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What would Ben do if she kissed him?
Luce closed her eyes. No. Back to what mattered. Nest. Her book. Not her sex drive.
Although Nest had obviously had enough of one, given the number of men she’d been connected to and the number of children she’d borne.
Not the point. Okay. Enough about Nest the woman. Focus on the book itself. The structure. Should she break Chapter Seven into two parts? Should she ask Ben in for dinner when they got to Cardiff? Or more...
Oh, God, this was hopeless.
‘We’re here,’ Ben said, his voice amused, and Luce realised belatedly that the car had stopped moving.
Fumbling with the handle, Luce threw the door open and stepped out into the snow. She smoothed down her skirt with one hand, aware that Ben was walking around the car towards her.
‘Figured out where we are yet?’ he asked.
He was standing too close for her to think straight. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, a wonderful contrast to the wintry chill.
She stepped away quickly and looked up. ‘Oh!’
The twin round towers of Cilgerran Castle loomed overhead, grey and dark against the sky, snow capping them, and Luce’s breath caught in her throat. She’d have known where she was in an instant, even without the information board at the edge of the car park. This place mattered. This was history made real, right before her. ‘This is it. This is—’
‘Cilgerran Castle. Where they say Nest was abducted from.’
Ben moved behind her and she could feel his warmth through her coat.
‘Good idea?’
She nodded, her head jerking up and down hard to show him just what a fantastic idea she thought it was. This was what she needed. To get close to Nest physically as well as intellectually. She needed to stand where she had stood, needed to feel the stone walls around her. Needed to understand how Nest had felt so many years ago.
Why hadn’t she come here before? Oh, she had, she supposed, back when she was studying for her Masters and Nest had been just a passing interest in half a module of her course. But never since. After all, she’d done it already. Why waste the day getting there and back to Cardiff again when there was so much else she needed to do?
But she’d never felt then what she felt now. The feeling that all of history was coming together in one place, just to help her understand.
‘I hadn’t realised it was so close,’ she murmured, and felt Ben shrug behind her. He was so close, too.
‘A couple of hours. You were daydreaming on the way here.’
Had it really been that long? They could have got to Cardiff and back already. ‘I was thinking about Nest.’ Mostly.
‘I saw a leaflet for it in the Eight Bells rack earlier. Thought it looked like your sort of thing. And when I remembered how you told me Nest had lived here, was taken from here, I had to bring you.’
Luce spun round, finding herself nose to chest with him. How had she forgotten he was so close? His hand settled on her waist to steady her when she stumbled on the uneven ground and heat radiated through Luce’s body. Raising her gaze to meet his, she said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
The words were simple, but the emotions they evoked were anything but. His lips were just inches away. If she went up on tiptoes she could kiss him so easily. It would be a thank-you kiss, nothing more, but she’d get to feel his mouth against hers. And, oh, how she wanted to...
She bit down on her own lip to try to curb the temptation. But Ben’s fingers still pressed against her waist. Then he glanced away, hands dropping from her body, and she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
‘Shall we go in?’ he asked.
Luce stepped back and nodded again. Nest—that was why she was here. And then she was leaving. She really had to try to remember that.
CHAPTER TEN
BEN WATCHED LUCE’S rear move enticingly under that touchable flowing skirt as she gripped the handrail of the bridge over the moat, struggling to keep her footing on the icy wood as she made her way into the castle. It had seemed like such a good, obvious idea to bring her when he’d seen the leaflet. Killing two birds with one big hunk of tumbledown rock. Lots of Brownie points for him for thinking of it, meaning she’d be thinking kindly of him again as they drove to Cardiff. Maybe even enough to say yes if he asked her to dinner again. He could spend the night in Cardiff, head straight to London in the morning. Because this wasn’t over yet. It couldn’t be.
Memories of his twenty-first birthday flashed through his mind again. He’d wanted to seduce this woman eight years ago, before he’d even really known her. And now that feeling was a thousand times stronger.
