O'Roarke's Destiny (Cornish Rogues Book 1)

by Shehanne Moore

  “Well then, how about we remedy that?”

  “Because I—"

  “Don’t really come with Doom Bar Hall, is that it?” He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Think very carefully before you reply. You angered me, yes, with your talk of Rose and Chancery and everything you said about them. About me.”

  “Everything I said was the-–"

  “Because these things would make anyone angry. But if you seriously think I’m going to insult either of us, by saying, because you are so grief stricken for Ennis, you’ve given up on life, when seriously I have to ask myself if I cursed you for nothing, you can think again, as I know some part of you would prefer. Just as I also know you are grief-stricken but the real you wouldn’t want me to know, because the real you would rather die than admit to such things.” Now, that ignited some small spark in her taut body. “So, how about you lower your tightening shoulders and answer straight? As for you touching me?” He lifted his head. “In many ways I am dead already I have been for months. So there’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done. And don’t tell me a woman like you hasn’t thought about it.”

  Her eyes glazed. “Oh,please don’t flatter yourself I’m quite that bad that I would wish you de—“

  “Thought about this? You, me, now, tonight.”

  "I--"

  The tremble was something else, which was good when the last thing he wanted was her knowing he was doing his damned best not to quake in his own boots now he’d gone and landed himself in a situation he’d never intended being in. No wonder his heart hammered and he felt he'd immersed himself in iced water.

  “I mean, you’re cursed. And yes, I’m to blame. Even if you hadn’t felt anything for Ennis, don’t tell me loneliness would be your master. That you wouldn’t desire someone to break that curse. Because, let’s face it, who’s going to?”

  Her throat tightened beneath his fingertips.

  Doom Bar Hall. Doom Bar Hall. He felt it in the faint tremble that lay on her skin like shimmering water, the sole reason she did this. But really so long as by morning he could kick whatever sandcastles he built here down, what the hell did it matter? And he would. There would be no repeat of the Eirwin situation.

  Or were, it would be nice to break that curse, the words that didn’t escape her. Was Doom Bar Hall what she reminded herself of here because of the things she couldn’t let go of.

  She shrugged. “Very well. If you say so.”

  How gracious. And yet? The winged brows, her eyes, dangerously smouldering as pointed stars? Set so far back in her head, how did he rescue them? No wonder Nick Trengouse had nearly killed himself over her. She was totally unfathomable, and, despite everything, no longer what she was then but so much more. Delicious in fact.

  Hell’s teeth. Kicking his sandcastles down, remember?

  Him, losing his mind wasn’t on the table here. She could even put the blue dress on. A woman battling herself like this deserved to.

  He knew that as he cupped her chin, bent his head, pressed his mouth to hers, felt her lips open slowly beneath his. And then get hotter, darker, deeper. Not Eirwin, not Eirwin, not Eirwin. But then, he wasn’t Ennis. He knew that too as he pulled her soft body against his.

  What waited in the dark when the only escape now was to look a complete damned fool by walking out?

  He’d cursed her.

  For nothing if what she said was true.

  He was as damned to walking out as he was to staying.

  But staying was all he could do now.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Now, despite the fact that last night you were that far towards drowning in your cups, you refused, I want you to tell me something.”

  Despite the fact she never ate breakfast, Destiny set two cups of sweet, hot, chocolate coffee and herself down at the table. Where else but in the trembling cold, dining room? Some might say they were without servants, it was doubtful Orwell had noticed the fact, although he did raise his head and stare at her, as best he could anyway given that staring and staring straight were two different things where he was concerned.

  “Know? Old girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about?”

  “What do you think?”

  Of course the chances were Orwell had probably forgotten he’d been in the corridor last night, let alone that he’d accosted her, probably forgotten who she was for that matter. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Well?”

  The slurp set her teeth on edge. Even if she had served his coffee in an old stone cup she’d found in the kitchen as opposed to the mazarine blue, the least Orwell could do was swallow the contents without sounding like a hippo had its snout in the cup, was drinking through it too. Why had their father wasted good money on an education for him when the only thing he’d ever learned was how to drink? Not exactly winning any prizes for doing it quietly at that. Having satisfied himself he’d slurped enough for one morning, he set the cup down carefully on the saucer.

  “I’m sorry old girl, the fact is I can’t.”

  “You mean the fact is you can’t remember.”

  “It’s not that. It’s that you are assuming … You are assuming I heard any—”

  The door swung open. Late autumnal sunlight shafted across the table bathing the cup in gold. There was only one of two people it could be since the only other occupants of Doom Bar Hall were seated at the table. Although she struggled to do it, she lifted her gaze. Naturally the Fates, desiring to continue their campaign of spitting in her face--did they think it needed washing, or something--and then demanding she rise again, decreed that of these two, it should be the one she least wanted to face after last night—this morning rather when he’d taken his clothes and left as if she didn’t exist.

  Her shoulders stiffened, the breath tightening in the pit of her ribcage. And yet she must face him. Wiping spittle from her chin was nothing she wasn’t accustomed to, after all.

  Her heart skipping the tiniest beat in her shrinking ribcage though? A certain part of her tightening too? Well, last night had been interesting. But when she was still Ennis’s? Task one was to forget last night. Yes. Seriously. Her body’s response too.

  What was it she’d thought the night she decided on this, after all? She could surely manage a few ecstatic moans where required. And she had.

  That was all there was to it.

  The things he’d said before a curtain came down on what happened next? About her being lonely? The kind of woman who was obviously desperate for certain things? Well, people could all make mistakes at times. She intended mopping up this one.

  She raised her chin. “Divers … I thought you’d gone out.”

  “Destiny, Orwell.” He headed straight to the table. A spoon and a bowl of something he’d obviously made for himself, clinked and clunked as he set both down, eased into the chair opposite. “Is there something you want to ask me this fine morning?”

  “Me?” Destiny’s scalp shrunk. Task one? She willed her heart back down her ribcage. Even if he had overheard her, he was hardly going to give her anything, now was he? “Well, I don’t exactly presume to speak for Orwell here, of course. Despite everything he can string sufficient words together to form a sentence but I, personally, can’t even begin to imagine why you’d ask.”

  “Because I overheard you.”

  “Really? Well, of course. But in this instance I fear you are hard of hearing. In this instance Orwell and I—”

  “Oh, my ears are in good order. At least last night they were.”

  Or he wouldn’t lift his spoon to his mouth like that, his eyes cutting like a comet in her path and then, with casual deliberation and the merest flicker of amusement, swallow whatever was in that bowl.

  “So? What do you want to know?”

  “Know?" Apart from the fact she wasn't going to rise to this? "Apart from the fact it’s plain as the nose on your face that not only--"

  “My nose isn’t plain
.”

  “Well, that’s debatable. But, in this instance, I’m sorry to disillusion you, I am afraid—"

  “You? That’s a first.”

  “--not only did you—“

  “I’m a smuggler.” The silver spoon clinked as Divers O’Roarke skirted it around the gold-rimmed circumference of the bowl. “Is that what you’re trying so hard to find out you're asking Orwell there?"

  There was no denying the quiet blanket that fell on the room, on her veins and heartbeat, the fact her coffee cup would have clattered into her saucer, were her head not so panned in already.

  And yet, why would he tell her that? Because it was another bluff? What she’d been trying to find out yesterday?

  “Wouldn’t that be interesting? You know, I should never have guessed. And a wrecker too, no doubt?”

  “Yes, actually. As Orwell will tell you. Or he would if he remembered, except he was probably so drunk when he heard it, he’s clean forgotten, that he heard it and also that it’s what’s being said in Penvellyn about me.”

  “As it is being said about half the county, old chap.” Orwell shrugged. “I wouldn’t pay it any heed.”

  “You can believe what you choose. Why do you think I wanted that name?”

  She cleared her throat. “What name?”

  “Now then Destiny, while there’s some things you may forget, that name’s not one of them. Tom Berryman.”

  Her scalp shrunk further. Shrunk so it clung to her skull, in fact. That he was telling the truth about being a smuggler was wishful thinking. She certainly wasn’t going to win first place in the right load of old cobblers competition by running to that exciseman about it, although some might say, it was very tempting. Not given the way the fates spat in her face. Queued around the house at that. Last night being a case in point. Not when that man might not even be an exciseman.

  “Because you needed something to give that man. Surely?”

  The chair couldn’t be scraped back—obviously--so he rose to his feet without scraping it. He threw the spoon down on the table where it shone in the sliver of golden light, fixed her with his calmest stare as he pushed his thumb into his waistcoat pocket.

  “No. Because I want to speak to Berryman, that’s why. So I lied to you. And you fell straight into the trap. So, let me tell you that and spare you the business of going sneaking behind my back to Orwell there, or anyone else. Everything I appear to do is a front. A front for what I really do. Do you honestly think that designing houses and gardens pays that well?”

  “Well, now you come to mention it, if I thought it did--”

  “Well, it doesn’t. What you choose to do with the knowledge is of course up to you given you want Doom Bar Hall. Now, if you will excuse me, I do have matters to attend to.”

  ***

  “Destiny, old girl. I say, old girl, come back. Stop it! Where the blazes do you think you’re going?”

  “Where do you think?” She tightened her flapping cloak about her, feeling the crashing waves surging hundreds of feet beneath her, the wind tearing the breath from her body and the hair up from her head, as she battled on. Excuse Divers O’Roarke? Over her dead body now.

  “But Tom Berryman’s cottage isn’t this way.”

  "That old fool’s cottage? I hope you think I’d go there."

  “Then—”

  “Where? Well, if you were sober you might know

  what happened yesterday, apart from you soaking up more gin and brandy than a wad of blotting paper and berating me for being in his bed.”

  “Tom Berryman? You were in Tom Berryman’s—”

  “Oh don’t be ridiculous. The sky would fall first and topple all the rainbows.” She only wished it had. And knocked her out. Then last night wouldn’t have happened. “Credit me with some taste. And don’t pretend you don’t know whose bed I’m talking about.”

  “But I don’t. I only thought … ”

  “You? Think?” She smothered the tears of laughter scalding her throat. “That’s a first, I must say. Plainly you don’t think or you wouldn’t think I’d be in that old grandfather’s bed. No. A man came to the hall yesterday. I think he is the Cleanser.”

  “The who?”

  “The Cleanser. Someone Tom Berryman seemed terrified of. Too terrified to move that stash.”

  “Stash?”

  “Yes. Stash. I didn’t tell you because you’d have drunk it. So anyway, this man arrived and he arrested me. Yes. But Divers O’Roarke? Well, he took my place. Why do you think he did that? So he could have Tom Berryman’s name from me and not content with that—no, when has he ever been content with anything—he came to my room, after trying to throw me out the house, along with Grandfather Austell’s parrots.”

  “Steady on, Destiny.” Orwell adjusted his hat—the solitary sign he was sober--in the tearing gale. “Are you saying that he brought Grandfather Austell’s … ”

  “No. He didn’t bring anything. Are you just not listening to a single word I’m saying?”

  She swallowed the gust of wind tearing down her throat. What was she saying exactly? That, after she’d said her piece about the dress, the man had as good as begged her to take him to hell, that this wine-dark, consuming passion had so gripped her senses and his, even now the thought of it, was enough for her to feel his hands, his mouth, on her body, underneath that dress? That she’d struggled for a few minutes when she opened her eyes this morning, to remember Ennis’s? His scent. His touch. And she needed to remember. He was her life. Even if he was dead.

  But it wasn’t just that. If it was just that, the ground wouldn’t be crumbling beneath her black boots, trickling to its death in the crashing waves. It was the tiny pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel she’d seen in that second. A light that said she was living again. She'd felt alive. When she couldn't.

  She wasn’t living again. She’d never be living again. Not given what living did to you.

  So why not blab what she now knew? To Touse. Before Divers O’Roarke wanted more, before he looked at her as if he knew her pain? When he damn well didn't. Said things about being dead. Even if he had let her keep the dress on in that second she’d felt like a scarecrow without it, which was really saying something when she hadn’t wanted to wear it at all? Could he read minds, this man who was certainly very good at certain things, whose body—God, how had he come by that? And how could she have let it do what it had to her?

  No. Her ability to turn people into dust had vanished. She was the one who was crumbling. So really, she couldn’t rely on that and she couldn’t get back into bed with him either. Not even to avenge Ennis, or get back Doom Bar Hall. Why should she? She intended mopping up this one, remember? Not thinking terrible thoughts. Like it was Ennis’ fault she was in this mess. Like she was living.

  Although the wind gusted Orwell’s words across the waving bracken, she heard them clearly enough.

  "I say, old girl, do you want me to call him out?”

  “And shoot what? The sky? A tree trunk? Your foot? No, what I want you to do is go back to Doom Bar Hall. Keep him occupied till I go and see Touse about this man, this Cleanser, or whoever he is, because one thing I do know is a set up when I see one. And I'm seeing one now, between him and Divers O'Roarke. Oh yes, I've joined the dots all right."

  “But what if Divers O’Roarke finds you’ve turned him in? What the blazes am I meant to say if he asks where you are? For God’s sake, you can’t do this.”

  “I think you’ll find I can do this and more. And so long as he's taken away you need say nothing. Just tell him what you have to, offer him a drink, do whatever if he asks for me. Just don’t spoil this for me. For us. This is our chance, perhaps our only one to take back Doom Bar Hall. Whatever he says he won’t give it back. Don’t you see?"

  “But what if he will? Hang it all, I lost Doom Bar Hall.”

  “Goodness, finally you noticed. Still, if we take it back I just might be able to forgive you, so long as you don’t lose it again.”
/>
  “But look here, have you thought—”

  She drew an ocean sprayed breath, eyed him squarely. “More than you have lately, I do assure you. Now go back. Go on.”

  “But Destiny, you mean that you’re willing to betray a man you—well—you—"

  “Slept with? Oh, say the words and be done. Like everyone else has probably said around here--slept with to avenge that poor sod of a husband. Let me say it first and save you the trouble. Slept with and--”

  “Did that, knowing you could just turn him to dust? Hang it all, it’s anything you touch, isn’t it, old girl? And it seems the best way with a beggar like him, is to do just that. Touch him and--"

  “If it were that easy, you, like Chancery, would have blown your brains out, long ago. Go back now, Orwell. Last night is not for discussion. Certainly not with you. In fact I can’t think of anyone it is suitable for discussion with.”

  Well, she could, but it was too late now.

  “For God’s sake, what if this is a trap? Do you hear me? I mean, ask yourself why the hell he’d tell you he was a smuggler, unless … unless he wants you to go to Touse?"

  “Why would he do that? And even if he did, it’s a chance I’m happy to take to be rid of him. Do you understand? He told me to do what I wanted with the knowledge, in order to get back Doom Bar Hall. This is what I’m doing.”

  “Destiny.”

  She hurried on. Yes she had offered herself with the house. But she couldn’t, which was really saying something. Tom Berryman had quaked in his boots at the thought of the Cleanser. It would be nothing to how Divers O’Roarke would follow once that same Cleanser found out he’d been betrayed.

  And she was just the one to do it. A problem shared was a problem halved, after all. Surely? And, if ever one needed halved it was this one.

  ***

  “So? She took this bait then?”

  Once he’d have died to possess her, now he just might if the snap of Lyon’s telescope, the brass one, that was Lyon’s pride and joy, was anything to go by. When he shouldn't have possessed her too. Had Lyon hit him over the head with the telescope he couldn't have felt more stunned--by his ability to keep his expression bland and utter that immortal word, bait.