A Midsummer Night's Romp

  “I find that fact significant, don’t you?” he asked, his voice oddly softened in the confined space. I shivered a little despite the comfort of both Gunner and his lamp. I wasn’t particularly claustrophobic, but I couldn’t help but feel the weight of the castle above us.

  “Why didn’t you tell Roger this?”

  “Because I’m not sure if there’s anything down here worth his while. For one thing, there isn’t room to dig, and for another, I haven’t been down here since I was five or six. My father was a fairly tolerant man, but he forbade us to go into the bolt-hole, saying it was dangerous, and that it would be easy to be trapped by a cave-in or other calamity. Evidently Elliott was down here about ten years ago, but all he said was that the passage still existed to the outer wall of the castle.”

  “Cave-in,” I murmured, clutching his shirt all that much tighter. “I can think of other ways I’d rather perish.”

  We continued down another dozen steps until Gunner stopped, saying, “All right, we’re at the bottom.”

  “Sorry,” I said, releasing his shirt, and giving his back a quick brush to try to relax the wrinkles I’d put into it. “You may want to iron your shirt later.”

  “Actually, I was going to tell you to hold on to me, since the floor isn’t level, and I have no idea if there has been any destruction since Elliott last visited.”

  “So long as you don’t mind a wrinkly shirt.” I clutched the material again, trying to peer around him as we slowly walked forward. “There aren’t any rats down here, are there?”

  “Why, are you afraid of rodents?”

  “Not unduly so, although I could do without the mental image of being trapped by a cave-in and consumed by a horde of hungry rats.”

  He laughed, but it sounded muffled and unnatural, making me all that much more aware that we were deep under the castle and far away from all signs of life. “Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen. I have my mobile phone. Ah, here we go.”

  He stopped suddenly and set the lamp on the ground. “I’ll be blowed. I thought Dad was making this up, but now I see that he wasn’t.”

  “What are you blowed about?” I tried to see around him, but it was too dark.

  “One second—let me light the second lamp, and then I’ll show you what I hope will make up for losing the premium dig site to Thompson.”

  The passage was too narrow for me to see anything around him but the brownish gray stone walls, stained black over the centuries, with various bits of roots and long-dead plant life sprouting through seams. I rubbed my nose, which was itching with the smell of earth and decay.

  Gunner got the second lamp lit. He flashed a grin over his shoulder at me. “Ready to be astounded?”

  I eyed him. “You’re not going to drop your trousers and demand I admire your gorgeous testicles, are you?”

  “Not after you disparaged their beauty.” His teeth flashed again, and then he lifted both arms to raise the two lamps, and turned to the side so I could see past him. Beyond him was a whole lot of blackness . . . and dull gray shapes dotting the ground.

  I gawked for a second, then dropped the shovel and bag and squeezed past him, taking one of the lamps in the process. “What is this, a wall? Or the road?”

  “That, my sweet Lorina, is the corner wall of a structure. See the right angles? It’s definitely a building of some form, and could possibly even be part of the second villa. When I was little, my dad used to tell Elliott and me that there was an old foundation down here. We assumed it was just a now-demolished section of the castle, but this is definitely not sixteenth century.” Gunner carefully thumped past me to stand looking down at the exposed stone structure that lay crumbled and half-buried in the dirt of the bolt-hole, disappearing under one of the brick walls of the castle. “And we don’t even have to dig down for it. It’s just a matter of uncovering it.”

  “OK, that is worth giving up the prime spot for,” I said complacently, mentally rubbing my hands at the thought of stealing some of Paul’s thunder. Then I realized that I shouldn’t be relishing that since—the temptation of Gunner aside—I couldn’t forgo my attempt to bring Paul to account. Not when there were other women like Sandy out there. “We should get Daria in here, though. She’s a bit hurt because Paul swanned in and took away the cellar dig from her.”

  He made a face, then gave a rueful grin. “I was going to protest that I’d prefer to remain with you alone, but this isn’t the ideal location for seduction, so we might as well have the help she’d be able to give us.”

  “Look,” I said when he pulled the walkie-talkie off his belt. “I realize that I fully participated in the kissing and butt-groping, and licking of nipples, and stroking of chest and arms and back, but that doesn’t mean I’m remotely susceptible to seduction.”

  Gunner cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “Dammit, how do you know I’m lying?” I demanded to know.

  “I’m not sure. I just know.” He turned a couple of knobs on the walkie-talkie, frowned at it, and pulled out his cell phone instead.

  “No reception?” I asked a couple of minutes later.

  “No. The phone says I have a connection, but it doesn’t seem to want to actually connect.” He sighed. “One of us will have to go fetch Daria. Would you prefer to stay here with the rats, or should I fend them off while you find her?”

  I shuddered. “How about we both go?”

  He shook his head and eased himself down onto the ground. “It’s hard enough walking on this ground with the cast that I don’t want to make extra trips. I’ll wait here while you bring her.”

  “All right, but I’ll leave you a shovel so you can whack at any rats that charge you.” I shifted both the bag and the shovel so that it sat next to him. He immediately took a trowel from the former and started scraping at the exposed stone.

  “Tell Daria to bring any portable lights that she can find. And possibly a camp chair if she knows of one.”

  “I’ll go for the full ‘digging in a bolt-hole’ kit,” I promised, and, picking up one of the lamps, carefully made my way back to the stairs.

  “You might also ask the catering people if they could send us some coffee or tea in a bit. I suspect we’re going to be down here for a while,” Gunner called after me, his voice muffled.

  “Roger will find out about this if I do,” I pointed out, waving toward the archaeology.

  “I’ll have to tell him anyway. I just wanted to get a little digging in by ourselves. In a couple of hours, the rest of the crew will be all over it. Until then . . .” He grinned.

  I saluted in acknowledgment. “Will do. Roger and Paul can just focus on finding archaeology in their part of the cellar until after lunch. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I trotted down the passageway and started up the steps, carefully holding the glass lantern, mentally rehearsing what I was going to say to Daria. The door loomed at the top of the stairs. I gave it a hearty shove.

  It didn’t move.

  “Well, of course you’re stuck. That just figures.” I set down the lamp and shoved at the door with both hands.

  It still didn’t move.

  I sighed a sigh of the martyred, and threw my full weight against the door.

  Nothing happened other than my shoulder protested the action.

  “Great, now I have to go down and get Gunner, and he shouldn’t be walking up and down stairs on his owie foot. I just hope you’re happy,” I told the door, giving it another shove.

  I stomped back down the stairs to Gunner.

  He looked up, surprised that I was back so quickly. “Change your mind?”

  “No. The door is stuck. Can you work your manly magic on it so that I can get us coffee and Daria and chairs and more lights?”

  He frowned, but followed me back to the door.

  Ten minutes later, I started to panic. “What do you mean it’s go
ing to take more than you to get it open? You opened it less than half an hour ago! Why can’t you open it now?”

  “Because I was on the other side of it then, pulling the door toward me. Now I’m on the top of a narrow stair, and I can’t get a running start to throw myself on it. And even if I could, I wouldn’t, since I’d likely fall and break several more bones.” Gunner was silent a moment, rubbing his shoulder where he’d repeatedly attempted to force the door open. “I’m afraid we’re stuck here until someone notices we’re gone.”

  I stared at him in horror. “You have got to be kidding!”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not.” He tried his cell phone again, shaking his head. “Still not connecting even though it shows it sees the network. Do you have a mobile phone?”

  “Not one that is set up to work in England. Maybe if you get right next to the door, you can get the walkie-talkie to work?”

  “I’ll try.” He sat on the top step and spoke into the radio, but there was no reply.

  “Well, that’s it,” I said dramatically, taking a lamp and marching down the stairs. “We’re doomed.”

  “Careful,” he warned, following me at a slower pace. “Those steps are uneven. You could fall and hurt yourself.”

  “What does it matter? We’re going to die down here anyway! I’d rather have a swift death due to a plummet down ancient steps than I would a slow, lingering death where I sit in the dark and wonder if I should try to eat your corpse, or use it to catch rats and eat them.”

  “What makes you think I am going to be the one to die first?” He limped past me back to the part of the passageway where the stone ruins jutted out of the earth. “I’ve got more body mass than you, so if we’re going to starve to death, then logically you will be the one to go first, and I’ll have to decide whether to eat your legs first or go for your arms.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself, and sank less than gracefully down onto a bit of stone wall. “Oh, I like that! You wouldn’t even have a dilemma about whether or not you should eat me over the rats, where I’d be in all sorts of mental hell trying to justify cannibalizing you. Well, fine. If you want to be that way, then I won’t even consider the rats—I’ll just start in on you. Happy now?”

  “Not very, no, but it’s not because of your desire to eat me.”

  I glanced sharply at him, but there wasn’t even the least little bit of a leer about him. That made me sad, and oddly irritated. “If you’re going to have that attitude, then you’re going to be lucky if I wait until you’re dead before I start chomping on you.”

  He surveyed the area for a few minutes, then gave a half shrug, got down onto his butt, and with a brush and a trowel, started working at the nearest stretch of archaeology. “I wouldn’t eat your legs unless you were almost dead and were paralyzed.”

  I gasped. “Oh my god, do you mean you’d seriously eat me while I was still alive?”

  “You just said you’d do the same to me.”

  “I said you’d be lucky if I waited!” I threw a clod of dirt at him. “I never said I’d actually do it. My god, you’re a monster—do you know that? You’re just a cannibalizing monster!”

  “How is it being a monster to save myself by eating you when you’d be paralyzed and near death?” he asked, brushing the dirt off his leg. (My aim sucks.) “It’s not like you’d feel it. You probably wouldn’t even know if I waited until you drifted into a coma.”

  “I am speechless with appallingness,” I said, heedless of grammar, and stood up. “So speechless that I’m going to leave you to your horrible, foul thoughts, and take my very nonparalyzed legs and try to find a way out of this hellhole.”

  “Bolt-hole,” he corrected, and, other than raising an eyebrow at me, didn’t say anything more when I shuffled my way past him with one of the lamps.

  Ten minutes later, I admitted defeat.

  “Back so soon?” he asked, looking up.

  “I had to come back.” I held out the lamp. “It ran out of oil.”

  “Ah. Yes, that was bound to happen. Luckily, this one seems to be all right.”

  “Gunner,” I said, and slumped down next to him. “Hold me.”

  He set down the tools he was still using. “Are you still angry with me?”

  “No. I can’t do anything about the fact that you don’t have the moral compass to leave my legs alone even if I wasn’t dead yet. We’re trapped in here, Gunner, really trapped. There’s nothing farther down the passage but a big wall of nothing.”

  He nodded. “That would be the cave-in that my father mentioned when Elliott and I were little. There is no more to the bolt-hole.”

  I scooted over so that he could put his arms around me properly, and leaned into him, breathing in the now slightly musty scent of him. “What are we going to do? I wasn’t serious about eating you, you know. But I don’t want to die down here.”

  “You won’t,” he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice that did much to ease the panic that had been steadily growing inside me.

  “You don’t know that for certain.” I swallowed back a lump of what was most likely tears waiting to be shed. “I don’t see how we’re going to get out of here. No one knows to even look for us here. Why aren’t you doing something?”

  “I am doing something. I’m holding the most desirable woman in the world.”

  “Yes, you are, if by that you consider that your world is limited to this passageway, but that also means I’m the only desirable woman in the world, so I’m not too ecstatic over the title.”

  He chuckled into my hair, then slid a finger beneath my chin and tipped my head upward so that his lips brushed mine when he spoke. “If I told you that at this moment, the only thing concerning me is whether or not I’m going to be able to keep my hands off you, would you think I was sex-obsessed?”

  “No, but that’s only because I’ve been trying all morning not to slide my hands under your shirt.”

  “Why would you stop an urge like that?” He kissed me before I could answer, his mouth warm and wonderful, and so exciting that it almost made me forget that we were more or less buried in a tomb beneath the castle.

  I swear that every nerve in my body was alight at that moment. I simultaneously didn’t want the kiss to end and wanted to fling Gunner to the ground, strip off his clothes, and rub myself all over him.

  “Lorina?” He ran his thumb over my lip.

  I quivered like a plucked bowstring. “Hmm?”

  “If you want to put your hands under my shirt, you can. I’d even take it off for you, if you like. My shirt, not your hands. Evidently I’ve lost the ability to grammar.”

  “I think that’s just my mouth being infectious,” I told him, and started to reach for his chest. I stopped when my brain finally recovered enough from the kiss to remind me of several things.

  His eyes narrowed on me. “What are you doing? You’re thinking, aren’t you? I can see you are. You were about to torment my chest again, and then you thought of something, and stopped. Stop thinking. There’s no reason you shouldn’t touch my chest. And, for that matter, any other part of me that happens to tempt you. There’s nothing to stop you, is there?”

  I sat on my hands. “You know, there are times when I really wish I could stop thinking. But unfortunately, my brain is annoying and it picks weird moments to remind me of things, and it just reminded me of something important.”

  He was silent a moment. “Something to do with Thompson?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s this secret you have, isn’t it? The plan you mentioned this morning.”

  Me and my big mouth. “That’s right.”

  “And that’s related to why you are pretending to be a photographer?”

  “Boy, you don’t forget anything, do you? Elephants could take memory lessons from you. Yes, Mr. Third Degree, it’s all part and parcel of that.”
r />   “Do you fancy him?”

  I shuddered.

  “I thought not. Then, why—no. I take that back. I don’t want to know why.”

  Now, that surprised me. “You don’t?”

  “Not in the least. No, I tell a lie—I do want to know, but at this moment, in this place, I don’t care. So long as you aren’t interested in Thompson in a romantic way, then I can wait for you to be comfortable with telling me.”

  And at that, my heart did a little flip-flop. “I don’t want to sleep with him. I wouldn’t do that, even if I did want to. He’s . . .” I bit my lip, so tempted to tell him the truth that it almost poured out of me. Something held me back, though. The doubting side of my mind pointed out that I had known Gunner for only a few days, and had no idea how he would view my plan. If he thought I was immoral . . . I gave a mental shake of my head. I didn’t want to have to address that unless I absolutely had to. “He’s not exactly what he seems.”

  “Who among us is?” He rubbed his thumb across my lower lip again. I nipped his finger. “I’m not saying I’m not curious as hell, but if it matters this much to you, then consider the subject closed.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my conscience yelling at me for not trusting him.

  You trust him enough to snog the tongue right out of his head; how can you desire a man if you don’t trust him?

  It’s not my secret to share! I yelled back at her. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to look like an asshat.

  My conscience didn’t answer that, but she gave me a long, knowing look that made me feel even worse.

  “So, shall we have sex?”

  I goggled at him for a few seconds before I realized he was teasing me. And then it struck me that he wasn’t teasing at all. “I—we’re in a passageway, Gunner!”

  “Oddly enough, I’m aware of that.” He smiled at me, and my legs quivered, as did several other, more intimate parts of me. “But you fancy me, and I sure as hell want you, and we appear to have some time to kill, so why not?”

  “I didn’t say I fancied you,” I said, tipping my chin upward, but that was just a little pride talking. That and Dr. Anderson’s insistence that I set the terms of my involvement in any relationship.