He sent her a furious glare. “Hilarious. I’ll remember this. Next time you really need my help, don’t be surprised if I ignore you completely.”
She chuckled. Annoying him was so much fun.
He pointed to a rock. “Sit down and don’t move until I come back. And don’t touchanything.”
She gave him a jaunty, mocking salute and waited exactly thirty seconds for him to stomp off into the bushes before she went exploring on her own.
This area had clearly once been cultivated. Rows of gnarled trees stood on stepped terraces, now dismally overgrown. Heloise clambered over a broken stone wall and stooped to gather some nuts scattered on the ground. The velvety outer layer was a surprise, but the hard-pitted nut inside she recognized from her mother’s Christmas table. Almonds.
A sudden pang of homesickness stole her breath, sharply followed by guilt. The smell of pine resin reminded her of the turpentine Maman used for thinning her oil paints. Had her parents heard about her disappearance yet? Were they worried for her?
Raven glowered at her when she returned to the clearing but said nothing as she shook the almonds from the pouch she’d made in the front of her shirt. He extracted a hunk of bread, some sweaty cheese, and a bottle of wine from his saddlebag and selected a rock next to her.
He’d been foraging, too. A stone nearby held a handful of figs, like dark purple teardrops, and another shiny, red fruit, which looked like an apple with a tiny crown growing on the top.
“A pomegranate,” he said, noting the direction of her gaze. “Ever had one?”
She shook her head.
“Another new experience to add to your list, then.”
He cut it with his knife and revealed a mass of glistening red seeds. Heloise swallowed as he divided it in two and offered half to her. The gesture seemed oddly symbolic. He looked as tempting and irresistible as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Would she be entering into some kind of devilish pact if she accepted it?
Raven frowned at her hesitation. “Come on. It’s not like you’ll be stuck with me for eternity if you eat some.”
She glanced up in shock at how closely he’d mirrored her thoughts. “You mean like Persephone?”
“I vaguely remember something about her having to stay with wicked old Hades in the Underworld because she ate a pomegranate.”
Heloise took the fruit and adopted her best schoolmistress tone. “Yes. When Hades kidnapped Persephone, Demeter—her mother—demanded her back. They couldn’t come to an agreement so they asked Zeus to intervene and he decreed that Persephone would be allowed to leave the Underworld, provided she hadn’t eaten any food of the dead. But she’d already eaten six pomegranate seeds, so she had to split her time between the Underworld and the earth above, six months in each.”
Raven was uncomfortably close. The front of his shirt hung open in a deep V that revealed the hard line of his collarbone, the cords of his neck. A wave of heat that had nothing to do with the sun burned through her.
Concentrate on the fruit.
She teased a few of the seeds out with her fingernail and brought them to her mouth. Juice, sweet and tart, spurted onto her tongue and she licked her lip as a trickle escaped. She glanced at Raven to see if he’d noticed her unladylike lapse and realized his attention was fixed on her mouth. The intense way he was watching her robbed the air from her lungs.
Oh, goodness.
“You know, some scholars have suggested that the fruit Eve offered to Adam was more likely to be a pomegranate than an apple.” Blood rushed to her face. Why on earth had she mentioned that? “Others believe it was a persimmon. Or even a tomato.”
A tomato?A tomato?She should dash her head against the nearest rock. Why wouldn’t her mouth stop working? Why didn’t the ground just open up and swallow her whole? She was fluent in five different languages, but in Raven’s presence she could barely string a coherent sentence together.
Heloise cleared her throat and busied herself with cracking open the almonds. She selected a large, flat stone and settled it between her legs as an anvil. With a second, smaller rock, she attacked the nuts. She pretended they were his head.
Raven, thankfully, stalked away to check on the horses, offering a fine view of his wide shoulders, slim hips, and tight derriere. Heloise missed the almond, hit her finger, and cursed under her breath.
For years she’d tried to fall in love with someone else, prayed to meet someone whoreturnedher feelings. But the blasted Fates seemed to be determined to ignore her. Raven was the only one who’d do.
He was truly the most obnoxious, irritating man she’d ever met. She was a sensible, educated, enlightened woman. The fact that she still found him attractive, against all logical reasons to the contrary, was extremely vexing.
It was the stress of the situation. Too little sleep and too much excitement was enough to muddle anyone’s brain. Even one as ordered as hers.
Chapter 15
Heloise heard the river before she saw it; a rushing, gurgling sound that increased in volume as they rode toward it. She dismounted, dropped to her haunches to hide the fact that her legs had given way, and pretended she’d meant to test the water all along. It was crystal clear straight off the mountains; she scooped up a handful and drank greedily, gasping as the coolness soothed her parched throat.
She eyed the fast-moving torrent with a leaden sense of dread. “We can’t cross here.”