She crossed to stand at his side just past the high-water mark. The bruises on her face were mere shadows now. In the bright clear light, her beauty was flamboyant, heartbreaking. She made him feel as close to alive as he ever expected to again.
The errant breeze flirted with her hair, teasing it around her face as she turned to him. “So you went to India to make your fortune?”
More blasted questions. He wished he had the heart to tell her to mind her own business. But he couldn’t resist the honest interest shining in her eyes.
His voice was stilted as he replied. He wasn’t used to talking about himself, and every time she pried a confidence out of him, it was an acknowledgment that they were more than just chance-met strangers. “An opportunity arose.”
Gideon began to walk along the coarse yellow sand, and she fell into step beside him. She flattened her hands on her skirts to stop the wind lifting them, but still he caught a breathtaking glimpse of slender ankles and shapely calves. He closed his eyes briefly and prayed for strength.
She was going to kill him before she was done.
“With the East India Company?”
He dragged himself back to the conversation and tried to ignore how lovely she was. He made himself go on, partly to distract himself from the pale flash of Sarah’s stockings.
“My talent for languages attracted the attention of powerful people.” He spoke without vanity. He had a freak facility for picking up foreign tongues. Some strange tic in how his mind worked. “They thought I could be useful.”
“As a trader?” She bent to pick up a scallop shell, the movement hitching up the back of her dress. He stopped to watch her, then wished he hadn’t. His hands flexed at his sides as he fought the urge to toss those skirts up to a more pleasurable purpose.
Because to his eternal regret, there could never be pleasure.
“More as native liaison.” The answer was strained. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, that he’d been a spy. Of course, if she cared to investigate, she’d find out. His life had been sensationalized in every newspaper in Britain. In the world, for all he knew.
Elements of the press coverage were true, at least superficially. The papers had invented the rest, each story more lurid than the last. In the public mind, he’d become a bizarre mixture of Robin Hood, Casanova, and Sir Galahad.
The cruel farce of his celebrity made him cringe.
She straightened and ran a thoughtful finger along the edge of the hard white shell. He already knew enough to guess another question percolated. “Were the Indian girls beautiful?”
“Yes.”
She glanced quickly up at him, then away, a delicate pink washing her cheeks. “Were you in love with someone there?”
Dear Lord, were all women so fixated on love? He’d heard more on the subject today than he remembered hearing in all his twenty-five years. Against his will, he found himself answering. “No.”
The man who stepped off the ship in Calcutta seven years ago had never known a lover. But Gideon’s fascination with Indian language and art, nurtured in the dusty library of his college, became a fascination with the living, breathing culture. And soon the living, breathing female embodiments of that culture.
That first six months as he traveled around the Company’s offices and residences, he’d succumbed to hedonistic license. The women were beautiful and generous and adept at pleasure. He’d never imagined a world like it. Sex became a drug.
His hedonistic existence came to an abrupt end once he entered the field. The dangers of betrayal were too great.
He swung away from further questions and strode along the beach, his long legs eating up the stretch of sand. The gulls cried overhead. The loneliest sound in the world.
He should have known she wouldn’t let him escape. Running footsteps crunched behind him, then he felt the soft touch of her hand on his arm.
Through his shirtsleeve, that contact scorched. Rapacious hunger jolted him even as his flesh crawled. He jerked free. “Don’t touch me!”
She recoiled, her eyes darkening with such pain that he flinched. “I’m sorry,” she said huskily.
He fought to speak normally, but his voice emerged dull and flat. “No matter. I don’t like to be touched.”
Her mouth straightened into an unhappy line. “By me, at any rate.”
God in heaven, how much of this could he take? He sucked in a lungful of salty air and floundered for control. “It’s not you.”
She shook her head and raised a hand to keep her wind-tossed hair from her eyes. He couldn’t mistake the anguish in her face. “Don’t spare my feelings. I’ve noticed your revulsion for my presence.”
He let his breath out in a despairing hiss. “That’s not true.”
Sarah’s slender throat moved as if she stifled a protest. Hell, he hated to hurt her. He felt like the lowest bastard in Creation, even though he acted for her sake as much as his own.
Don’t be a blockhead, Trevithick. The girl isn’t suffering from genuine love but from a bad case of hero worship. She’ll survive without ill effects.
“Miss Watson…Sarah…” He stopped, struck silent by her vibrating misery.
“You must consider me a foolish creature.” The breeze whipped at her low words, so he had to lean closer to hear. A dizzying waft of her scent mixed with the salt air and made his nostrils flare in masculine response.
A torrent of words fought to escape, words that told her how exquisite she was, how brave, how wonderful. He stifled them all. He had no right to pay compliments to innocent young girls.
“I have a great-aunt who would be horrified at my behavior. She worked hard to turn me into a lady.” Sarah hesitated, sucked in a breath, then went on in an artificially bright voice. Gideon knew she desperately strove to ease the prickling tension between them. “I was quite the tomboy when she took me in hand. My father raised me much as he’d raise a son. You see, the estates would all be mine one day.”
Even through the wild tumult in his head, Gideon knew this didn’t make sense. He frowned. “Wasn’t your oldest brother the heir?”
Guilt flooded her vivid features. “The entail had come to an end. My father…”
Her shoulders sagged as she relapsed into troubled silence. Gideon had noticed before that she wasn’t a good liar. He was an excellent liar—he’d learned to be as defense against a violent father. He’d perfected the skill, playing a role where discovery of his identity meant death.
“They’re my stepbrothers,” she said in a subdued voice. “My father died when I was sixteen…” The sunlight shone stark on her expression of naked grief. “My mother remarried. Her husband had two adult sons who hated me on sight.”
Gideon shifted closer as if even on this deserted beach, he protected her from her rapacious family. His mind flared with a fierce, relentless urge to kill anyone who threatened her. His voice roughened with the power of his anger. At last he discovered her secrets. At last he came to grips with the forces ranged against them. “Those are the swine who beat you?”
“Yes.” Sarah paused, then continued with a reluctance he could hear. “My mother passed away not long after she married my stepfather. Her choice hadn’t been a happy one. Her new husband was a drunkard, a gambler, and a wastrel. From the first, he was openly unfaithful.”
Gideon’s gut clenched as he read the pain she tried so hard to hide. If he was any sort of man, he’d take her in his arms and offer comfort. But of course, he was no man at all. “Have you lived in that bears’ den since you were sixteen?”
Sarah shook her head and tossed the scallop shell to the ground with a disgusted gesture. “To them, I was just another useless mouth to feed. After my mother’s death, I went to a great-aunt in Bath. She’s the one who tried to instill some manners.” The desolation faded from her face, and real affection tinged her smile. “Great-aunt Georgiana was determined to find me a brilliant match. Bath in the season is a social whirl.”
“I’m sure you didn’t l
ack for suitors.” Absurd to be jealous of these unknown men who had flirted and danced with her.
She shrugged and looked toward the waves, her color rising. He studied her profile. Those men had seen exactly what he saw now. Innocence. Generosity. Beauty. And a fresh and fragrant sensuality that drew him like a bee to honeysuckle.
Gideon had believed himself immune to female allure. Good God, the merest contact with anyone’s skin set him shaking like a windblown leaf. Yet this girl promised such passion, even he couldn’t resist.
She began to walk up the beach. Silently, he joined her, pleased to note she moved more easily now she was on flat ground.
“My stepfather fell down the stairs in a drunken stupor and broke his neck.” Her tone deepened with contempt, and her hands tangled in her skirts. “My stepbrothers inherited nothing but crippling debts. And whatever they could wring out of being named my guardians in the will.”
Ah, this was the crux of the problem. As her legal guardians, her stepbrothers had every right to compel Sarah back into their custody. No wonder she’d been so reluctant to confide the details of her dilemma to a stranger. Gideon broke the law by sheltering her. That fact alone would cause many people to hand her over to the authorities, whatever the personal issues involved.
Gideon kept his voice even, much as he wanted to rage and curse the mongrels who had hurt her. “So legally you’re at their mercy.”
“Yes, unfortunately. After they took me from my great-aunt, they launched the scheme to marry me off.” A wayward gust blew a long strand of hair across her face, and she absently brushed it back. Her tone developed an edge. “When they realized I wasn’t so gullible, they tried to put me completely in their power. No letters in or out of the house. No newspapers. If I tried to visit the village, they stopped me. At first with excuses. Later with threats.”
Poor chit, relying on spirit and cleverness, in a situation where only brute strength counted. “Couldn’t you bribe a servant to take a message?”
She shook her head. “The servants knew any chance of wages relied on my marriage.”
A scorching need to smash her stepbrothers into jelly filled him. Almost as scorching as his urge to sweep this girl into his arms and kiss her senseless. And what a damned disaster that would be. “I suppose as your birthday approached, they became desperate.”
She stopped and sent him a stark look. With one hand, she held her hair away from her face. The freshening breeze finished the destruction of her plait. In her thin gown, she must be cold although she showed no sign of it.
“Naïvely, I thought some code of gentlemanly behavior would constrain them.” She went on in a curiously flat tone as though she distanced herself from what she said. “They cut back my meals. They locked me in my room. At first the violence was casual, and they made sure the bruises wouldn’t show. I can’t imagine why they troubled. It wasn’t as though the servants didn’t know. And I saw nobody else.”
She paused as if waiting for Gideon to comment. But he was too angry to trust himself to speak.
“At least the violence was honest.” Her voice scraped into rage and her fists curled at her sides. “It was worse when they insisted the marriage was for my own good. That made me sick to the stomach.” She looked over the waves again but not before he caught a flash of fury in her eyes.
“Damned curs,” Gideon muttered under his breath. An inadequate response. But everything was inadequate against what she’d been through.
“That last day was the first time they set out to beat me into obedience. Before Hubert started hitting me, Felix said I should save everyone trouble and give in before they made things really tough.”
Gideon could imagine how she’d responded to that. “Of course you sent them to the devil.”
“Yes. But then…” For the first time, she faltered and stared down at the sand in front of her. “Felix said…”
Nausea knotted Gideon’s gut. He could imagine what came next. No wonder she’d been frightened out of her mind in Winchester. “You don’t have to tell me.”
He shrank from the trust he read in her gaze as she turned to him. She looked as if she believed he could move mountains. With bone-deep sorrow, he wished to God he was the man she thought he was.
Her color rose in a tide of shame. “Felix said they’d drug me and let my suitor take my maidenhead. I said they could do what they liked. Nothing would ever make me marry him.”
His eagerness to murder her stepbrothers ramped higher, blocked his throat. “That was foolhardy.”
She swallowed and continued in a toneless voice. “I knew they wouldn’t kill me. If I die, the money goes to my second cousin, a bluestocking spinster who’s lived all her life in Italy. I’ve never met her.”
She spoke almost expressionlessly. Gideon’s belly knotted with horror as he contemplated what she’d been through. He could hardly bear to formulate his question. “Did they force you?”
“No.” Except for two hectic flags of color along her slanted cheekbones, she was pale. “But Felix said all three of them would take turns. Hubert wasn’t in favor of the plan, but Felix always gets his way.” She sucked in a shaky breath and spoke quickly as if that was the only way she could get the words out. “The idea of the three of them raping me, it was…”
“Intolerable.” Bile filled Gideon’s mouth as he imagined what would have happened if she hadn’t fled. She’d survived a purgatory he understood better than most.
Her hands twisted more tightly in her skirts. “During the beating, Hubert knocked me out. Only for a few seconds. When I woke up, they started badgering me again. I wouldn’t relent, so Felix slammed out in a temper, taking Hubert with him. It was the first time they forgot to lock the door. Perhaps because I’d made no attempt to escape, they believed I wouldn’t or couldn’t try to get out. While they were arguing downstairs, I crept into another room and climbed out a window that opened onto an oak tree. Thank goodness I knew the countryside enough to reach the Winchester Road.”
“Thank goodness we found you in that inn.” Nightmare images filled his mind of Sarah’s rape and abuse. He had no doubt her stepbrothers would have carried out their threats. But now she was with him, and nobody would hurt her again. The determination to keep her safe stiffened every sinew.
Her voice became concerned. “I meant just to travel to Portsmouth with you, then disappear. By helping me, you’re in danger too.”
“I can handle your stepbrothers.” He looked forward with bloodthirsty enthusiasm to exiling such scum to the lowest circle of hell.
His confident response drained some of the tension from her face. “You were amazing in that fight in Portsmouth.”
Heat mottled his cheeks. He abhorred that only the spilling of blood made him a whole man. Violence dissipated the fog that possessed his mind, gifted him with clarity of purpose and unhesitating action. “I was a thug.”
“You were a hero,” she said with a conviction that made him wince. Dear God, what was he going to do about her misplaced admiration? He needed to scotch it now, but nothing he said made any difference. Knowing she wouldn’t listen, he bit back arguments about his unworthiness.
Her head bent in apparent thought, she walked farther along the beach. He didn’t follow. The wind lashed at him as he watched her retreat.
It was time they returned to the house. She must be freezing. Still, he didn’t move to fetch her. He needed a moment of privacy to rein in his blistering rage at her stepbrothers.
Long ago he’d guessed she came from a good family, but her fortune must be enormous to provoke this frenzy of greed. Gideon recalled no great families called Watson, but then he’d never moved in high society. The Trevithicks were only minor gentry. His experience of the haut ton was limited to his recent sojourn in the capital. Those weeks were a painful blur. Concealing his illness from the avid mob had been almost impossible. Mostly he’d just felt an overwhelming desire to escape.
And, of course, Sarah’s stepbrothers would hav
e a different last name. It hardly mattered. Duke’s daughter or shopkeeper’s daughter, Sarah was utterly out of reach. A man like him couldn’t start to think about taking a wife.
His hungry gaze fastened on her as she paused to pick up a pebble and pitch it into the sea. Her stepbrothers assumed their ward lacked powerful friends. Perhaps at last, being the Hero of Rangapindhi might prove of some use. Those bastards would pay for their crimes before he was done.
It would be his parting gift to Sarah.
He’d see her safe and happy. Then the kindest thing he could do was forsake her forever. With a grim knell in his heart, he trudged up the beach to where she silently stared across the waves.
Eight
After so many hours in Sarah’s company, Gideon inevitably dreamt of her. Such cruel fantasies to torment him when he couldn’t lay a hand on her in the real world. At dawn he woke, sweating and restless and painfully aroused. He desperately needed to escape the house, partly because he couldn’t bear to meet Sarah’s clear gaze and recall what an insatiable satyr he was.
At least in his dreams.
After an early breakfast, he set out for a long ride along the cliffs on an unfamiliar mount. Akash hadn’t yet arrived with Khan and the other horses. Now he strode along the gallery, heading for his rooms and a quick wash before he settled to the estate papers. And hopefully no intrusive thoughts of hazel-eyed houris.
From either side, his ancestors stared down. He didn’t count on their approval. How could he? His forebears must resent knowing all their labor, all their ambition, all their hopes ended with him.
God knows what would happen to the estate once he was gone. In the meantime, he’d devote his life to restoring it. Not for the sake of these louring faces but for the people who lived here. Dark, secretive, taciturn. And loyal to death to the Trevithicks.
He hadn’t expected to survive to see his homeland again. But he had—to return to news that Harry was dead. How ironic that his father and his brother perished too young in safe, peaceful England. While Gideon had come through untold dangers.
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