by Danice Allen
“Is he asleep?” Gabby whispered to Zach when Pye continued to sit completely still with his eyes shut.
“No, I don’t think so,” Zach whispered back. “He always rests after a droll. It seems to take a great deal of his strength. He’ll stir by and by, and then he’ll leave. Here.” Zach reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a shinny new guinea. He reached for Gabby’s hand and pressed the coin into her small palm. “Put it in Mr. Thatcher’s coat pocket, love. He’s a funny old fellow, and he likes to pretend that we don’t pay him for these delightful visits.”
“Then why do we, Zach?” asked Gabby, confused.
“Because he’s dreadfully poor, Gabby,” chided her mother, gesturing in Pye’s direction. “Can’t you see his ragged clothing?”
Gabby looked at Pye as if for the first time. She’d noticed his lined face, his thicket of silver hair, his piercing eyes as blue as Dozmary Cove on a clear day, but she had not seen his poverty. Now she saw it because someone had brought it to her attention. A dull pain tugged at her heart. She stood up and moved to stand next to the chair Pye sat in. He smelled of moor heather and dirt, sunshine and sweat. She pitied him and wished that she had a small mite to give him, too.
She reached over and gently hooked a finger in a pocket of his coat, gaping it slightly so she could ease the coin inside without disturbing him. Her deed done, she straightned and looked into his face. His eyes were open. They shone gimlet-bright. He smiled, deepening the wrinkles in his withered cheeks. “Don’t worry about me, child,” he said, so low only she heard him. “I be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Rich in life. Rich in story. Are ye a believer, lass?”
Gabby smiled back. “Yes, Mr. Thatcher, I believe.”
Chapter Seven
Beth sat alone on a blue quilted coverlet on the sand, her arms wrapped about her knees, and watched the late morning sun arc across the sky to its twelve o’clock zenith. The wide-bottomed skirt of her yellow walking gown was tucked around her ankles, her feet were bare, and her straw bonnet hung by its jonquil ribbons against her back. The air was pungent with sea salt, and the tide swelled and foamed low and quiet, tugging at the shore as gently as a bridegroom might tug at his virgin wife’s modest nightdress on their wedding eve.
Would Zach be as gentle? she wondered, an unexpected sharp dread digging at her, bone-deep. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to dispel the thought of lying naked in Zach’s arms. All she managed to do was replace Zach’s straight butter-gold hair with waving locks as black as a Stygian night and change the color of Zach’s blue eyes to a dark Gypsy brown. She shook her head. This image—the image of herself lying naked in Alex’s arms—was even more disturbing.
She’d brought food to share with the gulls, but no pang of hunger tempted her to open the basket and pull out the fruit and cheese wrapped in clean white cloths. Not even Cook’s special crusty bread with fresh salty butter seemed appetizing to her. She was hungry for something—someone—quite beyond her reach.
Last night during the droll-telling she’d seen an echo of her own desire reflected in Alex’s eyes, but she dared not investigate the meaning or intent of that desire. And today, in the sobering brightness of daylight, she supposed she must have imagined much of what she saw, or thought she saw.
After Pye was done telling the droll last night, she’d pleaded fatigue and somehow managed to persuade her mother to end the evening early. In the flurry of departure, Beth had not once looked Alex in the eye, even when he bade her good night. Whether his desire for her had been a fleeting spark or an imagined folly of her own fevered mind, her responding look had bared her own feelings shamefully. What must he think of her now?
Beth’s common sense told her that Alex Wickham, Lord Roth, was accustomed to engaging in flirtations with women, and she did not flatter herself that his attraction to her—if he truly felt an attraction—was anything special. Even if he did cherish feelings for her beyond physical desire, they were destined to be left unexpressed, unexplored. Alex loved Zach, perhaps as much as she did. She’d have to be blind and deaf to believe otherwise. They could never hurt Zach by succumbing to a passion that might diminish or dissipate within moments of fulfillment.
A gull fluttered down just a few feet away from the blanket and strutted back and forth, advancing gradually. “Oh, all right, you pest,” Beth addressed the bird good-naturedly, suppressing her troubled thoughts. “I’ll get some bread out for you. But as soon as I do, all your friends will join us, and the lot of you will peck and pick at each other over every morsel!”
She opened the basket and unwrapped a round loaf of oven-browned bread, the rough crust glossy with the egg white that Cook brushed on before baking. Tearing off a portion and releasing the fresh, yeasty aroma into the air, she pulled it into small pieces and threw them on the sand. As she’d predicted, her blanket was soon surrounded by birds bickering and cawing excitedly, dashing and dueling for every crumb. Their silly antics made her giggle. The mirth bubbling inside her felt good, and she threw back her head and laughed out loud.
A splashing noise drew her attention, and she turned to look upshore where the trail led down from the cliffs near Pencarrow. A rider on a black horse, hoof deep in sea-foam, skirted the jagged shoreline followed by the white blur of a huge dog racing alongside. It could be none other than Alex. Her heart stopped for a moment, then resumed beating with a heavy thump she felt to the tips of her toes. As he drew near, she prayed he’d stop and she prayed he wouldn’t.
He was easing his horse—a brute of a stallion Alex had tamed in the few weeks he’d been at Pencarrow—to a gradual halt. He was in shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled neatly to just below his elbows. She admired the sinewy strength of his forearms and his shapely sun-browned hands so capably handling the tethers. She imagined them twined about her waist, pulling her against his broad chest and felt herself blush.
She ducked her head and pretended to be engrossed in tearing apart another chunk of bread as he swung down from the saddle. The horse still pranced and threw his elegant head in protest against such a sudden cessation to the gallop he’d been enjoying. Shadow loped toward the blanket and scattered the last of the gulls who had not been scared away by the horse’s thunderous approach.
“Down, boy!” said Beth, fending off several attempts by Shadow to lick her face, all the while trying fervently to calm herself. Why had Alex come? If he had just chanced by, why did he stop? She supposed he was simply being courteous by stopping a moment to say hello, and he would be on his way in the twinkling of a bedpost. Would their meeting be awkward for him, or had he already dismissed last night’s moment of revelation as folly?
Finally Shadow settled on his haunches next to Beth, his long tongue hanging out as he panted vigorously. Suddenly remembering that she’d kicked off her sandals, she shifted her legs to one side and rested on her hip, tucking her bare feet under the hem of her skirt. She looked up and saw Alex staring down at her, one hand grasping the horse’s ribbons and the other curled into a fist and braced against his lean thigh. His hair was a windswept tumble of coal-black waves.
“Good morning, Beth,” he said in his mellow baritone.
“Good morning, Alex.” She lifted the corners of her mouth, attempting to form a natural smile, but her lips trembled with the effort. She needn’t have tried so hard, though, because Alex wasn’t smiling. He looked at her searchingly. She bowed her head and busied herself with the bread, anxious to hide the yearning that thrummed through her blood and quickened her body at the mere sight of him, at the vital, warm intoxicant of his nearness.
“Why do you come and eat alone on the beach?” he asked her.
“Why, indeed?” she replied quickly, lifting her head to show a flickering rueful smile. “Gabby is riding about the countryside with our groom, and Mama is still abed. As for Zach, he has gone to town to buy me another bauble,” she finished dully. As soon as she’d said it, she recognized and loathed the peevish tone of her voice. But before she could speak again, b
efore she could cover and dispel the disappointment she’d revealed by the careless intonation of her voice, Alex spoke.
“He’s fretted about that cameo ever since he lost it, you know.”
“Yes,” Beth agreed, grateful that he’d either not recognized or mercifully ignored her peevishness. “Perhaps that’s why he has seemed so agitated lately. Mayhap a trip to town will ease his restlessness.”
“Yes, I should think it might … for a time.”
Beth thought his statement rather cryptic but forbore to question him, afraid that her resentment toward Zach and his neglect of her lately might show. Overshadowing this concern and every other thought and feeling was the need to know how Alex felt about her. She needed to know whether he truly had feelings for her or if last night’s mystical aura of droll-telling had permeated her brain and made her imagine things as unreal as the knackers and spriggans of Cornish folklore.
His eyelids drooped over the black fathoms of his eyes, revealing nothing. His stance was tense, the angle of his jaw square and firm. Then he smiled suddenly, crookedly. “Do you think you can spare a bit of that bread or are you going to toss it all on the sand? The gulls are too frightened of Shadow to dare approach, and he doesn’t fancy the stuff. I, however, am famished.”
Taking her cue from this abrupt change of mood, this friendly, offhand approach, Beth replied lightly, “Then you must by all means join me for nuncheon. I’ve plenty of food and had much rather share it with you than with the gulls. They are ill-mannered, thankless creatures, never satisfied.”
“So that you will not regret your invitation, I promise to eat my food with the fastidious nicety with which one eats the stale cake and drinks the weak ratafia at Almack’s. I shall be cloyingly thankful and pretend to be satisfied even if I’m not,” Alex assured her, his smile broadening as he inclined his head in a playful courtly bow.
Beth smiled back, her heart fluttering like a legion of butterflies. It was impossible not to respond to such a roguish grin. If he could converse with her so easily, tease her so naturally, he must not have recognized the shameful yearnings she’d felt were so blatant in her expression last night. Relief and disappointment tumbled and collided inside her till she hardly knew which emotion held the upper hand. Lord, this was too confusing!
“I’ll tie up my horse and water him, then join you in a moment,” he said, casting about for some shrubbery or a jutting rock on which to tether his horse. Apparently spying a wind-blasted tamarisk bush several yards inshore, he turned and led the animal away in that direction. Shadow followed, no doubt anticipating a refreshing drink along with the horse.
“I’ll prepare the food,” she called after Alex, but found herself unable to do anything of the sort. She could do naught but watch, mesmerized, as he strode across the sand, his tall, athletic form shown to distracting advantage by the tight-fitting buckskin breeches and white shirt tucked loosely into the waistband. Without a coattail draped over his backside, his narrow, firm buttocks were revealed to be muscled and well defined. A tailor’s dream come true, or a lover’s….
Beth gasped at her own unmaidenly brazenness at gaping at a man’s pleasingly shaped derriere and, furthermore, speculating on one’s enjoyment of such a pleasing derriere in the midst of heated lovemaking. Horrified at the turn her thoughts had taken, Beth gave herself a stern shake and concentrated on emptying the picnic basket. Fixing her eyes on her task, she sliced the cheese and peeled the fruit with the single-mindedness of a miser counting his coins.
Alex soon returned and eased his imposing frame onto the coverlet next to her. Shadow remained behind to loll in the shade of the tamarisk bush. Alex stretched out on his side and propped his jaw against a clenched fist, unluckily repeating the exact pose he had assumed that day on the beach when Beth had chanced to see him sunbathing naked. Memories of his bare sportsman’s body pounded through her every thought, caught at her every breath, and cleaved through her composure like an ax.
She had scooted aside to make room for him on the blanket, but he was still a mere arm’s length away. At such close proximity, it seemed inevitable that her gaze would drift to the gaping neckline of his shirt and the hair peeking just above the pristine white edges. The dark coils looked downy soft. She had a strong urge to insinuate her fingers inside the open collar of his shirt and lay her hand, palm down, against his chest.
“The food looks good.”
Beth’s eyes lifted guiltily to his. “I’m … I’m sure it is,” she stuttered, thoroughly convinced she’d finally, truly, made him aware of her attraction to him. But his eyes were steady and guarded. “Please, don’t stand upon ceremony. Help yourself to anything you see.” Beth fluttered her hand over the food in an almost feeble gesture. That was just how she felt, too. Feeble and without defense against her own thoughts and passions.
Alex reached for a slice of cheese and a wedge of apple, stacked them, and lifted them to his mouth. Beth watched him like a devoted lap pug as he took a bite and chewed slowly. After he’d swallowed, she watched his lips curve into a grin. Startled, she raised her eyes to his and saw tender amusement reflected in the inky depths, his left brow elevated to a questioning arch.
“Aren’t you going to eat something?” he asked her. “I’m hungry, but not such a glutton as to wish to have it all for myself. You can’t assuage the pangs of hunger simply by watching your companion eat, you know.”
Beth’s lashes fluttered down. She was embarrassed to have been caught ogling him. “I’m really not very hungry.”
“Eat something anyway,” he coaxed, putting down his own food, then picking up a wedge of apple and lifting it to her mouth. “I can’t really enjoy myself unless you join me.”
Beth looked into those teasing black eyes and then down at the lean brown hand that was holding the slice of apple an inch from her mouth. Compelled to do as he asked, and frightened by the realization that she’d probably do anything he asked of her, Beth parted her lips.
Alex leaned forward and eased the juicy, sweet-tart piece of apple between her lips, nudging against her teeth. “You’re going to have to open wider, Beth,” he said in a low, persuasive voice. Electrified by such a loverlike tone, she raised her gaze to his and obediently opened her mouth a little wider. He inserted the apple wedge, and she took a small bite, chewed it self-consciously, and swallowed. Alex’s hand was still poised in the space between them. He’d been watching her eat with as much concentration as she’d watched him.
“More?” he asked, the word a caress, as he held the apple near her mouth again.
“I can feed myself,” she said breathlessly, wrenching her eyes away from the seductive lure of his. Then, with trembling hands, she snatched a slice of cheese, pulled off a rounded corner of the bread, and proceeded to eat. But every bite she swallowed tore at her panic-parched throat. She turned toward the water and concentrated on the ebb and flow of the tide, trying to shut out all impressions but the sight of the tranquil sea. The sea could usually calm her, but Alex’s masculine scent and the circle of warmth he radiated reached out to her, teasing her, tempting her.
Tempting her with an apple, she thought with a sudden secret burst of ironic humor. How ageless. How biblical! But the roles were reversed, and he was the seductress, Eve, and she the hapless Adam!
“You must be thirsty. I know I am,” Alex said, his voice as smooth and silky as a houri’s veil.
“There’s wine in the basket,” she said, grateful to be reminded of it, since her throat felt as dry as an Indian desert. As he reached for the bottle of wine wrapped in a serviette, Beth studied him. Surely her imagination was running amok, just as Gabby’s tended to do. Alex wasn’t tempting her or flirting with her or doing anything except being cordial and charming, she reasoned. He was a vital, attractive man who probably had the same effect on every woman fortunate enough to share food and conversation with him. He probably made them all feel beautiful, desirable and … willing.
Willing. Beth didn’t like that w
ord as a description of herself—since she was far from free to be willing—or as a description of the other women in Alex’s bachelor existence. Jealousy rumbled and spit like the dark ominous clouds of a gathering thunderstorm.
“There’s only one goblet, but I daresay we can share it,” he said easily, uncorking the bottle and half filling the glass with plum-colored wine. “You first.” He handed her the goblet.
Beth drank greedily, the sweet, fruity potable coating her aching throat. Then, chagrined to discover that she’d left a mere swallow at the bottom, she returned the goblet with an apologetic, shy smile, saying unnecessarily, “I was thirsty.”
Alex received the glass with an amused and tolerant grin, refilled it, and took a languid sip. Beth squirmed restlessly, his apparent ease an abrasive irritant to her own disquiet, and toyed with the decorative tasseled edging of the coverlet.
“Tsk-tsk, Miss Tavistock,” he said teasingly, gesturing toward her small pink toes peeking out from beneath the flounce of her dress. “You’re barefoot and likely to catch an inflammation of the lung if you gad about so underdressed. What would Sadie say, hmmm?”
Beth’s head jerked up defiantly. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that he had, on at least one occasion, exposed himself to the elements a great deal more under-dressed than she was! He returned her look with a challenging expression that almost made her believe he knew what she was thinking and what she was tempted to retort. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
“They must be cold, so unprotected,” he said, reaching over to slip his hand just under the hem of her skirt to cradle the exposed foot in his large palm.
Beth was rendered speechless and motionless by the unexpected power of her reaction. He was hardly touching an intimate part of her body, yet the warmth of his strong fingers curled about the tender, sensitive pads of her foot sent spidery tingles of awareness from her toes all the way to her sun-warmed scalp.
