sculptured and painted bit of wall.

Charles gazed at the splendor before them. “Our fathers would have wanted to break this room into pieces and transport it back to London.”