“Faith, ’tis my angel!” he murmured in disbelief. For the lovely piquant face that was looking up at him half expectantly, half arrogantly, was not one he was likely to forget. It was the face he thought he’d dreamed. Those wide delft blue eyes with their dark-rimmed irises, shadowed by long dark lashes, were the same that had looked down upon him with concern that might when he’d lain half drowned on a strange beach. Those softly curving lips that smiled provocatively at him now had then been a straight, worried line, and those flaunting wings of brows now so slightly lifted, perhaps by disdain, had been lost in a curtain of long, tumbled hair that had streamed down, fair and wet as a mermaid’s.
Stephen Linnington, the rake who had held so many women lightly in his arms and had left them all, looked into those lovely blue eyes and was lost. All of his being seemed to converge in a sudden rush of feeling centered on this slip of a girl whose dainty chin was upraised defiantly beneath the burning pressure of his hard, masculine gaze. For a moment as the music of the viola da gamba struck up, she looked uncertain, panicky almost, as if she might suddenly turn and run away from him, but he seized her hand in his strong fingers and swept her away without asking into the dance.
The light that seemed to leap from Imogene’s blue eyes to Stephen’s turquoise ones was more than a trick of the wavering torches, her slight yet frantic gesture away from him was no coquettish pose. For Imogene felt the same bolt pass through her that had impaled Stephen. All her innermost feelings seemed to surge up in a rush toward this russet-clad stranger with the copper hair, and she felt again the same winds of fear that had brushed her like dark wings the night she had heard the Duveen boys calling out and had come running alongside Bess to find Stephen lying on the beach. Bess had shouted, “I’ll go prepare a bed!” but Imogene had leaned over the fallen figure, and when the lightning flashed she had been looking down into his eyes.
Never had she been so attracted to a man’s face. Bold, and yet—tender. With humor about the mouth. And when he had opened his eyes and gasped, “An angel!” she had trembled.
That night, when the stranger had been made comfortable, and lay, still unconscious from his wound, in a big bed in a room down the hall from her own—for she was visiting Bess Duveen at Ennor Castle—that night she had dreamed the dream again. It was an old nightmare from her childhood, when the loss of her parents, shot down in their pleasant garden, was still fresh.
In the dream it was summer—the kind of lovely summer day it had been when the volley of shot had found her parents in their Penzance garden. Seven-year-old Imogene had seen them fall and had been visited by the same nightmare intermittently from that day.
But in the dream she was not in Penzance but in some place strange to her. She was creeping down a tall white sand dune and below her was the silver glimmer of a gray and glassy ocean. And upon that ocean—or beyond it—something was waiting for her, something she had to reach. Suddenly the sounds of summer were stilled and out of nowhere came a screaming wind. Over the white brow of the dune a dark cloud rushed down upon her and she ran terrified before it, toward the silver ocean. And now as she plunged into the gray surf, she saw what she must reach. It was a sailboat beating toward her and in the boat stood a tall man with copper hair, calling to her. She could not hear what he was saying, but as the surf broke about her she called his name—a name she could never remember later when she woke. Now she was flailing through the water toward him pursued by that onrushing black cloud and the sea had changed its silvery surface—it was suddenly alive with sharks. This way and that she plunged desperately to avoid them and now the largest was streaking toward her—and she saw death in its open jaws.
At that point she always waked—and on this night also, just as those teeth were closing down, she had waked with a choked scream and found her faithful maid, Elise, who’d been sleeping on a cot at the foot of her bed, shaking her. Elise had been Imogene’s nurse almost since birth; now her kind face was worried.
“Ye were dreaming again,” she said roughly. “Was it the same dream?” And at Imogene’s nod, her voice grew energetic. “ ’Twas all that lobster at supper and those rich pasties, and then the storm and that ship foundering.”
“No.” Imogene’s eyes were dark pools and she hugged her knees in her arms, shivering. “I think I saw my future, Elise—and it was dreadful.”
Elise felt fear trickle through her. She was remembering that Imogene had had a Scottish grandmother, and didn’t the Scots have The Sight? Perhaps Imogene had seen something . . . something waiting for her out there. Elise’s protective arms gripped Imogene the tighter.
“There, there.’’ Elise’s comforting arms were around her, her gaunt form holding Imogene close as she stroked the girl’s bright hair. “ ’Twas only a dream.”
“No.” Shuddering. “ ’Twas real. It just—hasn’t happened yet.” And then, lower still. “That man on the beach tonight, Elise—he looked like the sailor in my dream.”
Again fear bit at Elise. “We must leave,” she told Imogene decisively. “Tomorrow morning. Perhaps the food here does not agree with you. We must go back to Tresco.” She had not added—although she felt it—we will be safe there.
And so they had gone back to Tresco the next morning and forgotten the stranger on the beach—until tonight at the ball at Star Castle. Beautiful Imogene could not be expected to miss that.
And now, looking up into the stranger’s hot eyes, when all the attraction he had for her had been borne in on her again, she had remembered the dream. . . .
She had flinched away from him, but he had seized her hand. And now she was whirling headily in his arms to the plaintive music of the viola da gamba beside the rooftop parapet of Star Castle, with the hot torchlight nearby and the cold starlight reaching down from a sky of midnight blue velvet. All her senses had come alive and every nerve seemed twanging like the strings of the viola.
For a breathless moment she hardly dared look at him, for too much in that wickedly smiling face attracted her—she who had been served notice by her guardian that another broken betrothal would not be tolerated. She’d known for a month now that Lord Elston was planning a great marriage for her, a marriage to Giles Avery, only son of the greatest fortune in Cornwall and—chafing at the restrictions of her life in the Scillies—she wanted that marriage.
Intuition had told her that the stranger, lying sodden and bleeding on the beach, could spoil all that.
He still could.
But the whirling motion of the dance had freed her from her sudden tremor and her old boldness returned. Her head was lifted haughtily in a little gesture of defiance as she spoke to him.
“D’you take all your castles by storm?” she asked tartly as they reached the center of the stone floor. “For indeed I had promised this dance to Giles Avery—see him, over there in the violet taffetas? He’s glaring at you.”
Stephen’s whiplike fencer’s body turned slightly that he might view the violet-clad dandy who was indeed glaring murderously in his direction. He was sharply aware that his own russet velvet doublet and trousers were in poor case, having been somewhat damaged by his shipwreck.
“The paunchy lad taking snuff?” he drawled. “Faith, he looks to be not much of a menace.”
Imogene sighed—she had often had the same thought. “Giles’s sword arm may be weak,” she retorted, “but his purse is one of the heaviest in Cornwall—and at least he is young. My guardian is determined that I shall make a ‘good’ marriage and I think he has paraded every old bachelor and widower in the district before me! But he tells me I must make up my mind soon else I will be too old to attract a man, for I’ll be seventeen in June.” Over Stephen’s broad shoulder she beamed a fetching smile at the snuff-taker. “Ah, there, Giles has asked Bess to dance. That’s better!”
“Seventeen in June—a great age indeed,” Stephen said with becoming gravity. “I can see that you must make haste. But does a deep purse weigh with ye so mightily then, Mistress Wells?”
Imogene gave him a sharp look and then laughed; her perspective had been restored. “It might, for I’ve a mind to see the world—London, Paris, Rome. All the places Giles promises to take me once we’re wed.”
“London is drab these days,” pointed out Stephen. “The Puritans have closed the theaters. One dare not dance there or celebrate Christmas or even kiss one’s wife on a Sunday!”
The very toss of her head was a challenge. “What?” she mocked. “You do not dare kiss your wife on a Sunday?”
Goaded by her beauty, her nearness, he accepted the challenge.
“Stephen Linnington has no wife.” There, the words were out! And, he asked himself, was it not so in truth? A highwayman’s sister who had married him—and God knew how many others—that she might pick his pockets while he was drunk; a tavern maid who’d wed him because she thought a “gentleman” must have lots of money—and had burst into tears and turned him out of her room when she found he had not! And both of them he had wed under other names. No, he told himself, it was the very truth: Stephen Linnington had no wife—at least, no wife of the heart.
“You speak of yourself in the third person,” she said critically, trying to still the wild burst of joy she felt at this avowal that he was single. “As if you view yourself from some distance.”
“Perhaps I view myself from a distance because I cannot stand a closer view.” His deep voice was bitter, disillusioned.
Imogene sighed. “Perhaps we can none of us stand close inspection. . . .’’ And then, because that well might bring Giles Avery back into the conversation, she added hastily, “I have heard that things are bad in London and I do pray for the king’s speedy return.”
Stephen looked surprised. “A king in exile’s not likely to return soon with Cromwell set so firmly in the saddle.” Imogene gave an irritable shrug that made her firm young breasts tremble deliciously. Stephen was hard pressed to draw his eyes away from their pale entrancing gleam. “Cromwell’s an old man,” she said. “He’ll die soon and who then will take his place as Lord Protector? That bookish son of his? No, the king will be back on his throne, you’ll see, and London will bloom again.”
And you plan to be at his Court. Somehow. That yearning note in her voice made Stephen Linnington wish he had spent his wasted years chasing gold instead of petticoats. If he had, he might have had something to offer this blazing beauty.
“We’ve met before,” he observed. “Ye do not remember me?”
“Oh, but I do. I was visiting Bess Duveen at Ennor Castle the night your boat sank and you nearly drowned. But I left the next day. You were not yet conscious.”
“Yet when I mentioned seeing an angel, Ambrose did not tell me ’twas you,” he grinned.
Imogene laughed on a wicked note. “Ah, but that’s because Ambrose considers me a devil, not an angel. And he fears I will contaminate his sister, the gentle Bess.” She glanced across the room at Bess, her sleek heavy black hair bound up and her mauve satin ball gown blending perfectly with the violet taffetas of the bored young man who was whirling her about.
“Could that appraisal of Ambrose’s be due to the fact that he presumed on your favors and was set roundly back on his heels?” Stephen wondered.
“How could you know that?” In the torchlight Imogene turned an astonished expression toward him.
“ ’Twas a fair guess.” Grimly.
“Ambrose had heard stories about me. All grossly untrue. And—and I had reason to slap his face and so I did.” She looked indignant.
Stephen’s eyes dropped to those winking shell pink nipples, just peeping out from the top of her pink silk bodice. How the sight maddened him! Still, a lady of fashion—even one so young as this—was not to be judged by the daring cut of her gowns or her “wild way with a kerchief.” In spite of this resplendent display, Imogene might well be more innocent than a lass whose collar reached to her chin.
“I thought as much,” he murmured.
Imogene was looking at him with a new respect, that he should understand how it was. And suddenly, under the pressure of her friendly, almost comradely gaze—her quarrels became his quarrels.
“If any have offended you, my lady,” he offered, his turquoise eyes narrowing and emitting a wicked gleam, “I’d be glad to take care of the matter.” Lightly his strong fingers caressed his sword hilt.
She shook her head. “ ’Tis whispers only, and who knows where they start? Or why?”
Because you are too beautiful, he answered her silently. Because others less fortunate envy you all that you are.
At that moment dark-haired Bess Duveen drifted by with Giles Avery, who turned to glare pointedly at Stephen.
They heard Bess laugh. “Come now, Giles,” she chided gently. ”There’s too much heat in your glance! Stephen Linnington is a stranger here and Imogene doubtless gave him this dance to welcome him to our shores—on which he landed so strangely, as ye may have heard.”
“I’ve heard your brothers fished him from the sea and I wish they had left him there!” growled Giles, clenching her hand so hard his numerous jeweled rings bit into the flesh and left her wincing.
Stephen heard that last before Giles turned on a polished boot and whirled Bess away from them amid the dancers. His sardonic face turned dangerous.
“Indeed I might sharpen my sword on that young puppy!” he observed in a steely voice and two nearby heads swung curiously in their direction.
“No—forget Giles,” said Imogene quickly, aware there were listening ears in the throng about them. “Is this your first time in the Scillies?”
Stephen nodded, his intent gaze still following the violet-clad dandy.
“They’re called the Islands of the Sun,” she told him, giving him a look through shadowed lashes as he swept her to a less crowded part of the floor. “And by some the Isles of the Dead because of all the old ‘standing stones’—the menhirs. There are two tall menhirs that stand above Saint Warna’s Bay—that’s at Saint Agnes, our southernmost island—they’re called Adam and Eve, and sometimes on summer nights I’ve prayed to them and asked the old gods to send me a lover, someone to remember before I’m wed to such as—” she jerked her head a trifle toward the sulky young gentleman in violent taffetas across the floor.
“ ‘To remember before’—!” Startled, he turned his gaze back to her.
“And now,” she mocked, “you’ll say I’m not a lady and that I deserve no better than I’ll no doubt get!”
His turquoise eyes kindled. “No, I’ll say if ye admit ye pray to the old gods, ye’re like to be dragged to some Puritan marketplace and burned on a Tuesday.”
“But we’re not Puritans here,” she protested, “we’re royalists.”
“Do not be saying it so loud,” he cautioned, with the wisdom of the hunted. “For the Puritans rule England this night and I’m told the Lord Protector has built himself a castle somewhere in these isles.”
“ ’Tis on Tresco, the island where I live,” she told him carelessly. “Take the road on the western side, pass Hangman’s Island and ye’ll come to it. It fronts toward the sea. They tore down most of King Charles’s castle on the hill above it, for the building of it.”
So this lighthearted wench could mock the Puritans standing beneath their very walls. His wild rover’s heart went out to her.
“Why should ye give yourself to such a man as the young snuffbox lord yonder, if ye do not wish to?” he asked bluntly, for now it concerned him.
“I told you—for gold,” she said pensively. “I don’t want to dance any more. Have you seen the view from the battlements? I could point out the different islands.”
Stephen would have gone anywhere with her at that moment—to Cromwell’s castle, or to hell. He swung her out of the dancers, and as she turned, her pink silk skirts wrapped luxuriously about his legs for a moment. A warning bell tolled through him. This was no tavern wench to be taken lightly. He closed his ears to the warning. Together they reached the crenellated wall.
He swung her up and they stood looking over the parapet.
“To the right is Penninis head,” she said, pointing with a milk-white arm across the midnight blue of the sea. “And see, there is Saint Martin’s and Tresco and the Round Island.” But the tall gentleman beside her did not choose to follow where her finger was pointing. His heated gaze was on the rise and fall of her gleaming bosom. “And there—” she turned a little and so spoiled his view of her breasts—“there’s Bryher and Samson and Broad Sound—and over there are the Western Rocks, and there is Annet and there is Agnes. My maid, Elise, is from Agnes, and she has told me horrible stories ever since my cradle days of the wreckers there who set out false lights and caused many a ship to break up upon the rocks.”
“So many islands,” he murmured, ignoring the dark shapes that rose against the sea’s dark glimmer and leaning over to breathe deep of the perfume of her soft fair hair. “I had not thought there were so many.”
“Perhaps a hundred and a half,” she said, seemingly unconscious of the tumult she had roused in his breast. “And all of them older than time. Tresco is the prettiest, I think. It is full of flowers and tropical fruits. And past Cromwell’s castle there’s Piper’s Hole where the mermaids dwell.”
“The mermaids . . . I thought you were a mermaid when I looked up out of the blinding salt water and saw your face and your dripping fair hair.”
“You did not,” she corrected him lightly. “You thought I was an angel—you said so, and I’ll hold you to it, for you’re the first to have thought it!” She glanced around. “Ah, I see Giles has found us. You’d best ask Bess to dance so she won’t be left standing as he whisks me away from you.”
“When,” he wondered, “will I see you again?”
She gave him a wicked smile. “Tomorrow my chaperon will be indisposed. Mistress Peale is always indisposed after a ball, for she drinks too much and spends the next day in her bed. I shall visit the Isle of Saint Agnes with my maid, Elise, who wishes to see her ailing sister—if the weather be fine. If you should happen to borrow a boat and sail to Agnes, we could climb Kittern Hill and see the great stone they call the Old Man of Gugh.”
Bold Breathless Love Page 4
