Dare (39 page)

The first time Cara Langford had found herself stuck had come late last afternoon. She had been driving home from Hartford to New Haven, taking the backroads to avoid holiday traffic, when the wheels of her car decided to stop churning the mud on a seemingly abandoned stretch of road.

              It was her second summer coming home from Trinity College, and she thought she had traveling all figured out. What she
hadn't
accounted for was a rash of summer storms washing out every means by which she had planned on getting home.

              She exited her car, and as soon as she did, it started to rain. She pulled a windbreaker out of the backseat and stretched it over her head, stooping to assess the damage, even as the downpour threatened to drive her into the ground. All four wheels were sunk; what's worse, the back right looked more deflated than usual.

              She managed to salvage a discarded piece of board she found submerged in the ditch and prop it beneath her back tire. Another attempt at accelerating out of the mud had only splattered the side of her car with black mud. The rain certainly wasn't helping matters. By the time Cara decided to abandon ship, she was soaked to the bone and shivering. Her phone was dead, and she had no idea where she was. She was in dire need of help.

              The stranded woman looked around. Through the sheeting rain, she thought she spotted an estate on a hill maybe a half mile from the road. She trudged toward it, pulling her windbreaker closed around her until all but her vision was obscured.

              By the time she arrived at the gate, she looked more like a frightening apparition who had drowned along the road and haunted it ever since than a student seeking help. Her chin-length blond hair was streaming water, her mascara was running, and her jaw was jumping with cold—she knew all this because she could see herself in the monitor posted at the gate. She pressed the button beneath the screen to buzz up to the house. She didn't have long to wait.

              The gate swung open.

#

She was greeted at the entrance to the mansion by two individuals: a stuffy-looking older man, and a harried-looking woman. She was given no time to introduce herself or her situation before she was ushered in out of the rain by the latter.

              "Come in! Come into the foyer! I've brought towels down from the upstairs," the woman urged her. Cara found a stack of freshly laundered towels thrust toward her, and quickly shed her windbreaker so that she could take one and wrap it snugly about herself.

              "My car broke down," she explained through chattering teeth. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but I didn't see any other houses around."

              "I'm afraid we're the only residence for miles," the woman said gravely. "It's a lucky thing you broke down when you did. Can I get you some coffee? Some hot tea?" She motioned to the elderly gentleman without awaiting Cara's answer; the man bowed stiffly and disappeared, presumably to start the preparation of both. Cara wanted to reject any offer of further hospitality, but her body craved heat more than her brain craved ceremony. She nodded gratefully.

              "I'm sorry again. I promise I won't be long. I was wondering if I could use your phone?"

              The woman showed her down the hall, and didn't seem to mind that Cara trailed water behind her on the expensive-looking runner. Come to think of it,
everything
looked expensive—the ceiling vaulted up to a grand old height, and a single chandelier hung suspended from the rafters, although she could see that it was cobwebbed and undusted. And that was only the main
hallway.
She suddenly couldn't remember how large it had looked from the outside, and felt grateful for her ignorance. She had clearly wandered into more wealth than she had ever known in her life, and doubtless
would
ever know.

              And she was now more certain than ever that the woman who led her didn't own the estate. While she clearly had a comfortable relationship with the house, she led Cara like the latter were part of a museum tour group, and she the guide. There was a landline posted toward the back of the hallway; Cara nodded gratefully, but caught the woman with a word before she could escape.

              "I'm Cara. Thank you so much again. You've really saved me."

              "I'm Melinda." The woman smiled, and pleasant lines fanned around her eyes. "I'll be back in five minutes with something more to warm you. Please call me if you need anything before then."

              Cara nodded gratefully. As soon as she was alone, she fumbled for her wallet with numb fingers and extracted her insurance card. She dialed several numbers before she managed to reach anyone.

              The forecast wasn't good—literally. The male voice on the other end informed her that they wouldn't be able to reach her for another day at least. She would have to overnight at a hotel until a tow could get to her.

              Cara ground her teeth and tried to remain calm. She could feel the strain manifesting in her expression, and she heard it in her voice in the next instant. "I'm just borrowing this phone, actually. There
are
no hotels where I am."

              The man didn't know what to tell her, other than to stay dry and appeal to the sympathy of complete strangers.

              Cara stood frozen in the hallway with the receiver still pressed to her ear long after the other line had gone dead. She was just summoning her scattered thoughts to decide what to do, when she thought she heard the distant
click
of another headset being hung up.

              What the hell? Had someone else been listening in on her conversation?

#

"So you see, you aren't any trouble to us at all," Melinda informed her. "The master has already given his permission for you to stay here, and I've already sent the servants down to collect your things from the car. We aren't lacking for spare bedrooms, as you can probably tell." Melinda chuckled and brought her own tea to her lips. Cara's cold hands tightened around her mug of coffee. They were seated together on the steps of the stairs; she was still cloaked in the bath towel, but unwilling to trespass any further into the house for the time being. Melinda seemed unfazed by her decision to remain in the foyer.

              "The master?" Cara repeated in disbelief. "You mean the homeowner?"

              "The very same. He's a very private man, but he has a good heart. He sympathizes with your situation and would not have it any other way. Please, you must allow us to host you for as long as it takes."

              "It won't take long," Cara assured her quickly. "They might even be able to send someone by today." Both women glanced out the tall windows at the apocalyptic rain outside. Within minutes of her saying as much, the scattered-marbles sound of hail could be heard bouncing on the roof. Cara sank back into the towel. Melina patted her shoulder warmly.

              "Come. I'll show you where you'll be staying."

              Cara's room was on the second floor, and it almost defied description. After living on campus for two years, an adjoining bathroom was already a heavenly concept to the young woman—but the sheer size of the quarters with which she was presented dwarfed almost an entire story of her dorm room. When Cara attempted to back out of it into the hallway, Melinda pushed her fondly from behind.

              "Now, I've already asked the servants to draw you up a bath. Rest assured that you'll be allowed complete privacy. You must feel free to treat this room as your own for the time being, Miss…?"

              "Cara really is fine," Cara stressed.

              "Miss Cara," Melinda insisted. "I'll have the servants bring your things up for you while you're washing up. I'll have dinner brought up for you as well."

              Cara's immediate instinct was to ask after the master—she wanted to properly thank the man who had invited her into his home. At least, she assumed he was a man. Weren't female masters 'mistresses'…? But by the time she could think to get the vocabulary right, Melinda had vanished back into the labyrinth of the mansion's hallways. Cara realized too late that without the woman around to guide her, she stood little chance of finding her way around on her own.

              She closed the bathroom door and locked it immediately behind her; then, she peeled her wet clothes off and dropped them on the floor. She was in and out of the bath in less than five minutes—while she would have liked to languish, she was too aware of the fact that she was in somebody else's home to feel comfortable being naked for long. If someone could listen in on her phone conversation, might someone also be able to spy on her as well?

              Maybe she was just being paranoid. When she exited the bathroom with a fresh towel wrapped securely about herself, she found her luggage waiting for her on the bed, and a steaming meal waiting for her on the table. She got dressed and tucked into her dinner; it was easy to eat with gusto when the food was
that
delicious. It was so good she imagined a five-star chef must have prepared it—but whose chef, and why was he here, and not running an expensive restaurant?

              Twenty minutes later, and she had resigned herself to the fact that her mysterious benefactor would not be making an appearance.

He made an appearance the next morning. Cara knew him at once, the same way she had known that Melinda was not the owner of the estate.

              She had woken early and was sitting by the window, gazing out across acres and acres of land, when she saw him. He was a tall figure, with broad shoulders—his posture appeared slightly sunken beneath the camel cardigan he wore. The sky outside her window was light, and yesterday's rain had evidently retreated for the moment.

              Cara watched the figure disappear quietly up the hill. Then, she slid from the window seat and quit her borrowed bedroom.

              She was able to navigate the house easier than she’d thought. By the time she had rediscovered the landing, she already had a plan in mind: she would follow the stranger to satisfy her curiosity, perhaps to introduce herself and properly thank him if he seemed approachable—then she would return to her car and try to start it again. If all went well, she would be out of everyone's hair by the time Melinda and the other servants awoke.

              Cara borrowed a spare pair of galoshes from the vast hallway closet and pulled them on. They were much too large for her; she almost felt like a kid again, trying on her father's shoes for fun. She followed the man's own boot prints out onto the property and up toward the hill, confident in her plan to express her thanks and hit the road.

              She hadn't expected to end up in the arms of a stranger.

#

"I'm going to need you to climb onto my back," the Englishman was saying. Cara tightened her hold on his neck and pressed her lips firmly together; she could see him read her expression in a glance. "It's either that, or I throw you over my shoulder," he threatened. He spoke mildly, as he had before, but it only made his disregard for her own opinion on how they should proceed even more infuriating. She felt like he had already helped himself to touching every inch of her—the last thing she needed was for his hands to find the curve of her backside.

              "I don't even know you," Cara responded curtly, as if that were all that needed to be said. In the normal world, that was all that would have been required to end their conversation; unfortunately, she had never held a dialogue with someone who also happened to be holding
her.

              "If I told you my name, would that really make things more expedient?" Again, she felt the warm press of his hands; his fingers curled around her ribcage in a fan, remaining just shy of the seam of her bra. Cara didn't know how he managed it, but he really was a perfect gentleman in the way that he conducted himself—other than in how he spoke to her. The accent, and his intelligent way around words, might have fooled somebody else, but she had detected his condescension from the moment he first opened his mouth.

              "It would give me courage for the trials to come if I knew who I was dealing with," she replied.

              "That didn't stop you from putting on my shoes," he pointed out.

              "And it certainly didn't stop you from listening in on my phone conversation," she snapped. "But I'm not going to bring that up."

              "I can see that." The man had the good grace to look faintly sheepish, and Cara knew she had been right in her suspicion that he had been the one eavesdropping last night. The expression softened some of the natural arrogance of his face, making him appear almost shy, and she could clearly see the picture of a shut-in. She relaxed her own expression a little in response.

              "Please. I'd like to know your name. It's the whole reason I came out here."

              "Simon."

              The man slowly eased his hand out from underneath her until Cara found herself sliding vertically against him. She blushed at every bump and swell; she could feel every inch of him, and understood that he could probably feel the same. Their faces hovered, inches apart, as she maneuvered her slighter weight around to the side. She was too conscious of their position to wrap her legs around his waist fully, but she hiked one knee up over his hip. In a matter of seconds, Simon had managed to swing her around to his back—had she been ignorant of his strength before, there was no dismissing it now. The unassuming man appeared to be hiding a good deal of muscle beneath the frumpy sweater.

              Once she had settled on his back, Cara twined her legs around his waist; Simon's hands came up once more to hitch her into place. She dropped her burning face into his shoulder as he stepped out of his boots and continued through the mud in his socks. They were out of the mire within moments.

              Simon kept walking, ferrying her up the face of the hill he had been climbing originally. Cara wanted to protest, but she also didn't want to call any more attention to their position, so she remained silent. She could see the sun had risen almost fully over the horizon. It looked pale and fragile, as if last night's rain had extinguished some of its light.

              Simon carried her to a lone tree on the crest of the hill and deposited her on the ground. Cara took a step back, self-consciously tucking her blond hair behind one ear. He was looking at her despite the view. After a moment, she decided to return his scrutiny, narrowing her eyes against the sunrise that backlit him. Simon withdrew something from his pocket.

              "Cara Marie Langford. Born March 25th, 1995. Height: five feet, five inches. Weight: one hundred and ten pounds. About eight stone. That part doesn't sound exactly true, now, does it?"

              "Give me that!" Cara exclaimed, and all but dove at him for her driver's license. The man didn't withhold it from her, possibly to his credit—not that she was in a particular mood to give him any.

              "You left it on the mantle downstairs by the phone," he said. "I figured I couldn't let you leave without it."

              "You're right," Cara said. "I
am
leaving. Thank you
so
much for the hospitality, but I really can't intrude upon you any longer. Please give Melinda my regards." She turned to start back down the hill, when she felt a hand catch her elbow. It wasn't forceful—the pressure of his hand was gentle, almost beseeching. Her heart leapt unexpectedly at the contact.

              "I'm sorry, Miss Langford. Please stay a moment."

              Cara turned dubiously, and Simon released her. She allowed her gaze to climb him, taking in the full image of a man who had clearly spent a good deal of time alone. He reminded her most of his mansion: classically handsome, but in a transient state of disrepair. Then again, maybe what was going on with the man was more than transient. She had no way of knowing how long he had resided there alone, or how long it might be before someone else came along to knock on his gate.

              "I really meant it. I really meant to thank you," she mentioned after a moment. "I thought I was going to be stranded out in the storm all night. When I saw your gate…"

              "I first laid eyes on you through the security camera," Simon admitted. "I couldn't leave you out there."

             
That
was unfortunate.

              "Oh." Cara laughed, remembering her sad, bedraggled appearance in the monitor. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to frighten anyone. I must have looked barely human."

              "I can assure you no one was frightened, Miss Langford," Simon said. "It was the opposite, really."

              Silence descended between them as Cara mulled this information over. What was the opposite of frightened? Simon looked embarrassed, and she thought she had her answer.

Now it was her turn to feel embarrassed.

              "Do you really live out here all by yourself?" she asked in an attempt to change the conversation. The man's hands eased back into the pockets of his slouching sweater. Cara tried not to remember the
other
places they had been that morning, but her body felt warm just thinking about them, in areas specific to where they had touched her.

              "Not by myself," he said. Cara gazed up at him a moment, before crossing her arms across her chest in disbelief. "The servants keep me company," he continued. "Melinda is a good woman. Very entertaining. Gerald, the butler, is more of an acquired taste. The others and I get along well enough."

              "Do you know their names?" Cara asked him. Simon scratched the back of his scalp and glanced off.

              "They're seasonal," he said.

              "I see."

              "As you have probably guessed by now, Miss Langford, you are the first outsider to have been allowed onto my estate for quite some time. I would be honored if you would join me for breakfast before you go." The invitation was formal, a bit stiff, but Cara thought she could see the faint sheen of desperation in his eyes. It was gone again in a moment, replaced by confidence in what he clearly thought was already a confirmed acceptance of his invitation.

              Cara assessed him for a long moment. She couldn't decide whether she found him pompous and annoying, or infinitely intriguing. There was a disparity to his character that she had never before encountered in another person—it was as if his naturally arrogant nature was vying for control over something hopelessly disassembled and insecure. He seemed even more mysterious to her now than he had been the night previous, when his presence was nothing more than the phantom click of a receiver on the other line.

              "I'll need to call my family," she mentioned.

              "Of course."

              "I'd prefer it if you didn't eavesdrop this time."

              "You have my word as a gentleman." Simon gazed at her expectantly, but Cara found she couldn't argue with his self-assessment—he really did seem faintly aristocratic. She believed that he wouldn't overstep the bounds of her privacy again.

              They walked back down the hill together; midway down, Cara pulled her socks off. She managed to avoid the mud this time.