My Reckless Surrender

“I don’t care. It’s dead. I hate this place. It’s full of dead things.”

“Children!” a woman said in a distinctly Scottish accent. “Stop your squabbling.”

“Kate’s just a silly girl,” the boy said.

For all her nervousness, Diana was inclined to agree. She sidled closer to Ashcroft’s big, powerful body. Stupid to think he could save her. Stupid to trust him. Nonetheless, she couldn’t help herself.

“I am not,” the girl said in a sulky voice.

“Are too,” the boy predictably responded.

“Children, I promised your mother we’d look at the Roman galleries. If you’re good, we’ll stop for a cake on the way home.”

“I want to see the mummy,” the boy whined.

“Next time, Andrew. The wee mummy will be there tomorrow. It’s not going anywhere.”

The voices faded as they left. Diana released the breath she’d held for what felt like forever and subsided into Ashcroft in blessed relief. Her heart raced so fast, she felt giddy. His arms tightened in what she foolishly read as comfort and security.

Poor, brainless Diana.

“They’ve gone,” Laura said softly from the other side of the sarcophagus.

Ashcroft released Diana with a reluctance she recognized because she shared it. He stepped away from the coffin and bowed to her friend. “Miss Smith.”

“You’d better find your aunt,” Diana whispered, straightening.

He leaned down to feather a kiss across her lips. Laura’s presence didn’t seem to bother him at all. “I’ll be there at six.”

“I’ll see you then.”

She tried to hide her dazed response to the touch of his mouth. Surely, this overwhelming physical reaction would fade. Surely, it was the result of too many celibate years. She refused to believe her reactions stemmed from the fact that Ashcroft drew her more powerfully than any man she’d ever met.

That same carping voice in her mind scoffed at her sophistries.

He paused before he left and sent her a straight look. “No more games?”

He worried she wouldn’t show up, that she teased him. She wished she could blame her behavior on a cause as frivolous as teasing. Instead of something that felt like life or death.

If this afternoon taught her anything, it was that she was helplessly snared in the net of attraction. She wished she’d never started this cruel deception. She wished she was at home helping her father run Cranston Abbey.

It was too late.

Even without Burnley’s ultimatum ringing in her ears, she’d go to Ashcroft tonight. For one reason only. Because she couldn’t stay away.

“No more games,” she said softly and wished to heaven she told the truth.

Chapter Fifteen

I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Diana jerked with surprise when Ashcroft spoke from the shadows, and he felt an unworthy pleasure in his fleeting advantage. He flicked away his half-smoked cigar and slid off the marble Roman altar buried in Perry’s dark shrubbery. Around him leaves rustled in the erratic night breeze.

“I said I would.” She sounded on edge, almost hostile.

The passionate woman who yielded to his kiss behind an Egyptian coffin had regrouped her defenses. No matter. She was as attracted to him as he was to her. That gave him weaponry to demolish any barricades.

He suspected she knew it. Which explained her prickliness.