Then Dr. Treath leaned toward Caroline and he placed his hand on her shoulder, a big hand, North saw, that covered a lot of her and he didn’t like it. They seemed to be speaking very seriously about something. North felt himself freeze when Dr. Treath kissed Caroline’s cheek, his big hand still on her shoulder, no, now it was moving down her arm. He watched the doctor straighten finally and walk away from her, back to his gelding. He gave her a small wave and another smile as he settled into the saddle.
What the hell was going on here?
In that moment, every word North had read in those damned diaries Tregeagle had forced on him came back with raw clarity. Women weren’t to be trusted. His mother had betrayed his father, had left him and died. His grandfather had also been betrayed and his father before him. Both his father and grandfather had written about the perfidy of women, the dishonor bred into them throughout the ages, the wit of Nightingale men not to trust them beyond the birthing of their heir.
No, he thought, he’d escaped Mount Hawke and his father, escaped this damning legacy because he couldn’t bear the bitterness and emptiness of it, his father’s continual ranting about his mother—a whore, a bitch—who had betrayed him; ah, and there was justice, for the damned trollop was dead. He remembered then that as a boy he’d had no idea what all those words meant, but he did now, and again he felt an instant of surprise that there were so many terrible words to describe a woman a man disapproved of. His hands clenched on Treetop’s reins.
Thank God he’d had the good sense to leave ten years before, as soon as he’d been able to make his own way. It had been difficult but he’d believed anything had to be better than remaining at Mount Hawke with his father. He knew in his bones that if he’d stayed, the next thing his father would have done would have been to force that damned diary down his throat and tell him it was his duty, once he’d bred an heir off a likely female, to toss her out and begin his own entries about what sluts women were, wives in particular. And yet when Tregeagle had given him the diary, he’d read some of it, not all, certainly, for he wasn’t that far gone, but still, some of the poison had seeped into him. And now he hated himself for it.
He wasn’t like his father nor was he like his grandfather or his great-grandfather, and he would never accept that he was. The Nightingale legacy to its sons would end with him. As he rode Treetop straight to where Caroline was standing, he wondered what she was thinking. Surely she wasn’t thinking of Benjamin Treath, surely not.
It was a lovely copse of trees, Caroline was thinking, and she much enjoyed the gently rolling hillocks, and the vastly romantic stone fence that stretched some hundred yards in either direction. The stones had been hand-placed, of course, and fitted together so tightly and with such care that there were still few places where they’d broken free and fallen to the rich earth. When had the stones been so carefully and skillfully made into this fence? Who had done it? And those hillocks, works of art, all of them, but why? What was the purpose? She looked up then and saw him.
She gave a shout and ran toward him. Her riding skirt was narrow, hampering her, so she simply jerked it to her knees, never slowing.
He pulled Treetop to a halt and jumped off his back to catch her in his arms just as she threw herself against him, lifting her high to twirl her around.
“Hello,” he said, lowering her slowly, kissing her mouth as his hands molded her hips to him. “I missed you. It took me long enough to find you.”
She kissed him again and yet again a third time for good measure. “By the by, how did you find me?”
He kissed her again and said, “Someone wrote me a note that you would be meeting your lover here.”
She stared at him, so surprised she almost forgot to kiss him back, but then she did, loving the feel of him, the taste of him, and when she finally spoke, she was breathless. “You’re jesting, aren’t you?”
He set her back onto her feet and handed her the note. Caroline spread out the crumpled page and read it through once, then again. “Goodness,” she said, looking up finally. “This is rather amazing.”
“I thought it was.”
“What nodcock could have penned it?” Before he could do more than shrug, she began to laugh. At first he drew back, wondering, a part of himself long buried, a part of himself that had been formed by his father’s bitterness, his father’s rage, that part was asking why she was laughing, was demanding to know if she was attempting to brazen it out.
She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, then waved the crumpled letter about. “This idiot couldn’t have known what an incredible lover you are, North. After all, who could possibly think I would have the energy to take another lover? And besides that, why would I want to when I’ve got the most wonderful man ever as my husband? Surely they couldn’t know what you let me do to you, surely they couldn’t believe I would want to tie another man’s hands to the bedpost, could they?”
He could only stare down at her. He was all of that to her? She really believed what she said? “It is a puzzle, isn’t it?” he said finally.
She snorted. “A puzzle? I’d call it bloody nonsense. We’ve been married less than a month. North, I’m sorry, but this smacks of your male martinets at work, just as I’m sure they did that monster in my window on our wedding night. Can’t you just see Tregeagle or Coombe lying flat on his belly, hanging a wire down from the roof, with this monster face dangling off the end of it? I wish the sod had caught a bad chill. Perhaps I can see Tregeagle’s style shining forth in this”—she waved the letter under his nose—“the damnable blockhead.” She snorted again, and he felt a smile tugging at his mouth.
She was frowning now, waving that damned letter about. “But in this instance they misjudged their master’s ardor. How could they possibly believe that I would let you out of my sight? Well, I did let you out of my sight just for a little while today, but you found me quickly enough. I won’t ever again, you know, never. Now, kiss me.”
He did, thinking there was no woman like Caroline in all of Cornwall and now she was his and all the duplicity of the past, the Nightingale legacy of betrayal, was ended, here and now.
But she had been out of his sight.
He raised his head and looked down at her, all his doubts, all his father’s long-buried accusations about women, making his eyes nearly black and opaque, his expression hard and frightening.
“Oh, North, is that your brooding look? Yes, it is, and I don’t like it a bit. It is dark and menacing. You look dangerous and immensely fascinating. If you weren’t my husband and I much preferred your laughter and jesting, because it’s your laughter that makes me tingle all over, why, I’d probably think it vastly romantic. A silent strong man, yes, it would make a maiden shudder with mysterious delight, more fool the maiden. I’m glad I know as far down as my toes that you would never hurt me else I’d be frightened of you. I wouldn’t ever want to be your enemy. You must have scared the French down to their shaking knees. They must have rejoiced when you sold out and returned to England.”
“What were you doing here?”
She grinned up at him, locked her fingers behind his neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him again until he was caressing her back, pulling her so tightly against him he wondered if either of them would be breathing shortly.
“I was here because of an entry I found in the King tome, made by your grandfather. He goes on and on about Queen Isolde, and how she betrayed poor Mark with his nephew Tristan, or maybe Tristan was even his son, and Isolde was a harlot, a slut, and any number of other nasty things, how the nunnery was too good for the likes of her Mark—it gets quite boring, really, all the same things your great-grandfather wrote—but then he breaks away from the same old stuff his father had written. He begins to speak about how Fowey used to be a very different place and how it was ripped apart in a huge natural upheaval way back even before the Vikings ruled most of England. And after the land heaved and twisted and formed itself anew, it became evident to this local monk that K
ing Mark was nowhere to be found in that region, that everyone had been wrong, and the split-apart earth proved it. No King Mark in southern Cornwall. Your grandfather believed that this oak tree copse was where King Mark met his nephew Tristan to exile him from Cornwall, both him and Isolde. It was here he died, supposedly from a poisoned arrow from one of Tristan’s supporters, and here he was buried—in one of these hillocks. Perhaps there is something here, who knows? Now, don’t laugh, North, I’m trying to take your male ancestors a bit seriously.”
“I’m not laughing just yet. But I must tell you, Caroline, that I’ve never heard of an earthquake down south of us. Did my grandfather write about which monk it was? His name? His order? Is there even a text in the library penned by this supposed monk claiming all this happened?”
She slumped down a bit. “No, of course not, but I didn’t scour through every shelf and every volume, North. You know what really stymies me: that blasted gold armlet. Where did it come from exactly? Odd that your great-grandfather never gave its exact location. And what the devil happened to it? Why doesn’t your father say a word about its suddenly disappearing? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I came here just to see what I could find.”
“And you’ve found nothing?”
“Not a single thing, not even a small piece of iron that could have belonged to a long-ago sword. All your ancestors seemed to live a very long time and all of them wrote not only about this King Mark business but about the perfidy of women as well. Do you know, North, that your great-grandfather actually wrote that women should be locked away, just like in those Moslem harems, and taken out only to be used to beget heirs? Did you know your grandfather, North? Did you know about his dislike of women?”
“I remember him, yes, too well. And yes, I know all about his dislike of females. It was an obsession, not only with him, but with his father and his own son. He looked like a Nightingale man, like me, in other words.”
“All dark and hairy, and utterly exquisite?”
He grinned down at her, kissed the tip of her nose that was fast becoming sunburnt, and said, “Exquisite, am I?”
“Oh yes, and I think I’m in danger of becoming even more overwhelmed by you now than before. Yes, I think you should continue to let me have the upper hand for a while longer.”
His eyes nearly crossed with lust. He pictured himself flat on his back, his legs sprawled, his wrists tied over his head, wondering how long he could bear what she was doing to him before he brought his hands down to her.
“North, your breathing is very fast and very uneven. Are you all right?”
“No.”
“Well, in that case—” She shrugged out of her riding jacket. He froze, just staring at her. She grinned wickedly at him, tossed her jacket on the ground, and began to unpin her riding hat.
“Caroline, it’s very open here—”
She grabbed his hand and tugged at it. “Then let’s go to the copse. It will be cozy and warm and I can kiss you until I fall into a swoon.”
Before they reached the copse, they were running, Caroline’s bright, happy laughter warming his blood as much as his unbridled lust for her, a seemingly unending lust.
28
IT WAS AFTER midnight and still North lay awake, but he was careful to lie still because Caroline was pressed against him and her even breathing told him she was soundly asleep. He was frowning up at the dark ceiling for it had just occurred to him that he’d forgotten to ask her what Dr. Treath was doing there, what he was showing her, why he’d kissed her cheek. And she hadn’t volunteered a thing.
He shook his head. Was he so much like the other Nightingale men that all his dealings with women—particularly his wife—were poisoned by distrust? Was it in his blood, this near obsession with betrayal?
Damnation.
He wouldn’t think about it again.
Come to think of it, with each of his mistresses, he’d not questioned his possessiveness, his insistence that when in his keeping she keep herself only for him. One girl, of course, had taken another gentleman, and surely his reaction to it had been too ungoverned, his anger too cold and hard and deep, because she’d been naught but a mistress, after all, and life was life, carrying tears and laughter and disappointment, and men and women simply weren’t saints. Ah, but when he thought about it now, he could remember the roiling fury that had torn through him when he found out she’d slept with another man, and it was at that moment his father’s bitter diatribes came crashing through long-forgotten memories. Ah, they’d seemed to come from deep within him, from a place he hadn’t even recognized as being a real part of him. Aye, he’d allowed this poison until he’d realized what he was doing, what he was thinking and remembering, and forced himself to think of other matters.
Had she distracted him with sex so he wouldn’t ask her?
He couldn’t stand himself. He wished he’d never read even a small part of that damned diary Tregeagle had given him before he’d married Caroline. It was filled with anger and rage; it was vicious and it was poison and there was a sickness to it that frightened him. And it went all the way back to his great-grandfather. Surely that was beyond coincidence, all those betrayals by Nightingale wives. Surely.
He kissed the top of Caroline’s head, squeezed her against him, and nearly leaped off the bed when she said against his shoulder, “Why can’t you sleep? What’s wrong?”
“I suppose it’s because I am in such dire need. You haven’t done your wifely duty by me, Caroline. It’s been a good six hours. I’m in a bad way. I probably won’t sleep the rest of the night because you’ve not seen to my relief.”
Had that easy flow of words really come from him? Why hadn’t he simply just brooded out a single curt word to her? Why was he being amusing? He didn’t begin to understand himself, this new self that bandied about words and mocked and teased and smiled a great deal too much, surely, and even laughed more than was necessary.
But then he forgot about being dark and melancholy. He forgot everything except her breasts against his chest, her hand stroking over his throat, his shoulders, down his arms until her fingers were clasped in his. Then she was between his legs, over him, and she was staring down at him in the darkness, and he blessed the fact that there was just a touch of moonlight coming into the bedchamber and he could see the shadows on her face and he saw that she was smiling down at him, and then he closed his eyes because her palms were spread on his belly, going lower and lower, and he groaned.
“Forgive me, North, for not treating you as I should.”
He felt the warmth of her breath and shuddered with the power of it. He sought for just a hint of melancholy, just the forgotten flavor of it. He sought for brooding, even for a dollop of wit, but there was nothing but a growing wildness in him, and there too, a vast space, always there but never recognized by him before, and this space was filled with her and with what she was doing to him and making him feel. And when her hands closed around him, he ceased worrying about anything at all, and managed to say, “ Caroline, your mouth, put your mouth on me.” She did and he thought he’d die from the glory of it.
When he was caressing her, letting her feel the heat of his body and the wet heat of his mouth, he knew that he moved her every bit as much as she did him. When she screamed, her back bowed off the bed. He smiled and held her close and dear in those moments of shattering pleasure.
“Ah, Caroline,” he said, kissing her belly, his fingers still gently stroking over her, “you are more than a simple man deserves.”
And she said, her fingers stroking through his hair, “You’re the only simple man I want.”
Caroline hadn’t visited all the rooms in her new home. Since no one was demanding to speak to her just then, neither male nor female, she had some unaccustomed time to herself. She wore a wool shawl over her muslin gown, and stout warm boots. It was fall now, truly fall, with All Hallows’ Eve not far away. The mornings were heavy with fog more often now, the afternoon air usually crisp and cool, the sh
arp smell of the sea stronger, wafting even to Mount Hawke on some days when the wind was high and the clouds dark and roiling low in the sky. Caroline loved Cornwall.
Miss Mary Patricia was giving Evelyn and Alice lessons in her bedchamber, saying that the nursery struck her as silly given the fact that all of them were grown women, carrying babes in their bellies. Owen was at Scrilady Hall, meeting with Mr. Peetree from the mines, a man, Owen had told her who knew what he was about, and he appeared to like Owen. North was with Flash Savory, the two of them questioning all the people who had known Nora Pelforth, searching for any clue, any hint of who had killed her. It was such a pity that Bennett couldn’t have done it. He was such a rotten individual.
She also suspected North had Flash trying to find the boy who’d given Timmy the maid the note about her meeting her lover. Sir Rafael Carstairs was with them and Caroline imagined that the three men would end up in Goonbell at Mrs. Freely’s inn, drinking her excellent local ale.
Caroline walked to the third floor of the east wing. It was so quiet here it was unearthly. It was a bit nerve-racking, all that silence. Dust motes hung in the air, shining in the spikes of sunlight that managed to penetrate the closed window shutters and aged draperies. No one had been up here in quite a while.
She sneezed as she opened the door to yet another room that was at the very end of the long corridor. It wasn’t a bedchamber, rather it was some sort of storeroom. Heavy wooden-slatted shutters tightly covered the narrow windows. She unlatched them and let light flood into the room. There were very old wooden crates piled high against the walls. Also stacked against the walls were paintings. She pulled one of them toward her and took a step back.
It was a very stylized painting of a woman done early in the last century. She was very young, no older than Caroline was now. Despite the artist’s deficits, she was also pretty: dark eyes, dark hair, a wicked dimple deep in her right cheek. Behind her stood a young man, proud and tall very—no doubt he was a Nightingale man—his large hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
The Nightingale Legacy Page 27
