Sea Wraith

by Jocelyn Kelley

  It opened. A woman silhouetted against the light urged in a soft alto, “Come in. I did not expect ye tonight.”

  Sian entered the cottage seconds before the clouds opened with rain. Her eyes widened when she saw she stood in a foyer. She never had been in a cottage like this one. Four doors opened off the entry, one in each direction. Muffled sounds came from beyond them, the thick wood making it impossible to understand a single word.

  The woman who had answered the door had streaks of silver through her black hair. Full curves were visible above the dress which dipped so low across her bosom that the sight made Sian blush. The woman did not act as if she had noticed as she continued, “Why are ye out on a night like this one? Ye did not leave Penzance early because of trouble, did ye? I do not brook with troublemakers here. Let me look at ye.” She walked around Sian, giving her a cool appraisal. “Yer dress could use some mending, but ye are a fancy one, ain’t ye? No call for that here. Where ye been working?”

  “Pardon me?” she asked, startled. “Working?”

  “Ain’t ye Sassy?”

  She glanced at the woman, then quickly away. Every word the woman spoke confused her more.

  “I have been known,” Sian said, “to speak before I think, but I do not think I am sassy. If you could. . .”

  Another door opened, and a woman stepped out dressed in only her smallclothes. Behind her, a man was buttoning his breeches.

  Sian gasped in dismay, and the half-dressed woman quickly shut the inner door. This was no sanctuary. Backing toward the front door, she bumped into the woman who had opened the door. She whirled away, then rushed to grasp the latch.

  The woman by the front door put out a hand to halt her. All kindness vanished from her voice. “Ye ain’t Sassy. Who be ye?”

  “I am sorry,” she mumbled. She did not know what else to say. She had to escape. “I hurt my foot, and I had hoped you would know someone who could carry a message home for me, so someone could come to get me. You are clearly busy with. . .with guests, so—” Her face burned like a coal in the depths of a fire.

  With a gut-deep laugh, the woman said, “I can see ye are not looking for work here. Too bad. With yer looks, ye could do well.” Motioning for the other woman to go back in the room and close the door behind her, she asked, “What be yer name?”

  “Sian.”

  “Sian Nethercott from Bannatyne Hall?”

  She nodded, fearing if she opened her mouth, she would be ill on the woman’s stained slippers.

  “Lady Bannatyne’s sister?”

  She nodded again, staring at the door. If the woman released the latch, even for a second, Sian could escape. Not even the storm that fiercely shook the cottage would halt her.

  “Never expected ye when I opened m’door. How did ye get here?”

  It did not take long for Sian to explain what had seemed endless when she had been living through it. She shivered as she recalled the horrid man’s putrid breath and the evil gleam in his eyes.

  The woman nodded, her expression inexorable. “That must be old Noy. He always has his mind on finding someone to pay for his rum. Ye are very lucky ye outran him, Miss Nethercott. He hurt one of m’girls badly last year.” She grasped Sian’s arm. “Come along. Ye cannot stand in the doorway where ye could be seen.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Sian put her hands to her hot face.

  The woman laughed. “Aye, ‘tis yer goodness ye must concern yerself with. Come with me, and I shall take ye where ye can wait while I send a lad to fetch someone for ye.” She reached to open another door, and light flowed out. “Come along. ‘Tis only the stairs.”

  “I cannot go upstairs. Not here.”

  “Would ye as lief stay here and be seen by the next chap who comes into m’house?”

  Sian’s arguments faded when she heard the sound of heavy footfalls on the front steps. Pulling her shawl more tightly around her, she nodded. “Show me where you wish for me to go.”

  Picking up the lantern sitting on the lowest riser, the woman started up the steep, narrow stairs. “M’name is Bennath, and this is m’academy.”

  Academy? What did that mean? “I see,” Sian said, even though it was a complete lie. The only teacher in town was Arthyn Trembeth, and his house was in the village.

  “It should not take long for someone to come for ye, once they know where ye are.” She opened a door and, setting the lantern on a narrow table, gestured impatiently for Sian to enter. “Stay here.”

  Sian said nothing as she looked around the sparse room. One of the cottage’s rafters cut through the room, not more than four feet off the floor. The table and a straw pallet covered with stained and torn fabric were the only items in the chamber. It stank like a privy, but she saw no chamber pot. A small window, barely as wide as her hand, was set high into the peaked roof. Rain splattered against it, and she heard a fluttering sound. Bats!

  As if she had spoken aloud, Bennath said, “They will be leaving for the night soon as the rain stops. Ye will, too.”

  “I hope so. Thank you for your kindness.”

  “Nothing to do with kindness. If the chaps see ye, they will ne’er be satisfied with their usual girls.” Bennath eyed her up and down coolly again. “The chaps would pay well to lie with a lady like ye. Any chance that yer interested?”

  “No, but thank you.” She sounded like a fool, but no instruction in etiquette had prepared her for being offered a job in a brothel!

  “All right. Thought I would ask.” Bennath paused as a fist hammered on a door below. “Stay here. I have m’customers to tend to. Soon as I can, I will send a lad to Bannatyne Hall to have someone fetch ye home.”

  “Thank you.” She said the words more sincerely this time. “If it is simpler, you could send someone to ask Lord Lastingham or Mr. Trembeth to come here.”

  Bennath released another of her belly laughs. “The king’s soldier man or the curate? Why would I call either of them here to disrupt m’work? Yer a funny one, Miss Nethercott. A right funny one.” She chuckled again. “Rest here, Miss Nethercott. When someone comes to take ye home, I will come up to get ye. Do not step a toe outside this room till then. If ye do, ye may be very sorry.”

  “I understand.”

  “I hope ye do!” Bennath left, closing the door behind her. Footsteps thudded away toward the stairs.

  Sian walked to the low rafter and folded her arms on top of it. Leaning her forehead on them, she sighed. Whoever came to retrieve her must be sworn to silence, and Sian knew she needed to buy Bennath’s forgetfulness as well. What a bumble-bath! She had left Bannatyne Hall because she felt like a prisoner. Now she was a prisoner. . .in a bordello!

  She flinched when she heard deep male voices rising from the ground floor. Feeling like a coward, but not wanting to face one of Bennath’s patrons, she tiptoed across the creaking floor to the door. She lifted the latch and pushed. The door did not budge. One of the sounds she had assumed was a footfall must have been a bar dropping in place. She was locked in, and, unless she became as small as a bat and able to fly, she could not flee through the window. How would fleeing help when thunder was still so close that the cottage shook with each clap?

  Facing the room again, she took a steadying breath. She had made a mistake, and she would rectify it. Her choices had been a simple matter of self-perseveration. Anyone would have gone to the cottage door in order to evade that horrible drunkard. All she had to do was wait for someone to arrive discreetly from Bannatyne Hall and just as discreetly take her back there. How long would it take a lad to run to the Hall and return with someone to escort her there? Half an hour at the most.

  Even as she told herself all that, she blinked back tears. When was the last time she had made a wise decision?

  She took careful steps back to the beam and leaned against it. Pain cut into her right hand, and she winced. Going closer to the lantern, she carefully drew out the sliver. She stuck the bloody spot into her mouth and sat on the very edge of the pallet. Her hand w
as sore. Her foot ached with a dull pain that matched the tempo of her throbbing head.

  Someone would come within minutes, and this would all be behind her, soon-to-be forgotten.

  She had to believe that, even though some inner voice whispered, “Fool.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The candle in the lantern had burned to a stub and threw distorted shadows on the walls when Sian opened her eyes. Where was she? The window was too small and in the wrong place.

  As she rolled onto her back so she could sit, a hand cupped her head and tilted it to the exact right angle for a soul-draining kiss. She reached out to the man who had invaded her dreams every night since she had come to Cornwall, the man whose face she had never seen, but whose touch lit fires within her that left her burning for him.

  His hand slid down her right leg, setting the skin alight as if lightning danced along it. He drew it up against him. Her gown rose higher, and he slipped his fingers beneath it. A hole in her stocking granted one finger what he sought. As he stroked her bare skin, she moaned into his mouth. She heard her stocking shred, but as his hand curved along her leg, something quivered deep within her, right where her legs met. Its flutter was insistent, craving his touch.

  He raised his lips away, and a soft smile parted hers. “I knew you would come for me,” she murmured as his mouth traced the pulse along her neck. She quivered beneath the spell he wove around her.

  “Did ye?” a deep voice whispered close to her ear. “Did ye know I would be unable to resist the invitation to let virginal Sian Nethercott entertain me in a brothel?”

  “Wraith!” She stiffened. Her eyes opened wider, and she knew this was not another dream.

  As he continued to stroke her leg, his smile broadened, rearranging the cloth across his shadowed face. He had raised the hood on his cloak, concealing his eyes behind a darkness that stretched down past his nose. It must be his way of trying to keep her from seeing more of him, because the guttering candle cast far more light than a cloud-scudded moon. But the shadows failed to conceal everything. She did not need to see his eyes to feel his gaze rake her face with unfettered desire.

  She reached down and withdrew his hand from beneath her stocking. She pushed her dress over her ankles, then winced as pain woke in her left one. “How dare you!” she snapped, as anguish climbed her leg. “You took advantage of me being half awake.”

  “What?” he asked in the feigned astonishment. “A reluctant harlot? If ye choose to meet me at Bennath’s academy, ye should give me pleasure, sweetheart, not be sassy.”

  “Do not call me that!”

  “What?”

  “Sassy.” She shuddered. “When I arrived here and knocked on the door, Bennath thought I was a light-skirts from Penzance named Sassy.”

  “So ye did come here of yer own free will.” He leaned toward her, and his lips tilted in an easy smile. “Maybe ye did want to meet me here.”

  “Are you cracked?” She raised her hands to push against his chest, then quickly drew them back. She had already learned that she could not budge him if he did not want to move. As well, her fingers tingled in anticipation of touching him. She must not allow her own longings to overmaster her. Primly, she went on, “I did not choose to meet you here!”

  “Is that so?” He laughed again. “Then why are ye here? Ye said ye knocked on the door.”

  “I had no choice. I was being chased by a horrible, stinking man. I twisted my ankle.”

  “Which one?”

  “The left.”

  All humor vanished from his voice. “Have ye had anyone look at it?”

  “Here?” She laughed tersely. “It takes no imagination to know what would happen if I pulled up my dress here to let someone examine my ankle.”

  “True, but will ye let me?” His voice deepened even further. “Will ye trust me, sweetheart?”

  She hesitated. Wraith had had many opportunities to hurt her, but the only damage he had done was to her self-control, urging her to throw it aside as she answered his kisses with her own. Yet she must never forget what he did when the moon was new or when storms swept ships off course.

  “What if I said no?” she whispered.

  “I would have to prove to ye that I am worthy of yer trust, but I would rather have ye say ye can trust me.” His hand curved along her face before gliding along her shoulder to where her sleeve had fallen to leave her gown revealing more of the curves above its once modest décolletage. “Do ye trust me, sweetheart?” His fingers rested on her upper arm, so close to her breast she could feel heat coming through his gloves.

  She remembered his lips sweeping across her breast in the garden the night he returned her sketchbook. That heat burst back to life again, and she knew that she wanted what he did.

  “What if I said no?” she repeated, barely able to push the words past her staccato breathing.

  “I hope you will not.” His hand cupped her breast as his mouth caressed her neck. When she slanted her head back to offer him more, his lips sought the spot where her pulse throbbed.

  She moaned his name when his fingers inched up her gown to hook into her sleeve and draw it slowly down. Her breath exploded out in a gasp when his mouth glided down across her breast as when they had stood in the Hall’s garden. The quivers in her center became a tremor ready to erupt through her. As he leaned her back, she brought him with her.

  His knee brushed her left leg, and she groaned. This time with pain. He pulled away so swiftly that her arms were jolted. Gently he took her leg and balanced it across his. He drew up her hem as she hastily pulled her sleeve back into place.

  He smiled. “There is no quota on what ye can share with me, sweetheart. Just because I am checking yer leg does not mean I cannot enjoy other fair sights.”

  “You have enjoyed too much already.” She doubted he believed the reprimand in her voice, because she did not.

  “A matter of opinion, sweetheart.” He raised a single finger to halt her answer. “Getting into a brangle will not help yer ankle. Trust me to look at it.”

  Sian bit back her retort. She did trust him, but she did not trust herself while feeling a great emptiness within her that only he could fill.

  When he did not say anything more, she pushed herself up to sit again. The motion sent another pain up her leg. When he touched her ankle lightly, she blinked back unbidden tears.

  “Is it broken?” she asked.

  “Nay, but ye have done it damage. I suspect ye will not be distressing Lord Bannatyne’s household by walking along the cliffs for at least a fortnight. Ye will need to stay off it that long. Maybe longer.” His hood turned toward her, but his face remained shrouded. “Ye look appalled, sweetheart.”

  “I am not one who sits quietly while the rest of the world goes about its business.”

  “If ye get bored, I can suggest some ways to pass the time that do not require ye to be standing.”

  “No doubt,” she said dryly. She looked at her ankle, hoping he did not see her smile at the thought of spending two luscious weeks in his arms. Her shoulders became rigid. Am I utterly addled? His bewitching games ripped away her good sense. He was a wrecker. She was the daughter of a baron and the sister-in-law of a viscount who owned shipping companies.

  Wraith must not have noticed her stiffening because he put his fingers in the tear in her gown. He easily ripped off a length of fabric. With care, he wound it around her ankle. The pain diminished enough for her to be able to catch her breath.

  “Better?” he asked, with a smile that, on any other man’s face, she would have called tender.

  “Yes.”

  “How did ye do so much damage to it? Did ye fall?”

  She shook her head. “I hurt it when I had to jump across a broken section of path.”

  His smile vanished. “Ye went up that section of the cliffs? Ye could have been killed!”

  “What choice did I have? The man chasing me was determined to steal my purse, even though I did not have one. The light
ning was getting closer and closer. When I reached the top of the cliff, I saw this house. I needed help, and Bennath promised to send someone to the Hall to have the carriage come to bring me home.”

  “No one is coming.”

  She blinked once, twice, then a third time at his matter-of-fact tone. “How do you know?”

  “Because I stopped Bennath’s messenger.”

  “What?” She tried to pull away from him, but he leaned one arm across her legs, holding her in place. Her fingers curled into fists of frustration, but he smiled in a silent dare for her to raise them against him.

  He lifted her right hand and slowly opened her fingers before he wove his through them. The worn leather of his gloves were cool. “Ye heard me, sweetheart. I stopped her messenger. Once I found out what his destination was and his message, I sent him back here.”

  “Why did he tell you the message?”

  Instead of answering her, he went on, “Knowing ye should be safe with Bennath, I came here after I tended to a few other matters.”

  “Safe? Here?” She yanked her hand out of his. “In a brothel?”

  “Did anyone disturb ye?”

  “Not until you came here.”

  He laughed.

  Vexed at how easily he manipulated her emotions, she looked over her shoulder to the small window. It was dark, revealing that she had spent hours at the brothel. No rain struck the wavy glass, so the storm must have passed.

  Not looking at him, she whispered, “Other matters? Did you lure a ship onto the rocks and to its doom?”

  “Nay. No ships have passed since the one that fled before the storm.” He tipped her face toward him. “Ye must be the most innocent woman in the world. Asleep in an unlocked room in a brothel where any lusty man would be pleased to chance upon ye.”

  “‘Tis locked! I know. I tried it.”

  “Locked from the outside.” His teeth glistened white in the uneven light. “Ye be lucky that Bennath kept her customers below until I arrived.”