He was taunting her, as he invariably did when he managed to waylay her, and she stiffened, half with anger and half with apprehension at being alone with him. She met his eyes, so bold, gazing down at her, taking in every detail of her fear-filled face.
With his handsome looks and the merry twinkle in his eye, it was hard to believe he was anything other than a gentleman, and she could understand why all the girls she knew in the village, even those who had been born to rich families, made eyes at him and vied for his favours—but she was not one of them.
‘I did not,’ she said sharply in reply to his question, hating the nervous tremor she was unable to control in her voice. She knew what had happened to his wife, and had always felt sorry for him, but she found it both annoying and distasteful that he paid her so much attention. It did not go unnoticed by the people she worked with and she was embarrassed by it. It was uncomfortable to be singled out.
‘Had I known, I would not have come to the cove.’
‘No?’ he murmured, his face and voice expressing a disappointment he did not feel. ‘I wanted to thank you for standing watch last night. You did well.’
‘I was obeying orders. I didn’t want to do it, but I was left with no choice.’
‘There will be other nights I shall call on you.’
‘I will not do it again. Your brother—’
‘Will not stop you when I send for you,’ he was quick to inform her, anger flaring in his eyes. ‘It is me you answer to—not my brother. He knows better than to interfere in my affairs. Anyone—and I mean anyone—who informs on me or meddles in what I do—be it Marcus or anyone else—will rue the day he was born.’
Lowena remained silent. She found the implication of his words and the threat he posed towards his brother deeply troubling.
His sudden surge of anger had diminished and, reaching out, Edward touched the thick tress of her hair which hung over her breast. She recoiled sharply, and her eyes still blazed in her lovely face. His own eyes narrowed when he saw the expression in hers, and there was a moment of silence—intense, burning...
When Lowena failed to lower her eyes he recognised in that moment that Lowena Trevanion possessed something quite rare. Whatever it was that he saw he wanted a part of it, and he was prepared to be patient, to wait for it, secure in the knowledge that it would be his.
‘Ever since you came to work at the house,’ he went on, ‘I have waited for this. I thought the opportunity to get you alone would never come when my stepmother watched my every move. You are looking very lovely today.’
His voice was thick and seductive—a trick that had always proved irresistible to the many ladies of his acquaintance. His eyes rested on the soft flesh at the base of her neck, where a pulse throbbed gently, before lowering to the soft swelling of her breasts.
Instinctively Lowena put her hands to her throat, angry with herself for having inadvertently led him to this place where she had no defence.
‘Please do not speak to me like this. I have to go. Lady Alice will have need of me. I said I would not be long.’
‘To hell with my stepmother. Let someone else do her bidding.’
‘Let me go...’ she breathed, her eyes flashing angrily.
She made a move to pass him, but his hand shot out and he seized her arm. Snatching it away instantly, she backed further into the foaming surf.
‘Take your hands off me and let me pass at once.’
Edward stared at her for a moment, and then the mocking smile was back. ‘What spirit you have, Lowena. You remind me of a horse that is unbroken—a horse that is in need of a master. Me.’
It was not a threat he uttered—more a statement of fact. Lowena went cold, the blood draining from her face as she saw sudden fire leap in his eyes.
‘What do you want?’
‘You,’ he answered smoothly, moving closer. ‘Come, Lowena, why so hostile? I have done nothing to justify it. As lovely as you are, you know how much I like you.’
Words fell from his gilded tongue effortlessly, as if they carried no weight or conviction.
Lowena’s face flushed hotly with indignation. ‘Please—do not speak to me in this manner, sir. It is not proper. I am nothing to you.’
‘You will be. You are a servant in my house—or you were until my brother whisked you away to wait on his mother. However, since I pay your wages it means I have certain rights.’
Lowena’s eyes blazed with anger. How dared he treat her in this manner, as if she were nothing at all? ‘Where I am concerned you have no rights. I do the work I am paid for and nothing more.’
Her remark made him laugh, throwing back his head and letting his laughter ring round the cove and echo through the caves beneath the cliff. ‘You are so lovely, Lowena, and delightful when you are angry. At least you are not indifferent to me.’
Before Lowena could react, his hands shot out and he drew her towards him. Too late she realised that he had succeeded in slipping through her guard and arousing her to an expression of her personal feelings, forcing her to a trembling awareness of him when all she wanted was to avoid him and put him from her mind.
Raising her hands, she tried to fend him off, to escape this nightmare she had fallen into. She began to fight him, blindly thrashing in his iron grip, but his arms became bonds. His mouth ground down onto hers, silencing her cries of outrage. Inwardly she seethed, finding his assault disgusting. His mouth was wet, hot and hard, and she hated it. It revolted her senses. She struggled and fought but he held her easily.
He was behaving like a depraved beast, intent on ravishment, without tenderness or decency. He must be aware of the force he was inflicting on her. He wanted power over her, but she would resist to her dying breath. She struggled fiercely, convinced that this sexually excited man had but one objective.
‘Let me go...’
‘Don’t fight me,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t like it and I am in no mood to play games.’
He fastened his mouth on hers once more and Lenora’s fear turned to cold fury.
Not until she bit down sharply on his lower lip did he relinquish her mouth.
Angry about her lack of submission, and too aroused to let anything get in the way of what his body wanted, Edward lifted his head and looked down into her angry, upturned face. A faint line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, which he casually wiped away with the back of his hand.
‘I’ve thought of this moment many times, and I mean to enjoy every moment of it. Indeed, Lowena, I would heartily like to hear you plead for mercy.’
‘Never!’ she bit out. ‘You will never hear that from me.’
Edward’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Ah, such defiance. Such spirit. Don’t fight me. Don’t resist me. It will be better for you if you don’t.’
‘Let go of me. You may be an important man in these parts, but there are better men than you in Cornwall.’
His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘I warn you, Lowena, do not mock me. Have a care lest I turn you out without a penny piece.’
‘I do mock you,’ she flung back at him tauntingly, uncaring that he was Lord Carberry of Tregarrick as she found the strength to extricate herself from his hold. ‘And turn me out if you so wish, but do not touch me again. Ever.’
Edward reached out to capture her again, and without giving her next action any thought, other than to save herself from his assault, she raised her hand to fend him off. He caught it and flung it back at her in anger. He was not accustomed to having anyone stand up to him—let alone a female servant—and certainly no one who would dare raise her hand to him in anger.
‘You little hellion! I’ll teach you not to use your hands on me,’ he snarled. ‘How dare you—?’
‘I do dare, your lordship. Don’t you ever touch me again!’ she flared defensively, too incensed to real
ise the implications of what she might have done had he not stayed her hand.
Unbeknown to her, she came from a long line of proud ancestors who had endurance and courage running through their veins—ancestors who would allow nothing to stand in their way and certainly not a man like Edward Carberry, who was the epitome of all Lowena deplored.
When Edward recovered his equilibrium he almost retaliated in kind, for he was outraged that this girl would not submit to his will, but Lowena was looking beyond him, an expression of shock having replaced the fury on her face.
A flash of scarlet had caught her eye, and then her gaze became riveted as she saw it was a man—a soldier. Marcus Carberry. She stood perfectly still, her face drained of all colour. Feeling cold shock run through her, she realised how what had happened must have looked to him.
He stood unmoving on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the cove, watching them. Suddenly she came alive. The distance between them was too great for her to see his features, but she could imagine his anger.
Edward saw the change in her and turned, following the direction of her gaze. His face froze on seeing the scarlet-clad figure who had interrupted his dalliance. His smug reaction on seeing his half-brother was in his eyes and in his arrogantly curling mouth.
‘It—it’s Mr Marcus,’ Lowena said quietly.
For once Edward’s bland, inscrutable face dropped its guard, and it was as though a mask had been stripped from it. He made no other perceptible movement but, watching him intently, Lowena was aware of an indefinable change in him.
A hardness settled on his face, and then he was striding off across the sand in the direction of the cliff and his brother.
As if recollecting himself, he glanced back at the girl he had assaulted. ‘You will be sorry for this, I promise you,’ he ground out. ‘No woman gets the better of me—especially not a servant—so I advise you to have a care, Lowena Trevanion. Have a care...’
Alone and unmoving, Lowena watched him go, her eyes drawn back to the magnetic force of the scarlet-coated soldier on the cliff. At the sight of him all thought of Edward Carberry and his unwelcome amorous advances had vanished. She’d told herself that things would be different now he was home and she no longer lived at Tregarrick.
She watched Edward climb back up to the cliff top and speak to his brother before disappearing from sight. Slowly she made her way across the sand and turned her thoughts back to her own predicament and what had just transpired. It had been but a kiss, but the nature and force of the kiss, and the way Edward Carberry’s arms had held her in a vice-like grip, making it impossible for her to move... At that moment it seemed that her innocence had vanished—that Edward Carberry had taken her far beyond the apparently safe bounds that had sheltered her until today.
A conflict raged in her mind between shock and anger. Shock that a man she hated should take such liberties with her, and anger that he had done so. However Marcus interpreted what he had witnessed, she thanked God he had arrived to put a halt to his brother’s assault. She felt sick at the thought of what Edward might have done to her.
* * *
Marcus had ridden to Wheal Rozen shortly after breakfast. It had given him a peculiar feeling of continuity to see old friends and all the people who worked at the mine whose faces were familiar, even though he had been away so long. Instead of going overland on his return to Tregarrick, which was the quickest way, he had decided to take in the longer coastal route.
Following the winding path along the cliff edge, ahead of him he’d seen a flutter of blue skirts disappear through the gorse. He’d thought nothing of it until he’d seen his brother appear, leaving his mount tethered to a branch and disappearing through the gorse after the girl.
Unable to quell his curiosity, Marcus had followed, moving to stand on the cliff edge. Below him the water had reflected the colour of the sky, and the beach had glistened with newly washed sand. He’d watched Edward walk towards a woman who had been looking out to sea...
Now he waited for Edward to reach him. Marcus’s eyes were colder than ice when they met his brother’s, his face dark with anger. There was scorn in his eyes, and a contemptuous curl to his strong mouth. They faced each other, squaring off, poised to fight.
Every time they met merely served to stir emotions Marcus did not want to feel, produced memories he wanted to avoid. Edward’s pride was at the core of it, along with anger and a need to blame.
When he’d seen Edward take hold of Lowena, every colourful oath Marcus had been able to think of had run through his mind. He’d wanted to cross the distance that separated them and strike his hands away from her, to thrust him away from that sweet girl. His brother was a dangerous man, and Marcus would make certain that Lowena was far removed from him.
In fact he’d been about to act—to scramble down to the beach, stride across the sands and separate Lowena from his embrace—when Edward had suddenly released her.
‘Damn you, Edward. I asked you to leave her alone, and yet here you are. If you want a woman there are plenty in St Austell to accommodate your needs, without forcing yourself on a virtuous young woman.’
Edward’s brows lifted imperturbably. ‘Virtuous? If you think that then you don’t know her,’ he scoffed with a malicious grin. ‘You’ve been away from Cornwall a long time, Marcus. I told you how things were last night. You will never be certain that the relationship between me and Miss Trevanion has not already gone beyond the bounds of respectability—despite how many times she proclaims her innocence.’
His face darkening, something snapped inside Marcus, shattering his emotions almost beyond all rational control.
His jaw hardened. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, in a tone that had suddenly turned ominous.
Edward’s smile was pure evil. He was satisfied that Marcus had read into his words exactly what he’d meant—even though there was no truth in them. ‘I said that Miss Trevanion is not exactly the chaste little puritan you seem to think she is.’
Marcus stepped closer, a compelling steeliness in his eyes. ‘I am undeceived by your base attempt to slander Lowena. There is no credit to your assertions. In other words, Edward, you are lying.’
‘Lying, am I? Well—you’ll never know how unchaste your precious Lowena has been in your absence. Will you? If you ask her she is hardly likely to confess to it, now, is she?’ Edward smirked, triumph lighting his eyes and showing in every line of his body. ‘And if she denies it you will doubt her word—no matter how hard you try not to.’
‘Damn you, Edward! It’s not as if you intend to marry her.’
Edward laughed—a laugh full of contempt and mocking cruelty...a laugh that was peculiarly his own—and when he spoke again his voice was low and intense. There was excitement in the straining cords of his throat and a bright glitter in his eyes as he leaned slightly forward.
‘Marry her? A gentleman does not marry girls of her ilk. When I marry again it will be to someone of note—not a mere servant.’
Without another word Edward gave his brother a look of biting scorn, before mounting his horse and riding away—but not before Marcus had noted the thin streak of blood at the corner of his mouth.
He knew the power of his brother, the evil that inhabited him and the deadly consuming hatred Edward felt for him—a hatred which would surely grow now that he had come home. Edward had known how deeply he had loved Isabel and had immediately honed in on her, determined to have her for himself.
Isabel had been easily persuaded, and Marcus had felt his pride and self-respect stripped from him. There had been no deliverance from his seared vanity and the wound had continued to fester. The military had been his salvation.
Looking down to the cove, Marcus watched Lowena walk across the sands and climb up to where he stood. When he had least seen her, she had been barely more than a child, but he remembered only too plainly
her quiet, serene beauty, the passion combined with hidden laughter that had been so much a part of her.
And all of a sudden there she was, walking slowly towards him, her head held high and her hair—the red-brown colour of a fox’s pelt and just as thick—falling about her shoulders and down her spine in shining coils.
She was looking at him, tall, lissom and lovely. Her breasts had grown into curving, firm shapes, and her mouth was wide and soft and generous. Her facial bones were striking, and her eyes—an unusual warm shade of amber, with tawny flecks—sparkled with a devil-may-care look.
She was watching him, aware of the searching intensity of his gaze as she favoured him with a melting smile which made his blood run hot in his veins and the heat of it move to his belly.
When he had seen her last night, after his unpleasant encounter with Edward, he had been angry and impatient to leave Tregarrick. Now he took in every detail of her body and her hair, which the sun had turned to a living flame as fiercely bright as it had been when she was a child. Lust hit him with such unexpected force that for a brief moment he could not move.
Standing before him was the grown-up Lowena, a woman whose body was a hidden treasure. Little wonder Edward was so taken with her. The way she looked, she must draw all men’s eyes.
He had seen the way Edward had taken hold of her, and the remembrance of such familiarity sent a sudden surge of cold fury through him. Her loveliness would arouse lust in any man. Did she have to look so damned lovely?
Chapter Three
Lowena watched Marcus as she advanced towards him. He looked calm, unperturbed and supremely unaware, she thought, of the tumult raging within her breast. Her heart almost ceased to beat as she gazed on that incredibly handsome face, bewitched and still disbelieving that this god-like man had come home at last.
Joy exploded in her heart with such violence that it almost sent her to her knees. And, meeting his eyes, she found the sheer, concentrated power of his presence disturbed her, making it difficult for her to regard him as a member of the family that employed her.
The Foundling Bride Page 6
