by Jo Beverley
Just a little while longer.
She quickly climbed down the ladder, managing the tricky business of bringing the heavy trapdoor down behind her, then latching it, sealing out the light and air.
The upper floor felt stale and suffocating now, and she hurried away and down the circular stairs to the floor beneath. Even there she was in one of the narrow dark corridors, and she hastened on, down and down, around and around, and out at last into the fresh air of the courtyard.
She inhaled, but it wasn’t the same as the air she’d breathed above.
Once again she hurried to escape Crag Wyvern, but this time she wanted only freedom and fresh air. She burst through the great entrance arch and took a deep breath.
She was in the shadow of the house, however, and she picked up her skirts and ran, ran out of shadow into light, down to the cliff edge where the wind blew off the sea, swirling her skirts and tugging her hair loose from confining pins.
The sailing ship still billowed on its way, the fishing boats still danced on closer waves, the men on board letting down nets or hauling them in. The calls of the gulls were louder here, and the vegetation was alive with insects and small birds. Delirious with delight at everything, she sat, arms around her knees, to soak it in.
How long was it since she’d done this? Simply enjoyed the air and the world around. Too long. She rolled to lie on her stomach like a child, to look down at Wyvern Cove tucked below, to watch the people coming and going, the old men working on boats, or sitting mending nets.
The salt tang of sea and seaweed mixed with the smell of fish here, but she loved it. It was part of her world. Not for much longer. But there must be other places as sweet, and she would learn to belong.
She rolled away from the view onto her back, looking up at the misty sky. She felt small, but whole, or more whole than she had for a while.
She lay there a long time, knowing she should move. She was not a child anymore, but an adult with employment and responsibilities. She should be in the house doing something. . . .
She couldn’t think of anything in particular needing her attention and so she stayed where she was, feeling rested for the first time in days.
Since Con had arrived.
It was more than that, though. It was the pull of the earth.
She’d used to do this all the time, to connect to the earth with as much of her body as possible, but somewhere along the way she had forgotten.
Had it been as long ago as eleven years?
Surely she’d done this since then. But she couldn’t remember when. After Con, the appeal of the open headlands and the beaches had faded. No, not faded, but become shadowed by memories and regrets.
To Aunt Miriam’s delight, she’d then spent more time with her cousins doing the things young ladies were supposed to do. Young ladies were certainly not supposed to sprawl on cliff tops.
Housekeepers were not supposed to, either.
She really must get up and return to Crag Wyvern. . . .
It was as if the earth held her down with gentle hooks, however, or as if her hungry need of the earth pressed her there. She closed her eyes and let her other senses drink deeply.
Clean breeze over her skin, tugging at her hair, playing with her skirt.
Cries of gulls and curlews, faint calls from people below in the village. Children laughing. A dog barking. The ever-present rumble of waves on shingle.
All the wonderful mixed smells from plants and sea that she’d breathed in all her life.
A shadow fell across her lids. She opened her eyes, but she knew before regaining her sight who it would be.
He towered over her and she supposed she should be afraid, but all she could think was how wonderful it would be if he fell on top of her, if he kissed her. . . .
“You still like the cliffs,” he said.
The sun was behind him, hiding any expression.
“Of course.”
She should get up, curtsy even, but she refused to scramble to her feet like a guilty child, and the earth still hugged.
Of course, she was a very guilty housekeeper. It made her want to smile.
He suddenly sat by her feet, legs crossed, and she could see his thoughtful face. “Gifford knows your brother is Captain Drake.”
She thought for a moment of denying it, but this was Con. “I know. He told me, too.” She sat up. She could meet him halfway.
“Why?” he asked.
She froze, unready for the question. But then here, outside in the sunshine on the cliffs, she had someone she could tell.
“He wants to be my lover.”
“What?” His gray eyes seemed suddenly to become paler, silver.
“He has an excuse,” she said quickly, then realized that pushed her farther than she wanted to go.
“You have been encouraging him?” Though he hadn’t moved, she felt as if he were putting space between them. Telling him everything would probably drive him from her entirely, but wise or foolish, she had to be honest.
She looked away, though, away to the side at the wandering cliffs and the ruffled edge of the sea. “Some years ago, I made a mistake with a man. I . . . I thought I wanted to make love with him. But it was a mistake.”
Dear Lord. How did anyone put these things in words?
Say it simply.
She looked him in the eye. “I encouraged a military officer to make love—No, it wasn’t love. I barely knew him. Whatever you want to call it. It was my idea, though he didn’t need much encouragement.”
“I’m sure he didn’t.” She could tell nothing from his tone.
She sucked in a breath and went on. “Apparently he spoke of it to Gifford as he lay dying, so Gifford thinks I do that sort of thing all the time.” She managed a shrug. “Thus, he wishes me to do it with him. In return, he’ll turn a blind eye to Captain Drake and the Dragon’s Horde.”
She watched him, fearful of his response, but immensely lightened by depriving Gifford of the power the secret would have held. She was lightened, too, by having someone she could tell about that painful event.
But Con?
Had the wild air gone to her head that she thought she could confide her most perilous secrets to this new Con?
“I’ll destroy him.” It was said with cool certainty.
She grasped his arm. “No!”
Silver eyes. Dragon eyes. “I see. You are not unwilling, then?”
“Of course I am.” She was still holding him, through heavy cloth, but holding him. Was this the first time she’d touched him? “Don’t duel him, Con. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”
He laughed and pulled free. “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”
Oh, Lord! “In a duel anyone can be hurt! And I don’t want him killed either. I detest him now, but he does not deserve death.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. “Susan, I’m an earl. I don’t need to call Gifford out to deal with him. If I want him posted to the tip of Cornwall, I can do it. I can send him to India, or to the hell pits of the West Indies, or to guard Mel Clyst in Botany Bay. If I want him thrown out of the service, I can do that too.”
“But that would be unjust.”
Too late, she realized it sounded like a criticism rather than a protest.
“It’s an unjust world. What do you want me to do?” After a moment, he added, “I think I can still act Saint George on occasion.”
He said it without expression, but it carried her back.
This wasn’t Irish Cove, and they were both fully dressed, but she knew he, like she, was instantly back in another lifetime, before. . . .
“I’m not a maiden.” What an idiotic thing to say.
It stirred the hint of a smile. “I believe I’m aware of that.”
“I mean . . .” Suddenly it seemed essential that they have truth on this. “There have been others.”
“You just told me that, didn’t you?”
Now she wanted to clarify that there’
d been only two others, and only two other times.
“There have been others for me too,” he said, quite gently. “Rather more, I assume.”
“Of course. And I’m glad of it.”
But this was all going wrong. Her words weren’t forming into the right meanings. She struggled to her feet.
He rose beside her. “Why are you glad?”
She tried again. “I don’t want you to have suffered because of what I did that day. I am sorry, Con.”
Oh, how inadequate that sounded.
He looked away, turning to face the vista of sea. “It’s all so long ago, Susan. And it’s impossible to imagine that anything could have come of it, isn’t it? Two fifteen-year-olds. Me a younger son with my way to make in the world. You a young lady not considered ready for the world at all.”
He was speaking so lightly that she wanted to protest, to insist that it was more than that. But perhaps for him it had been a simpler matter. Horribly embarrassing and painful at the time, but now a thing of the distant past.
And there had been many other women.
“That’s true,” she said, brushing off her skirts. “Even if I had ended up in a compromised condition they would likely not have made us marry. A visit to a relative, a family paid to take care of the child . . .”
She would never have allowed that, so like her birth and upbringing except that there had never been any attempt at secrecy. But he did not need to know that.
He turned back to her. “I’ll warn Gifford off. If he has any sense, he’ll heed it.”
“He thinks we’re lovers.”
He raised his brow as a query, but a blanket of . . . comfort was growing around them. He wasn’t assuming she’d told Gifford they were lovers.
“He saw us by the fountain,” she explained.
“We never touched by the fountain.”
“Even so.”
He grimaced. “Perceptive of him.”
She remembered then that Con had propositioned her by the fountain—out of curiosity’s sake.
“Let him think what he wants,” he said flatly.
“He may think you sympathize with the smugglers, too.”
He shook his head. “Susan, I’d expect you to be quicker-witted than this. I’m the earl, remember. He’d have to find me hauling tubs up the cliff to even think of touching me, and even then he’d be a damned fool. The whole power system of Britain would rise up in rage at the thought of one of their own being dragged into the courts over such a petty matter. I’m damn near untouchable.”
She hesitated for a moment because she wasn’t sure what was happening between them, what it meant, but she asked anyway. “Will you protect David, then?”
His mouth tightened, but he said, “For your sake, yes.”
“For his sake, too.” She put her hand on Con’s arm again, deliberately this time. “He didn’t choose this path. He’s Mel’s son. Rival gangs were threatening to invade and no one else had the authority.”
“I see. Very well. But I won’t be here much. You know that.”
It seemed to encompass more than the issue of smuggling.
“I know.” She faced it squarely. “You’ll be marrying Lady Anne soon, and living in Sussex.”
The wind caught a hank of her hair, blowing it wildly around her face. She realized it had lost most of its pins and she must look a mess. She moved her hand off his arm to control the hair, but he was there first.
He caught it and tucked it off her face, behind her ear. “A plait was more practical,” he said with a smile.
“It escaped from that too.” She couldn’t help but smile back.
“I remember.” His hand lingered, but then he lowered it. “We were friends once, I think.”
Her heart was rapid and high. “Yes.”
“And again, I hope.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “So do I.”
“A man can never have too many friends. On the other hand,” he added lightly, “an earl seems to have only one housekeeper. Shouldn’t you be keeping house?”
She laughed and stepped beside him to walk back to Crag Wyvern, feeling suddenly as if she had found the only gold that mattered. By implication he had forgiven her for the past. She’d told him the worst about herself. And they were friends.
Certainly a person could never have too many friends.
By the time they went through the door into the cool of the house, however, delight was sliding into melancholy.
They were only friends.
He’d made it clear that friendship was all that could exist between them. She could weep over that for she didn’t think she could bear to be only friends with Con. It would have to spin off into more dangerous waters, and that she could not allow. Despite temptation, she would not be the cause of Con breaking his wedding vows.
Any meetings between them in the future must be few and far between, and she would see that they were well chaperoned.
Con parted from Susan without a backward look and went directly to the office. Race was at a shelf, some sort of ledger in his hands, and as usual he looked up impatiently.
“Put that away,” Con said. “We’re going riding.”
“How do you expect me to get this straight if you keep dragging me away?”
“Is it not straight?”
“Mostly, but there are some wonderfully arcane and tantalizing aspects.”
Con propped his hips against the desk. “What do you think of Lady Anne?”
Race rolled his eyes and put the ledger back on the shelf. “I think you’re more interested in Susan Kerslake.”
Con straightened. “Who gave you the right to use her first name?” A fight might be just what he needed.
“No one. I’m tired of trying to decide if she’s Miss or Mrs. Kerslake.”
The inclination to violence dissolved into laughter. “The thing I like about you, Race, is that you don’t give a damn that I’m the blasted earl.”
Race leaned back against the bookcase, arms folded. “As I understand it, you have plenty of friends who wouldn’t give a damn either.”
Con eyed him. “The other thing I like about you—liked about you—is that you don’t think you’re entitled to dig into my personal affairs.”
“Unlike the Georges or the Rogues.” Race raised a brow. “Going to run?”
“I’m more likely to throttle you.”
Race smiled as if offered a treat.
“Damn it to Hades.” Con pushed off from the desk and paced the room. “I thought employees were supposed to do as they’re told.”
“Friends aren’t.”
Con looked at Race, remembering that civilized little exchange with Susan.
Friends.
God!
“Nicholas Delaney lives a couple of hours’ ride from here,” he said, then realized that Race wouldn’t know what he meant. He’d mentioned the Rogues, but not in any detail. “He founded the Rogues. Sometimes we call him King Rogue.”
“You want to visit him? Sounds like a good idea, but not this late in the day with an overcast sickle-moon night to come.”
“That’s as well. Nick’s an interfering bastard.”
Race’s eyes twinkled wickedly. “Sounds like just the potion.”
“Don’t say potion in a place like this.”
“Think a demon will rise?”
“If it’s one of the old earl’s potions, it’ll be something else that’ll rise!”
Race laughed. “If I find that one, it’ll make my fortune.” He straightened from the bookshelves and picked up his jacket from the back of a chair. “Let’s go riding, then.”
Con was aware of the strength of the pull to visit Nick, to talk to him about Susan, and Anne, and smuggling, and the Georges.
And Dare.
Perhaps more than anything he wanted to talk to Nicholas Delaney about Dare. He had something of a magic touch with tricky matters.
Not today though. As Race had said, it would be a wildly impract
ical thing to do.
So was riding around the countryside with no purpose.
He was simply running. He’d run from Hawk in the Vale to here, and now he was running from Crag Wyvern and from Susan. But he’d have to come back here. Like a hound on a long leash, he was tethered to the thing he most feared and longed for.
He’d agreed to be friends with Susan.
He wanted to howl.
Chapter Seventeen
Susan heard that Con and de Vere had left Crag Wyvern, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was like a pressure off her chest, though absurdly, she hated the thought of Con being any distance away.
Friends.
At least she had his protection for David.
Because she and he were friends.
It was more than she’d dreamed possible this morning.
It wasn’t enough.
She made sure the dinner Con returned to would be perfect, and once again selected and prepared suitable wines. Then she checked that the table was perfectly arranged. Again, she took pathetic pleasure in doing these little things for him.
For her friend.
She could not stay here, could not be near, but perhaps there could be letters. . . .
Ah, no. She could control her feelings in letters, write and rewrite them until they said only what she wanted to say, but his letters back would kill her slowly. . . .
“Hello.” David strolled in and pinched a grape from the bowl on the table. “What’s the matter?”
She looked at him blankly for a moment, then said, “Oh! I asked you to come up.”
“Right. Is something the matter? Is it Wyvern?”
“No,” she said, probably too quickly. “But I do need to talk to you. Come.” She led the way to the privacy of her rooms.
Once there, she said, “Gifford knows you’re Captain Drake. Or at least, he has the strongest suspicions.”
“The devil you say. What does he know?”
“That you and I are Mel’s children.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s enough.”
He shrugged. “It was bound to come out, though I’d hoped for a little while longer.”
“This means that you can’t have another run anywhere near here for a long time. He’ll be watching—”
