The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  She gasped, and her eyes flew to his face in time to see the careless grin slide away, to see his expression change from one that he might assume for the purpose of a drawing room flirtation to one of dangerously serious intent. The teasing facade, the guarded, superficial chivalry, disappeared. Last night had been no flight of reason, no wishful fancy. He wanted her. At that moment all thoughts, all feelings, became as distant and meaningless as the misty details of a dream. All that mattered to Beth was now.

  “Beth …” Low and urgent, he whispered her name. Without removing his hand, he eased himself to a sitting position, one knee crooked and angled to the side, the other leg tucked under him Turkish style. Now he was so close that his wine-laced breath mingled with Beth’s own. Locking her gaze with his, he slid his hand slowly, purposefully up to encircle her trim ankle.

  Startled, breathless, Beth reached down to stay his hand from further wandering. “Alex, we can’t! We mustn’t … I don’t want to—”

  “You know you want me to touch you, Beth, just as much as you want to touch me. Touch me, Beth. Touch me.”

  Beth could not resist the invitation. For too long she’d wished to do exactly what he was asking of her, what he was compelling her to do. In a fever of anticipation, she found that her most pressing thought was where to start.

  “Beth!” Alex ground out her name through clenched teeth, his black eyes snapping with emotion. “I need you to touch me.”

  Though a small, sane voice in a corner of her mind told her she ought to be alarmed by the near-violence of Alex’s look and manner, Beth felt a soul-deep thrill, an urgency that rose to meet his. She lifted a trembling hand and traced with sensitive fingertips the lean planes of his face, from his forehead and the arch of those wicked black brows to the chiseled line of his jaw, around to the deep cleft in his chin and up to the sculpted, sensuous curve of his lips. All the while he watched her, his breath seemingly suspended, while Beth’s breath came quick and jagged.

  Then, driven by a hunger she used to wonder about and wish for in her relationship with Zach, she dropped her gaze to Alex’s open collar and slid her hand inside, brazenly stretching her fingers to maximize the contact. He was warm, the thatch of dark hair springy and soft. She felt his heartbeat beneath her hand, like the wild rhythm of a pagan drum.

  “Alex,” she whispered hoarsely, terror and guilt crowding her throat as he bent his head toward her. “What’s happening to us? You know we mustn’t kiss. We mustn’t do any of this! Zach …” Beth shook her head and pulled back, her hand fleeing reluctantly from the warm haven of his chest.

  Alex straightened, grasped her wrist, and brought her hand to his lips, softly kissing the tender hollow of her palm, sending a shiver of pleasure up her arm. He lifted heavy, tortured eyes to hers. “Lord, Beth, don’t you think I know that what we’re doing is wrong? But, God help me, I can’t seem to stop myself. When I saw you sitting on the beach, I thought I could spend a few moments with you, enjoy your company, without this happening. I deluded myself into believing that what I saw in your eyes last night was only wishfulness on my part. And I prayed that I hadn’t exposed my own needs. Needs that blossomed the day I met you. Needs that have grown daily, insistently, with every hour I’ve spent near you.”

  Still clasping her wrist, he pulled her closer till her aching breasts pressed against his chest. “If you were indifferent to me, perhaps it would be easier to resist the urge to hold you in my arms. But I know you are far from indifferent. Would that it were not so,” he rasped hopelessly, thrusting her gently from him and turning away.

  Beth felt bereft, alone, wanting. He was so close, yet so unattainable. Her whole being ached for him, yet it could never be. Even now Zach was choosing an engagement present for her. But she did not want Zach as she wanted Alex, body and soul. Why? she asked herself. She loved Zach. She’d loved Zach since she was a tottering devoted child and he a sprig of boyhood, all platinum hair and gangly limbs! Surely all she was feeling for Alex was a transitory thing, a phantom thing that would fade away like the prismed colors of the rainbow—beautiful, but only a fleeting mirage.

  And Alex had spoken only of needs. He had not spoken a word of affection, of respect or regard, of love. Would it make a difference if he loved her? Suddenly she had to know.

  “Alex?” she whispered.

  He did not reply. His shoulder was turned to her, and all she could see of his face was the stark angle of a cheekbone, the lowered sweep of ebony lashes, the slash of a grim mouth.

  “Alex, I need to know something,” she persisted, stoking her courage, lifting her chin determinedly. “I need to know if what you feel for me is just … passion or … or if you love me.”

  Alex reared around to face her. He looked stricken, confused. “Do I love you?” he repeated, as if she’d recited gibberish.

  Did he love her? Alex wasn’t sure what he felt for Beth. An obsessive need to claim her for his own did not necessarily constitute love. He wished for her happiness; he cherished her compassionate and loyal nature; he relished her brightness, her curiosity, her wit; he was excited and enthralled by her passion. Was he in love with her? It was hard to know, because thus far in his fickle dealings with the fair sex he had never, to his knowledge, been well and truly in love.

  As for familial love, that was another matter. He knew he’d loved his mother dearly, and he’d loved Zach the moment he saw the fragile whelp bound up in flannel and screaming from his cradle, screaming to suckle at the breast of his dead mother. God, poor Zach! Denied his mother, abhorred by his father, and separated from his brother, the only one who really loved him, till Beth….

  Alex plunged curled fingers into his tangled mass of hair. And now he would take away Beth’s love? Nay, he would not!

  “It doesn’t matter whether I love you or not, Beth,” he said, his voice as cold and hissing as winter’s breath across the moor. “You are betrothed to Zach. We cannot allow this sort of thing to happen again.”

  Beth gasped, obviously wounded by his suddenly icy demeanor. “If you recall, Lord Roth, ’twas not I who clasped you about the ankle. ’Twas not I who implored you to touch me!”

  “I spoke for both of us, Beth. You did not have to utter a word,” he shot back, his tone as barbed as an arrow. “You tell all with your eyes.”

  The telltale eyes narrowed, simmering with anger. “Then I will take care henceforth, Lord Roth, to say as little as possible to you with my eyes or any other part of me, my lips included.”

  Lord, she looked so beautiful with her head cocked just so and her lips pressed together like the knees of an old maid. All Alex’s resolve melted in the space of a mere moment. She was so proud, so prickly, so kissable! He felt the grim set of his mouth relax, his lips parting slightly. He leaned forward and watched her chin lower to a level with his, her mouth soften from defiance to surrender—pouted, yielding—her eyes mist with wonder and passion….

  “There you are, my lord! Hallo! Hallo?”

  Alex started at the sound of Dudley’s strident tenor. Twisting around, he observed his manservant not twenty feet away, trundling up the beach with the sluggish gait of a city dweller. Anxious to preserve Beth’s honor even with the servants—even with Dudley, who would not say a peep—Alex rose to his feet and stepped forward to intercept his servant, leaving Beth some time and a little privacy to pull herself together, a luxury he could not indulge in himself.

  “What is it, Dudley? Good God, it must be something important for you to fetch me like this,” he suggested, assuming a casual attitude.

  Dudley kept his eyes fixed on his master, apparently sensitive to the fact that Beth was slightly discomposed. Knowing Dudley, he’d probably seen it all. Too perceptive by half. Just like a woman, keen-eyed and knowing.

  “Begging your pardon, my lord, but you’re quite right about that,” Dudley began complainingly, his breath labored from the unusual exercise he’d been compelled to take in the line of duty. “I’d have sent another servant to s
cale these hideous dunes if things weren’t in such a hubble-bubble at the house, what with Mrs. Tavistock kicking up such a dust. But I didn’t dare trust those louts to compose themselves sufficiently to track you down, my lord. A more paper-skulled, beetle-headed bunch of Johnny Raws I never hope to see again, my lord! It’s just as I told you from the start. Stibbs can’t manage the house—”

  “Dudley,” Alex began repressively, “I know your opinion of Stibbs. Now out with the news, if you please! What has Mrs. Tavistock got to do with goings-on at Pencarrow?”

  “Well, it’s like this, my lord. Miss Gabrielle is missing. She went riding with the groom this morning and somehow played him a rig, slipping away suddenlike—”

  “Gabby’s missing again?”

  Alex turned toward the blanket. Beth was standing now. She’d pulled her straw bonnet into place atop her rich chestnut hair and was tying the bow beneath her chin. Her tone of voice clearly implied that she was not feeling overly concerned about Gabby’s disappearance. When she lifted her eyes from the task of smoothing her skirt, her gaze slithered past Alex and focused on Dudley. She was flushed but otherwise appeared cool and controlled. He suspected that her composure depended on avoiding the source of her aggravation—himself.

  “Yes, miss,” Dudley promptly replied. Alex could tell that Dudley liked Beth. She was one of the very few in Cornwall who’d received such a distinction. “’Tis more than an hour since your sister … er, lost her groom, and your mother is up in the boughs … I mean, she’s beside herself with worry.”

  “After all the other times Gabby’s lost her groom, Dudley, I can’t imagine why Mama frets so. My sister always returns by the afternoon, unless Zach finds her first and the two of them go off on some adventure. And it would serve best if Mama stayed at Brookmoor instead of descending upon Pencarrow and whipping the servants into a froth. I suspect I ought to return with you, however, and try to calm her, or Stibbs will be sadly out of curl for the rest of the day.”

  “She expects you to look for Miss Gabrielle, my lord,” Dudley hastened to add, turning back to Alex. “In the past Master Zachary has taken it upon himself to search for the child, but since he’s gone to St. Teath for the day …”

  “I shall be happy to play a part in easing Mrs. Tavistock’s mind, Dudley. But that will require that Beth and I return to the house as expeditiously as possible. You, my poor fellow, must carry the blanket and basket back to Pencarrow while I take Beth on the horse with me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary!” cried Beth, her cool demeanor shaken at the prospect of sitting a horse with Alex, their bodies touching. “I walk very fast, you know,” she insisted. She dared not touch him again. He went from frost to fever in a matter of seconds, and she responded like a besotted concubine, ever ready to forget her anger, her reservations, her commitments.

  “Don’t be a goose, Beth. It will take you three times longer to walk. On the horse we’ll reach Pencarrow in mere minutes,” he stressed, an underlying message behind his innocent words. He was telling her that they’d be touching for only a short time. And he was also implying that they ought to be quite safe from temptation on the back of a horse. Beth was torn between exasperation and a sort of lunatic merriment at the idea of such an odd safeguard against passion.

  “Of course,” she murmured, a strange inclination toward hysterical laughter tickling the corners of her mouth. She composed herself with an effort. Her obsession with Alex was turning her into a Bedlamite. “I shall ride with you, though I pity poor Dudley having to carry all this stuff and trudging through the sand, too. If you’re not used to the pull of the sand on your legs, it can be quite tiring.”

  “Thank you, miss, for your gracious concern,” Dudley intoned, flashing Alex a resentful look.

  “I’ll fetch the horse. You can begin gathering up the food and cutlery to refill the basket, Dudley,” Alex said, returning the man’s glare with amused tolerance.

  Dudley did as he was bidden, and Alex went for the horse. All the seriousness of her situation returned in full force as Beth watched Alex untether the stallion and stroke the restive beast’s shiny black coat, soothing him into submission. Then he guided the horse toward Beth. With a stroke of his hand, she thought. That was all it took to calm the stallion, now that he was trained. Alex had a masterful way with animals … and women. For everyone’s sake—hers, Zach’s, Alex’s—she had to be strong and resist Alex’s all too masterful ways.

  “Come, Beth, up you go!” Alex said as he twined his large, capable hands about her waist and easily tossed her onto the horse. “There. Wrap your knee about the pommel and grab hold of it. With me behind you as a prop, you’ll be as steady as the squire’s snore at Sunday service.”

  Beth smiled wanly at Alex’s humorous repartee, then steeled herself for the impact of his body against hers as he mounted the horse. His muscled thighs pressed lightly against her hips, enfolding her. His chest, was flush against her back, warming her. He reached around her shoulders to grasp the reins, embracing her. This was worse than she’d expected—the ride back to Pencarrow would be a most exquisite exercise in torture.

  “Are you steady, Beth?” he asked her gently, his mouth mere inches from her ear, his wine-sweet breath fanning her cheek like a summer breeze.

  “As I’ll ever be, Alex,” she said, sighing softly.

  Dudley watched them ride away with Shadow keeping pace alongside. Dudley shook his head dourly. “There’s fat in the fire, my feathered friends,” he told the gulls, who were fluttering down again now that the dog had left. “You mark my words. Before the summer’s over, those brothers are going to come to cuffs.” Dudley heaved a resigned sigh. “Trouble is, I like them both, you see. What a pickle. What a pickle!”

  Then he hung the basket from one elbow, tucked the folded coverlet under his other arm, and began his tedious journey back to Pencarrow and the vexatious household run by the bird-witted butler. But for once Dudley had more pressing thoughts to ruminate over than his disapproval of Stibbs.

  Chapter Eight

  Guilt weighed like ill-gotten gains, and Beth’s heart was as heavy as thirty pieces of silver. Zach had gone to town to buy her a present, and in the meantime she’d been on the verge of kissing his brother. She’d nearly betrayed her fiancé with a kiss, and further intimacies might have occurred had they not been interrupted by Dudley.

  “Lizzie, my head is throbbing,” Mrs. Tavistock whined fretfully. “I begin to think I might need just a smidgen of laudanum in a small tumbler of wine. Perhaps it will relax me till Lord Roth returns with Gabby. You do think he’ll find her, don’t you?”

  Beth’s mother lay wilting on the couch in the blue sitting room at Pencarrow, one arm hanging limp to the floor and the other crooked across her bosom, a sodden handkerchief clutched in her fist. Her eyes were closed. Dust motes floated in the streamers of simmering sunshine that wedged their way through the slightly parted velvet draperies. The hot afternoon had dawdled by, and neither Alex nor any of the servants who’d been pardoned from their duties by Stibbs to participate in the search had returned with Gabby.

  As she’d sat by the couch and nursed her mother’s nerves with hartshorn and lavender water, Beth’s mind had been preoccupied. Her thoughts dwelt not with her sister, however, but with the man who was seeking her. As the mantel clock chimed seven, Beth’s brow furrowed. She was beginning to worry about Gabby, too.

  “I’ll have Sadie bring you some laudanum, Mama,” Beth assured her, standing up to leave the room. She didn’t dare pull the bell rope, for Stibbs would appear and scowl her down for requesting such a fribblesome item when there was a dearth of servants about the house to run errands. Stibbs cared not a whit for Mrs. Tavistock’s nerves, for he was well acquainted with them. And, as the saying went, familiarity bred contempt.

  “You’re a dear, Lizzie,” her mother whispered as Beth left the room. Beth descended the stairs and walked down the hall that led to the kitchen and the adjoining sti
llroom where the medicines were kept. Sadie would be up to her elbows in dinner preparation at this hour, and Beth did not intend to disturb her; she would fetch the laudanum herself. Her mother did not approve of Beth’s willingness to run minor errands when the servants were busy. She predicted that Beth would never properly rule her own household but would be taken advantage of at every opportunity. But Beth could not conceive of sitting idle when she had a pair of perfectly good legs and could walk about the house at will.

  As she neared the kitchen, she heard voices, low and urgent, all of them seeming to be talking at once. She quickened her step, dread tugging at her heart like a needy beggar. Something must have happened to Gabby! She thrust open the door and entered the kitchen. Several stable workers and Alex were conversing with Sadie and Stibbs.

  “What has happened?” she asked abruptly, pausing just inside the door, fear rooting her feet to the spot. All of them turned toward her, their expressions startled, distressed, wary. She could see now that all the men who’d been searching for Gabby, Alex included, seemed to be covered with a fine dusting of powder, such as the type that her father had once worn on his wigs. Then she remembered how the miners used to look when they trudged home from work each day, covered with the silt that sifted down through the acrid air of the tin mines.

  Alarmed, she sought Alex’s eyes. “Gabby?” she said, worry strangling her voice to a reedy whisper.

  Stepping away from the knot of people who’d become dumbstruck at her appearance, Alex closed the distance between himself and Beth with two long strides. He gripped her elbow and pulled her through the open doorway and into the hall.

  He closed the door behind them, turned her to face him, and clamped her shoulders with firm hands. “We think Gabby’s lost in a tin mine, Beth. We found her horse nearby, and there’s evidence of a recent entry. There are small footprints in the damp dirt at the front of the mine shaft. We went a few feet inside, but without torches it was impossible to see anything. I left a man there in case she appears, but the rest of us returned for equipment.” Alex paused, seemingly waiting for a reaction.