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

by Shehanne Moore

  “Your life. At least I’ve tried to do something. I’ve tried to warn you. Just remember that when you end up dying on the end of some bullet meant for him. Because if I know, then it stands to reason I’m not alone. But maybe because you’ve slept with him, you don’t want to hear this now?”

  Dying? The words swung around her head. like the beating of an albatross’s wings. Killed a woman I was involved with.

  My God. Obviously all so his cover wouldn’t go sky high. Was that it?

  Right now, that cover was someone else.

  Her.

  ***

  “Would you mind telling me why the hell you told Destiny Rhodes I was an exciseman?”

  As Divers O’Roarke scanned the leaden sky that stretched like eternity above the rugged moorland, felt the stir of the chill breeze on his forehead, he went places deserted by angels but the alternative was worse. Besides, despite the agony in his ribs and the knowledge he’d let Destiny Rhodes past every defence going last night—worse, he was in danger of getting beneath hers, when a tombstone probably still waited--he’d met with Tom Berryman.

  Not particularly successfully. A meeting was still a meeting though. Berryman was in no doubt Divers meant business and would and could undercut him, had his ear to the ground, could hire the men to help with a little light unloading of a ship already under sail from Calais. At least Divers had said it was Calais. Lyon narrowed his hawk’s eye on a piece of browning bracken, gathered the reins of his stallion so he could sit it better.

  “Why do you think?”

  "No. you tell me. Because Destiny Rhodes isn’t just the last person in the world you should trust, if she was the last, the very last she’d still sell—”

  “Because, unlike you, I don’t have time for games.”

  Lyon’s gaze was enigmatic. Frost iced the back of Divers’ neck.

  “What games?”

  “Any you might be playing. Principally with her.”

  The thing about Lyon? You knew everything but nothing of what he was really thinking. Hand him a farthing out the goodness of your heart and he’d still need to know where both came from. The farthing and the goodness. Probably your heart too.

  To lose his cool, no matter how close to the raging seas he stood, was to lose this. The thing was to smile, calmly, shrug dismissively. Show, for once and for all he had nothing to hide. Because this job right now? He didn’t. And he wouldn't.

  “Might be playing? Oh I think you should assume that I am. We need her to play nicely. It’s something she was never exactly good at.”

  The wind whipped at Lyon’s hat and his stallion’s mane so he took a second to steady it, although his gaze remained set elsewhere. “Really?”

  “Yes. Believe you me, if anyone knows that, I do. You telling her could make it difficult, her, a potential threat. But I think you can take it as read that these games I seem to be playing are because she needs to understand there’s nowhere she can go here. She’s against the wall. And that’s the place to keep her.”

  “I see.”

  “Good.”

  “It will be when you explain to me if she’s so hard against the wall, with nowhere to go here, what’s she’s doing over there on the sea path? Unless I’m very much mistaken, that is her there, isn’t it?”

  ***

  Well, she never. Lyon himself, cantering towards her on horseback across the rough moorland. Just who Destiny was on her way to see. She smoothed the skirt and bodice of her coat, waiting as the stallion splashed through the glistening puddle a few feet from where she stood, without splattering her with mud too. And while there was a faint taste of frost in the air, it wasn't too cold. Things were looking up.

  “Miss Rhodes.” He tugged the reins.

  “Obviously.”

  It was perhaps not the most civil way to greet him but what was there to be civil about? He’d threatened her. Still she was prepared to overlook that in favor of the fact that when he heard what she had come to say, he would, if not kiss her feet exactly, at least afford her Doom Bar Hall and take her out of this sod awful situation, with that sod awful man who kept getting in the way of her life. Probably sod awful too but there it was.

  She straightened her shoulders, vital when her heart wasn’t just battering the bloody Jesus out of her ribcage--her ears too--it rivalled the waves crashing on the rocks beneath her. Then she levelled her most penetrating stare on him. After all, it was hard to sleep with a man and then betray him. But it was nothing she couldn't do now. Besides he was nowhere about.

  “I mean, I do take it that it is all right for me to leave Doom Bar Hall?” Task one? Sound civil.

  “That depends on exactly what you’re leaving it for.”

  While some might say it killed her not to take issue with his unprecedented cheek and arrogance, she allowed herself to be buried. After all, when this was done she’d be in charge. “Well, actually—”

  “Go on.”

  At least she hoped she’d be the one in charge. Actually though, how was she meant to be the one in charge now another figure strode towards her through the bracken, his face grimmer than a storm-lashed sea. A figure she really should have known would be about somewhere. Divers O’Roarke, resplendent in his grey greatcoat and black tricorn, his knee length boots flecked with mud. Her heart clenched. Her stomach too. As for her lungs? They suffocated. Was he following her? Meeting with Lyon? To do what? Compare notes on her obedience?

  Thank God she’d not said anything. Yet.

  “Good morning, Destiny, we meet again.” Divers O’Roarke scrunched to a halt. A not very pleased one at that. As if he knew what she’d come here to say and that something was not that he was going to win first prize in the nice, wonderful in bed and that she liked him competition.

  How could it be? Lyon must be as keen to catch the Cleanser as half the smugglers between here and Dover. Divers O’Roarke’s face was guiltier than every sinner in the Bible’s all rolled into one. Truth should be spoken. Shame the devil her father had always said. And by God, no bigger one existed than the one standing there in the steel grey of a leaden sky, the wind teasing the loose strands of his dark hair, his eyes like polar caps. Handsome. There was no denying he was handsome.

  She moistened her lips, offered him her coolest stare. “Indeed we do.”

  As her mother had always said, handsome was as handsome did. And now? Now she was part of it. A very dangerous part. A part that might see her end like that woman. If that meant betrayal, so damn well be it. Her Christmas garlands would look lovely in the library, after all.

  Funny how she’d forgotten about them of late, when they were amongst the most important things in her life.

  “You were going somewhere?” he said in that voice that smoked holes in her spine. Still she faced him. Cool. Blank.

  “You might say. Then again you might not. But if you must know, although how you can’t know, given this is me standing here. Well? But, yes, happens I am here and happens it’s something I have to tell this man here, I’m sure he will be most interested in.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As Divers O’Roarke set his hat on the library table, the one that now might not see the wonderful brass goblets gleaming by the firelight’s flame at Christmas, something that would only bring a tear to her eye to consider, if she’d any left to cry, Destiny knew one thing. Task one was not Doom Bar Hall. Task one was getting her hair—what there was of it anyway—to stop standing on end.

  “So?” His hat was followed by his coat which flumped into the sunken armchair by the empty fireplace with the pile of rubble on the floor. “Would you mind telling me why you lied?”

  “Me? Divers?”

  "Well, I’m certainly not meaning your grandfather’s parrots.”

  Frankly? Never mind him being that stupid he didn’t know, she wasn't about to incriminate herself further by saying, 'Well, I couldn't exactly tell Lyon you were the Cleanser, when you were sodding well standing there, now could I?’

/>   “In what way exactly?" she asked.

  He crossed to the sideboard, set out two glasses. A good, or a bad sign?

  “Just answer the question, will you?"

  Obviously it was the latter. When she was trying to get her hair to sit back down again too.

  Well, short of saying she’d gone to Lyon because she not only wanted a life--different from wanting to feel alive--what could she say though? As he stood pouring these drinks, Divers ORoarke had more confidence than a pack of lions setting about a dead deer. And she? She hadn't wanted to live since Ennis died. But obviously she did. Or she'd never have gone along that cliff path. As for discovering it when her Christmas garlands were on the table and everything? How could she? As for going back along that cliff path ..? Did that inhabit the same realm as a month of Sundays?

  “Well, I would have thought it was sort of obvious." She dropped into a chair. “After all, you did warn me the other day about crossing Lyon and after what you said about him shooting that woman--”

  "Eirwin?"

  She strove to shrug. So that was her predecessor’s name? "Right?" Provided that predecessor actually existed. “Well, you see, I thought I better seek him out and get him off me back before he went and shot--"

  "When you can't kill a corpse either?" All right so what she’d said wasn’t so clever. What had she thought about dead deers and packs of lions though? As for the way he threw his drink down his throat as if it was the most satisfying thing going? "That corpse suddenly remembers all that. Well, talking lies--"

  "Who says it was a lie?"

  “Well, the thing is I do." He refilled his glass. "Or you’d have damn well told me about Raven’s Passage the other day when I asked you.”

  “Well, I was going to but you see there were things I wanted at the time, like the ser—"

  “But you kept it for today and Lyon who I cannot seem to get it through you thick skull, is not a man to cross.”

  “As I am trying to get through yours that that’s what I was doing, trying not to cross—"

  “All fine, Destiny but I’m not talking Raven’s Passage.”

  Not Raven’s Passage? My God, even the fact he’d somehow found Great Aunt Modest’s best embossed goblets at the back of the walnut cabinet paled like a dying moon. What other lies had she told here?

  “Here.”

  She eyed what swam into her vision, largely because it all but took her eye out.

  “Well? What are you talking about then?"

  "Did you lie about Ennis?"

  "Me?" She almost dropped the goblet. "Lie about Ennis? In what w--?"

  "About the things that drive you to have vengeance? About what being with me does to you?”

  Her scalp froze. My God, Lyon wasn't the worry here. As sharp a tack as that would surely know why she'd lied. But when her head felt as if it had been stoved in by every conceivable type of hammer going, and some that might have been conceived by a titan, when she'd nearly dropped Great Aunt Modest's goblet--fortunately made of brass--he asked that?

  An undercover exciseman who was better at this game than her, who, even if he could be trusted, she wasn't going to trust and fall down any slopes over. She should laugh. She did laugh. She tried to anyway.

  "My? My? And why do you want to know that? So you can flatter yourself even more than you already do?"

  He tilted his jaw. "Why do I want to know?"

  Oh God, please don’t let him look at everything and nothing here, through the glass of a dark eternity. Don’t let her think, across the space of that same eternity, that just maybe ..? Maybe ..? My God, what the hell was going on here?

  The treacherous perfume of anticipation was not something she could afford to breathe, yet there it was snaking into her pores. Into her. So she struggled to sit, calm her heart, swallow, hear herself think.

  And if he said, if he said outright the things she could not ..? Like, I don’t know what’s going on here but something is, when the thought flashed--how clever was he doing this to ensure she didn’t go back along that path? Well? When ... that path? That path was something she'd no intentions of? She shrugged.

  "Yes Divers, you tell me. I mean ... " But what if he wasn't doing it for that? She passed her tongue over her lips. How could she help it, the way he looked at her? "I mean I ... I'm not going fir--"

  He lowered his gaze. "Because you’re in this house, after all. I could put you out.”

  "Obviously." Thank God, the fact she knew this, meant she could look at him as squarely as he now did her. Imagine if she'd leapt up, waving her drawers in the air instead of keeping them firmly about her person that he'd said something more? Something else? About them. About why he needed to know. "So? Why don’t you when the door is there?"

  “Lyon.”

  "Really?" Her heart skipped a beat. Please don't tell her he did feel protective. Then? When the main things in her life were surely her Christmas garlands? Then she'd feel bad. "And? And why's that?"

  The floorboards creaked as he walked to the pile of rubble by the fireplace and contemplated the wall. “Because he feels he has reason to doubt me after that last job.”

  Her throat dried. What did that mean exactly? That she shouldn't feel bad about her garlands? Or more? Far more? Something she’d only rise to hearing and using if she did intend going back along that path? And right now ...? The way her breath had tightened ...? And the edge of her seat was something she sat on …?

  He shrugged and took a mouthful of wine. “So if I put you out? Well? That will only increase his suspicions."

  “Well, thank God for that. The last thing I’d want is you getting all protective because you were involving yourself with me, like you did with that woman, and you wouldn’t want to see me living on the highways and byways, or dead in a ditch."

  Because it was. Really. Truly. At least now she needn't feel bad about the garlands, about anything. Heavens, weren’t moments that seemed to have you in their clasp, more sodding stupid than a fusty bag of beans?

  "I'm not getting protective, Destiny. There's no point. Because I believe you’re spying for him. So, from now on, you can stay but it will be out of my way. You, in your designated part of the house. Me, in mine. And this drink?" Turning to her he raised his glass. "Finally, this drink is to that.”

  ***

  Really?

  Well, she never did. That he put down his drink and strode from the room before she could say so too too.

  But maybe it was all of it just as well when his voice, assured as her place in hell, had cut into her spine? Oh? And did she mention, at least she was getting to stay here, which was probably quite nice of him, if you counted such things as nice?

  He knew she was spying after all, which probably meant she could now do it with impunity. What a quandary, when she wasn't planning on doing it at all.

  When all she wanted to do right now was lie down in a darkened room, there was nothing like giving a girl choices, was there? Look on the bright side. At least it had saved her telling him what she'd been doing on that path. Had her head been so panned in by all of this that she'd seriously expected him to say something else there? It didn’t matter how he’d looked, what she’d thought might have flickered in his eyes as he'd looked at her, what had gone down between them last night. What mattered was that she wasn’t exactly fifteen any more. It might be for that matter, that her sight was failing her and he hadn’t looked anything at all.

  Hearing voices outside, she blew out another breath and shifted her gaze to the window. Divers O’Roarke was out there on the lawn. And not just Divers O’Roarke. A shiver scuttled like a mouse from a darkened corner. Divers O’Roarke, Molly and a woman. She rose.

  Not that it was anything to her that the woman was a grown up version of the child, but what was wrong with her that the desire to run out there and rip the golden curls from the woman’s head swept all the way from her toes? Because the woman had a better travelling jacket than her? Emerald velvet? Because once, if Dest
iny had flounced out there with her berry red lips and jewelled hair, there would have been no question about who had the better everything in the eyes of every man in Cornwall? And there’d be no damned talk of her staying in her designated half of the house either--didn’t he like her or something?

  Or was it because a woman was standing with Divers O’Roarke on the lawn where it swept to the sea? And he? He smiled at her. A soft, sweet, carefree smile that would melt ice crystals, even those embedded in the thorniest heart and send them cascading to freedom. Her eyes sank to the back of her head.

  This was not going to be.

  She did not get jealous of other women.

  She especially did not get jealous of frumps like that.

  Only a lot of breath, much more than usual, did seem to be rushing down her nose, as if something fisted her lungs. And she had walked to the window.

  "I'm not getting protective, Destiny," he'd said. And maybe if she'd ignored what had crouched earlier in his cool gaze, she might have believed him? Ignored the thought--my God--that maybe he didn't want drawn to her any more than she did to him, too? And so he pulled this suit of iron invincibility about him and wore it like plate armour. But underneath he was no crusading lion. Just a man stepping out to do battle with life. And what did she really know of his? How had he even gotten out of Cornwall after all? All she knew was that when they were together she forgot so much. He was assured, exciting, dangerous, different to be with.

  She shook her head. She didn’t know what others might say but in her book it certainly needed clearing.

  Keeping to her designated area would work no hardship on her. Would it?

  In fact some might say this would be easier if he didn't come near her and she didn't go near him, when she was kidding herself to believe that the soul reason she hadn't betrayed him was because it said she wanted to live.

  If Divers O'Roarke wasn’t interested in Raven’s Passage, let her count her blessings. Talking lies, the real problem would have come if he was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN