Sebastian stepped onto and over the first large block.
Antonia raised her skirts and shifted her feet, trying to work out how to follow; the block was sizeable, and her legs weren’t as long as Sebastian’s.
He turned, saw her difficulty, and offered his hand.
Hiding a grin, she placed her fingers in his and felt a sharp jolt of sensation—and more, of recognition of a sort—as his hand closed about hers. She tensed to step up onto the block—
A furtive rustling reached her ears, and she froze.
Eyes widening, she glanced at Sebastian. His hold on her hand had tightened as he’d readied to pull her onto the block; he’d heard the noise, too, and his grip hadn’t eased.
He held up his other hand, gesturing her to silence.
They both glanced around, straining their ears.
The noise came again. This time, they both placed it—outside and close to the chapel’s rear wall.
Was someone following them—perhaps spying on them?
She turned back to the front archway as Sebastian stepped silently back over the block and joined her. With him still holding her hand, she leaned into him and whispered, “Could it be rats?” She hated all rodents.
He bent his head and breathed in her ear, “Rats look for food—there’s no food here.”
So it might be a person.
They crept back under the archway. She stuck close to Sebastian’s side—and he seemed in no hurry to release her hand—as he led the way, stealthily stalking around the outside of the chapel’s ancient walls.
For a large man, he moved silently, but she knew he hunted in Scotland with his cousins and was considered an expert deerstalker. She was a fair hand at stealthy creeping herself. They made very little sound as they steadily progressed along the side wall.
Sebastian slowed even more as they neared the rear corner. Even with his senses open wide, he couldn’t detect any hint of another person, yet there was something there—hunkered at the rear of the chapel.
Carefully, he released Antonia’s hand.
Tensed to react, to defend against any attack, he stepped past the corner and looked.
A vixen stood over the entrance to a den and bared her teeth at him.
In stepping forward, he’d left a gap between him and the wall. Antonia filled it, leaning forward to look—startling the fox.
Sebastian swore. Without taking his eyes from the now-snarling and darting fox, he put out a hand and pushed Antonia back.
Entirely unintentionally, his hand pressed fully over one firm breast.
The jolt that racked him almost made his eyes cross and nearly made him forget the fox.
Still, his action had the desired effect—Antonia uttered a strangled squeak and leapt back.
His eyes still locked on the fox, he waved his now-burning palm, signaling Antonia to retreat, and for once, she obeyed without argument, although he heard her mutter something.
Smoothly, he stepped back. He continued to watch the fox as, step by step, he steadily retreated; the farther he went, the more the vixen stood down.
He wished he could say the same of his own anatomy. But the sensation of firm, distinctly feminine flesh pressing into his palm…more than anything else, the recognition that it had been Antonia’s flesh had been galvanizing. His now-empty palm itched. A large part of his awareness had followed Antonia, utterly diverted.
When he’d retreated halfway along the chapel’s side, he turned and strode the rest of the way to the front of the ruins.
Antonia was standing outside the chapel’s entrance. Arms crossed, she’d been staring toward the path that had brought them there.
The instant he appeared, she turned her gaze on him, meeting his eyes with a steely, stormy warning, as if daring him to comment on their recent contact.
He clamped down ruthlessly on the ridiculously dangerous impulse to ignore that warning.
When, with an assiduously impassive expression in place, he held her gaze steadily, halted beside her, and said nothing at all, she lowered her arms and waved into the chapel. “If we’re checking cellars and hidden storerooms, then in a chapel of this age, there’s likely to be a crypt.”
He glanced through the archway. “A ruined chapel most likely with a crypt in an area rife with smuggling. Yes, we need to check.”
“In a chapel of this size, the entrance to any crypt is likely to be somewhere around the altar.”
He walked back under the archway, climbed over the first block, then turned and offered her his hand—exactly as if the entire incident with the fox hadn’t occurred.
She cast him one swift, assessing glance, then she took his hand and allowed him to steady her over and around the blocks. As they progressed up the aisle, the sensation of her delicate fingers in his grip was another little prick to his libido, but by dint of telling that side of himself that the right time would come soon enough, he managed to keep a reasonable focus on what they were supposed to be doing.