by Rowan Nina
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A Passion for Pleasure.
Chapter One
She was carrying a head.
Sebastian Hall squinted and rubbed his gritty eyes. He blinked and looked again. Definitely a head. Cradled in one arm like a baby. A woman’s head with coiffed brown hair, though at this distance he couldn’t see her expression. He imagined it to be rather distressed.
He watched as the young woman crossed the empty ballroom to the stage, her steps both quick and measured, her posture straight in spite of her gruesome possession.
Sebastian pushed himself away from the piano. The room swayed a little as he rose, as if he were on the deck of a ship. A hum, seasick-yellow, droned in his ears. He dragged a hand over his face and scrubbed at his rough jaw as he crossed the room.
The woman didn’t appear to see him, her path set unswervingly on her destination. A basket dangled over her left arm.
Sebastian cleared his throat. The guttural noise echoed in the vast room like the growl of a bear.
“Miss.” His voice sounded coarse, rusted with disuse.
The woman startled, jerking back and losing her grip on the head, which fell to the floor with a thump and then rolled. A cry of surprise sounded, though in his befuddled state, Sebastian couldn’t tell from whom it had emerged. He looked down as the head rolled to a stop near his feet like the victim of an executioner’s ax.
A perfect waxen face stared up at him, wide, unblinking blue eyes, pink mouth, her hair beginning to escape a smooth chignon.
After a moment of processing this turn of events, Sebastian bent to retrieve the head. The woman reached it before he did, scooping it back into her arms and stepping away from him.
“Sir! If you would please—Oh.”
Sebastian looked up into a pair of rather extraordinary eyes—a combination of blue and violet flecked with gold. Something flickered in his memory, though he couldn’t grasp its source.
Where had he—
“Mr. Hall.” She tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear, hugging the head closer to her chest. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
She frowned, glancing at his wrinkled clothes, his unshaven jaw and scuffed boots. For an uncomfortable moment, he wanted to squirm under that sharp assessment. He pulled a hand through his hair in a futile effort at tidiness, then experienced a sting of annoyance over his self-consciousness.
“Are you…” He shook his head to try to clear it. “I’m afraid this room is closed in preparation for Lady Rossmore’s ball.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t remember me.”
Oh, hell.
Out of sheer habit, Sebastian attempted to muster a charming smile, though it had been so long since one had come naturally to him that his face felt like pulled clay.
“Well, far be it from me to forget a woman as enchanting as yourself. Your name has slipped my mind, though of course I remember… that is, I must be out of my wits to—”
“For pity’s sake.” She seemed to be trying hard not to roll her eyes. “My name is—was—Clara Whitmore. My brother and I both took piano lessons from you years ago when we stayed in Dorset.”
Sebastian struggled to make his brain work as he looked at her round, pretty face, her curly brown hair pulled into an untidy knot. A streak of grease or oil smudged her cheek. She looked like a thousand other ordinary women—a shopkeeper’s daughter, a clerk, a schoolteacher, a milliner’s apprentice.
Except for her eyes. And a tiny black birthmark punctuating the corner of her smooth left eyebrow, like the dot of a question mark.
“Does your father reside in Dorset still?” Sebastian asked.
“No, I’m afraid that property has been long abandoned.” Her eyes flickered downward, shading her expression. She shifted the head to her other arm. “So, Mr. Hall, I’ve continued to hear great things about you over the years. You were at Weimar last summer, were you not?”
The admiring, bright pink note in her voice clawed at him. His fingers flexed, a movement that caused tension to creep up his arm and into the rest of his body.
“Yes.” His voice sounded thin, stretched.
Clara blinked, a slight frown tipping her mouth again. Her eyes were really the strangest shade—a trick of the light, surely. No one had eyes that color. He certainly didn’t recall having noticed them when she was his student. He didn’t even recall having noticed her.
Discomfort pinched Sebastian’s chest. He wouldn’t have noticed her back then. Not when women had flocked to him with bright smiles and hot whispers. Among such birds of paradise, Clara Whitmore—even with her unusual eyes—would have been a plain brown sparrow.
She still is, he told himself.
He straightened his shoulders, glancing at the waxen head with an unspoken question.
“My uncle is debuting an automaton tomorrow evening at Lady Rossmore’s ball,” Clara explained. “Well, I’m debuting it on his behalf, as he was called out of town rather suddenly.”
A surge of comprehension rolled through Sebastian as the pieces began locking together in his blurred mind.
“Then you are Mr. Granville Blake’s niece,” he said. “I’d expected… that is, Lady Rossmore said he might be here.”
“He’d intended to be, but owing to the circumstances, I’m to carry out his duties.” Clara touched the automaton’s head, drawing Sebastian’s gaze to her long fingers. “This is Millicent, the Musical Lady. Part of her anyhow. She plays four tunes on the piano.”
“How”—ridiculous—“interesting.” Though he’d heard Granville Blake dabbled in all sorts of mechanical toys and automata, Sebastian was interested in only one of the man’s many projects.
And now he apparently had to be interested in the man’s niece as well.
“You oughtn’t be here alone,” he told her. “Especially at this hour.”
“We’ve permission to set things up,” she replied. “This is the only opportunity we have to assemble Millicent and her piano. And I’m not alone. My uncle’s assistant Tom is just outside loading the remaining crates.” She glanced behind him to the piano resting beside the stage. “Will you be performing at the ball?”
His jaw tensed. If Lady Rossmore had not told him Mr. Granville Blake would be in attendance, Sebastian would have spent the following evening wreathed in the smoke and noise of the Eagle Tavern.
“I will be in attendance,” he said, “but not performing.”
“Oh. Well, I do apologize for the interruption. I didn’t even know anyone else would be here. Once Millicent is assembled, we’ll leave you to your work.”
Work. The piano was all the evidence she needed to assume he’d been working.
He was about to respond with a sharp tone—though he had no idea what he’d say—when a needle of rational thought pierced the fog in his brain.
At the very least, he needed to be civil to Clara Whitmore if he wanted to learn more about her uncle’s projects.
Or perhaps he should be more than civil. Women had always responded to his attentions. Even if now those attentions were corroded with neglect, Miss Whitmore didn’t appear the sort who had much to judge them—or him—by.
“Would you care for a currant muffin?” She opened the basket. “I thought I’d better bring something to eat since I don’t know how long Tom and I will be here. I’ve also got apples and shortbread…”
She kept talking. He stopped listening.
Instead he stared at the curve of her cheek, the graceful slope of her neck, revealed by her half-turned head. He watched the movement of her lips—a lovely, full mouth she had—and the way her thick eyelashes swept like feathers to her cheekbones.
She looked up to find him watching her. The hint of a flush spread across her pale skin. With a sudden desire to see that flush darken, Sebastian let his gaze wander from her slender throat down across the curves of her body, her tapered waist, the flare of her hips beneath her full skirt. Then he followed the path back to her face.
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There. Color bloomed on her cheeks. Her teeth sank into her lush lower lip. Consternation glinted in her lavender eyes. He wondered what she’d look like with her hair unpinned, if it would be long and tangled and thick.
“I… er… I should get to work,” Clara went on, ducking her head. “Tom will be in momentarily, and there’s a great deal to do. Please, take a muffin, if you’d like.”
Sebastian rolled his shoulders back. A cracking noise split through his neck as he stretched. He realized for the first time that day he’d almost forgotten the headache pressing against his skull.
“Thank you.” Again he experienced that wicked urge to provoke a reaction. “I’m not hungry. Not for food.”
Her lips parted on a silent little gasp, as if she wasn’t certain whether to be offended by his suggestive tone or to ignore it altogether. Expressing offense, of course, meant she’d have to reveal that she had recognized the implications of his words.
She gave a nonchalant shrug and shifted, then held Millicent’s head out to him. “If you please, sir—”
“I please, Miss Whitmore.” His voice dropped an octave. “Often and well.”
He was drunk. Or recently had been.
That didn’t explain why Clara’s heart beat like an overworked clock, or why the rough undercurrent of Mr. Hall’s words heated her skin, but at least it explained him.
She tried to breathe evenly. She couldn’t recall ever having had this reaction to him. She remembered him leaning over her shoulder as he demonstrated the position of his fingers on the piano keys. She remembered the assured tone of his voice as he spoke of quarter notes and major scales… but he’d been distant then, a brilliant pianist, a dashing young man who attracted beautiful women, who would keep company with kings and emperors.
Now the distance had closed. He stood before her close enough to touch. He had aged, diminished somehow. Had he… fallen?
A tiny ache pierced Clara’s heart. Sebastian Hall had always been disheveled, but in a rather appealing fashion suited to his artistic profession.
I’ve no time to fuss, his manner had proclaimed. I’ve got magic to weave.
And he had, with kaleidoscope threads and fairy-dust needles. At dinner parties and concerts, Mr. Hall spun music through the air and made Clara’s blood echo with notes that had never before moved her.
Not until Sebastian Hall had brought them to life. Sleeves pushed up to his elbows, hair tumbling across his forehead, he’d played the piano with a restless energy that could in no way be contained by the polish of formality.
But now? Now he was just… messy. At least three days’ worth of whiskers roughened his jaw, and his clothes looked as if he’d slept in them for even longer than that. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He appeared hollowed out, like a gourd long past Allhallows Eve.
Clara tilted her head and frowned. Although Mr. Hall’s eyes were bloodshot, they contained a sharpness that overindulgence would have blunted. And his movements—they were tense, restless, none of his edges smeared by the taint of alcohol.
She stepped a little closer to him. Her nose twitched. No rank smell of ale or brandy wafted from his person. Only…
She breathed deeper.
Ahh.
Crisp night air. Wood smoke. The rich, faintly bitter scent of coffee. Clara inhaled again, the scent of him sliding deep into her blood and warming a place that had long been frozen over.
“Miss Whitmore?”
His deep voice, threaded with cracks yet still resonant, broke into her brief reverie. Such a pleasure to hear his voice wrap around her former name, evoking the golden days when she had been young, when William and their mother had been alive and sunshine-yellow dandelions colored the hills of Dorset like strokes of paint.
She lifted her gaze to find Mr. Hall watching her, his eyes dark and hooded. Her face warmed.
“Sir, are you… are you ill?” she asked.
The frank question didn’t appear to disconcert him. Instead a vague smile curved his mouth—a smile in which any trace of humor surrendered to wickedness. A faint power crackled around him, as if attempting to break through his crust of lassitude.
“Ill?” he repeated. “Yes, Miss Whitmore, I am ill indeed.”
“Oh, I—”
He took a step forward, his hands flexing at his sides. She stepped back. Her heart thumped a restive beat. She glanced at the door, suddenly wishing Tom would hurry and arrive.
“I am ill behaved,” Mr. Hall said, his advance so deliberate that Clara had the panicked thought that she would have nowhere to go should he keep moving toward her. Should he reach out and touch her.
“Ill considered,” Mr. Hall continued. Another step. Two. “Ill content. Ill at ease. Ill-favored. Ill-fated—”
“Ill-bred?” Clara snapped.
Sebastian stopped. Then he chuckled, humor creasing his eyes. An unwelcome fascination rose in Clara’s chest as the sound of his deep, rumbling laugh settled alongside the delicious mixture of scents that she knew, even now, she would forever associate with him.
“Ill-bred,” he repeated, his head cocking to the side. “The second son of an earl oughtn’t be ill-bred, but that’s a fair assessment. My elder brother received a more thorough education in social graces.” Amusement still glimmered in his expression. “Though I don’t suppose he’s done that education much justice himself.”
Clara had no idea what he was talking about. She did know that she’d backed up clear across the room to the stage. He stopped inches from her, close enough that she could see how the unfastened buttons of his collar revealed an inverted triangle of his skin, the vulnerable hollow of his throat where his pulse tapped.
A prickle skimmed up her bare arms, tingling and delicious.
Sebastian kept looking at her, then reached into his pocket and removed a silk handkerchief. “May I?”
She shook her head, not certain what he was asking. “I beg your pardon?”
“You have”—he gestured to her cheek—“dirt or grease.”
Before she could turn away, the cloth touched her face. She startled, more from the sensation than the sheer intimacy of the act. Sebastian Hall’s fingers were warm, light and gentle against her face.
He moved closer, a crease of concentration appearing between his dark eyebrows as he wiped the marks from her face with the soft handkerchief. Clara’s breath tangled in the middle of her chest. She stared at the column of his throat, bronze against the pure white of his collar, the coarse stubble roughening the underside of his chin.
She didn’t dare raise her gaze high enough to look at his mouth, though she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. The urge made her fingers curl tight into her palms, made a strange yearning stretch through her chest.
The muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed, his hand falling to his side. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket.
With his attention turned away from her, Clara noticed the weariness etched into the corners of his eyes, the brackets around his mouth, the faintly desperate expression in his eyes that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with fatigue.
Fatigue. That was it. Sebastian Hall was bone-deep exhausted.
He met her gaze.
No. The man was exhausted past his bones and right into his soul.
Before she could speak, Sebastian stepped back, turning toward the front of the room. Tom pushed open the doors and maneuvered a trolley loaded with four crates. He glanced up, his face red with exertion. “Almost done, miss.”
Clara hurried to meet him. They conferred briefly about how best to organize the various parts of the machine; then Clara turned back to the stage. Sebastian Hall was gone.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Rochelle Alers
Dear Reader,
I would like to thank everyone who told me they couldn’t wait to return to Cavanaugh Island. And like the genie in the bottle, I’m going to grant your wish.<
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You will get to revisit people and places on the idyllic island while being introduced to others who will make you laugh and cry—and even a few you’d rather avoid. It is a place where newcomers are viewed with suspicion, family secrets are whispered about, and old-timers are reluctant to let go of their past. Most inhabitants believe what happens in Sanctuary Cove, Angels Landing, or Haven Creek stays on Cavanaugh Island. Angels Landing—or “the Landing,” as the locals refer to it—takes its name from the antebellum mansion and surrounding property that was and will again become a crown jewel on the National Register of Historic Places.
In ANGELS LANDING you will meet newcomer Kara Newell, a transplanted New York social worker who inherits a neglected plantation and a house filled with long-forgotten treasures and family secrets spanning centuries. Kara finds herself totally unprepared to step into her role as landed gentry, and even more unprepared for the island’s hunky sheriff. Her southern roots help her adjust to the slower way of Lowcountry life, but she finds herself in a quandary when developers concoct elaborate schemes to force Kara into selling what folks refer to as her birthright. Then there’s hostility from newfound family members, as well as her growing feelings for Sheriff Jeffrey Hamilton.
Jeff has returned to Cavanaugh Island to look after his ailing grandmother and to assume the duties of sheriff. His transition from military to civilian life is smooth because, as “Corrine Hamilton’s grandbaby boy,” he’s gained the respect of everyone through his fair, no-nonsense approach to upholding the law. However, his predictable lifestyle is shaken when he’s asked to look after Kara when veiled threats are made against her life. When Jeff realizes his role as protector shifts from professional to personal, he is faced with the choice of whether to make Kara a part of his future or lose her like he has other women in his past.
So come on back and reunite with folks with whom you’re familiar and new characters you’ll want to see time and time again. You will also get a glimpse of Haven Creek, where artisans still practice customs passed down from their African ancestors. Make certain to read the teaser chapter from Haven Creek for the next installment in the Cavanaugh Island series.
