Page 13 of A Scandal In July
Her lips parted as she sucked in a breath, and he quashed the almost overwhelming urge to kiss her.
“Passion?” Her lips curved up at the corners and her gaze held his. “Really? How interesting.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she wanted him to demonstrate said passion, but instead he turned his head and broke the sizzling contact between them.
Patience.
“I’ve never come at it from this direction before,” he said easily, brushing past her and into the clearing. “I’ve always ridden over here from Trellech.” He cocked his head and listened. “Doesn’t sound as if anyone else is here. We might be the first.”
The curved stone wall that protected the well was scarcely knee-high, but Rhys descended the set of shallow steps about six feet down into the earth and stepped into the tiny stone-flagged ‘courtyard’, open to the sky. The well itself was housed in a small, arched enclave at one end, surrounded by a lip of flat stones.
“Local tradition has it that if you toss a coin, or some other metal offering, into the water, your wish will come true.” Lenore said, following him down.
“Mightcome true,” Rhys corrected. “That’s what Carys told me, anyway. She said if the bubbles that form on the object rise quickly, then the wish will be granted with equal speed. If they’re slow to rise, the wish will take longer to come true. And if thereare no bubbles at all, your wish won’t be granted. Nothing’s guaranteed.”
Lenore thrust her hand into a side slit in her skirts and rummaged around in the pocket beneath. She pulled out a bent hairpin. “Might as well try my luck.”
She stepped to his side and tossed it into the waters with a splash, and they both leaned forward to watch it sink to the bottom. The shaft was very deep—fed by an underground system of caves that his older brother Gryff had stumbled upon one day with Maddie, Lenore’s cousin—but it was so clear that it was easy to see the rapid stream of bubbles coming off the bent metal as it sank.
Lenore gave a pleased little hum.
“Whatever you wished for, it’s going to come true very soon,” he said.
She sent him an enigmatic smile. “Oh, I certainly hope so. It’s something I’ve been wanting for almost a year now. I’m getting rather impatient.”
Chapter Seven
Lenore was delighted to see the bubbles rising from her hairpin as it sank. She’d wished for Rhys to kiss her, and even though she put little faith in superstition, there was no denying the tingle of excitement at the possibility that it might actually happen soon.
There was no sign of a flag, however, and she climbed back up the narrow steps and back into the clearing, hotly aware of Rhys following her, his head level with her bottom.
“We should check the cave entrance, too. Just in case the flag’s been hidden in there.” She strode over to another, far newer, set of steps in a hollow of the valley just beyond the well.
Her cousin Maddie had accidentally discovered an enormous underground cave system here only a few years ago, which in turn had led to the discovery of a rich seam of gold. Since ownership of this particular section of land was shared equally between the Davies and the Montgomerys, both families had profited from the unexpected windfall.
“Maddie took us to see the mine a few days ago,” Lenore said. “It was fascinating. Our ancestors would be shocked to the core to find Davies and Montgomerys working together in a joint collaboration.”
Rhys grinned. “I like to think we’ve finally evolved. Although it’s taken a few hundred years. We both come from families who are particularly resistant to change. Wait, watch your step.”
He reached out and took her hand to help her down the stairs, and her fingers tingled at the contact.
In truth, the steps were perfectly safe. Gryff had ordered them to be built to allow easy access to the tunnel system, to replace the steep pile of rubble that had been created when Maddie had fallen through the roof of the cave. But Lenore was glad of the excuse to touch Rhys again.
The light faded as they reached the bottom, and a cool blast of air riffled the hairs at her nape. She reluctantly dropped Rhys’s hand.
He pointed to one of the lanterns that had been left by the entrance. “Want to go and explore?”
The cavern extended for some distance, some sections leading all the way to the coast, but Lenore shook her head. “No, although I don’t mind caves. We explored an enormous one in Brazil, once. The only thing I didn’t like was the bats. Or rather, the smell of the bat droppings.” She wrinkled her nose in memory. “I can’t tell you how vile it was.”
“I can imagine,” Rhys chuckled. “Probably as bad as the smell of a regiment of sweaty, unwashed men and their equally sweaty horses, after weeks traipsing around Portugal.”
Lenore nodded, struck by the fact that they had much in common. They’d both suffered hardships and difficult situations abroad.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate being able to have a bath whenever the mood takes me,” Rhys said lightly. “It makes up for all the times I dreamed of having one when I couldn’t. I promised myself that if I made it back from the war, I’d never take something so wonderful for granted ever again.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I used to fantasize about Gunter’s ices when we were shipwrecked. I’d imagine entire six-course dinners, the most comfortable feather bed with silk sheets and velvet covers. All the things I couldn’t have.”
Including him.