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"No security cans of occupation," she ht, then left "He’s been all over the grounds, but the scent is strongest there" He nodded toward the palazzo’s"You should stay here while I search"
"I should have stayed at the aparth the shadows as they approached the side of the main house Robin saw one door that hadn’t been boarded over, and started toward it
"Hey Let’s not walk directly into another trap," Chris suggested, and glanced up "I see another way in Can you give me a boost up to that second-story ?"
"I can toss you through it," he said, eyeing the boards covering it "But I fear your head isn’t that hard"
"Just liftone of the scarves tied around her hips and wrapping it around her right hand "I’ll do the rest"
Robin lifted her to sit on his shoulders, and then walked over to stand directly under thebefore holding her hands so she could plant her feet Chris didn’t try to open the , but tossed the scarf up, threading the end over the botto it to create a loop
She held on to the scarf, looked at hiroaned and rained rust down on both of them as Robin eased her to her feet, but the old iron ladder came down intact
"The s on the upper floors aren’t boarded up, and the flood water never got that high, so they’re probably not warped shut," she said after she tested the steadiness of the ladder "We just have to cliht collapse, Robin stayed right behind Chris as they climbed it to the fourth floor As she predicted, thenearest the ladder remained accessible, and opened after Robin forced the lock
The enified every sound they ht-adapted vision allowed hi out at once He stood beside it first, breathed in, and listened
"He’s below us," he said "I can smell only him, no one else" Robin pulled his tunic off and draped it around her When she frowned, he added, "It will help arded his bare chest "Who is he more likely to smell first, you or me?"
"You" Robin looked down at her "But he would not expect , and may believe that whatever he smells of you comes from me"
She frowned "Why would you smell like me?"
"You leave your scent onher hand to his face and kissing her palm "After we make love I can smell you on my skin for hours"
Her expression turned wry "I seem to have the saat me that way or I shall collect more of your scent" He opened the door a o down and draw him out of the palazzo While I keep him occupied, you must find the ave hioes for you, love" He held her for a moment, and then opened the door and slipped out
Robin was surprised by howThe inside walls and flooring had been replaced, and new furnishings brought in to replace the old Nottingham could not have done it in a few days; this place ed to him before he’d fled Italy
If he’d had to flee at all Robin would not be surprised if his old eneain his territory None of the Guisbournes had ever been particularly concerned with honor
Robin tracked Nottingham’s scent down three floors to a staircase that descended down a dimly lit stone shaft Another, fresher track led from it toward the back of the palazzo
"There it is," Chris whispered,out in the open, atop a pedestal placed in the center of an octagonal recess in the floor The recess looked damnably familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it He looked up and sahat looked like a series of pulleys hanging over it, and then peered at the floor again
It was exactly the same size as the trapdoor to an oubliette
"Wait, love Don’t touch it"
Chris had already stepped down into the recess and was reaching for the book Metal shrieked, and the false foundation beneath the pedestal collapsed Chris screaht
Robin ran to the edge and saw Chris lying at the bottom of the shaft She appeared to be in so, cold hand shoved Robin over the edge
Alexandra had never thought she’d be happy to see so ees that Gabriel and Nicola had delivered from Spain revealed that none of them had been shot by their attackers
"Lady Alexandra," the footh lord requests that you attend hi outside the high lord’s chambers, and stopped in front of her They’d never been friends, she and Éliane Selvais As, the Frenchwo Kyn, but over tiradually altered into a seonistic form of mutual respect