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

by Shehanne Moore

  ‘Where were you?’ he was certain sure to ask.

  And, Oh, you know, having my throat squeezed by Lyon. A consummation not to be wished for. Can you imagine? So now? Seeing as that reptilian mongrel also comes with the place … was hardly something she could say here.

  Lyon was… Lyon was… Well, he might be… It might be… Revolting. A revolting she’d have to bear. Look on the bright side, he wouldn’t make her feel alive. And some might say, there was always such a thing as drink to turn to. Hadn’t she said it didn’t matter who she threw herself on the table to? Talk about sodding roosting chickens.

  So? Some might say she'd be more than greatly obliged if she could just get to her room and stare at the ceiling for a bit.

  Her shoulders sagged. She couldn’t even conjure a ‘well, it’s not the sodding parrots,’ from their cage. So if that was what he expected, some kind of reaction from her, he could sod off. She was done reacting.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Been out have you?”

  His eyes cold as frosted glass studied her from the dark depths of the hall. As for the cocky chin tilt? The words that were more measured than a yard of the richest silk? This was a man to win first prize for levelling a gun at her head and pulling the trigger. When she’d seen him at his very worst last night too.

  “Well, I haven’t been in.”

  “So? Where have you been then?”

  When she’d give her eye teeth for a lie down, could he just get out of her face? Really. Truly. She was done. And she’d sooner attach herself to the bridles of the four horsemen of Apocalypse and let them drag her dismembered limbs to the four corners of the earth and back again, than tell him.

  “Out.”

  Tell him he was right about last night too. There was no doubt Lyon meant to kill him, that this man wasn’t lying about last night, or playing some game with her. And the worst? The very worst? Maybe this was a man to put a gun to her head, there was something in the bitter wind raging through her heart that found that aura of power, of danger about him, even that dark wing of hair across his forehead, horribly attractive, especially given the state he’d been in last night.

  How else could she explain the fact that she was struggling to ensure that wind blew no leaves, left no building torn open to the elements? That she wasn’t a moth to the flame of life? And that was better than feeling life bleed away from her in drops? When she needed to cement these drops back into her veins? Hard as it was.

  Where had it come from, that aura, that clung to him like an exotic scent? Teezer’s Travelling Troupers? Well?

  God, but the path had not been easy for either of them. How she could rage against the heavens for Ennis and Ennis for leaving her. But here? Right now? She just needed to get up these stairs.

  He stepped towards her, just as she made for the stairs too. “Where?”

  “Places.”

  “I know you’ve been places Destiny—"

  “Then sodding stop asking me then.” Even saying, aren’t you the clever one, was beyond her if that was why he was banging on and on at her like this. Well, she was done rising to it. She got up these stairs and she spent her time between now and Lyon moving in, staring at the ceiling. And nothing more he had to say changed that.

  His gaze flicked her, something glinting like a diamond in its shadows. "I see. Lyon? Was it?" He reached his hand towards her, swept the hair back from her face. "Where you got the mark on your throat?”

  No, his stomach wasn’t going to curdle. She wanted to run to Lyon with her tittle-tattle and that tittle-tattle resulted in him taking her by the throat, that was her affair.

  Especially now it also made him feel all manner of secure, knowing the fact she tittle-tattled was what he needed to stay on the straight and narrow and booting her out would only increase Lyon’s suspicions. Maybe the heart of a woman beat beneath that crusty shell, breaking her lichened walls didn’t give him entry to a place he could live with her. And really, did a heart beat? Maybe he'd been wrong about Rose? Lyon didn't own Doom Bar Hall any more than he did but she'd been prepared to throw herself in with anyone.

  “Don’t be stupid, Divers. Now why would you imagine he’d want to throttle me?”

  “In addition to the fact I don't imagine you squeeze your own throat, do you really want me to answer that?”

  “Oh, little do you know the things I do in me spare time.”

  “And little do you know how much I do."

  "Well, what are you asking for then?"

  “Why do you think, seeing as you're so knowledgeable?"

  After all, Lyon watched his every move and she fed Lyon these moves.

  Why shouldn’t he be the one putting the food on the plate?

  And if she got her throat torn out in the process of running with these titbits to Lyon, what was that to him?

  “A broken vase and however I was last night because he took a pot shot at me, isn’t any kind of proof I’m anything other than Divers O’Roarke."

  "Tell me about it."

  "So, you have just been to him? And he said what? That taking pot shots at me is something he does all the time. All part of the game? So, here’s the thing, here’s what’s going to happen.”

  “What is?”

  "To save me asking Gil to waste his time reporting on all your tiresome little tete-a-tetes with Lyon, you can ask me what proof you need to say I’m, in fact, the Cleanser. You’re right.” He smoothed another strand of hair back from her face.

  “Proof?”

  Christ, but she was delicious when she was beaten, it was almost as well she’d betrayed him and he was done with this, or guilt at having cursed her for nothing and reducing her to this sorry state might cut him off at the knees.

  After last night's collapse--shameful in many ways--and this kicking today, when the clock hadn't struck eleven yet, he needed to demonstrate how assured, how in command of the situation he was, though. And that nothing she did could undermine him. Not her closeness, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, her soft scent sinking into his senses, her pale throat, tightening in the clasp of the mourning brooch and Lyon’s fingerprints, as if the proof was something she didn't want and couldn't take. What level of stupid did she think he was?

  “Proof, Destiny,” he whispered. “That little thing you’re after. That thing you want. Be lying if you said you didn't. As ever, the choice is yours.”

  She raised her chin, exhaled sharply.

  “Fine then. Then how’s this?” She grasped his cravat.

  The threat he needed to pose here? Where was that exactly? In his dreams? The woman had allied herself with Lyon. What did she think exactly? That being an undercover agent meant he was also some kind of stud?

  That she could kiss him and he’d think the stars went out—not even one by one on his pride—out completely. But his heart leapfrogged, he couldn’t breathe, or think, or anything, for the assault on his senses, his body, the intoxicating feel of her stickpin but soft bones, the scent, the musky scent, of sharp lavender and her, and the heat of her mouth on his. And he needed to.

  She drew back as he stood trying to grab the tattered remnants of his control about him when his control was something he needed to keep. But Christ did he want her.

  “That’s my choice. Now, if you will excuse me, unless you very much want to join me, I have a room to go to.”

  Her voice, containing every shred of control he damn

  well strove for, said it was a room he wasn’t welcome in either.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  “That’s what you think.”

  Having completed task one by reaching the door to her room, opening it too, without missing a beat, Oh, I don’t know, Destiny. Maybe I do want to join you, so we can both be damned to this. What you are. What I am, were not words she wanted to hear. Although equally, it could have been worse. He could have said what she just had, about thinking. He could have said it with regard to having a room to go to, with please c
all me John, Lyon at her back and everything. As for what he had said? A cocky, cheap poke.

  Clasping the door handle, she cleared her throat. “The dining room is looking just the same by the way. Yes. I looked in it earlier. And I have to say, after all your fine talk it was quite disappointing. But some things just are."

  Then she shut the door firmly behind her. Of course, how the dining room would look at Christmas she’d no idea, with sodding John sitting at the table and that. But at least she could think about it now she'd gotten Diver O'Roarke out her face.

  Bending down she eased off a boot. When it came to shedding light, Divers O’Roarke liked to leave no-one in the dark. In fact he’d give Christ Almighty a game for his crucifixion nails that way. It would be a close run thing who could illuminate the most bits of the world. When it suited him. There just now? Offering proof about the Cleanser? What did he think? That the back of her head had pink ribbons up the back and tied nicely to hide the fact she’d no brains? She hoped he’d liked that kiss. It was the last he was getting.

  She edged off the other boot. Maybe, for that matter, she should go to a solicitor about being conned out of the house and then those doing the conning—Lyon--saying they came with it?

  Right now though?

  Right now when some might say there were other reasons she hadn’t wanted that proof? And she didn’t want them to be right? Bed and ceiling beckoned. Doom Bar Hall was within her grasp. And when it was and Divers O'Roarke had stopped getting in her face, one thing she wasn't going to do was let Lyon's words work on her like this.

  And not the ones about coming with the house either.

  ***

  “Christ!”

  “Shit! I mean … Yes, Divers? Is that you?”

  Some might say that was obvious but then they weren't about to win any parsnips in the county, just been caught with your hand in the apple barrel competition. So, task one?

  Forget the candlestick skittering round the landing floorboards, the boiling wax coating her bare toes in the darkness. This was war and she must wage it.

  The mound that had been in the bed, his bed in his room, hadn’t been him at all. A trick of the light. Not a mound at all, in fact. And so she’d gone downstairs, padded silently along the thin ribbon of moonlight, past the silent portraits of Sir Grimscott Rhodes and his wife Bodinnar, knowing he still hadn’t come in, despite the fact midnight had died two hours previously.

  It was the biggest amount of inconsideration she had ever seen in anybody because then? Then, just as she was imagining him dead, his brains blown out, or worse, and them all gathered round, singing dirges, in he’d waltzed, large as life. Right in the front door, as she'd reached the foot of the stairs too--a place she never should have been with her is this it, or not, thoughts and her heart pounding like a judge’s mallet, about what she'd do if it was. Because life was never black and white. Life was to be lived. However. Whatever.

  So now, having dropped the candlestick in her efforts to leap up the stairs two at a time on tiptoes, so as not to make a sound ... now she stared harder at her door.

  Because now the stairs creaked as he sprung up them. She didn’t need to look to know his first move was to pick up the candlestick, any more than she needed to know that some might say that candlestick was like a leadership baton. Who ever got to it first had the upper hand. When a second ago, some might add, he’d been as startled to see her as she was when he came in the door. As if he’d thought she was a ghost caught there on the staircase in her white gown.

  Equally, in his line of work his back must be in constant danger. It was probably why he was so edgy about everything … because he never knew where the assassin lurked, where they kept their knives. Hers now?

  “Burnt your toes, have you?" he said.

  Option one. When Lyon had obviously heeded her demand not to shoot his head off? Was there one? His head, yes, obviously there was his head, or it wouldn't have a mouth that had just spoken. Which brought her to ...

  Option two She stared harder at her door. Some might say it was preferable.

  “Does it look like it? If you must know I was going to me room.”

  “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.” He set the candlestick down on the side table. “But maybe it was another look at the dining room you were after?”

  “I might. If there was something worth looking at."

  “What do you want to know, Destiny? How much Lyon missed me by tonight? What I did as the Cleanser? Or is it, that all this grief over Ennis is just a distraction, a burial you had to stage for yourself when what you’d sooner feel is alive with me, right here, right now? And that's what you're doing out here?"

  Option three? Despite the fact it might involve taking his throat out? Which some would say was a bad idea, him being an agent of the Crown and all. Which brought her to ...

  Option four. Which she would say might be her undoing ...

  “You should be so lucky." No. Option four might be a mistake too far. Unless she could keep her mind on her dinner plates? "Now if you will excuse me?"

  Obviously not, or his hand wouldn’t descend on the door, not to push it open either when she really needed to win every prize going in the pushing the door open competition.

  She dragged her gaze up, met the dark curve of his eyelashes on his cheekbones, the scent of rough moorland and sand-stretched beaches. Another world. All of

  it. Powerful, evocative.

  Option four. ...

  Whatever else she did tonight, if she was not going in her room alone, if there was only one way out of being caught like this—snooping--the dinner plates had better prove to be the most interesting things she’d ever seen and would ever see again, when really, in terms of options, she knew one thing.

  Options five and six, like seven, eight and nine, were things she was out of.

  She was a Rhodes and when Rhodes’ were all about living life to the hilt, should he be worried about the fact that now she’d turned around, her mouth was short inches from his when he was standing too close for comfort? How distressing to note, that as he felt the brush of her nightgown against his legs, he was worried but pulling away didn’t come into this. .

  It had thrown him seeing Destiny Rhodes on the staircase—he wanted to blame Rose making him jumpy, making him think it was her—but it didn’t justify the primal urge that had swept as he’d slammed his hand against the door.

  Now Destiny Rhodes stood there her back against that door, moonlight icing her face, now he felt the serrated edge of her breath against his lips, now he heard the steady drum of her heart, felt the press of her breasts against him, it was nice to think he knew what her game was and it wasn’t the snap they played as children which she’d always won. But right now? He didn’t know. Why the hell she was spying downstairs instead of raking about in his room, had failed to take the proof he'd offered, either. Especially if Lyon had threatened her. Destiny Rhodes liked to paint her heart blacker than the night sky. It was the reason he'd been so ready to believe Rose about Chancery, about everything.

  One thing though, was if she thought she had him at a disadvantage because here she was, pressed between him and the door, she was mistaken. After all, she wasn’t the first woman he’d bedded undercover, so it was nothing, to meet her coolly salacious stare with one of his own, to press even closer too, press his mouth to her soft throat, her neck.

  “You know, Destiny, I can tell Lyon tales too. That we’ve been together. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Just don’t make me care for you," she said. "That’s all I ask.”

  That was when the silence of snow fell on his breath, his everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The low drone worked into Destiny's consciousness so she struggled to keep her eyes closed and cling to the blackness of sleep. Was it morning? It couldn’t be, let alone a good one and not just because some inconsiderate sod was winning prizes for droning on about it, just outside the bedroom door. They were clinking
crockery too--Great Aunt Modest’s best china cups, in all probability. Of all things. After she'd meant to keep her eyes firmly fixed on them last night too.

  Well, she hadn't. Of all things either.

  How could she? Spend half the night locked in his embrace, kissing him either, when, at the very least she'd needed some sleep, after inconsiderately being kept up till two in the morning, never mind this stopping now, before she was ironed flat?

  “Look, Divers ... " Gil Wryson’s voice ghosted through the closed door.

  “No, you look ... ” Divers O’Roarke’s gravelly undertone followed.

  “I am looking. Looking hard, man. But I never expected to come back here to find you with her.”

  Really? Well, she didn't either. Who did Gil expect to come back and find his precious Divers with though? The Mona Lisa? Not much sodding chance in the wilds of Cornwall. She sat up.

  “Fetching her tea, too. A lying snake. Now, I know,” Gil droned on, “I know I have no business—”

  “You don’t.”

  “But you saved my life. I will always owe you—”

  “And I will always thank you today as ever, for going on with things the other night. But you’re mistaken if you thought I was tempted.”

  Who by? Her? Someone other than her? Or not by her at all? Wasn’t that something to remember the next time when she ooh’d and ah’d in ecstasy? The sod had probably had more women in his line of work than she’d had Christmas dinners, served on Great Aunt Modest’s plates—certainly now.

  Certainly he’d seemed pretty tempted by her. Last night anyway. But maybe, when it came to being tempted, what she should be asking herself here was by what?

  Some might say things were to be learned here and she should yank the sheet loose, wrap it around herself and go and do just that--at the door. But then it might depend on what she listened to there.

  Hand Lyon the proof and there couldn’t be any more