“I believe this is your aunt’s house.”
“Ah, a stroke of luck.” God, yes. He’d told Satya they were in the general area. And Satya had had the foresight to knock at the right door. Fortuitous that the old girl was still alive—but then, she was far too cantankerous to join the choir invisible any time soon. When she went, St. Peter and the devil both were likely to come to blows over who should be burdened with her.
“If you want to call it luck after you’ve lost a ship, sahib.”
“Yes, well, we’re still alive. Or you are. And I may be yet.” He tried to push himself into a sitting position, but the pain in his ribs stopped him cold.
Despite the bandaging, he managed a gulp of air. He might have known by the smell alone he was back in England—back home, or nearly so. The salt air, the polished woods, the faint undertone of mustiness that came from a deteriorating stone manor combined to draw a myriad of old memories from the recesses of his mind. Not all of them good, either.
But then, that was the reason he’d gone to India, to recover the financial losses his father had burdened the family with on his death. Alexander had nearly succeeded, too. This was supposed to be his triumphant return to the fold, but instead, he’d arrived on the breast of a storm, his ship breaking to pieces beneath his feet. And his cargo likely at the bottom of the Channel by now.
That or scavenged. Invariably, on this coastline, when a ship went down, the locals were clever enough to comb the beaches for valuables. Which meant only one thing. If he was to recoup any of his losses, he’d have to get himself out of this bed in the morning and see what he could recover from the local villagers.
Dear God, and his crew. He must discover what had become of them. Lord, let them be all right. The goods were replaceable; the men weren’t. He’d have to inquire after them, as well. He’d witnessed enough death in India. In coming home, he’d thought to escape the worst.
He closed his eyes, sending a silent prayer to a deity he wasn’t sure he believed in, whether the Christian God or Vishnu, it hardly mattered. Please, please let the deaths be over.
Chapter Two
“Damn him. Damn him to hell.” A sharp gust off the sea ripped the invective from Henrietta’s lips.
The gray waters of the English Channel hissed over pebbles in an even rhythm that ought to have soothed after a sleepless night. They did nothing for her, nor did a lungful of salt-laden air. Bracing—that’s what they called this sort of predawn cold. It was meant to straighten one’s spine, stiffen one’s upper lip, and urge one forward. But her temper stood firm in the face of the steady headwind off the waves.
Damn him. Why did he have to come back still possessing the power to devastate her just as when she’d first laid eyes on him? Then, he’d done so with nothing more than his handsome features. Something about his somber expression had reached out and wrapped itself about her heart the night of her coming-out ball. She’d never believed he’d approach her among all the other hopefuls, and yet he had. He’d passed over a beauty like Sophia St. Claire and claimed Henrietta Upperton for a dance.
She closed her eyes against a memory of him—of Alexander—broad shoulders filling out a stark black topcoat, sand-colored hair falling in careless spiky locks, gray eyes sparking with interest. Unlike his friends, he’d never been a man given to easy smiles, but his square jaw, sharp cheekbones, and sculpted lips had drawn her gaze.
Then he’d led her to the dance floor and drawn her into a reel. His hand, large and steady every time they clasped, seemed to burn an imprint into her palm. Each separation left her breathless with anticipation for the moment when the dance brought them together again. Was she imagining his fingers lingering a moment too long? The slightest contact seemed magnified. All too soon, the music came to an end, and she had to recover from the sensation of soaring amid the other couples. He bowed low over her hand and promised to call, before leaving her with her mother, and she stood for the next few dances, the ghost of his lips tingling on the back of her hand, and a low pulse thrumming deep in her belly.
He kept his promise the following day. Before too many weeks had passed, he’d captured her heart.
No. She would not dwell on the pain that came afterward. But calling a more recent image to mind was hardly better. The intervening years had graven lines at the corners of his eyes and deepened the creases along his forehead. One might read such lines like a book of sorrows if one was so inclined.
Not that she was. Oh, no. She would not fall prey to that man once again. She would not allow the desire he’d awakened within her to overcome her reason a second time.
The beach was strewn with shards and splinters of wood, the flotsam of a foundered vessel. Word would spread soon enough. By the time the sun rose, the villagers would come to comb the shore for anything that might prove useful—if indeed anything salvageable remained once the waves had churned the remnants against the rocks.
How ironic that a ship had survived the long miles of open water, the storms, the hidden shoals all the way from India to sink so close to its destination.
She picked a path between boulders, pebbles shifting beneath her half-boots. She ought to make her way back up the bluff to the manor, but she couldn’t face it yet. Couldn’t face him. Before too long, she would have to quash her feelings and return. Lady Epperley would rise with the dawn and demand Henrietta’s presence.
But if she kept walking along the shoreline, she would eventually come to the village. Perhaps she might be lucky enough to find an abandoned newspaper, one containing advertisements for another position. As much as she’d thought her current post might buy her a measure of independence, the price was too high when it included close contact with the man who had jilted her.
Shouts farther down the beach pulled her out of her recollections. Now that the sky was brightening with the impending sunrise, the villagers were up and about, picking the shoreline for whatever bounty the waves might offer. She ought to return, but her glance settled on a cluster of rocks not far away.
Or maybe not. One was too regular, too square. Something had survived the shipwreck and the relentless tossing of the tide. She crossed the shifting pebbles to a wooden box, ornately carved and miraculously intact. Or nearly so. A gouge across the polished ivory hide of an inlaid elephant showed where the sea had attempted to smash through and reveal its secrets.
Bending down, she lifted the article. It was heavy for its size. No matter which way she turned the intricate chunk of wood, she could not see a single crack or hinge that might indicate it opened. Solely decorative, perhaps, but clearly valuable with its ivory inlays. And was that lapis? She might use it to buy passage back to London and start over.
No, that would be running away, not to mention stealing. If she stood her ground and showed him, showed Alexander, the past left her unaffected, she’d prove her strength. She’d cloak herself in indifference that, perhaps, would eventually encase her soul. Then she might finally be free.
“Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue.” She muttered the words of Mary Wollstonecraft like a litany.
The voices came closer. If she was caught, she might have to yield her prize. It was simply too valuable to leave behind. With any luck, she still had time to stash it in her quarters before her employer called. She turned toward the steep path that wound its way back to the manor, the coffer hidden beneath the folds of her cloak.
The village was farther from the manor than he remembered. Alexander straightened his spine and limped along the downward slope to where a few houses huddled against a cliff face overlooking a rocky beach. One step followed another despite the protest of his aching muscles. Despite the residual pounding in his head and the sharp pain in his ribs that came with each breath. He would make it to the village if it killed him.
And likely it would, at least if he heeded his aunt’s physician. But then, the deuced man had wanted to bleed him. After an entire morning of being pok
ed and prodded, Alexander had protested that treatment. Likely he’d bled enough from the various cuts that peppered his body. Satya’s concoctions would have to do him for strength, at least until he reached his goal. How he’d make it back home was another matter, one he preferred to ignore for now.
He passed the first buildings, their once bright colors faded by the relentless, salt-laden winds to dull browns and grays and ochers. Nearly enough to blend them with the rock and pebbles strewn over the beach. Almost the hue of the broken timbers of his ship. If he didn’t miss his guess, some of the larger shards of wood down there had once belonged to him.
The locals already swarmed the shoreline. His childhood days spent along this coast ought to have prepared him for the sight. When a ship went down, the villagers all profited as best they could. Only this time they were combing through his ship, his cargo, the remnants of his life; he couldn’t bite back the bitter taste of disgust that coated his tongue.
Of all the rotten luck.
His fortunes could damned well change now, thank you very much. He could have sworn he’d cast the pall of ill chance from his shoulders the moment he sailed from Calcutta. Yet he had been more fortunate than others. He was still alive.
Good God, was he the only one, along with Satya? What had happened to his crew?
He hobbled past a pair of housewives in the middle of the village’s main street, arguing over a length of bedraggled fabric, if it could be termed such. Red silk from China. It would have fetched a pretty price in London. Gone now—ruined and stained with salt water and seaweed—and he could do nothing about it. Yet for these women, the rag was worth the fight.
Ignoring the pair, he made for a tiny, mud-colored building. Tilly’s Flotsam and Jetsam, a mainstay of his boyhood jaunts to the village, crammed in all manner of oddments to entrance a young imagination, from glass beads that might double as precious stones to a glass bottle containing a frigate. As a child, he’d spent hours contemplating that model ship, its lines distorted by the hand-blown container.
A bell tinkled as he opened the door. The shop still resembled his memory with its hodgepodge of oddities jammed onto shelves and into corners, from floor to ceiling. If Tilly could find anything in the mess, he was the only one. The glass-encased frigate still held pride of place on the counter at the perfect level to catch a boy’s eye. The scent of dust mixed with the musk of mildew reached Alexander’s nostrils. No, not a thing had changed.
“Good day to ye.” Tilly grinned, showing off a fair few gaps in his teeth. The passing years had left the proprietor as unchanged as his shop, except the wrinkles and lines on his face had deepened.
Through a painful breath or two, Alexander inclined his head. “It’s a better one than yesterday, that’s certain.”
“Quite a storm we had, and that’s a fact.” Tilly chewed out the words slowly, as if he had all day to ruminate over the weather—and doubtless he did.
Alexander, on the other hand, could not tolerate such a leisurely pace. Not with his head feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton wool and his vision unsteady. “Bad enough for a ship to go down.”
Tilly nodded. “Arr, it was at that.”
“So happens it was my ship that went down.” Not that Tilly could have told, since Alexander had borrowed some decent clothes this morning. Unless Tilly came up with his trunk, and that trunk had miraculously escaped the wreck unscathed, he’d have to replace his wardrobe on top of everything else.
“Is that a fact?”
“It is. I don’t suppose you’ve had any sailors slog through since yesterday?”
Alexander held his breath while Tilly contemplated a spot somewhere past him. Perhaps out in the street, those two ladies had come to blows. “Can’t say that I have. Ye and me both know they like as not made for the pub. For all that, they probably went straight to Falmouth.”
Damn, damn, and damn. Alexander was in no condition to travel the ten odd miles down the coast to the nearest deepwater port and verify that bit of information now. Frustration gnawed at his gut, eclipsing for a moment or two the pain of his injuries. Stumbling as far as the local pub was chancy at best. Falmouth was out of the question until he felt up to the jouncing of a carriage. Days might pass before he could learn of anyone’s fate.
“Then if not the men, I was hoping you may have found something.” Please God, let it be something valuable and salvageable. He’d already witnessed what had happened to the shipment of silks. Salt water wouldn’t have done the tea and spices much good, either. A complete loss, all of it. As for the gold, that would survive the sea but disappear quickly enough into the pockets of anyone who happened upon it and no questions asked.
Really, he had only one hope left of saving anything from this disaster.
Tilly leaned an elbow against his counter, and watched Alexander out of the corner of one eye. “Find lots of t’ings, I do.”
Just as he thought. The old man was going to be cagy about this, and the cagier he got, the higher his price rose. And considering the value of this object, the price might go very high, indeed. Damnation, Alexander didn’t have much coin on him, possibly not even enough for a down payment. “Yes, well, I’m inquiring after a particular thing.”
Very specific, very particular. And if it had survived the wreck, that would be an even bigger miracle than his trunk.
“Might help if I knew what ye was on about.” Still that sideways look. Did he know something? Did he suspect?
“It’s a box.” Or it had been a box—unless it lay dashed to bits on the rocks out there, in which case, Tilly would be practically dancing a jig over its contents. Enough for the shopkeeper to retire on, if he knew how much those contents were worth to Alexander. Unless someone else had come across it first.
“I see lots of boxes in my line of work.”
“This is a very special box. I brought it back from India. I’ll wager you’ve never seen another one like it.” He’d wager, in fact, that another like it didn’t exist.
Tilly shook his head. “Haven’t seen anyt’ing out of th’ ordinary, no sir.”
A spot just behind Alexander’s left eye pulsed. Damn it all, now was no time to fall ill, not when he might still have made it as far as the pub. Neither was it the time to appear weak. He rubbed his hand over his forehead and strove to ignore the pain. If he concentrated, he still might determine whether Tilly was telling the truth. With his other hand, he reached into his coat for a few coins. “You certain about that?”
Tilly’s fingers didn’t so much as twitch in the direction of the money. “Aye, that I am.”
Blast it all, what was he to do now? Alexander’s head throbbed, hard enough for a trickle of sweat to make its way down his cheek. He pushed two guineas across the counter. “Why don’t you keep an eye out? I’ll leave this as a hold on the item. If you see it, you’ll let me know? I’m staying up the hill with Lady Epperley.”
Before Tilly could reply or even pocket the coins, the bell rang once again. “Mr. Tilly, thank goodness.”
That voice. Alexander’s vision wavered, like a shimmer of heat in the jungle, and his knees threatened to buckle. He hadn’t heard her in years, unless it echoed through his dreams. And of late, he’d done his utmost to suppress even those. But what in God’s name was she doing in this lost little corner of Cornwall? She ought to be in London.
She ought to be married; hell, she might even be married.
That thought sobered him, but still he didn’t turn. He couldn’t face her, not after everything he’d put her through. In an ideal world, she would be married. To him. Impossible now, quite impossible. His skull gave a warning pang, as if some dwarf were inside pounding its way out with a pickaxe.
“Forgive me for interrupting your business.” She stood just behind him. He could practically feel the warmth of her body at his back. Another drop of sweat inched its way as far as his shoulder blades. “I won’t keep you long. Would you happen to have a recent London paper?”
T
illy stretched himself to his full height—he might have measured a whole five and a half feet, if he stood on his toes. “Now, let me t’ink about that, Miss Upperton. And why would ye be wanting the paper?”
Black spots swam before Alexander’s eyes. Damn and blast his head, not now! Let Tilly remember whether he had a paper and be done with it, so Alexander could describe that confounded box for him and die in peace. And please, God, before Henrietta Upperton discovered he was here. Carefully, he turned his face away and forced himself to study the ship in its bottle. Its lines swam, and he was afraid this was not due to the flaws in the glass.
“I absolutely need a recent one. I’m looking into a new situation, you see.”
Her last words barely registered as his tenuous hold on reality gave way and the counter rose to meet his face.
Chapter Three
With a gasp, Henrietta stumbled back. The coin she held ready to pay for the paper slipped from her suddenly shaky fingers to clatter onto the floorboards. The man at the counter slumped earthward. Not just any man. Alexander. The dull light of the dusty shop was sufficient to illuminate his ashen face, just as sickly gray as last night.
“Good heavens.” She caught herself before something worse slipped out. Not—or so she thought—that Tilly would bat an eye. Still, she clapped a hand over her mouth as extra insurance. The gesture hid her quivering lips, if nothing else.
And what in blazes was Alexander doing out of bed, let alone here in the village? Clearly, he was in no condition to be up and about, and yet he’d managed the trek from the manor. Now he lay completely insensible—at best. Faced with the idea of the worst that could happen, her heart gave a painful thump. No matter what had passed between them, she couldn’t just leave him here.
But what was she to do with him? She couldn’t very well haul him back up the hill, not even with Tilly’s help. If he would help. Well, he would … for a price. No, she was going to have to awaken the scoundrel herself, whether or not she was ready to confront him. And she’d thought it a brilliant stroke of luck that he hadn’t caught sight of her when he was brought in last night, leaving her able to escape without him ever knowing. Ha! As if she had that sort of fortune in her life.
What a Lady Craves Page 2
