He wrapped his arms tight around her waist and lifted her from the broken bike. As soon as her feet hit the ground she pushed away, but he was ready and held on. She sighed, almost admitting defeat. After a few seconds, her forehead fell into his chest. She needed him. He could feel it in the way the muscles in her back softened in his arms.
He kissed the top of her head, ignoring his yearning to kiss her lips. Her body shivered as her arms circled his waist, and she hugged him close. Nothing had ever fit his body so perfectly. Nobody had ever fit his body so perfectly. She’d have a hard time getting rid of him. She needed a guardian angel, and he’d just appointed himself to the task.
“It’s late, and you look exhausted. I can help you. Trust me.”
The beautiful enigma, who had crashed his party and his life, lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “I don’t need Margaret Mead, Henry. I need an intrepid warrior with an underground lair.”
He escorted her to his car. “Does the lair have to be underground?”
Chapter Seven
Henry, still dressed in his tuxedo, struggled to place his old bike in the car. He’d managed to fit it in, but the entire backseat was now covered in mud. Her clothes matched the car’s drenched and filthy interior. She clenched her teeth, trying to ignore his humming along to Bach’s Violin Concerto movement in D major. Cold, wet, clammy, and covered in goose bumps, her body felt as uncomfortable as her ears.
He’d provided her with a blue wool blanket before driving back toward the house. Her body warmed, and the exhaustion from her failed escape weighed her down. The loud music allowed her to avoid speaking to him.
She didn’t want anything to do with him. His presence, however, relaxed her. She stared out the window through the darkness at fields and an occasional farmhouse, her eyelids becoming heavy. A blue highway sign caught her attention. She sucked in her breath.
What the hell?
“Henry?”
“Yes.” He stared ahead at the road.
She tried to keep her voice calm. “Where are we going?”
“To my house.”
“We’re north of Oxford. Are we taking the long route?”
Still looking ahead, he responded, “Not that house. My house in Ripon.”
“Ripon?”
“It’s north of York. Remember the women’s shelter I told you about?”
He still wanted to help her, even after she’d stolen his bike and messed up his evening? The thought lingered for a second and then evaporated. Everyone had motivations for their actions. She needed to learn Henry’s. Even if he was helping her for purely altruistic reasons, she couldn’t risk his safety or the safety of the other women at the shelter. Luc’s brand of evil made Satan seem like a Tibetan monk.
Her eyes closed again, and she allowed herself the luxury of a light sleep.
When she awoke, the sun was trying to burst through the thick gray clouds. Henry turned the car off the main highway and onto a smaller rural lane. Fog covered the ground and cast a gloomy undercurrent across this otherwise peaceful location. She imagined flocks of sheep and herds of cows grazing in pastures around them, and perhaps a traitor to the queen strung up and left for the buzzards as a warning to the rest of the local village.
Henry continued to look straight ahead. Was he taking her directly to the shelter? The idea that he had more power over her life than she did made her uncomfortable. She needed to get her head together and plan her next move.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes as she pondered her next step. She could hop a train for the Lake District and disappear. It would cost less from Ripon than from Oxford.
“I think I can manage on my own now. If you’ll drop me off at the nearest train station…”
Henry yawned. His hair had curled after its soaking in the rain and fell over his temples in darker waves, giving him the appearance of a sexy playboy after a night on the town.
Damn, he looked amazing.
“Too late. We’re home. You might as well enjoy a warm meal and have some rest in a real bed.” He glanced toward her with a grin.
A person in control of another’s destiny. Not if she could help it. She couldn’t hand the reins over to him, no matter how much she desired assistance. Matt had died trying to be her hero. Hiding from Luc needed to be an individual sport.
A stone wall came into view in front of them. Henry drove under the huge stone archway in the center of the wall and continued over a drawbridge. Alex, who was never shocked, was shocked. She sat up, returning her feet to the floor. A medieval castle rose out of the steaming earth in front of them. Not the largest one Alex had ever seen, but not the smallest, either. She counted four turrets visible in the light and small glass windows in each of them. The condition of the building was extraordinary, as if they’d driven the Jaguar back seven hundred years into the past. He drove into the back and turned into the garage.
“Home?” she asked. “You live in a castle?”
“I like to think of this as home. Yes.” He hopped out, remarkably agile for a person who had driven over three hours nonstop, and came around to open her door. His bow tie still sat perfectly straight at his neck. Alex, with her hair sticking to her scalp and her outfit wrinkled and damp, pulled her sneakers back on and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
He started toward the castle’s side door, but stopped and looked back to where she had planted herself. “Coming?”
“I need my backpack. Feminine stuff. I could go into detail, but I don’t want to bore you about the storage and use of tampons.”
Henry, grinning as though this kind of talk amused him, returned to her side. “You’d be surprised at what interests me and Margaret Mead.” He opened the trunk, held the bag in his hand for a few seconds, and then tossed it to her. “That’s a lot of tampons. Expecting a shortage?”
“A girl should always be prepared.” She hitched it over her shoulder and followed him into the house.