The gap widened and Cory’s face appeared, lit from beneath by the lantern. It was dirty, creased with worry, his hair tumbled across his brow.

‘Rae-another few moments only…’

There was an ominous rumble of sound from below, then a swirl of water swept across Rachel’s feet. The steady thud of the spade filled the tomb above.

‘Cory! The water is coming through!’

‘Hold on, Rae.’ Cory’s voice was a little out of breath but remarkably calm. ‘I am nearly there. Pass me the lantern-’

What happened next was quick and confusing. As Rachel held the lantern up there was a grating roar and the back wall gave way. In the lantern light, Rachel saw the little shelf appear to slip and slide sideways, revealing a large cavity beyond. It was full of wooden brandy casks. In the lamplight they appeared ghostly white with cobwebs clinging like glue. They were tumbled on the floor and stacked against the wall. A few were broken and the jagged wooden edges showed in the light.

Rachel stared, transfixed. Then icy water swept up to her waist and clinging mud dragged on her skirts. Cory was pulling her through the gap, but the whole roof was coming down and it threatened to take him with it. Rachel scrambled to safety and turned desperately to see Cory fighting for his footing as the ground gave way beneath him. With a superhuman effort she caught his flailing arm and pulled so hard she was afraid she would dislocate his shoulder. They rolled over, Cory dragging Rachel beneath him, his body arched over hers for protection and her cheek against his chest. They fell over and over in a tumble of limbs and brackish water, finally to lie still.

Rachel uncurled herself slowly. Her hands were spread against Cory’s chest and she could feel the beat of his heart, slowing now to its normal pace. Her mouth and nose were buried against the wet material of his jacket. She could feel the rain still falling in sheets, running down her face, but she lay still, clinging to Cory as though she never wanted to let him go.

‘Rachel?’ Cory shifted, his mouth pressing against her temple.

‘I am all right,’ Rachel said. She reluctantly moved a little away. ‘You?’

Cory nodded.

‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, her voice breaking a little. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’

Cory smiled. ‘Any time, Rae. And thank you. I rather think I would have been washed away by now without you.’

Rachel raised a hand and rubbed it against his lean cheek. ‘You have mud on your face…’

They stared at each other for a second and then Cory’s arms went around her again. Their lips met in a tingle of rainswept cold, and it was heaven, and then Cory had crushed her close and Rachel gasped in pleasure against his mouth. They could have been standing at the gates of hell itself and neither of them would have paid the slightest notice.

Eventually Rachel freed herself from Cory’s embrace slightly, grabbing his arm again as her knees threatened to give way. ‘Come inside the house,’ she said. ‘Quickly, before we are both drowned.’

Clasping the lantern, and staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they wended their way towards the house. Though it was barely four o’clock the sky was completely dark and heavy with unshed rain and the house had a shuttered, quiet air that felt very different from the atmosphere of suppressed tension between them. It seemed to Cory that Rachel was burning up like a torch with the relief and the release of tension. There was high colour along her cheekbones and a hectic sparkle in her eyes. All the passion and excitement that he had known was latent within her was awake and burning and it was demanding a response from him.

‘You should get out of your wet clothes and take a hot bath,’ he said, trying to control the most inappropriate images of lust and desire that tormented him. ‘I will heat you some water and fetch you a drink-’

He got no further. Rachel put a hand around the back of his head and pulled it down, touching her lips to his. Cory gasped. He felt her tongue slide along his lower lip, a little hesitant, seductively innocent. He grabbed her and kissed her back with no half-measures.

Five minutes later they were both panting, but Cory still held on to his self-control. His body was burning up with need but there were a thousand and one reasons why to take Rachel to bed now was the worst idea in the whole world.

‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘we must stop this. You will only regret it later.’

Rachel placed her hand against his chest. ‘I think not. I love you, Cory. You saved my life today.’

Cory closed his eyes in an agony of denial. ‘Please, Rae-there is no need for you to express your gratitude in this particular way.’

‘Don’t joke,’ Rachel whispered. ‘Not now.’

Once again she placed her arms about his neck and drew his head down to hers, pressing the whole length of her body against his. Cory shook with suppressed passion. He knew that this was in part a natural reaction to the release from death and the need to celebrate that escape by celebrating life. The same force that drove Rachel possessed him too. When he thought that he might lose her his entire being had cried out against it. Rachel had been a part of his life for so long that he could not bear to lose her now. Not now, not ever.

She was kissing him again, teasing his lips with hers, driving him to wildness. The scent of her hair and her skin sent sanity spinning from his mind.

‘Rae,’ he said, ‘if we do not stop this now, then you will end in my bed-or rather, I shall end in yours.’

Rachel eased back and looked into his face. ‘It is the second door on the left upstairs,’ she whispered.

Cory looked down at her, his eyes blazing. Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs, sending the bedroom door crashing open and kicking it shut behind them.

Their clothes were sodden but quickly shed. Cory ripped off his jacket and shirt whilst Rachel knelt behind him on the bed, nipping his collarbone, nibbling his earlobe and pressing her lips to the soft skin of his neck. He could scarce believe that this was Rachel, the prim young lady who had spoken of passion as though it were an unwanted encumbrance in life. And when he turned to her, maddened by her caresses, she giggled and pulled him down with her into the billows of the big four-poster bed. She made a soft sound and rubbed against him, their bodies separated now by nothing other than her soaked chemise and his pantaloons. She ran her hands over his bare chest and back, arching against him and exulting in the contact.

Cory freed himself sufficiently to find the fastenings of her chemise, but the saturated material failed to co-operate.

‘Tear it,’ Rachel said. Then, when he stared, she set her hands to the material and simply pulled it apart. It separated with a ripping sound and Rachel wriggled out of it. Her shoulders were pink and stung with cold. Before Cory’s fascinated gaze she dropped the scrap of material over the side of the bed to lie discarded on the floor. If he had not seen the shaking of her fingers, Cory would have thought her completely composed as she half-sat, half-lay before him in her nakedness.

It was just like his most fevered imaginings, only more so. Her breasts were big, but they were high and round with small, pink nipples already tight from cold. Her stomach was flat and her legs long and lissom. Cory’s body felt so rigid that he thought he must explode there and then. He reached instinctively for her, saw the tiniest hint of anxiety in her face, and remembered in a rush that she was a virgin.

He forced himself to patience, wrapping his arms about her and holding her close. He ran his fingers very lightly over the skin of her back and upper arms, feeling her shiver under his touch. He brushed his hands over the rounded softness of her buttocks and the sweet curve of her breasts, sucking her nipples and licking the pulse at the base of her throat. He heard her make a small mewing sound of pleasure. Rachel’s eyes were closed now, her head thrown back, her eyelashes dark against the pink-staining of her cheeks, and her breath coming in little gasps. Cory lowered his head to her breast, and slid his hand gently up the silken softness of Rachel’s inner thigh. She moaned and her legs parted for him, and he touched her tentatively, feeling her body tense against his fingers. She opened her eyes. They were drowned with passion and they smiled at him.

‘Are you not going to take off your trousers?’ she asked.

It was agony to leave her even for a moment, but Cory followed her example, ripping the pantaloons and casting them aside on the floor before pressing the full, hard length of his naked body against hers.

She shifted her body to accommodate his, soft and willing, and Cory brought his lips back to hers, kissing her deeply, possessively.

‘I love you, Rachel…’ It was true. He felt a huge exultation sweep through him. Rachel was here in his arms, just as she was always meant to be, and she was his, only his, now and always.

Rachel made a little sound of pure pleasure and pulled him to her, and Cory grasped her hips, easing himself gently inside her. She was hot and tight, and within a few seconds he had forgotten all about gentleness, and had caught her fiercely to him thrusting powerfully, until he was swiftly overcome. Through the explosion of rapture he felt like groaning. This was not what he had intended for Rachel, this callow selfishness. He had been overwhelmed by his need for her and the frustration of abstinence. And now Rachel would be severely disappointed.

He could see by the small frown on her face that she was dissatisfied. He rolled away from her and propped himself on an elbow, kissing her brow, stroking the soft skin of her shoulder.

‘Sweetheart, I am so sorry…I could not help myself…’