by Julia Ross
He felt desperate to comfort her, but had no idea where to begin. With perfect timing, the rattle of cans and the clank of metal announced the arrival of hot water and a tub in his room next door.
“You ordered a bath?” she asked.
“When I first came in. It appears to have arrived. I must get back to Devon right away, and clean, dry clothes wouldn’t hurt.”
“And then?”
“I’ll be off to beard Daedalus in his den.”
Sarah picked up her cloak. “Then go and bathe. I think I’ll go out for a walk.”
He leaped up to seize her wrist. “Not without me!”
She gazed up at him. The burn of their contact began to melt through his bones. He yearned to pull her into his arms to kiss her—a need so intense that it hurt.
Yet Guy released her and stepped back.
“There may be danger,” he said. “Even here. Whether Daedalus is Norris or Moorefield, either way he’s no fool. People talk. He may have guessed why you and I were at Buckleigh. We may even have been followed here. If suspicions were already raised, it’s not so hard to find out that you’re Rachel’s cousin.”
Sarah tossed the cloak aside. “Very well. I’ll take no risks and remain inside like a chick in the nest. Meanwhile, your bathwater’s getting cold.”
He laughed, just because he loved the brave, wry humor in her voice, and strode away into his bedroom.
The door closed behind him.
Sarah stood for a long time at the window, staring down into the courtyard. She longed to stride down to the docks to the clear air of the sea, yet Guy was right. It might be dangerous, and anyway he would—just from gallantry—be worried.
Yet whatever he said, he couldn’t really love her. He was still hurt by Rachel’s desertion in Hampstead, even in the face of such a compelling reason—no, especially now that he knew the real reason.
If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Siskin’s letter arriving at the house with the top-hatted chimneys in the one week that Guy was away from home, Rachel would never have left him. Perhaps in the end they’d have married.
He was not free.
Yet anyone who read Rachel’s letters with this new knowledge could be certain that she had been very desperately in love with her baby’s missing father all along, and very probably still was. In which case, Guy had never been more to her than a means to find protection when she ran out of funds—exactly as he had feared—and now he must be certain of it.
How could that not hurt? Sarah closed her eyes and tried to remember John’s face. In the months before he died, they had achieved a frail, fragile love that she would treasure till she died. Yet she had still lied to him and told herself it was for his sake, not hers. So who was she to insist now on the truth? Or even claim that she understood much about the true nature of love?
Meanwhile, her future stretched bleakly before her: long, barren years with Miss Farcey in Bath, teaching the daughters of the gentry about geography and botany. And after that? A lonely and impoverished old age. How could the memories of nursing John be enough to sustain her, now that she had tasted real passion?
Without making any clear decision, Sarah walked up to the door separating the two bedrooms. She hesitated for a moment with her hand on the latch, hearing the little splash of water through the door as he bathed. Her bones turned to liquid gold, melting in the furnace of her own desire, telling her exactly what she wanted.
Her pulse beat in mad, excited rhythms as she turned back, stripped off her dress and corset, and prepared the little sponge as Mrs. Mansard had shown her. If she had deeper motives than pure lust, her heart was too exhausted to know them, so this time she didn’t hesitate at all as she opened the door dressed only in her shift and walked in.
Guy had just stepped from the tub. Ebony-dark hair slicked over his head like the coat of an otter. Tiny rivulets ran down over his naked body to soak the towel beneath his feet.
Without making any attempt to cover himself, he turned to face her.
Beautiful. Beautiful. The beauty of a fit young man in his prime, as muscled and lean as a racehorse.
Her blood burned. Her bones caught fire.
The towel in his hand dropped to the floor.
She stepped forward into his open arms. Cradling her head in his fingers, he tipped her face back to ravish her mouth with his own.
Moisture steamed where his damp, hot flesh pressed against the shift that covered her body. She rubbed her belly against his, feeling the thrust of his arousal and the power of his naked thighs. Desperate, molten, as he broke the kiss she caught his jaw in both hands and stared up into his eyes.
“You cannot go to Devon without me,” she said.
A shadow darkened his eyes. “We can continue together only as lovers, Sarah.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m prepared to take that risk.”
“Then you win,” he said. “It would take a better man than me to defy what’s happening between us. Since you insist on it, we’re in this together from this moment on, and may the devil help us.”
He wrenched the linen shift off over her head, then stepped back to gaze at her naked body. Ardor flamed in his eyes as if she, too, were divine.
Her blush scorched, but he swung her up into his arms to carry her to the bed.
AS the coach rolled back toward Devon they made love on the padded seats, contorting their limbs to fit in the awkward space, laughing and fervent and entirely without inhibition. They made love every night—over and over again—when they stopped at the posting houses on the road.
They laughed and joked and feasted together.
Yet a shadow traveled with them, like an impenetrable barrier of smoke. However much he tried to hide it, Sarah caught glimpses of that darkness in his eyes. Some vital part of Guy’s soul had withdrawn into some deeply private place, as if—whatever physical passion they shared—his real essence could no longer be touched.
Nothing more was said about marriage and nothing was arranged about how a gentleman might usually set up his mistress. Guy bought her no gifts and offered her no money. Neither did he try to press a ring on her finger, or persuade her that they were meant to be together for all time. And never—not even in their deepest ecstasy—did he say again that he loved her.
Guy simply ravished her with the power of his body and his mind, and said nothing at all about the future.
Sarah tried to calm the panic hidden in her heart and savor him, because these strange days out of time would never come again.
Until Rachel was rescued, he was not free.
July had almost slipped into August when they rolled through Exeter and headed for Dartmoor.
Satiated and fully clothed for the moment, she leaned back to study his dark hair and eyes, to drink in that lithe, almost fey grace as he turned his head from the window to meet her gaze. She knew his power and his tenderness in every pore of her being, and was helpless in the face of it. Yet he still guarded his most private thoughts from her, and she had forfeited any right to trespass.
“Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked.
“To a cottage on the moor. Knowing I’d undoubtedly be coming back, I rented it secretly before I left Buckleigh. They’re expecting us.”
“Who is?”
“The men I left here on Dartmoor to watch events and gather information while I was gone. We arrive under an assumed name, just as we’ve traveled.”
She had paid it no attention on the journey. Guy had arranged their rooms and their meals.
“You’re Mr. David Gordon again?”
“No.” He gave her a quizzical smile. “We’re Mr. and Mrs. Guido Handfast.”
Sarah laughed, but her pulse stumbled and the ache in her heart opened like a wound to throb with new pain.
She glanced from the window. They were traveling up into a thick white mist that blanketed the top of the moor. Great blocks of granite, stacked like huge, abandoned toys, loomed and faded. A troop of wild ponies suddenly broke
across their road, then scattered in a clattering of unshod hooves to disappear as if they had been swallowed.
Yet the silhouette of something more ominous wavered darkly in the mist ahead of them.
“There’s a horseman coming our way,” she said.
Guy leaned across her to look out. He rapped on the carriage ceiling.
The horses pulled up as the approaching rider came into focus: a wiry, thin-shanked man on a brown pony.
“It’s Peters, sir,” he said, doffing his hat as soon as he drew level. “I’ve bad news.”
“Important enough to meet me out here?”
“Well, someone’s waiting at the cottage, sir, and I thought you might like to know this first: Croft’s dead. Killed in a fight with the revenue men above Stonebridge Cove.”
Sarah’s heart stopped dead, but Guy seemed perfectly calm.
“When did this happen?”
“Last night, sir. Word is that someone tipped off the authorities, and the officers set up an ambush.”
“Anyone lost besides Croft?”
“No, sir. The others all got away safe, though the goods were all seized.”
“Thank you. You were right to come out here to tell me,” Guy said. “Who’s waiting at the cottage?”
“Not one of us, sir. Never seen the fellow before. But he was most insistent that you’d want to see him right away. Since he already knew your real name, we thought it best to let him stay and keep an eye on him.”
“This man knows me as Guy Devoran?”
“Yes, sir, but he’s not much more than a boy, truth be told. We’re keeping him cooling his heels in the stables.”
“Then tell our mysterious stranger that we’re on our way and will be delighted to meet him. You may send him in as soon as we arrive.”
“Very good, sir!”
Peters jammed his hat back onto his head, turned his pony, and rode away into the mist.
Sarah did her best to crush her sense of dread. The carriage jolted forward.
“Do you think Daedalus arranged it?” she asked.
“Croft’s death? Possibly, but why turn murderer at such a late date? No, it’s probably just a damnable coincidence, though I’m sorry for it, because I’d planned to interview the man again.”
“You think you could have made him tell you who Daedalus really is?”
“Yes.”
Sarah pressed her hands to her cheeks as if she could rub away her distress. She could imagine the skirmish in that narrow, deeply cut path from the beach. The revenue officers springing down the banks, swords and pistols drawn, the smugglers scattering like leaves or fighting back, and Croft the gardener meeting a sudden, brutal death.
“Daedalus is Lord Moorefield, Guy, and I believe him capable of real violence.”
“Very likely. But I cannot act against him until I have proof.”
“Why not?”
“Because if we confront the wrong man, the secret will be out and Daedalus will become truly desperate for the first time. What the devil’s he thinking right now? He knows that Rachel discovered that her baby was stolen, but also that she can’t be certain of his identity. Since he sent Croft to town to arrange those attacks, he must have trusted his gardener absolutely. Now, much to his gratification, Rachel’s disappeared and there’s been no shred of rumor since then that his son and heir is an impostor. Thus, he’s feeling wary, but safe.”
“What if he knows about Mrs. Siskin?”
“I don’t think that’s likely, though just in case I left a couple of lads to surreptitiously watch over her. Meanwhile, the midwife and her husband are both dead, and Croft’s just joined them. So no one’s left to bear witness to Rachel’s mad tale. If she publicly announced her claim, Daedalus could dismiss it as the ravings of a madwoman. All that would change immediately if we were to create the scandal of the age by accusing one of his innocent neighbors of stealing Rachel’s child.”
“Especially if the accuser was Blackdown’s nephew?”
“Exactly. Meanwhile, perhaps he suspects us, perhaps not. But right now he can’t know that we’ve come back to Dartmoor, which gives us a tiny advantage.”
“So who’s this stranger waiting at the cottage?”
Guy sat quietly for a moment, as if listening to the horses’ hooves on the stony surface of the road.
“I hope it’s the lad who delivered Rachel’s note before you left Buckleigh,” he said at last. “I’ve had men looking for him ever since I left.”
Sarah swallowed her trepidation, though she had no idea why she felt so desperately afraid.
“Then you think that this boy may be our only link to discovering where Rachel’s been hiding?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Precisely that.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HORSES STOPPED IN FRONT OF A BUILDING. THE MIST had thickened to soft, heavy cotton, but two flambeaux wavered beside a doorway, staining the air as if it were soaked with yellow dye.
“Our new abode,” Guy said, leaping down.
Sarah took his proffered hand and climbed from the carriage. The facade of an elegant stone house loomed up in the mist.
“You call this a cottage?”
“It was a rectory once, but the parish is depleted these days. Mr. Handfast was able to rent the whole place very reasonably. In pursuit of his hobby, you understand: studying lichen.”
“Lichen?” she asked. “Rather a comedown from orchids, don’t you think?”
“I have my own orchid,” he said. “Why the devil would I care to look at any others?”
Guy swung her up into his arms and kicked open the door to carry her over the threshold.
Though she was living every day now in a haze of uncertainty, Sarah squealed and laughed, and he kissed her as he set her down in a small parlor.
Perhaps all her fears were for naught. Perhaps nothing could stand in their way now: no mystery, no past, no buried grief, no doubts, not even Daedalus.
A single lamp cast its warm glow over the room. A fire burned merrily in the grate to ward off the night chill from the moor. In front of the single tall window the table was already set for supper. A tray on the sideboard held wine and glasses.
Guy helped Sarah off with her coat, then bent to light a taper to set a flame to more candles.
“A hot meal should appear at any moment from the kitchen,” he said. “But the staff understand that they’re otherwise to make themselves scarce.”
“I am,” Sarah said, “starving.”
“So I am,” a light, musical voice said behind them. “May I join you for dinner?”
They both spun about. A young man stood awkwardly in the doorway. A shabby greatcoat enveloped his body. A shapeless hat shaded his forehead.
Yet his chin tipped with something like defiance.
He gestured over one shoulder. “Peters said you wished me to come in straightaway.”
Sarah felt as if she had been knocked in the jaw and were spinning away into an ashen mist. Glad? Yes, of course she was glad! Yet a huge sorrow had also crashed over her, pressing her down like a rogue wave, a wave that snapped great ships in two and sent them straight to the bottom of the ocean.
She clutched at the back of a chair, holding on until her vision cleared and the gladness surfaced through her selfish distress like a cork—until she saw Guy’s face and heard the bitter shock in his voice.
“Please, don’t hesitate,” Guy was saying. “Pray, join us! I must say that you make a very pretty boy, though I suppose we must all regret the loss of so much golden hair.”
The newcomer ducked his head to pull off his soft cap—and Rachel looked up, her eyes brilliantly blue beneath a halo of cropped golden curls.
“I didn’t know how else to hide,” she said. “I don’t care about my hair. I care only about my little boy. Please, don’t be angry!”
Sarah sank onto the chair and sat pinned beside the fireplace. Rachel dropped her cap to the floor, walked straight into Guy’s arms, a
nd burst into tears.
He held her, cradling her head against his chest as if he comforted a child. Candlelight glistened over Rachel’s gilt hair. The short cut only emphasized her perfect bones. Her throat and jaw were as pure and clean as an angel’s.
“Hush,” Guy said. “It’s all right, Rachel. I’m not angry. I was a little taken aback, that’s all, but we’re here now. We’ll rescue him.”
Sarah met his barren gaze above her cousin’s fair head. His eyes held nothing but darkness. Limned in candlelight, he and Rachel made a flawless couple, so striking that any observer might feel breathless to see them together.
Still clutching Guy’s sleeve, Rachel turned to face her cousin. “I knew you’d get Guy to come to Devon, Sarah. I couldn’t go to him myself. You do understand?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, though the knots had tightened in her stomach. “We both understand. Come and sit by the fire. You look frozen.”
Rachel stumbled to a seat. As if suddenly returned to life, Guy strode to the sideboard. Sarah had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. He seemed shuttered, entirely self-contained. She knew only that something in him had shattered and that he fought to hold himself together.
“We already know all about your baby, Rachel,” Sarah said. “We spoke with Mrs. Siskin and Mrs. Lane, and we’ve pieced together most of the story since then—about Knight’s Cottage and Goatstall Lane and why Lord Jonathan found you in that kitchen in the Three Barrels. I’m so sorry.”
“I thought I could steal him away by myself.” Rachel pushed slender hands back through her curls. “But when I first arrived here from Hampstead, I had no idea who had my baby. I tried to talk to Mr. Croft—he was at Barristow Manor then—but he claimed to know nothing. When I insisted, he laughed and said that Barry Norris’s little boy was his own and he could prove it, and I’d be hauled away to Bedlam if I tried to insist otherwise. No one else would see me.”
Guy poured wine. His eyes seemed almost terrifyingly calm, like the water in a deep well that might hide unknown ghouls.
