Seduce Me (5 page)

The man meant it. Even without clear lighting she could see the coldness behind his steely blue eyes.

Waters, while obviously still a menace, was clearly no match intellectually for a woman of her ilk. Facing him alone, she’d
easily be able to outsmart him—if not overpower him. Thatcher, on the other hand, had the look of a man fueled by malicious
intelligence and ambition. He was by far the more threatening of the two.

She said nothing more for a long while as the men counted and recounted their steps.

“This is the spot,” Thatcher said. “Dig.”

They set down their lanterns and picked up shovels.

This whole ordeal was growing stranger by the moment. Perhaps she really was having some sort of bizarre dream. She’d been
reading at her desk, and she’d simply fallen asleep and was still sitting in her uncomfortable chair in her little study.
She couldn’t very well pinch herself because of the current positioning of her arms. So she did the next best thing—she bit
down on her bottom lip.

Damnation!

Not dreaming.

Of course she hadn’t been dreaming. A dream couldn’t be quite this painful. She’d never held her arms above her head for this
length of time, and now she knew why. Her shoulders felt as if she were literally holding up the wall, and her muscles burned
and cramped.

Another rat chirped and sniffed at her feet and she kicked out again, vaulting this one off to the right. “I still do not
understand what I am doing here,” she told her captors.

The men paid her no mind, so she instead turned her energy to thinking of ways she could get herself out of this mess. Perhaps
if she pretended to have a fit of the vapors, they would come to revive her and she could—

Could do what? Talk them to death?

“What are you digging for?” she asked.

“Pan—,” Waters began, but before he got the word out, Thatcher clipped his shoulder with the shovel. Waters yelped in pain,
jumping out of the way.

“Dig more. Talk less,” Thatcher growled.

Esme’s heart thundered. Could it be? What else started with “pan”?

Pantaloons. Pantomimes. Well, they couldn’t possibly be digging for either of those.

Pandora’s box. Here in England. Perhaps the story was true. She’d read about a sixth-century Saxon warlord who supposedly
purchased the box for his new bride, and then they settled somewhere north of Cornwall. The bride had opened the box and brought
destruction on the entire village until a priest stole the box and escaped with it.

It had always been a favorite theory of Esme’s, but she’d never imagined she’d be present when it was found.

“Who told you Pandora’s box was here?” she asked. “Is it that Raven person you mentioned earlier?”

“Our employer is none of your concern,” Thatcher said, not bothering to look up from his digging. “Suffice it to say if he
says the box is here, it’s here.”

The key! That’s what they’d meant back at her house. They were looking for
her
key. Or rather, her pendant. Her father had given it to her only as a frivolity, a small token he’d picked up in a shop in
Greece. He’d known she’d enjoy the fact that it had been advertised as the key to Pandora’s box.

But how would anyone know of her pendant? She’d told very few about the necklace or that lately her research had led her to
believe that it might, in fact, be authentic. There were the two scholars she corresponded with, but they were mild-mannered,
academic types. She knew they would never work with villains such as these. Aunt Thea knew, but she’d always believed it to
be nothing more than a trinket.

Who else? Esme scoured her mind for some clue. Her sister knew, but they didn’t even speak. Oh, and about three months ago
there had been that man at the library. He’d been passing by, had somehow seen her pendant, and stopped to inquire about the
origin. He’d seemed harmless, but perhaps she’d been fooled. She could feel the slender chain resting against her neck now,
the gold pendant resting lightly against her chest.

Clearly, they fully expected that if they did find the box, she would use her key to open it. But that would never happen.
She was no fool. All she needed to do was convince them the key was back at her house. They’d have to take her back to London;
then, at least, she wouldn’t die out here, a place no one would even begin to think to look for her. She could always demand
they take her to this Raven person—anything to stay alive.

Perhaps if she deterred them now, they’d stop digging altogether. It was unlikely, but she could try.

“You’ll never find it here,” she said.

“Maybe she’s right,” Waters said.

“She is but a woman. What does she know?”

She gasped, momentarily forgetting the danger in her indignation. “I know a great deal more than you! That’s for certain.
Why, I—” But she swallowed her words. Her intellect was her greatest weapon against these men. No need to flaunt it before
them.

Thatcher eyed her for a moment before continuing. “The Raven said we would find it here. So we will dig until we do.”

It had been a silly plan, but she knew she had to keep her wits about her. If there was ever a time she needed her mind, it
was now.

Esme scavenged her memory for any reading she might have done on an ancient monastery in connection with the box. She couldn’t
find any. Whomever these men worked for must have had resources completely different from her own.

The theory that Pandora’s box was in Britain indicated it was much farther west than they were now. And they hadn’t driven
long enough to have hit a western coastline.

“I’ve found something,” Waters yelled. He jammed his shovel back into the hole, and a great hollow thud sounded around them.

Esme’s stomach lurched. Pandora’s box, here in the same room. Well, same dungeon—or whatever this space was intended to be.

Thatcher moved over next to Waters, and they both began digging furiously. They must not have been far above the water table,
because the ground quickly became saturated as they dug. Mud caked onto their hands and arms and flew against their clothing.
Thatcher fell to his knees and put both arms in the hole up to his shoulders. For several minutes he sloshed mud and scooped
it behind him, ever increasing the depth of the hole. Finally he pulled back what looked to be a square object dripping with
mud.

“Bring that other lantern over here,” Thatcher growled.

Waters ran to fetch the light, and together they bent over their discovery.

Esme strained her neck as best she could, trying to catch a glimpse of what they’d uncovered. Her heart thundered wildly,
and she longed to run toward them and see what it was. Damn these manacles.

Whatever it was appeared to be wrapped in something, perhaps cloth of some sort, several layers of it too. Finally, when they
had a pile of discarded fabric, Thatcher held it up to the lantern, inadvertently giving her a nearly perfect view. It was,
most definitely, a box. About the size of a cigar box, yet not quite as ornamental, at least it appeared as such from what
she could make out beneath all the dripping mud.

“Is that it?” Waters asked, his voice lined with disappointment.

“Let me see it closer,” Esme pleaded, hoping they’d forget she was a prisoner and bring the box over to her. She itched to
see what from her position looked to be engravings. How could she be this close and not be able to see it, touch it? She’d
waited so long. It was far crueler to be denied a glance than it was to hang from this monastery wall.

“I don’t think so,” Thatcher said, turning toward her. “Now, about that key.”

F
ielding had followed the sound of voices all the way to the innermost part of the ruins. The Raven’s men had a woman with
them, and she was quite the talker. He’d managed to find a ledge where he’d situated himself to see how many he was up against.
Peering over, he wished they had a bit more lighting below.

“I will give you no such thing,” a woman’s voice said.

Where was the woman? He spied Waters standing in the middle of the room, and Thatcher looked to be walking directly toward
Fielding. He crouched farther down to make certain he wasn’t seen, then peered back over the edge. There, chained to the wall,
was the woman, wearing nothing but a flimsy night rail. Since when were the Raven’s men in the habit of abducting women? Evidently
his uncle wanted this artifact badly.

Well, this certainly complicated matters. It would have been nice had Jensen and his Solomon’s friends warned Fielding about
the possibility of having to rescue a woman in addition to the box.

Of course he had no obligation to save her. She hadn’t been part of his original agreement.

“Where is it?” Thatcher asked, his voice coming from between tightly clenched teeth.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“The key to open this bloody thing.” He held up the box in question.

“Let me see the box closely; it might jar my memory,” the woman said.

“I know you have it. The Raven said the Worthington woman had the key. That’s you, ain’t it?”

There was a long pause before she answered, as if she’d been considering a lie. “Yes, that’s me, but I don’t have any keys
with me. If you take me back to London, though, I’ll be happy to retrieve all the keys I own for you to dig through.”

Worthington. That was the name of the scholar on Mr. Nichols’s list. Fielding again peered over the ledge. He’d imagined an
old matronly figure with grayed hair and a shapeless body, her nose firmly implanted in a book. Not the slip of a woman below
him. Even in the dim light, he could see her tantalizing breasts under the night rail.

Fielding wondered if the men of Solomon’s knew about this supposed key. And if they did, why hadn’t they warned him? There’d
been nothing about a key in the notes they’d given him either. Bastards probably didn’t share all their information with the
hired help.

“Get your filthy hands off me, you beast,” she said.

Thatcher was indeed putting his hands on her, searching her for some sort of key, from the looks of it. Although why he thought
the woman could hide anything beneath her almost transparent nightgown, Fielding didn’t know. He rolled his eyes. He’d never
liked Thatcher, always felt the man took pride in being as vile and contemptuous as possible.

“What do we have here?” Thatcher asked. “That’s an unusual pendant.” He pulled his hand back, yanking the necklace free, and
stepped away from the woman.

“That is nothing,” she protested. “A frivolous gift from my father is all. It’s not even real gold; I believe it’s made of
painted steel. It will probably rust in another month or so.”

All Fielding could see was a slight glimmer against the lantern light. A bit of jewelry perhaps. So she
had
been hiding something.

“We’ll see about that. Waters, get over here. And hold that light still.”

“You have no idea what sort of trouble you could be in for,” the woman warned. “That box is quite likely very dangerous. And
I’d wager that your employer is paying you to retrieve it, not open it.”

She was a smart one, Fielding would give her that. However, her common sense was sorely lacking. It was she who didn’t realize
the danger she was in.

While he’d never known Waters to harm a woman, Thatcher was the kind of man who took what he wanted regardless of what the
implications might be.

“Look there,” Waters said. “See that notch? It looks just like her trinket.”

“Go ahead,” she said loudly. “Open the box. All that lies within the walls of that box are evils. Death, destruction, pestilence.
The plagues of Egypt. The ruination of humankind. Go ahead,” she said again. “Unleash terrors upon yourself, it matters not
to me. But I cannot watch.”

She sounded remarkably like Mr. Nichols. Fielding shook his head. He’d never understand adults who believed in such fairy
tales.

“Perhaps she’s right,” Waters warned, his voice wavering with nerves. “The Raven did ask us to get the box, steal her key,
and bring them back to him.”

“You wouldn’t want to disobey your employer’s instructions,” she said.

“We won’t know if her key is the correct one,” Thatcher ground out, “unless we try it.”

“But she had all those books in her library. All of them were about this box. She knows something,” Waters said.

“That’s right,” she agreed. “My library is extensive.” The last word came out in a yawn. “I might be a woman, but I know of
what I speak.”

“Your incessant chatter is grating on my nerves.” Thatcher hitched up his pistol and hit the woman hard on the head. “I said
shut up!”

Fielding gritted his teeth as if he had been the one struck. The woman’s head dropped and her body went slack, dangling from
the manacles that affixed her to the wall.

Thatcher dropped the necklace into his pocket and walked away from the woman. “We’ll wait in here for first light, then we’ll
take her to the Raven and he can decide what to do with her. Waters, build a fire over there.”