Kitabı oku: «The Wild Wellingham Brothers», sayfa 7

Chapter Eight

Emerald walked to the sea early before anyone was about, before the night stars had faded from the sky, before the chamber maids had risen from their beds, and before Miriam would have the notion to miss her and comment. She had searched Falder for hours last night, searched Asher’s room and the alcoves off it, searched the kitchens and the salons and the library. Searched the map room that Miriam had spoken of and come away with nothing. Had he thrown the cane away? She shook her head. The jewels on the carved head were too valuable to just get rid of and even the most dull-witted of folk could have determined the worth of the thing. Had he sold it off? Could she ask him somehow of its whereabouts without raising his curiosity and jogging his memory?

The water was cold as she waded into it, but not the freezing cold she had expected and the temperature took her thoughts on to further possibilities.

Looking around, she wondered if she dared to take off her gown and swim out to the first break of the waves. Behind her the land was silent and grey, a row of tall dark pines sheltering the beach from a cottage that lay half a mile in from where she stood, and the cove was bound at both ends by sharp outcrops of rock. No access there, then. No sudden stranger. No peeping Toms or vagrant passers-by.

She made her mind up in a moment and walked to a large bush at the head of the beach, shrugging off her jacket and her gown and boots. She left her silk gloves on. Out of habit. The slight breeze sent goose-bumps across the skin on her forearms and she laughed in sheer and unadulterated joy. Freedom.

Her first true freedom in four months. She rubbed away the tears that started in her eyes and walked straight into the ocean.

Asher saw her from a distance, a lonely Aphrodite with her hair a froth of bright gilt curls upon her head. Nothing was hidden. Nothing. Her long slender legs and arms, her rounded bottom, her waist, her full breasts moving up and down as she turned to look at the shore one last time before diving under. And under. And under…

His heart began to race and he urged his mount on, hitting the beach in a flat-out gallop and pulling off his boots and jacket after he had dismounted. God, where the hell was she?

‘Emma.’ His voice was wild, angry, desperate, furious, the beat of his heart so loud he thought he might fall over with the power of the blood racing through his veins, thought he might explode with the red-hot fear, thought he might…

She came up fifty yards further out from where he had last seen her and it was her laughter that sent him completely over the edge, a laughter that stopped abruptly as she turned and her eyes caught his own.

‘Get out of the water. Now.’ He could do nothing to soften his wrath. All he wanted was for her to be safe.

‘Go back.’ Her voice was breathless, horrified. ‘Go away. I do not need any help.’ Turquoise eyes searched the shore for any sign of others and her cheeks, despite the cold of the sea, were a burning bright hot red.

He was not swayed at all. ‘If you don’t come out this second, I’ll come in and get you.’

Emerald bobbed down in the water and wondered what to do now, for Asher Wellingham stood directly in a line in front of her clothes. From the look on his face she didn’t think he’d be making anything easy for her either.

Already the water had lapped at his trousers and was now just above the point of his knees. Would he keep coming? Would he swim in and drag her out as he threatened?

‘All right, then. Turn around.’ Her placatory tone was hardly won, and when she saw the white of his teeth gleam in a quick smile she was pressed not to call his bluff and see just who was the stronger swimmer. But where could she then come ashore?

‘Turn around.’ She repeated the command when he made no move to do so and her trepidation grew as a movement on the high ground behind Asher formed the shape of another man, far away enough to still be safe, but coming closer with each wasted second. Her distraction had Asher turning.

‘It’s Malcolm Howard, a cottar from the hill.’ His barely concealed laughter made her swear and, swimming in on the first wave, she stood up as late as she could manage it. Asher Carisbrook held his bulky jacket out to her, but not before he had had a good eyeful.

‘Most gentlemen would have at least averted their faces,’ she ground out and pulled her hand away, shrugging into his jacket with the intent of showing as little flesh as possible and pleased when the hem fell below her knees.

‘Most ladies would have worn a shift,’ he returned, looking over his shoulder and whistling. His large black stallion walked from the bushes at the top of the beach, carefully picking his way across the sand. Glancing across his shoulder, Emerald was surprised to see no sign of the stranger in the distance.

‘Malcolm generally calls in at his brother’s cottage. It’s just behind that hillock,’ he added with an edge of humour in his words.

‘And you knew that?’

‘I did.’

No repentance. No apology. No remorse. But the light in his eyes had changed. Pulling on his boots, he mounted his horse with one quick movement and held out his right hand.

‘Come, Emma, I will take you home.’

With sand on her feet and slick with seawater, she was hoisted up before she could argue and the warmth of his body made her start. She leant forward, hot with chagrin and flushed with something else much less definable.

‘There is a hay barn in a paddock over the hill. We’ll get your clothes and you can change there.’

‘With you watching?’

His bark of laughter was contagious and she hid a smile as they rode. Dressed in nothing more than a too-big jacket and miles away from anyone or anywhere, she still felt safe. Asher Wellingham always made her feel safe.

‘Where did you learn to swim?’

‘In Jamaica.’ The petulant silence she had meant to maintain seemed childish and stupid in the face of his humour.

‘Sure as hell your father did not teach you.’

‘No, it was a servant who showed me.’

‘Dressed in more than you are now, I should hope.’

‘It was hot and I was a child.’

‘And now you are most definitely a woman.’

His free arm skimmed down across the side of her thigh and her breath stopped. ‘Are you an innocent, Emma?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She could barely believe that he could have asked her such a question.

‘An innocent. A woman who has not had the pleasure yet of being with a man. If you are, then I should beg your forgiveness for even suggesting it, but if you are not, then you might entertain the notion of a dalliance that could be of benefit to both of us.’

‘A dalliance?’

He pushed forward and she felt the hard ridge of his manhood against the small of her back.

‘You want something of me and I want something of you. Badly. Perhaps we could accommodate each other and both come out the happier for it.’

His words tickled her neck and, with the hot flesh of the horse beneath her bottom and Asher Wellingham at her back, Emerald felt like simply leaning back and falling into his dangerous promise. Jamaica had hardly been a world where the passions between a man and a woman were hidden and the morality that hampered just about every social exchange here would have been deemed ludicrous there.

Say yes, her body screamed. No ties. No promises. Just the simple act of union. Here in the barn. Now.

Another voice countered the first one. The sensible voice of a woman who had been around men all her life and knew the easy empty promises they made when the bloodlust consumed them.

He was a duke, for goodness’ sake, and his suggestion was that of a man who was used to women saying yes. Such men did not offer more to one whom they suspected of being a thief. She had seen Asher Wellingham in the ballrooms of London, seen the hooded glances of a hundred women with more impeccable credentials than she had. A richer family. A fairer face. Titles of equal standing to his own. And that was before she even considered their shared past.

Her eyes fell on his left hand as she shook her head. She noticed the knuckles whiten around the reins and a small voice inside her wished that he might just reach over and take what he had not been offered, a complete abnegation of any decision on her behalf. But he didn’t. The gentleman in him, she mused.

‘I have never—’ She broke off. Horrified. What had she been going to tell him? That she was a virgin? That she had never lain with any man before? Given her behaviour of late, she was certain he would not have believed her.

‘Never?’ The golden chips in his eyes darkened. ‘I don’t usually accost women so blatantly and I—’ He halted in mid-sentence as he pulled on the bridle and, dismounting, walked the horse towards a barn perched in the trees.

Accost. Such a harsh word for what he had offered, she thought. And telling. An interpretation of motive? ‘I will wait here while you change.’ He used the briefest of contact to help her down from the horse.

Formal. Proper. A definitive shift from the suggestion he had just voiced. Clutching her clothes, she scurried into the building, angry at herself for caring.

An easy lay and an easy leave. She remembered her father talking of the women he had bedded and left. Heartened by the memory, she bit back further introspection and finished dressing, tying the laces on her boots with hands that shook. Damn it. Why was it that she became a wanton in the company of Asher Wellingham? She thought of his glance ranging across her naked body and shivered. What had he thought? The butterfly on her breast had been plainly visible, as had the long curling scar across her right thigh. She had seen the surprise on his face when he had offered the jacket.

Surprise, speculation and lust.

Taking a breath, she walked outside. He stood with his back to the barn. Jacketless and shirt open, his dark hair fell across his collar, long from behind and slightly curly, the fabric of his shirt outlining well-defined muscle. Not a sedentary man, she mused. When he turned, she saw in his eyes that which she imagined must be reflected in her own.

Wariness.

‘Thank you for your jacket.’ Traces of seawater darkened the light brown fabric as he slung it carelessly across the pommel of his saddle.

‘You are welcome.’

The English distance in his voice made her wince. In Jamaica, difficulties had always been settled through argument. So eminently practicable, everything said and no chance of ambiguity. Here, problems simmered beneath a more polite façade, the bubbling undercurrent of dispute left unsolved and unspoken; as he offered to help her mount, she wished that he might ask her again to consider this dalliance with at least a semblance of love in his eyes.

The very thought made her heart race. ‘I shall walk home from here, your Grace, for it is an easy stroll.’

Nothing would make her climb on to his horse again and feel his thighs next to hers and his breath on her neck. Nothing.

He bowed his head slightly and dug his heels into the flanks of his big black stallion, gone before she had the nerve to call him back.

Signalling Azziz with her candle at midnight Emerald joined him on the road that swung between Falder and the sea. He did not look pleased.

‘Have you bedded him?’

‘Have I what?’ Even in the darkness she knew he must see the mounting blush on her cheeks at his question.

‘Bedded him? Toro said he saw you leave the water today in the company of Asher Wellingham. He said you were naked.’

‘I’d been for a swim. He found me there.’

‘I will kill him.’

Laying her hand upon his sleeve, she pulled him back. ‘It was my fault. I should not have gone in without clothes and he did not touch me. He was a gentleman in all of his actions.’ She mentioned neither Asher’s suggested dalliance nor the barn to him.

‘Put a knife to Carisbrook’s throat tonight, Emmie, and demand the parchment. Then we can run for the coast and take sail to Jamaica. If we delay our leave much longer, we’ll have no money for the passage home.’

The brutal thrust of Azziz’s argument worried her. Even a month ago she might have suggested the same thing, but now…

‘I’ll sell my pearls. That should tide us over for at least a while.’

Azziz shook his head. ‘They are the only thing of your mother’s you have left. You always said you’d never be parted from them.’

‘Please, Azziz, have Toro take the pearls down to London and find the best jeweller in town. You know where they are hidden in Miriam’s house. Just give me another few days.’

Another few days. Another caress? Another chance?

She shook her head to rid herself of the image of Asher on the horse behind her and felt the hairs on her arms rise up in memory.

‘I could rob a wealthy traveller. It should be enough.’

‘No.’ Horror swamped her. ‘Not in England. Here you are hanged for such an offence. Far better to sell the pearls and buy us some time.’

‘If you let me at Carisbrook for an hour—’

‘No.’

‘His sister, then. Word has it they are close.’

‘Leave the family alone. I mean it.’

‘Lord, you were always headstrong. Beau had more faults than any one man had a right to, but he was your father and Carisbrook killed him in cold blood.’

‘Cold blood? A mid-ocean encounter between two warring ships.’

‘You would excuse this English duke?’

She turned away and looked back towards Falder. From here the lights of the house showed bright against the hills behind it. ‘My father lived by the sword just as surely as he died by it and before I came here I thought that Asher Wellingham was of the same ilk. But now? I think he is as honourable as you are and I would not see him hurt.’ She swallowed as she felt Azziz’s large hand come to rest upon her shoulder.

‘You like him, don’t you, girl?’ His voice was soft. ‘How do you think he would react if he knew of your Sandford blood?’

‘Badly.’ Her response was as honest as the question asked.

‘And if he exposes you, there will be little that anyone could do to stem the damage. Trust him and you could well be as dead as your father and what will happen, then, to Miriam and Ruby? If you will not think of yourself, at least think of them.’

Emerald shivered. For the very first time in all of her life she had met a man who made her feel like a woman. A man who made her imagine things that she had not before even considered.

Naked beneath his jacket and walking into the barn, a part of her had wanted him to follow her in and take away her virginity. She was twenty-one and she had never bedded a man. It was time. It was beyond time. The throb of lust deep within her loins surprised her and she was pleased when Azziz left his warnings at that and turned towards the line of trees that ran across the eastern ridge and away from Falder.

In the moonlight the garrets and turrets of the house were light against the sky and, skirting the pebble-chip pathways beyond the gardens, she saw a silhouette in the bay window. Stopping, she retraced her steps and crept through the undergrowth directly in line with the uncurtained window.

Asher stood against the glass, looking out. Behind him, hovering in the alcove, was the painted image of his long-dead wife. Watching him. Tying him to a sadness that was all consuming and never ending. She could so often see that wounded look in his eyes, like a man who bled from a gash he could not find and had ceased to notice his own hurt.

Melanie Wellingham, the dead Duchess of Carisbrook.

Everything had to do with her and with his broken hand and his blind brother. And it was all intertwined with Falder, a thousand years of history bearing down hard upon his shoulders. She started forward and stopped. What could she say?

Kiss me. Love me. Let me stay here. Here. For ever. Where the names of your ancestors march through the centuries and the shivers of memory are kind.

Kinder than my own memories. Much kinder.

A ship in the midst of an angry sea and the promise of another storm chasing hard on the heels of the first one. The English ship with the promise of well-laden hulls and Asher Wellingham waiting, sword in hand, on his quarterdeck with two dozen men behind him. An easy target. Slow. Cumbersome. The lightning off the sea silhouetting everything.

She had felt his focus and his expertise, but had still been surprised as he had swung through a swathe of sailors to reach her father. It was the whine of a cannonball that threw him into her path, and into the radius of her blade, though he had laughed as her sword crossed his own. ‘You have chosen the wrong pathway, lad. Throw in with me and I will see that you have safe passage back to England—you are too young to be losing your life to the likes of this motley crew.’

Grasping her sword tighter, she had fended him off, though his proficiency was a revelation. He had been playing with her. The realisation had come with a great rush of amazement, given her own ability at swordplay, and she had been pleased to see the amusement harden as she had cut across his left sleeve and drawn blood. If she was going to die, she had wanted it to matter, though his sudden feint had her fighting arm pinioned against the mizzenmast.

‘Drop the sword and I will spare you. It’s not my way to slaughter innocents.’

His breath had mingled with her own and it was then that their eyes truly caught.

Tight and close.

‘Lord, you’re a girl.’ Amazement narrowed his eyes as he brought his hand across the quivering fullness of her lips. Even now through the gathering years of time Emerald could still feel that caress, still feel the way her body had simply melted into heat.

Unexpectedly sweet. Undeniably woman. In the middle of an ocean, in the middle of a battle, she had run her tongue across the saltiness of his thumb and shock had claimed them both.

She had seen it in the shards of his eyes, the paler ring of brown flaring golden. And she had felt it in the sudden rush of blood beating in her throat, though her father’s shout had broken the spell as he advanced upon them, murder in his eyes. In a quick protection she had rammed the hilt of her sword hard across Asher Wellingham’s temple and upended him into the sea. A chance at least to cheat death. Ten summers of sailing with Beau had at least taught her that.

‘Lord,’ she said aloud and banished such memory, running her hands across the knife tucked into her belt.

Right. Wrong.

Good. Bad.

Aboard the Mariposa she had been her father’s daughter. But here she was no longer sure of anything at all.

‘Asher.’ She whispered his name and held her fingers up against the warmth of sound.

A home. A family. Responsibilities. Accountability. Unlike her father, the Duke of Carisbrook took these things seriously and she admired him for it, the questionable morality they had lived by in Jamaica less certain here.

Stepping back into the shadows, she cursed her father and headed to the sanctuary of her room.

Asher paced up and down and remembered the sight of Emma Seaton coming unclothed towards him, the water slick upon her body and the sand marking her feet.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

His eyes flicked to the painting of his wife in the small alcove and for the first time he found it difficult to remember her face in life. The exact colour of her eyes, the sharp line beneath the bridge of her nose.

Instead the image of Emma Seaton walking from the water towards him kept replaying in his mind, the butterfly tattoo as surprising as the deep curling scar upon her right thigh. He had enough wounds on his own body to know the mark of a sword when he saw one.

Where had she got it? When had she got it? And why, despite taking everything else off, had she not removed her gloves? What was she hiding there?

He began to smile as he lifted a glass of water to his lips.

Water?

Today even his choice of beverage was different. Emma Seaton made him different. More alive. She made the very air of Falder ring with a vibrancy long missing.

And what might have happened had he followed her into the barn? He would have taken her hard and fast without a care for who was around or what the consequences might have been. She did that to him with her sun-browned skin and her turquoise eyes. Made him careless and reckless. Brought out the man he used to be. The man who had loved and risked and lost.

Lord. What the hell was happening to him? He had to stop it, for she was dangerous to everything he had made himself believe in.

Rules. Regularity. Carefulness. Control.

In chaos came loss. Of all the men in the world, he should be the best to know it.

He flicked open the casement of his timepiece.

Four o’clock. Outside the wind was mounting and the quarter-moon was high. He glanced down at the atlas in front of him and traced his fingers across the ragged outline of Jamaica. Emma’s home. The place where she had been formed. His eyes wandered further west into the shoals of the Yucatan Channel.

His ship had come through the mist there on to the Sandford vessel with remarkable speed and silence and no trick of intent, either, just the cold hard slice of revenge and then an ending. He thought he would have felt more than he did as he had run Beau Sandford through the guts with the sharp point of his sword. But he hadn’t. God. After a year of captivity and another year to recover, he should have allowed himself to feel more. He stretched out his right hand and swore, the stumps of his missing fingers outlined against the light of the lamp. Even now the hate still festered.

Looking at the reflection of himself in the window, he frowned. He had been so certain of his course in life until lately…Lately, the sharp focus had dimmed and another reality had brightened.

Emma. She was taking up all his waking thoughts and sliding into his dreams. Effortlessly.

And he could not let her with her mystery and secrets. Balling his right fist, he closed his eyes. The only way to protect himself was to never feel again.

Emma Seaton would be at Falder for three more days and then she would be gone. He resolved to spend as many of those as he could well away from her.