“Then why are you here?” She stood over him, hands on her hips, exasperation writ clearly on her face.
“Forgive me,” he said, keeping his voice low, attempting to sound contrite. “What I should have said is that no one has been able to relieve my pain all these years, so I don’t expect you will have any better luck.”
“You paid good money for me to attempt to do so,” she said. “Therefore, I believe you owe it to both of us to allow me to try.” She sat beside him, her body angled toward him, gaze still searching his face, as if she might read the solution to his problem in the lines there. “You say you have suffered from these headaches since your twentieth year. What happened when you were twenty?”
“I was in a carriage accident. I was badly injured and lost the use of my left eye.” He swallowed hard, gripped by a deeper pain that had nothing to do with the physical. “My father was killed in the accident.”
She nodded. “Did you lose the eye itself, or only the sight in it?”
“The sight.”
“Remove your eyepatch, please.”
He stared. No one had seen him without the eye patch in at least twenty years. He even slept with it in place. When he changed out the patch, he avoided doing so in front of a mirror. The milky, staring eye was an abomination, hideous to look at. “No,” he said.
“I am not a squeamish girl,” she said. “If I am to help you, I must see it.”
He could refuse. She couldn’t very well hold him down and make him reveal his deformity. But he wanted to shock this boldness from her – to make her as vulnerable as she made him feel. He reached up and untied the ribbons that held the patch in place, and lowered the patch.
Her expression did not change. She did not gasp, or recoil in horror. Instead, she leaned closer, and studied him as she might have examined a sample of fine lace, or a letter with difficult-to-decipher handwriting. She held up one finger in front of his uninjured eye. “Follow my finger, please.”
He did so. She lowered her hand to her lap. “You may replace the patch now.”
He did so, fumbling a little with the ties, surprised that his hands were so unsteady. He felt as exposed as if he had stripped naked – except there was nothing erotic about this encounter. “Your injured eye does not track with the uninjured eye,” she said. “Which leads me to suspect some muscle was severed during the injury. There may even be scar tissue binding the muscle, drawing it unnaturally tight, which in turn would cause the pain you are experiencing.”
“I don’t see that you can do anything to address that,” he said.
“I cannot remove scar tissue or reattach severed muscles,” she said. “But there are treatments which can help relieve the tension and binding. They do not involve narcotics or purgatives or anything harmful.” She smiled slightly, humor replacing the earlier anger in her eyes. “You might even find the treatments pleasant.”
“That doesn’t mean anything you try will work,” he said, aware that he sounded like a petulant schoolboy.
“You said you experienced some relief from the compress yesterday,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then that tells me you may very well experience more relief from the therapies I want to try. Will you allow me to try?”
She seduced him – with her soft words and softer eyes, and with the possibility of relief from the pain that had plagued him for so long that he had no memory of a time when it had not colored his every deed and interaction. “We will try,” he said.
She nodded. “First, I will need you to close your eyes,” she said.
He did as she asked. “Take a deep breath in, then let it out slowly,” she said, her voice silken and soothing.
He did as she asked – once, twice, three times, some of the tension loosening.
“I am going to put my hands on you,” she said. “This will allow me to gauge the tightness of the muscles. I am going to massage around your eyes – both of them. You must let me know immediately if I cause you any pain.”
He steeled himself against her touch. Being this close to her, breathing in her fresh, floral scent, anticipating her caress, affected him more than he wanted her to see. Her fingers brushed his temple, a silken caress that sent heat coursing through him. She increased the pressure, making tiny circles with her fingertips, probing and stretching the skin around the eyepatch, slipping beneath the patch to explore further.
He clenched his hands in his lap to keep from pushing her away – not because she was hurting him, but because such tenderness was too much to bear. No one – no lover, even – had touched him with such caring – not in all his life. At the thought, his eyes burned, and the fear of disgracing himself with tears had him opening his eyes and leaping to his feet. “Enough,” he said.
She jumped up also, hands outstretched toward him. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you.”
“You did not hurt me.” He spoke through clenched teeth, struggling to control his breathing against the wave of emotions that threatened to drown him. “I have simply had enough. For one day.” He gave a stiff bow, then turned and walked out of the room, fighting against the urge to run, to flee from this bewitching woman.
Clarissa was grateful only she and Emma shared the table at dinner that evening. Her encounter that afternoon with Mr. Kendrick had left her shaken. She truly wanted to help him, but doing so stirred such conflicting emotions within her – suspicion over his true purpose here, pity that he suffered so, and an attraction that stole her breath and made her a little afraid of what she might be capable of if she gave vent to the powerful feelings that battered at her like storm-tossed waves against the hull of a ship.
“Is something wrong?” Emma asked, disturbing Clarissa’s thoughts.
“No, nothing’s wrong.” Clarissa jerked her head up and pasted on a smile. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re pushing your food around on your plate, scarcely eating anything.” Emma sliced into the broiled haddock on her plate. “You seem preoccupied.”
“I’m a little tired,” Clarissa said. “I believe I’ll retire early this evening.”
“Where did you disappear to this afternoon?” Emma asked. “When the children and I came in from our walk, I couldn’t find you.”
“I took a walk down by the cove.” And encountered Mr. Kendrick. She wondered how long her new guest had sat his horse there on the shingle, watching her while she was unaware.
“You shouldn’t go there alone,” Emma said. “It isn’t safe.”
“Emma!” Clarissa laughed in surprise. “The cove is on Waverley property. I’ve been going there all my life.”
“I’ve heard new rumors in town of smugglers in that cove,” Emma said. “I was coming to tell you that this afternoon when I couldn’t find you.”
“There have been rumors before, and they’ve never come to anything.” Still, this news sent a prickle of alarm up her spine. Was it merely coincidence that these latest rumors coincided with the arrival of Mr. Kendrick?
What had he been doing at her desk this afternoon, a handful of her letters in his hand? No matter what he said, he hadn’t been looking for a quill. The quills were clearly visible in the cup on the corner of the desk. To locate those letters, he would have to lift the lid and pull them from the compartment where they were stored.
There was nothing in those letters that could interest him. The ones he had chosen included correspondence with her brother about the estate, a quote for repairs to the roof, and copies of the progress reports she sent each quarter to the families of her various boarders. Unless he had a keen interest in Sir Henry’s increasing forgetfulness or Mrs. Landers’ recent bout of nephritis, she couldn’t imagine what value those letters would have to him.
“Did you see anyone else at the cove while you were there?” Emma asked as she helped herself to a serving of potatoes.
Clarissa sipped her wine. “Mr. Kendrick was out riding and we exchanged a few words.”
“Perhaps he was there to meet t
he smugglers,” Emma said. “To signal to them, or perhaps to scout out the most suitable place for them to anchor. That would explain his presence here, where he certainly does not fit in.”
Her words set off more alarm bells. Was Mr. Kendrick at Waverley House because he was a smuggler? Her heart sank at the idea. Emma liked to tease her about being naïve and expecting the best of everyone. But she really didn’t want Mr. Kendrick to prove to be a bad man. “Mr. Kendrick suffers from chronic headaches, related to the carriage accident in which he lost his eye as a young man,” Clarissa said. “He has agreed to allow me to try some treatments to relieve his suffering. Whatever else he may be doing here, his pain is real.”
Emma shrugged. “So he’s a smuggler who has headaches. Very convenient.”
“Emma! Since when are you so cynical?”
She gave Clarice an arch look. “I’ve always been cynical,” she said. “Or, as I prefer to think of it, I know better than to believe everything I see and hear. I can’t help but think you would be better off if you adopted my attitude.”
A footman arrived to clear their plates, and Clarissa forced her attention on the next course. She was usually able to ignore Emma’s barbs about her naiveté, but tonight her friend’s words stung. If she had questioned Jared’s motives more thoroughly before she accepted his proposal, or if she had paid more attention to his activities after their marriage, could she have saved herself the pain she had endured at his hand?
She shook her head. No one could go back and change the past, and if she had not wed Jared, she wouldn’t have dear Harry and Fannie. She would be truly alone in the world.
Like Emma, herself. The thought made her sadder still. Perhaps Emma’s biting words were only born of jealousy. Clarissa might not have love now, but she had known that emotion once. She had given her heart completely, the way someone might dive from a cliff into the sea. She had taken a risk, and though it had not paid off in the way she had hoped, she had survived the experience and she couldn’t help but believe that in some ways, at least, she was better for it.
CHAPTER SIX
Adam endured dinner with the elderly residents of Waverley House, amused by the attentions of the two women and nodding vacantly at the ramblings of the men. He sat through port and cigars with the men afterwards, but managed to put off their invitation to join them for billiards and retired to his room. He had not been inside even long enough to remove his neck cloth before there was a knock at his door.
“Come in!” he called, hoping Clarissa had come to see how he was feeling, or even to administer another of her disturbing – but he had to admit, effective – treatments.
But his visitor was only the maid, Mary, who carried a glass and a folded towel on a silver tray. “Lady Delaware says you are to drink what’s in the glass and lie down with this cloth on your head,” she said, setting the tray on the table beside the bed. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No thank you.”
He waited until the girl was gone, then sat on the side of the bed and stared at the glass. He picked it up and sniffed. It smelled harmless enough. With a sigh, he brought it to his lips and chugged it. It tasted of milk and grain and perhaps some herbs. Nothing vile or intoxicating. He set the glass on the table, then picked up the cloth and lay back with it draped over his head.
In the darkness behind his eyes, he replayed the scene in Clarissa’s sitting room earlier. He grew hard at the memory of her hand on him. Though she had only massaged around his eyes, he couldn’t help but imagine that silken touch on other parts of his body. And even while he had resisted with all his might the pull of his attraction to her, her ministrations had eased his agony. He did not believe it was possible to remove the pain altogether, but even a little relief was a vast improvement.
She had said nothing more about his search through her writing desk. In any case, he had discovered nothing of interest there – some red wax and the signet ring that proved the seal he had found on the beach was hers, but no correspondence with her husband. Nothing to implicate her in DeLae, nee Delaware’s smuggling operation, or to provide any clue as to Delaware’s – and Devon’s – whereabouts.
Had Devon really joined Delaware willingly? Perhaps he had been forced aboard the ship, press-ganged as sailors sometimes were. But Devon was no sailor. He was an educated gentleman of privilege. He could handle himself well in the boxing ring and with a sword, but he knew nothing of the life of a sailor, much less one on the wrong side of the law.
Since you refuse to pay for my training as a physician, I have gone to earn the money to pay for my schooling myself, Devon had written in the note he had left on Adam’s desk the night he disappeared. I know you have no love of the medical profession, but I intend to prove you wrong. I want to help people. If it is in my power, I want to help you. One day you will see. I will make you proud.
There, beneath the warm cloth that smelled of sweet lavender, Adam let the tears slip down. Devon didn’t have to make him proud. He already loved the boy like his own son. If he could only bring him home safely, he would find a way to make him see it.
The next morning, a letter lay at Adam’s place at the breakfast table. He picked it up, handling it gingerly. Sir Michael was the only person who knew he was here, and he was sworn to secrecy. He eased up the seal and unfolded the sheet of thick writing paper. The honor of your presence is requested at a ball to be given by Lord Edmond Carstairs, the seventeenth day of August 1817, Angelus House, Sussex.
“Lady Delaware and Miss Freed received invitations also.” The woman across from him, who he had learned was named Miss Mosely, beamed at him. “I wonder what Lord Carstairs is up to, inviting you also?”
Adam refolded the invitation and slipped it into his pocket. “Why should he be up to anything?” he asked.
“Oh, he’s a sly one, is Lord Carstairs.” The other elderly woman in residence, Mrs. Landers, shook her head, corkscrews of gray curls vibrating. “He’s set his sights on Lady Delaware, but she won’t give him the time of day. I would think he’d be beside himself with envy, knowing a fine specimen of a man like you is right here in the same house with her every day, making it even less likely she’d give him a second thought.”
The four elderly residents of Waverley House had not been subtle in their efforts to matchmake Adam and Clarissa. He had decided the only way to combat them was to pretend he didn’t notice. “Lady Delaware is a married woman,” he said.
“Not so very married,” Miss Mosely said. “Her husband’s been out of the picture for some years. We think she should petition to have him declared dead.”
“Is there reason to believe he is dead?” Adam asked.
“He’s got a beautiful wife and two fine children and he hasn’t set foot near them in five years,” Sir Henry said. “What but a dead man would do that?”
A man running from debt and shame might very well stay away, Adam thought. Though would even the threat of a noose be enough to keep a man from a woman such as Clarissa, one so full of passion, so ready to declare her love and need?
“Will you go to the ball?” the third man at the table, Mr. Fletcher, asked.
Adam opened his mouth to say that he would not accept, but a flash of memory of Carstairs leering at Clarissa, stole the words from him. “Yes, I believe I will attend,” he said.
After breakfast, he decided to take a walk to explore the grounds of Waverly House. He had not gone far when he came upon Harry and Fanny. The children were listlessly batting a shuttlecock back and forth, but when they saw him, they dropped their rackets. “Mr. Kendrick!” Harry raced toward him, while Fanny followed at a more modest pace.
“Are you going for a walk?” Harry asked. “May we come, too?”
“Don’t you have lessons with Miss Freed this morning?” Adam asked.
“Miss Freed is feeling poorly and gave us the morning off from our lessons,” Fanny said.
“She’s in bed with a hot water bottle and a cup of raspberry leaf te
a.” Harry made a face. “I tried some of the tea once, but it tasted like ditch weeds in hot water.”
Adam suppressed a laugh. “You’re welcome to come walking with me,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to give me a tour of the grounds.”
“We can do that.” Harry skipped alongside him. “We can show you the kitchen gardens and the greenhouses and the old ale house and the gardener’s cottage and the stables – but you’ve already seen the stables, since you have a horse.”
“What’s your favorite thing here at Waverley House?” Adam asked.
“That’s easy,” Harry said. “The tunnels.” He grabbed hold of Adam’s hand and tugged him off the path. “I should have thought of that earlier. You need to see the tunnels.”
“Harry, we aren’t supposed to go down there.” Fanny hung back, looking worried.
“It’ll be all right if we have Mr. Kendrick with us.” Harry looked up at Adam. “We aren’t supposed to go down there without an adult. But since you are an adult, it will be okay.”
“Why would he want to see the tunnels?” Fanny asked. “They’re just dark and full of spiderwebs and mice.” She shuddered.
“You just think that because you’re a girl,” Harry said. “Mr. Kendrick isn’t afraid of a few old spiderwebs, and the mice run away if you stamp your feet.”
“Where do these tunnels lead?” Adam asked, allowing Harry to lead him across the croquet lawn.
“They go from the house all the way to the seashore,” Harry said. “They come out in a cave, right by the sea.”
Adam’s flesh prickled. A tunnel that led from a cave by the shore to underneath Waverley House would be ideal for smuggling.
“You don’t know that,” Fanny said. “You’ve never been there.”
“Jacoby told me,” Harry said. “He’s been there. He said so, and he’s no reason to lie.”
“Who is Jacoby?” Adam asked.
“He’s the gardener’s helper,” Fanny said. “And he’s always trying to impress Harry, though I can’t imagine why.” She flipped her hair back in a gesture that would no doubt captivate young men a few years’ hence.
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