by Mary Brendan
Josie had been led away to the kitchens by Maude, a maidservant, the pair boldly taking each other’s measure as they walked side by side. Maude had returned, as directed by her master, within a very short time with a tray of tea and cakes for Elizabeth. She had barely managed one sip and swallow before agitatedly rising from her chair and pacing the room.
‘I think a pianoforte might suit that corner…’ The observation held a brittle gaiety and was met by the sound of glass hitting wood as his brandy balloon found the table. She took a few more forlorn steps about the faded salon, still inwardly praying her tentative rapprochment might elicit some favourable response.
The silence stretched. Her small teeth worried her bottom lip, her pellucid eyes pleaded for a small indication that he was not as unyielding as he seemed; that he might yet forgive her. Her wistful, shy appeal elicited just a small movement at one side of his mouth. He swiped his drink from the table again and downed a quantity while a booted foot rose to balance on the edge of a footstool in front of his worn hide chair. Eyes the colour of the cognac imbibed watched her over the rim of his glass.
With sinking heart, and fingers twining in front of her, Elizabeth continued perambulating. He had no intention of making this easy for her. But why should she expect him to? In London she had taken for granted and abused his respect, his consideration, his humour and patience, secure in some innate female sense that he would tolerate her petulance. Now she was isolated in Kent in a house that seemed as cold and forbidding as its new master. For the first time a fearful uneasiness stole over her. Perhaps Edwina was wrong about her roguish gentleman; perhaps he no longer deemed himself her fiancé at all…
She touched a chipped Meissen bowl on a sideboard; her nervous fingers flicked pages of a leather-bound volume on copper mining in granite. She was tempted to provoke him into conversation on that subject. Little matter that she would understand none of what was said. She moved on. The throbbing atmosphere seemed to dog her footsteps. Her damp palms were dried on her delicate rose-pink skirt. Forcing a little smile, she examined a small clock on the mantel. ‘I…I see…understand why you must have been very angry with Edwina…for tricking you out of your money. The renovation costs here must total quite a sum.’ In case that sounded like a criticism of his home she quickly added, ‘But I…I think it has great potential…’
‘It’s a derelict dump.’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘I like where it is. His Majesty let me choose between this or an estate in Warwickshire. The house and grounds there were in far better condition, having only recently been returned to the crown. This has been empty for about nine years.’
‘You wanted it for the sea?’
‘Yes.’
‘’Twill someday be fine again. I like it…’
He drank from his glass.
Desperate not to let the conversation stop and thus endure that stifling silence, she bubbled, ‘I meant to tell you…your mama and your friends’ wives called on us. That’s how I discovered you were here. I pretended I knew. I thought it might seem odd that you had not told your fiancée of your whereabouts.’
‘When last we spoke I got the distinct impression you wouldn’t ever again give a damn where I was.’
Elizabeth winced and flushed but felt heartened that he hadn’t denied she was his fiancée. ‘And Edwina now knows Mrs Selby and Jack are in her house. She said she will flay you for helping me rescue them. But they can stay awhile, so long as I…that is, at least until I return home,’ she hastily amended.
‘A roof over their heads so long as you keep me company?’ he astutely guessed. ‘Is there no limit to your philanthropy, my dear?’
Elizabeth swung about to look at him, her chin came up. ‘I would have come whether Edwina allowed them shelter or not. It was my decision to come.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes!’
‘To what end? Tell me what’s brought a Marquess’s daughter into a Cornish brigand’s lair.’
‘I…I want to apologise to you. I know now you were right in what you said about…about that woman’s malice…and where it would lead…’
‘And you’ve come for this,’ he stated, ignoring the reference to Cecily Booth.
She watched as he drew her necklace from the table close to his glass and let it swing between thumb and forefinger.
‘I said you’d want it back.’
‘I know,’ she hoarsely whispered.
‘Do you remember what else I said?’
Their eyes locked. After a moment whitish tresses swayed about her alabaster neck as an almost imperceptible nod answered him.
‘Good. Come and get it then.’
Elizabeth hesitantly approached. As she came close an idle shove with a foot sent the stool a fraction away from him. ‘Sit down,’ he directed.
She sank to the tapestry-covered seat before his chair, her fair head low against the broad, dark expanse of his torso.
After a moment he leisurely leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees and their heads were close. ‘Now what I want you to do…’ she visibly flinched as the ellipse was deliberately protracted ‘…is give me one good reason why I shouldn’t act the rampaging heathen you’ve always thought me.’ The necklace was draped across the milky fragility of her wrists held neatly on her lap.
‘You said you loved me,’ she answered him as the glittering manacle blurred into purple fire.
‘You said you wanted me.’
‘I do,’ she affirmed in a weak croak.
‘Prove it.’
The small clock chimed, making her start and wonder how much time had passed since his challenge. How long had she sat before him, wanting just a small sign that this callousness wasn’t meant; that he would soften, as he always had, beneath her demanding pride and innocence. A hand slid from beneath the precious weight. She placed the necklace on the stool close to her dusky-rose skirt, then stood, smoothed out the silk and took the one pace to his chair. Crumpling her skirts again with trembling fists, she climbed onto his lap with her knees spread, straddling him as he had positioned her before, in her bedroom. She tilted forward, blindly searching for his mouth with hers. Her lips found the lean plane of his cheek, tasted the salt of the sea air, slid down to sweep sweetly over his mouth.
He returned the shy salute with just enough restraint to prevent bruising her lips, with a savage skill that craftily eroticised the pain. She kissed him back. In her own way she persevered with trying to please him while the tears filling her eyes spilled and slipped between them.
She felt cool air then the harsh heat of his mouth on her shoulders as he bared them. As her demure bodice was pulled lower she curved into him, trying to shield her nudity with his body. His hands girdled her dainty rib cage, thrust all the way up until her small firm breasts were raised then covered by his palms, offered up to his tormenting, treacherous mouth.
Her fingers slid into his hair, twisted at the outrageous pleasure that put a moan in her throat and a coil of fire in her belly. Still she made no move to deny him, even when her skirts were ruched up by an insolent hand flowing from knee to buttock. Hard fingers pressed over her thigh; one insinuated beneath the rumpled hem of her drawers, turned so the back of it tormented the satiny skin near the moist core of her.
‘Do you want to go home? You’ve only to say.’
‘No,’ she gasped.
He wound a hand into her thick soft hair, tilted her head back to look at her tear-smeared face with smoky-amber eyes.
‘No?’ he echoed tauntingly. ‘You want to stay? Is this how you prove you want me? By crying when I touch you?’
‘You said you loved me,’ she choked fiercely, her vivid eyes accusing, pleading, before snapping closed to stem a fresh surge of brine. ‘Is this how you prove it? By being so cold…so insulting?’ Then she was tipping forward again, trapping him against the chair, already fearful he might reject her because of what she’d said.
‘You didn’t like
me honourable and lenient, either, Elizabeth. I thought I’d try this instead…’
She heard the hoarseness in his sarcasm, recognised the first hint of her victory and her arms tightened about his neck in thankfulness. ‘I’m sorry…I will be different in future, I promise. I liked you as you were…’
She heard the low laugh…followed by low cursing as he fought her gentling him, fought his own male need. His hands fastened over hers at the back of his head as though he would push her back, make available her body. She let her head droop against his shoulder, pressed her bare breasts against the soft wool of his coat.
‘Randolph thought they would kill him.’ She halted, heart thumping, wondering why she had said it, for she had not been conscious of thinking of anything past. She frowned her confusion at his shoulder, barely aware of a new delicacy in his touch. His hands released hers, moved to splay over her back, warming her goosepimpled flesh. She felt comforted, comfortable. ‘I thought they would, too. I shouted at him to flee…but I never seriously thought he’d go completely away. I thought he’d return for me later. The highwaymen had no bullets left and had intended tying him to the tree to steal his carriage…not to execute him. They wanted the gig and money to escape for the dragoons were closing on them. Randolph didn’t even have a loaded gun for them to steal. My father was most furious at that.’ She gave a watery sniff, knuckling wet from her eyes to keep it from soaking his neck. ‘He said a military man should know better than to travel at night without a loaded weapon…’ She paused. ‘Do you think that?’
‘Yes.’
She nodded. ‘He was so young…barely twenty. He said he was a bad soldier. His father bought him a commission. It was his sole help. Randolph was for ever cursing primogeniture. He hated the army; he’d rather have studied medicine.
‘The Boar’s Head was close by and they talked of breaking into a barn. They took me with them for one of them, the leader, thought I might be worth a ransom or useful as a hostage. Also, the dragoons were looking for two men, not three people travelling together. He told his accomplice to find some food while he guarded me. I knew straight away what he intended for he’d been looking slyly at me.’ She paused, resumed in a faraway voice, ‘By the time his partner returned he had stripped me of my gown and punched me twice…no three times, I think, for I never stopped fighting him. And then…’
She felt long, tender fingers slide up beneath her hair, cradle her scalp. ‘His wife was back and hitting him with a shovel. She hit him so hard her hat was knocked off. She had very long hair all wound into a bun and hidden in its crown. I thought at first she had killed him. He was unconscious for some time. She helped me…with her calloused gentle hands…she helped me dress…gave me some food, cursing him for a stupid lecher all the while.
‘Then the dragoons were in the courtyard. I could have screamed I suppose; she looked at me, thought I would. Still she left me unharmed…unbound. The dragoons were looking for two men, I reminded her. I took off my dress again…gave her it and my best wishes. They got away, I think. I hope she escaped the gallows or Newgate. When prison visiting or at Bridewell I used to look for her. I shan’t ever forget her face.’
After a silent moment, soothed by the fingers moving against her body, she resumed, ‘My papa had already started after me…as soon as he discovered I’d eloped. He found me a day or two later. It seemed like a week I was there, hungry…hiding in just my underclothes. I hid in case the dragoons came back to arrest me for aiding and abetting…or to misuse me. I told Papa honestly all that had happened. He never blamed me, but he was so sad, so angry at circumstances, at Randolph, at himself. He blamed himself for not caring well enough for me when no one ever had a better papa. My grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness, said it mattered little what they had or hadn’t done to me, I was ruined the moment I set out with Randolph, then returned unwed. She wished I hadn’t returned…that they’d killed me, I’m sure, although she never actually said so. I hated her thereafter; just as she hated me for tarnishing the Thorneycroft name. Perhaps I’m too like her: too arrogant and proud.’
Slender white fingers smeared wet from her cheeks. ‘Papa was a very private man…although well-liked and sociable,’ she explained with a touching earnestness. ‘But the scandal…the contempt and abuse from people who once he’d thought were friends, was too much too bear. Even the birth of his son, the heir he had wanted so much to prevent his cousin Cyril having the estate, couldn’t cheer him. He didn’t see Tom grow. Tom was but three when Papa died. My stepmother hated me too. She blamed me for putting her husband in an early grave, my grandmother blamed me for the loss of her son. They hated me so much.’ She gasped in a shuddering breath. ‘I deserve it, I know…they were right…’
‘It’s not your fault he died…’
‘I know…’ she whimpered.
‘It’s not your fault, Elizabeth…none of it’s your fault. You’re brave and selfless and wonderful,’ was whispered against her hair, while his hands slid across her back. She felt the wool of his sleeves against her nude skin as he pressed her against him. ‘Edwina told me his heart was weak. Your father might have died at any time.’
‘But I broke his heart…I know I did…’ she shrilled in anguish.
‘It’s not your fault, Elizabeth…’
The sob, gathering momentum, jolted her violently against him. She buried her face into his neck, keening as though her own heart might shatter into a million pieces.
Chapter Seventeen
Elizabeth woke suddenly, yet remained quiet and still. Her eyes raised, focussing on a faint scar that ran parallel and slightly beneath his jaw. His steady breathing was raising and lowering the burden of her body in a soporific rocking rhythm that weighted her eyelids again.
He was unaware she was awake. His eyes were lost between long close lashes as he stared ahead, deep in his own thoughts. A cigar was smouldering, forgotten, between his fingers resting on the chair arm. Curiously, it was then recollected. She watched his mouth, lips that could savage or soothe, curse or comfort, as the ash glowed a dull red. His head angled lazily, a strand of his dark hair stroking her forehead as smoke was directed away from her and at the ceiling. The pressure of a hand was on her back but not tactile skin. He had dressed her; put up her bodice and smoothed down her skirts while she slept.
She felt too luxuriously content to move; in this shadowy, shabby room she’d found peace and home. This was her home…not Thorneycroft, not Connaught Street: both had housed her in her tender years. This sea-worn mansion was her’s. So was this man: this Cornish rogue who had warred and seduced his way to nobility; who’d shed infamy and fecklessness, for her; who’d cradled her carefully in his arms while she wept and slept. He’d believed in her, waited for her, finally taught her to trust enough to let him, with a few simple words, conquer her haunting demons and take her heart and soul. ‘Say you love me.’
He didn’t smile, didn’t look at her. But with a soft vibrancy, an immediacy that denied a need for thought, he told her what she wanted to hear.
‘I love you,’ she echoed softly.
That did make him smile. ‘I know,’ he said and brought his tobacco-scented fingers to stroke her face.
Elizabeth turned into the caress, then snuggled closer and kissed his cheek. ‘You wanted to elope with me because you knew Cadmore would cheat. You thought he might kill you and I’d again be at his mercy. You wanted to protect me…as your widow…your beneficiary…’
‘Something like that…’ he said wryly.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you would have stopped me meeting him.’
She gently tested his right arm to see if it still pained him. ‘You won’t seek out Randolph…not now…will you?’
‘No. In a perverse way, although I despise him, I admire him, too. He saw you, wanted you, had the fortitude to persevere knowing there was a good chance he’d be rejected. I withdrew at the first fence…’
‘You? You didn’t ev
en know I existed ten years ago.’
‘Of course I knew…’
At his stinging self-mockery, she sat back on her heels on his lap to study his dark, satiric expression. Dusk was enclosing them as shadows elongated in the quiet, fire-daubed room.
‘I always knew where you were to be found. Sometimes I’d allow myself to go there…sometimes I wouldn’t. I’d never have let myself endure the humiliation of being summarily rejected. No courage, you see…’
Elizabeth put a soft hand to his hard cheek, devilishly lit by the glowing coals in the grate. ‘That’s rubbish. You’re the bravest man I know.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m the most self-indulgent man you know.’
‘Not any more. You’d deny yourself anything…do anything…for me.’
He smiled at the truth of it. ‘Do you know what really rankles, Elizabeth?’ Silky blonde tangles were smoothed from her face as he cupped it double-handed, brought her close. ‘I know now you wouldn’t have rejected me.’
‘You fascinated me then, too. I wanted you then, too,’ she shyly admitted.
‘So…what would your papa have said,’ he breathed against her warm parted lips, ‘when you told him you’d settled on a Cornish smuggler’s son?’
‘Oh, that’s easy…he knew people…he’d just have said…well done…’
He discarded the stick with which he’d patterned the sand in front of him, and looked at her again. He squinted through twilight; just a blush on the horizon, dappling glitter on the grey sea showed there had been a sun.
Ross leaned back on an elbow on the smooth flat rock at the base of the cliff. Overhung by craggy strata and straggling brush, it formed a natural windbreak; a shelter from the elements and prying eyes. He watched as Elizabeth sifted through pebbles for shells by the water’s edge. There was something almost primitive in the way she was foraging, fascinated, her glorious hair already thick with salt and gleaming like mother of pearl. She resembled a mermaid, he decided with a smile, the way she was resting on an elbow, with her legs sideways and hidden in a cone of skirt. Beneath that cascade of ivory locks she might have been naked to the waist. She stood abruptly, skirts raised to carry her beach booty, displaying shapely calves and ankles, tiny feet, putting paid to his mermaid fantasy. She was about to wander further away so, as she glanced at him, he beckoned.
