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‘How long are they here for?’
‘We’ve got them for three more months,’ Merida said. ‘Although we’re hoping that can be extended. This way, please.’
Merida touched the switch that would turn on the lighting for the display and gestured with her head for him to head down the stairs.
‘After you,’ Ethan said.
For the first time—theonlytime—Merida wondered as to the merits of manners, for she found herself wishing that he had gone first.
The simple walk that she had made on so many occasions suddenly felt an impossible task. The velvet walls were too close, the lighting too dim, and she was utterly aware of him walking behind her.
The sensual darkness was for effect, of course. But it was having more of an effect onherthan him.
Merida had undertaken the pinning of the velvet to the walls herself—the aim being to create a sort of portal...a sense of entering another time. However, she had never, as she’d stood on a stepladder and created this soft space, envisaged how it might feel to descend the stairs with a man like Ethan.
She trod more carefully than usual. She was nervous. Not so much aware that she might slip, more that if she did then it would be he who would steady her.
Merida had never reacted to anyone with such force. In fact she had never responded to a man in such a way.
She had wanted to. And she had tried on occasion—going along with a kiss while awaiting desire.
But it had never arrived and there had never been more than a kiss.
Merida had decided that her unwillingness must somehow beherfault—that there was something she was missing in her genes, or that her parents’ bitter divorce and its aftermath had left her too mistrusting to let down her guard.
Oh, she could fake it for an audience. On stage, she could put on a sensual display indeed.
In fact, she was acting now—pretending that she had it all together and that he did not move her so.
Yet when the weekend came around, and she was back on stage where she felt she belonged, Merida knew she would draw on how it had felt to be so close to him.
In the real world, though, Merida was new to these feelings.
New to all this.
CHAPTER TWO
ASMERIDASTEPPEDout of the draped tunnel and into the semi-dark space, which twinkled with jewels, she found herself a little breathless.
There were no windows, no signs of the outside world to orientate oneself. The subtle bergamot and woody notes of Ethan Devereux’s cologne were richer as she moved to where he stood, staring into the first display.
Merida cleared her throat and broke the heavy silence.
‘These are the Amulets of Al-Zahan.’
Ethan had expected jewellery, or ancient carved tokens, but instead there was an array of gemstones, embedded in rocks, still in their original form. Each was a mini-galaxy in itself, and, far from being bored, he had rarely been so entranced as Merida started to tell their tale.
‘The collection and its history was a passion of the late Queen Dalila of Al-Zahan. Right up to her death, some twenty years ago, she was still unearthing long-forgotten treasures.’
‘How did she die?’ Ethan asked.
‘In childbirth. I believe it was her fourth child...’ She faltered a little over a detail she did not know. ‘I can check.’
‘No need.’
Merida wasn’t so sure. She felt as if she were being tested.
‘On her marriage, she was given this amulet...’
