- -
- 100%
- +
‘Do you miss it?’ she asked absently, then told herself crossly not to ask such personal questions on the strength of the merest acquaintance. ‘I beg your pardon, that was impertinent of me.’
‘Not at all, our families have been friendly since before the Flood and your eldest sister is my cousin’s wife, so I think we may presume on both connections and friendship, don’t you? And the answer is, yes, I miss the limitless possibilities of the sea, but a battle is as grim a business at sea as on land and I’d been fighting them for far too long. They do say a true sailor only retires when he’s safely underground, or underwater, so life on shore might pall one day, I suppose.’
‘So you’re giving shore life a try out, then?’ she replied sharply, for his easy assumption that he could spring up out of the shadows in her own home and be offered a warm welcome was annoying now the shock had abated.
‘You think me presumptuous perhaps, Miss Courland?’ he asked, apparently unmoved by her sarcasm.
‘I think you’re likely to be bored and disillusioned when the novelty wears off, Sir Charles.’
‘You have become very frank in your opinions,’ he replied solemnly, but she could see enough of his expression through the gloom to know he was laughing at her. ‘And what a paltry fellow you do think me.’
‘How could I when your deeds are trumpeted throughout the land? That would be presumptuous and ungracious, Captain.’
‘Then why do I think you don’t care if I consider you a perfect lady or a hoyden, Miss Courland?’
‘I really don’t know, why do you think so, sir? Could it be that you just walked into my home unannounced and strolled about as if you owned it? It would never do for me to be so lost to the claims of simple hospitality as to point out such a vast presumption on your part, now would it?’
‘No, particularly now that I can’t stay here, as I planned, with you living alone in this scrambling fashion,’ he replied, the humour fading from his deep voice as he looked surprisingly stern in the shadowed light.
‘My mode of life is none of your concern.’
‘Ah, but it is, Miss Courland. It’s of very material concern to me, since it currently stands between me and my new life.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing I do has an effect on the way you live your life, Sir Charles, and I think you’re fit for Bedlam if you believe it does.’
‘Again, you are very frank,’ he said, such genial amusement in his deep voice that she wished she could forget she was a lady long enough to slap him.
Then he sobered again and she saw he was eyeing her shadowy figure in the fading light. Her dark gown must be adding to the gathering gloom and her face probably appeared almost ghostly in the twilight, but that was no reason for him to stare at her as if trying to resolve a vexing riddle.
‘You haven’t heard from your brother lately, I take it?’ he asked softly at last and there was something in his voice that sounded almost like pity. She shivered in sudden fear as she tried to reassure herself all was well.
‘Not for several weeks,’ she finally admitted as if the words had been racked out of her.
He was silent for a while as if pondering his next move and she refused to fill it with idle chatter when she hadn’t even invited him to walk into her brother’s drawing room and make himself at home. Anyway, she hated discussing her family with a man who was now a stranger, and the fact that she’d once heaped so many ridiculous hopes on his broad shoulders just made it worse. He was standing closer now and she’d be a fool not to notice he was more ridiculously handsome than ever. The careless glow of youth had left his face, along with any lingering innocence, and his features had hardened in maturity until he looked like a formidable Greek god—powerful Zeus instead of careless Apollo, perhaps.
Yet he seemed almost impatient of his looks, although he probably made little enough effort to fight off the women who flirted with him whenever he ventured into society or the demi-monde, if rumour was true. No doubt the idiotic females lined up to be seduced by the smiling devil he was now, and they were welcome to him. Roxanne infinitely preferred the younger, less jaded Charles Afforde of a decade ago to this cynical rake.
Colours were beginning to fade from the world along with the daylight, so she couldn’t tell if his eyes were as breathtakingly blue as ever, but they were certainly sharper and more disillusioned as he looked down at her as if trying to read her thoughts, which was one more good reason to keep him at arm’s length. The last thing she wanted was to become an open book to him, so he could amuse himself with a list of her peculiarities whenever he had an idle hour to spare.
‘I think you’ll find Davy’s life has changed more than usual during that time,’ he said carefully at last, as if he was weighing every word, then tempering them to avoid a hysterical feminine reaction.
Luckily she’d given up the vapours at a very early age, as Maria was far too good at them to stand competition. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded flatly, suddenly knowing this was going to be one of those painful revelations no words could soften.
‘He’s wed, Miss Courland. In fact, I was his groomsman, so there can be no doubting the truth of it, and a very fine wife he’s won himself, as well.’
‘I’m not in the least surprised,’ she returned calmly enough, for hadn’t she been thinking of that eventuality ever since that last letter from her brother was so full of his lovely Philomena? Even if she did feel shocked by the stark fact of David marrying without taking trouble to inform his family of it himself.
‘He also assured me he has no intention of returning to England for more than a visit. I’m sorry to break such news to you so abruptly, but either Davy couldn’t put his soul on paper, after all, or his letter has gone astray.’
Sir Charles Afforde looked distinctly uncomfortable about being the one to tell her. She could imagine him as sternly self-composed when having to go in front of his admiral with ill news, although Davy’s happiness wasn’t bad news, of course, yet she was torn between joy for him and terrible anxiety for all she held dear here.
‘Not coming back?’ she said at last and couldn’t hold back the most important question, ‘But what about Hollowhurst?’
Roxanne had no idea why she asked him the fate of her home with an absentee master committed to another country. Maybe her reign would continue, but apprehension set flocks of butterflies aflutter in her stomach and confirmed it was unlikely. At least she hoped it was apprehension, for Charles Afforde was very close now, and she was human, even if she was also a superannuated old maid.
‘That’s where I come in, I fear,’ he admitted gruffly.
‘You fear? When did you ever do that, Sir Charles?’ she asked stiffly, wondering just why he hadn’t said all this in a letter.
‘You’d probably be surprised, but my flawed personality isn’t pertinent to the facts. The truth with no frills and furbelows on it, Miss Courland, is that your brother has sold me the castle and estate so he can invest in his wife’s estates and other ventures in the country he’s adopted as his own.’
Roxanne gasped and let herself feel the momentous weight of change on her slim shoulders for a long, terrible moment. Then she braced them and forced her chaotic feelings to the back of her mind as she met his eyes steadily. The appalling reality of Davy’s betrayal could wait until she was alone; she refused to let her shock and grief show in front of Charles.
‘But what of legal formalities and viewing the farm accounts?’ she heard herself protest, feeling as if she was listening to a stranger producing caveats as to why the truth couldn’t be true.
‘No need of that between us, he named a fair price and I paid it. Your brother was ever an honest man.’
‘You call him so, but took advantage of his honesty, I dare say. He’s newly in love and that’s never time to take a hard look at the future,’ she shot at him, fury surging through her in an invigorating tide as she looked for someone to blame and found him very handy indeed.
‘You know better, Miss Courland. I always took you for the most intelligent of your family, so you must know your brother found his inheritance a burden rather than a joy. Davy has no love of the land and takes little pleasure in being lord of the manor. It’s my belief that America will suit him very well, and he already insists on being known as plain Mr Courland and is impatient with the old order for holding back the new.’
‘You don’t share his Jacobin notions, Sir Charles?’ she snapped scornfully, as lashing out at him staved off the painful thought that Charles Afforde knew her brother better than she did herself.
‘No, I’m quite content to command, but I was raised to it, Miss Courland, and learned early that it was my duty as an officer to lead. The life that never suited Davy will do me very well.’
Roxanne shivered again and hugged her arms about her body as if hoping to ward off the chill of the autumnal evening and this appalling news. She was having her childish dreams come true in the most twisted and cheerless fashion imaginable. Once she’d yearned for this man, striven to become a correct young lady in order to deserve him, until she finally realised he wasn’t worth it. She’d wasted the painful intensity of the very young on a handsome face and now felt betrayed again. Except he meant nothing to her, so retiring to Mulberry House sooner than she’d dreaded wasn’t the catastrophe it currently felt. What a relief to be spared the sight of him striding along in Uncle Granger’s shoes and lording it over her beloved home.
‘My brother was raised to take command here one day,’ she heard herself protest weakly and wondered why she bothered.
‘Of course he always knew he’d inherit,’ Sir Charles Afforde told her carefully and Roxanne wondered if shock made his voice echo in her ears like the voice of doom.
He’d be horrified if she gave in to the painful thudding of her heartbeat in her ears and fainted, but at least the mere sound of his voice no longer made her tingle down to her toes and at too many points in between.
‘You must know he never really took to the life, though, Miss Courland,’ he continued. ‘Indeed, Davy always claimed you were more suited to the role of landowner than he, but Hollowhurst would be too great a burden for a woman to bear alone, given the nature of the society we live in.’
‘Thank you for knowing my capabilities better than I do myself, Sir Charles, and on such a short acquaintance, as well.’
‘Ten years is no trifling term, ma’am.’
‘It is when we barely knew each other even then and have not seen each other to speak to since my eldest sister’s wedding to your cousin nine years ago.’
‘Then we can look forward to improving our friendship, can we not? Especially as we’re to be such close neighbours.’
‘I hope you don’t expect me to be overcome with delight at the prospect,’ she muttered just loudly enough for him to hear her, then fixed a false, social smile and hoped he knew how much she’d love to slap him. ‘So we are,’ she said aloud with a forced lightness he’d be a fool to mistake for cordiality. ‘Pray, how long do I have to remove myself from here, sir, or do you wish me to decamp tonight?’
‘I would never be so hardhearted, Miss Courland, despite the fact you obviously think me capable of any crime short of murder.’ He gazed at her through the increasing gloom and she saw his eyebrows rise in apparent amusement, the infuriating devil! ‘Ah,’ he went on, the laughter she’d once listened for so eagerly running through his deep voice in a warm invitation to share his amusement, ‘so you don’t set even that limit on my villainy.’
‘Of course I do,’ she spluttered as the good manners everyone had tried so hard to drum into her made a weak attempt to control her temper and, she had to admit it to herself, her pain. ‘I can tell you’re not a monster.’
‘Can you, my dear Miss Courland? I doubt it, but take as long as you like to gather your new household about you, and take what you want with you, so long as you leave me some furniture and a bed to sleep in.’
‘I’ll take no more than is mine,’ she informed him haughtily, seething at his apparent belief that she’d strip the house to its bare bones in some vulgar attempt at revenge.
‘And have the neighbourhood accuse me of turning you out with not much more than the clothes on your back? That really wouldn’t do my credit any good in the district, now would it? I claim the privilege of changing my mind and will return tomorrow to make sure you don’t distort my good intentions into infamy, Miss Courland, and leave with little more than the clothes you stand up in. I’d be a scandal and a hissing in the area if I turned you out with such apparent cruelty.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said impatiently, imagining the effect his looks and wealth would have on the local ladies. ‘Do as you please, sir, and, as this is your house, I certainly can’t stop you coming and going as you please.’
‘You can so long as you persist in not employing a chaperone.’
‘Whatever follies I choose to commit are mine, Sir Charles, and have nothing to do with you.’
‘They do when you make yourself extraordinary by them. You’re the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Miss Courland, and while you might have run rings round him however early he got up in the morning, I’m no easygoing David Courland in search of a quiet life.’
‘That’s self-evident,’ she told him darkly, those good manners she’d congratulated herself on threatening to slip away if she yielded to temptation and punched him on his patrician nose as she longed to do.
‘Good, then, as we’ve established I’m certainly not your brother, hadn’t we better consider how we’re to remedy your chaperone-less state?’
‘No, we had not. If I’m to be saddled with one, I’ll select her myself. Indeed, it would be highly improper for a man like you to select a duenna for a single lady.’
‘True,’ he said without noticeable shame, ‘but I do have the odd female relative, you know. And one or two respectable friends who’ve yet to cast me off, who have ladies to lend their aid if I explain your situation.’
‘You do surprise me, sir.’
‘I always endeavour to confound expectations, ma’am, especially when they’re so very low.’
‘I’m quite sure you do, but pray don’t put yourself to the trouble of disproving mine. I look forward to us seeing very little of one another once I’ve packed up and left Hollowhurst for good. You’ll be far too busy managing such a large estate to worry about socialising with your neighbours for a while, and I intend to travel, so I dare say we’ll hardly ever meet. My brother isn’t the only member of our family possessed of itchy feet,’ she lied.
Chapter Three
In fact, Roxanne would have been content to continue at Hollowhurst for the rest of her life if fate had only allowed it, but she needed an excuse to avoid the new owner of her beloved home in the months to come. Travelling would do as well as any other plan, and was far better than staying and risking being charmed out of her fury by the very man who’d just deprived her of useful occupation.
‘But I hope you don’t plan to set out just yet, and certainly not alone?’
‘That, sir, is my business.’
‘In so far as you are of age I suppose that’s true, but David asked me to look to your welfare and happiness in his absence and I warn you that I fully intend to do so. I suspect we’re both about to discover that there’s no stricter mentor for a lady of quality than a reformed rake, Miss Courland.’
‘Then you’re reformed, are you, Sir Charles? I can’t claim to have seen any indication of it so far.’
‘You may not think so, ma’am, but you’ve enjoyed the fruits of my good intention ever since I walked in and found you communing with the twilight.’
‘I have? How fortunate for me.’
‘Fortunate indeed,’ he returned blandly and even through the gloom she’d be an idiot to mistake the wolfish glint in his eyes for anything but what it was and feel unease, despite her determination not to let him fluster or intimidate her.
‘Then perhaps you’d take yourself back to wherever you came from for the night, Sir Charles, since it would be such a shame to spoil it all now.’
‘Yet something tells me you’re truly wild at heart. Do you secretly prefer recklessly courting danger to pretending respectability, Miss Courland?’
‘Don’t presume to know me,’ she snapped back, much tried and confused by her own reactions to the veiled threat in his husky voice.
She’d got over the idea that Charles Afforde was put on this earth to be her destined mate many years ago. He was a dangerous rake and, despite his undoubted heroism in battle, she doubted he made a single move on land without calculating its effect. Why, then, was her silly heart racing with excitement like some mad moth sighting a brilliant light and speeding towards it, eager for its own destruction? She was woman enough to know he’d just introduced his sensual appetites and experience into this shadowy encounter, but she was old and wise enough not to call his bluff now, wasn’t she?
‘Then discovering your secrets will add spice to the game, my dear,’ he mused, almost as if he was talking to himself; suddenly he was very close.
It was so dark now she could only gauge his intentions by the tension in his silence and a hint of something new and unsettling in the outline of his powerful body. Then he lowered his head and captured her lips with his and only that contact sparked between them like lightning, but such a contact that she felt half-scorched and half-terrified. She was free, she told herself with little effect; she could disengage from the searing touch of mouth on mouth and be in sight of sanity in a mere breath. Yet the clamour of emotions and curiosity that took over her reeling senses wouldn’t let her move.
His mouth was surprisingly soft on hers; deliberately unthreatening, a cynical voice informed her sternly, but she blocked her inner ear to it. The sensual reality of Charles Afforde’s kiss on her eager lips at last overcame her defences with no effort at all and she felt him deepen the pressure of his kiss with such a warm welcome, she bitterly decided when she reviewed events later, that she might as well have offered him everything he hadn’t already taken from her and let joy be totally unconfined. Not that joy made much of an effort to restrict itself as her mouth opened under his in a wanton response to his more insistent caress. She felt such a lift of her silly heart that he might be excused for thinking her an experienced flirt, if not a full-blown sensualist.
But wouldn’t he know the feel of one of those abandoned women when he met one, for it would only be the sort of welcome he was used to? That hated, warning voice was at it again, even as the sound of his breath hitched just a second or two quicker than usual. She struggled between the heady notion that he wasn’t used to such fire flaring between him and his lovers and the cold voice of common sense. Then he opened his sinfully tempting mouth on hers and silently asked for something even more intimate. Gasping in breath they could only share, so close as they were, she succumbed to heat and pleasure and curiosity and opened for him as he silently demanded.
Now she was done for, even at the moment when he’d proved himself a rake, after all. His tongue first probed the swollen wetness of lips that finally knew what they’d been made for, then delved within, as if exploring the most exquisitely delicious sensation he’d ever encountered. He gave an unconscious hum of satisfaction in his throat that woke her sensual self from its silly daydreams and showed her just how potent a kiss could be. A flush of heat threatened to melt her as he openly revelled in the chaos he’d wrought, the feel of him seducing and plundering with her absolute consent warming her primly covered bosom and suddenly rosy cheeks in a sharp flush of need that warned what untold, forbidden pleasures he still had left to teach her.
Breathing fast and shallow, she forced herself to jump back from him as if he’d scalded her. He might well have done just that, she decided, and she wouldn’t know the full extent of the damage until she had privacy and calm enough to assess it. Yet her mouth felt bereft as his kiss cooled on the chill evening air, and suddenly she felt the cold of the October night and noted the diamond wink of stars emerging in an almost frosty sky.
‘Oh, what have you done now?’ she heard herself gasp out, as if protesting something crucially important, but also impossible.
‘I hardly know,’ he replied and his deep voice was hoarse with something that sounded like bemusement and regret, as if he had felt the wonder and novelty of that kiss as deeply as she. Which was a self-deceiving lie, of course; he’d kissed so many women he probably couldn’t provide a full list of them even under torture!
‘Liar,’ she accused softly and stepped back again so that the scent and heat and reality of him couldn’t trip her senses again.
With distance came the full slap of sanity, and she was tempted to sink on to the cushioned window seat and cradle her silly head in her hands and weep. What had she done, for goodness’ sake? Only actively encouraged a rake to believe her a great deal more willing to be seduced than she was and rekindled all those silly girlish fantasies of being kissed by her pirate prince. No, she wouldn’t permit them to haunt her, and she resolved to avoid his company whenever possible, as they’d be living too close until she went on her travels.
‘I think you should leave now, Captain,’ she heard herself say in a stiff voice that should tell him what a proper and starchy spinster she really was.
‘I believe you’re right, Miss Courland,’ he replied softly and the thread of something she couldn’t quite read in his deep voice tantalised her with ifs and maybe’s, but she stalwartly shrugged them aside.
‘The Feathers does an excellent ordinary,’ she went on blithely, as if she had no idea he could make her forget her own name with an idle kiss.
‘My thanks, but I have good friends living not ten miles away.’ For some reason he sounded as if he didn’t relish being dismissed as a lightweight who’d forget what had just happened on the promise of a hot meal and a soft bed for the night.
‘Indeed?’ she replied with a haughty look that was probably wasted in the gloom. ‘Then I’ll call for a groom to light you to your destination.’
‘No need, it’s a fine starlit night and I have my private servant and a groom with me. It’s more than time we were on the road if we’re to reach my friends’ house before they retire for the night, so I’ll wish you a good night, Miss Courland,’ he replied, and she could just discern his quick bow of farewell before she could ring for a lantern to guide his way. ‘Rushmore will have acquired a light by now,’ he assured her shortly.
‘Goodbye then, Sir Charles,’ she said, wishing there was the slightest hope he wouldn’t return to haunt her.
‘Until tomorrow,’ he confirmed, and she listened to his assured steps as he found his way down the hall and into the early darkness, seemingly without the slightest hesitation.
She waited until she heard three sets of hoofbeats retreat down the drive before she rang the bell for candles and all the help she could muster. There was a great deal to do before she could sleep tonight if she was to be all but gone when Sir Charles arrived in the morning. Another encounter like that and she might do something even more ridiculous, and suddenly there were worse things than being evicted from her beloved home, after all.
While Hollowhurst Castle was jolted out of its accustomed calm by a mistress who’d become a whirlwind of frenetic energy, a dozen or so miles away Westmeade Manor was serenely comfortable. Charles tried not to envy his old friend Rob Besford, the younger son of the Earl of Foxwell, his contented domesticity with his lovely wife and smiled as he contemplated what Miss Courland would think of such a disgrace to the rakehell fraternity as he was proving to be. Not a great deal, he suspected, and absently contemplated the intriguing task of changing her mind.