She raised her cup in salute to him, then downed the contents with one long gulp. “Thank you. Grandfather’s ginger ale has always been the perfect drink for washing down scones and cream.”
They sat for a time, eating, and drinking to their hearts’ content. After three scones and an accompanying number of cups of ginger ale, James felt the need to lie down on the sand and have a snort nap.
Leah pulled out two small apples and handed one to James.
He sat and looked at it, uncertain as to whether he had any room left in his stomach. “Remember the huge supper of roast pig from our second night on the road? I am beginning to feel that full again,” he said, patting his belly.
Leah laughed. “Yes, that roast pig was marvelous. But these are Cornish breadfruit apples; they are so sweet you will not be able to resist them. Even just a bite will have you finding room alongside the scones and ale,” she said.
James forced himself to take a bite, surprised to discover that when he did, the apple tasted like a strawberry. He stared at it for a moment.
Leah chuckled. “I told you they were good.”
He looked at her. The past few days had seen her cheeks begin to fill out once more. The cheeky sparkle in her eyes had returned. Being at her grandfather’s house agreed with Leah. But then again, James suspected that anywhere away from her father would see Leah blossom.
“This is a marvelous place. I have never been to this part of the country before,” he said.
The sandy beach and beautiful blue water of the River Tresillian stretched out before them. He could imagine that in summer, it would be a wonderful place for long evening walks. His imagination stirred. Long evening walks with Leah, her hand held within his as they shared secrets and stopped every so often to steal a kiss.
“I thought you had travelled a lot in England, what with your father being so high up in the church. I am surprised you have not made it to this sunny corner of the kingdom before,” she replied.
James shrugged. All his life, he had been treading the same well-worn paths up and down the country. Every Christmas, it was to Strathmore Castle in Scotland. Back and forth to Cambridge when he had been studying. Only the occasional trip to a friend’s estate in the country had seen his familiar routine broken. He had unknowingly become a creature of habit. “I do travel a little. After my trip to Derbyshire, I went to Brighton when Caroline and Lord Newhall decided to elope.”
She raised an eyebrow at his comment. “Can you still call it an elopement when you bring the Bishop of London with you?”
James chuckled. “That was at my Aunt Adelaide’s behest. She was prepared to let Caroline and Newhall forgo the full St Paul’s cathedral wedding as long as they took my father with them to conduct the wedding service.”
“It sounds like it was a fun adventure. Not that you could really say Brighton was far to travel from London. My family are always moving up and down the road to Brighton whenever the Prince Regent decides he wants to spend time by the seaside. My father never likes to be out of touch with the royal court for long,” she said.
Knowing Tobias Shepherd and his political machinations, Leah’s comment was no surprise. Even Guy had started following the court of the future king as his political ambitions steadily grew.
Leah took one last bite of her apple, then tossed the core into the nearby seaside bushes. A scatter of seagulls quickly descended where the apple had landed. The squawks of birds filled the air as they jostled over who was to get the heaven-sent bounty.
She got to her feet and began to hitch up her skirts. James forced himself to resist temptation and turned away.
“You are going to have to look at my boots at some point, James. I can’t have my skirts soaked when we venture inside the cave. I didn’t take you for being such a prude,” she teased.
He turned back to her, his gaze firmly on her face and away from her raised skirts. “I am not a prude. I have just been raised to treat women with the utmost of respect,” he replied.
Leah walked over to him and bent low. She lifted his chin and leaned in close; their lips were almost touching. His heart swelled at the prospect of an unexpected kiss. While she gifted him with the most innocent of smiles, he caught the sparkle of mischief which shone in her eyes. “James Radley don’t try to tell me that you did not have disrespectful thoughts every time you took a firm hold of my arse and pushed me up into the barouche,” she said.
She was right, of course, which was no surprise. Every single time he’d had his hands on her rounded rump, he had felt himself going hard. He delighted in the knowledge that Leah had figured out that his manhandling of her was not entirely respectable. He suspected she had also come to the realization that he had thoroughly enjoyed it.
He dreaded to think what Leah would say if she ever discovered the extent of his disrespectful thoughts about her. Not to mention what he would dearly love to do to her if he could get his hands on not just her naked arse, but her whole naked body.
His focus at this moment was on a single part of her body. Her soft, full mouth.
Please. Please kiss me.
She released his face and pulled away. A stab of disappointment hit his heart as he watched her set about packing up the remains of their picnic. They had been so close. He should have just reached out and taken the opportunity to kiss her.
He tossed the rest of his half-eaten apple into the low bushes, close to the place Leah had thrown hers. His appetite for something sweet was now focused entirely on the woman who was walking toward the entrance to the cave.
James got to his feet and raced after her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The sea caves had always been one of Leah’s favorite places. They were where she could allow her imagination to run riot. The legend of King Arthur had been set at Tintagel Castle on the other side of Cornwall, facing out to the Celtic Sea, but in her mind, she imagined him sleeping peacefully within the caves along the Tresillian River.
She had always kept that piece of fiction to herself, not even sharing it with her sister when they were children. Her mythical hero was hers alone. His resting place was forever locked in her heart. Now, a different hero had stepped into her life.
James followed close as they traversed the slippery rocks at the entrance of the cave. He slipped at one point, his boot landing in a deep rock pool with a loud splash.
“Bloody . . .” he muttered.
She laughed. “You don’t need to mind your manners around me, James Radley. I might be gentle born, but I have heard enough foul language in my time for it not to offend me.”
Offering a hand to him, she helped James climb back out of the rockpool and up onto the relative safety of the rocks. He stood for a time, shaking the water from his boot, and muttering further foul oaths under his breath.
“Come with me. There is a bigger space farther inside. You can take your boot off and wring out your socks once we reach it,” she said.
With his boot still waterlogged, James squelched after her.
Leah was enjoying James’s company. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with him and reveal all the secret places from her childhood. She finally had someone with whom she could share them.
She didn’t use the word wonderful very often but being with him was just that. Wonderful. A bubble of joy bounced around in her stomach along with the scones, sweet apple, and ginger beer. She had almost forgotten what happiness felt like.
The low, tight entrance finally opened up into a much larger space. They stepped into the heart of the sea cave.
“Oh!” he gasped.
A grinning Leah remembered the first time she had seen inside the cave, and her reaction had been the same as James’s—pure wonderment.
“Leah, this is amazing! I could never imagine this being here. What a fantastic sight!” he exclaimed.
The sea cave was its own magical world inside the earth. The tide had been out for several hours and a patch of dry sandy beach was visible along th
e side wall of the cave. Many times, during her summer holidays here as a child, Leah and her sister would take off their boots and stockings and dig their toes deep into the soft sand.
In the middle of the cave was a series of small rockpools. Leah crossed over to her favorite one and looked down. It was studded with colorful sea anemones. To her surprise, there was also a fish inside the pool.
“Poor thing. I hope that when the tide comes in you get washed back out to sea,” she said.
James ambled over; the soft squelch of his sea-soaked boot echoed in the cavernous space as he walked. When she looked down at it, he shrugged. “This is a marvelous place. I’m glad you brought me here. Though my boots and wet feet are not so appreciative of the adventure. I fear that they will be making squishy noises all the way home in protest.”
Leah looked away, trying to hide her smile. James was attempting to be gruff, but he was failing at it so badly she could only find it endearing. She hadn’t known many nice men in her life, but she sensed it would take a lot to get him riled up past the point of simply being a little cross over anything which vexed him. And for that, she was grateful. There was a lot of good things to be said about a man possessed of an even temper.
“Do many other people know about this cave or is this your own secret place?” he asked.
“All the locals know of the cave, though we do tend to keep it a secret amongst ourselves. The folk of Mopus Passage are likely to give wrong directions to day-trippers who bother to enquire, even those from Truro. We like to keep it hidden.”
“Why?” he asked.
She leaned in close. “Smugglers. This cave was used for hiding contraband goods during the war against Napoleon. The boats would come in here at high tide, and drop off barrels and casks of banned imports, then the locals would wait until the tide had gone out and retrieve them.”
“I take it that it was your grandfather’s job during the war to try to catch the local smugglers?” replied James, recalling the comfortable familiarity that Sir Geoffrey had with his pistols.
Leah snorted. “Lord, no. Where do you think they hid most of the smuggled goods? My grandfather’s cellars were full of the stuff—he was one of the chief smugglers. He and the local magistrate were up to their eyeballs in it.”
She was a delight. James could not fathom how he could have allowed himself to hide away from Leah for those first few days after their arrival. Drawing and painting were his passion, but Leah was, well, she was something else.
His art stirred his heart, no doubt about it. But Leah held his soul in her hand. His very essence of existence danced in the light of her presence. He had never understood the whole notion of love, but if this feeling was love, it was the most powerful force he could ever have imagined.
Their gazes met and James found himself lost in a heaven of blue eyes. One slow blink of Leah’s long brown eyelashes and he was gone. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them, before capturing Leah’s lips in a soft, lingering kiss.
At first Leah didn’t respond, but slowly, surely, her mouth softened, and his tongue swept past her lips. He tried to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back. He sensed her hesitation and waited for her to break contact, but she continued to move her lips against his, staying within the kiss. Their tongues glided over one another once, twice.
A hand pressed against his chest. It was barely a push, but it was enough to give him a clear message. He drew back and broke the kiss. Leah’s eyes were cast downward; she would not meet his gaze. Damn.
He had misread her signals. Pushed when he should not have. In the unsettling silence, he sensed her fear. She was alone with him, exposed and vulnerable.
“I should not have done that. Pardon my misjudgment; it was wrong of me to take such liberties with you,” he said.
“I think it is time we returned to the manor.” Leah stepped past him and headed for the entrance to the cave.
After collecting the picnic basket, they headed back to the manor in silence. The whole way, James wracked his brains, trying to think of anything he could say that could undo the damage he had just done.
He came up empty.
On the long walk home, Leah thought about the kiss. It had been even better than the first time. James was skilled when it came to tender, warm kisses. She could never grow tired of the heady sensation of his lips on hers.
But why was he kissing her? That was the question, and the reason why she had made him stop. His swift post-kiss apology had cut her like a knife. It had confirmed her worst fears. James had kissed her because he felt an obligation to make some sort of effort. If he had actually wanted her, then he would have declared his love.
He feels obliged to marry me. That’s why he kissed me.
They had been alone together on the road down from London. It made perfect sense for marriage to be the outcome her grandfather, and perhaps even her family, would come to expect of hers and James’s little adventure.
And marriage to James would be a very different proposition to that which she knew had been set out for her with Guy. James was a good man. He would no doubt in time do what was expected of him and offer for her hand in marriage. But he deserved more. He deserved to be in love with the woman he married.
As they began to climb the steep, winding steps back up to Mopus Manor, Leah chided herself. She had been a fool to nurture the affection she’d felt for James. Every day she spent with him, it continued to blossom and grow stronger. Leah could no longer keep it at bay.
She was in love with James, but she had to let him go.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Late one afternoon, James was finishing the final cleanup of his paintbrushes in readiness for closing the cottage for the night and returning to the manor. He had taken to hiding out in his painting studio for the best part of each day, ostensibly to get work done, but in truth, hiding from Leah.
She had made the task a little easier for him by busying herself with the management of the manor house and helping to plant new herbs in the kitchen garden. Over the past days, he and Leah had slipped into a polite but distant cohabitation of Mopus Manor. James had taken his cues from her and not pressed his luck. He had made a mess of things at the sea cave and had spent endless hours since then wondering if he had read the signs wrong. He did not want to leave Mopus Manor, but feared that at some point soon, he would be asked to go.
A knock at the cottage door stirred him from his private musings of light, shade, and how he could find a way to reconnect with Leah. He was surprised to see that instead of his visitor being Leah, it was Sir Geoffrey Sydell.
In the ten days since he and Leah had arrived at Mopus Manor, James had not seen Sir Geoffrey anywhere near the cliff-facing garden. His unexpected appearance at the cottage door set James’s nerves on edge.
“Mind if I come in?” said Sir Geoffrey.
James put down his paintbrushes and wiped his hands on a rag. He motioned for Sir Geoffrey to enter. “Please, do come in. This is your house; you shouldn’t need to ask for permission to enter any room.”
He busied about the cottage, clearing away a few of his smaller easels and making room for his guest to sit down. He then sat on a stool opposite to the chair Sir Geoffrey now occupied.
“Sorry about the sudden visit, but since Leah has not yet returned from Truro, I thought now might be a good time for you and me to have a little chat,” said Sir Geoffrey.
Ah.
James had known it was only a matter of time before Sir Geoffrey would want to come and talk to him about Leah. Or, to be more accurate, what was to be done about Leah. The situation for all of them was, at best, a temporary one.
Eventually, Tobias Shepherd would receive word as to the whereabouts of his errant daughter. After which, he was unlikely to sit on his hands and leave her to live out her life peacefully in Cornwall. James was surprised that no one had yet come knocking on the door of Mopus Manor, demanding the return of Leah to London.
James had wondered on mor
e than one occasion as to what was happening in London. What had transpired on the morning of the ill-fated wedding after he and Leah had disappeared? A runaway bride was the sort of salacious gossip on which the ton thrived.
His own letter home to his parents had been sent at the beginning of the week. He had said little in it other than that he and Leah were safe, and that he would eventually return to London. He trusted his father to keep his confidence.
Sir Geoffrey was a different matter altogether. He was Leah’s family, and was therefore bound by a different set of rules when it came to be keeping, or not keeping, secrets from her parents.
The thought of discussing Leah without her being present sat uncomfortably with James. He had already breached her trust with that kiss at the sea cave. He was not keen to give her any further reason to mistrust him.
“Firstly, I need to make it clear I have only my granddaughter’s best interests at heart,” said Sir Geoffrey.
Upon hearing those words, James put down his cleaning cloth and sat hunched over on the stool. His hands were tightly clasped. He didn’t like the sound of the words ‘best interests’ one little bit. In his experience, people had an unfortunate habit of using that very phrase when they wanted to wrap up unpleasant decisions and hand them over for others to deal with.
Sir Geoffrey held a hand up and sat forward in his chair. “I can see that you are uneasy, James, so let me clarify what I mean. While nothing should happen without Leah’s express permission, the reality of the situation needs to be faced”
“The situation being?” asked James.
“My granddaughter is a gently bred young woman, currently on the run from her family. Her father has legal say over her life at present, and the only thing that can change that fact is marriage. Or her father’s death, which considering how fit my son-in-law is, will not likely be happening for many years to come,” replied Sir Geoffrey.
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