“I don’t mind if I do.”
“Even if it’s not the best?”
“What? When beggars can’t be choosers? I mean, you will have seen the state of Orwell? You’d have to be blind not to and stupid not to know he has drunk most of this place dry. As for me, I’ve barely touched the stuff since … well, since my Ennis died.”
The lucky bastard. Still, who was he to judge? He tilted the bottle. It was time to begin the play. That bold, unholy look and the bold, unholy way she spoke said she was more than up for it. Well, certainly she was up to something. A little cocky riling wouldn't go amiss. Already he’d made some bad choices here, getting rid of the servants when isolation was not the name of this game and there had been nothing to say he’d have gotten involved with them had he kept them. Tonight he rectified that mistake by getting rid of her.
“That’s not exactly what I remember of you.”
“I’d like to say you remember wrongly and that’s the whole trouble with you. But there. Tonight, since you've asked me to dine with you, Civility's my middle name."
Really? That would be a first. But all the better for his purpose. He knew what he remembered and what he remembered was right. Her sailing home from parties with claret stained lips. Sailing out to them too. An exciting, exotic ship. Unafraid of storms. At home in squalls. Wild as the wind on the sea.
There was no trouble with his memory. But then again the past was also a fabulously extinct land where memory bearing coffins had been nailed forever shut and sunk in crypts hundreds of feet beneath the ground. The past was what had got him into this mess. Her. Eirwin.
"Well?" He set the decanter back on the silver tray. “How about we have a toast then to the future and all the changes I intend making here? Here." He handed her a glass. "To the future of O'Roarke Hall."
"O'Roarke Hall?"
“Well, Divers O'Roarke Hall, then." He raised his glass. Yes, physicality was everything in this business which was also why he flashed another smile as he did it, rocked on his heels too. "No sense quibbling about it. I don’t know about you but for me, Doom Bar sounds what it is. Now then ... " He lifted the lid off the nearest tureen. “Let's eat, shall we?"
Pea soup. Not his favourite but Gil had made no claims to be a cook and the smell could be worse. At least it smelled warm with a hint of mint even if it probably had no salt, stock and damn all peas, given the fact it looked like he’d dragged a bucket of water out the well and flung it in the tureen. Then there were the lamb cutlets he and Gil had slaved over. At least he supposed it was lamb. It had been hanging up on a hook in the cold press. It might be anything. The beauty of this? Beyond giving him something to extend the evening, what it was didn't matter.
“You have no problem with that, Destiny?”
“Me? Why should I?”
“Because you haven’t drunk your wine.”
"Oh? Well, then? I better rectify that.“ As she wound translucent fingers round the glass, her smile dripped more honey than a ten foot honeycomb. “Here was me thinking you meant the food because, let’s face it, it doesn’t smell the best does it?”
He shot her another glance. Clever, wasn't she, with all her amenability and pretence at being that teeny bit tipsy? But not as smart as him figuring out her stomach was probably empty as a drum and that wine would rocket straight to her head. And there was a cellar of it on the table. How did he know right now this was pretence? This was his world. As for that amenability, he was going to have to take a hammer to? His world too. By the time he'd finished with her she'd be singing like a canary. And the smuggling trails and spidery, shadowy web that operated here, the ways experience had taught him a local knew better than anyone, these would all be his.
He edged into the seat at her side, where he’d positioned his place. Preferable to sitting in what felt like another country. A sort of frozen wilderness for all it was a late autumn evening. Did people really need dining rooms that sat half a city? Even on a summer evening when the very bricks should swelter, the room probably needed heated. Things he would shortly use to his advantage here, although he wasn’t fool enough to believe this was going to be plain sailing. Not given the hand he was going to have to prise loose from the tiller first.
“So?" She dabbed her mouth with the back of that hand, set the glass down. An empty glass though. "About your plans? What do you intend?”
“Lots. I mean the place needs a good shake up, brought into the present century, don’t you think? We should drink a toast to that too.” He stretched out his legs and reached for the bottle.
She shrugged, averting her gaze. “You know, you are probably right about that wine."
In fact he had the distinct impression she was about to put her hand over her glass. He waited, his own hand hovering. "I'm sorry?"
"Orwell buys it. Well … at least that’s as much as I know. At least, I assume he buys it. One never knows round here, the amount of blind eyes that get turned to government business even by law abiding citizens. You have to be careful who you can trust when the penalties have recently become so very severe. I don't know if you remember him, but last month they hung Griffin St. Gerren. Can you imagine? For smuggling that rubbish too.”
So she did have fingers in smuggling pies? What else could she mean by blind eyes, law a biding citizens and trust? As for Griffin St. Gerren? He wasn't just a smuggler. Not the corpses he’d left on various beaches, damn the government for making it illegal to claim salvage from a wrecked ship if anyone was alive on it. Still, this wasn't taking long, was it? Three little words, Doom Bar Hall, plus one glass of piss poor wine she plainly knew he was trying to ply her with and she was ready to sing like a canary. Unless she somehow thought he was plying her to get into her drawers? A man of his sterling undercover qualities?
“Just the same, here." He reached forward.
Yes, the time had come to get gold out of this miser’s tooth. Refuse another drink and--well? It would make it very plain to him she was onto him. And she wouldn't want to do that, now would she?
He smothered a chuckle. The first to want to burst from him in so long. “Unless you want to forget about the wine, if it's that--?"
"No. No, it's fine. Honestly. Just fill up me glass. There's nothing like breaking the habits of a lifetime."
"Just what I like to hear. Cheers." He nudged his glass against hers. "To the future. Divers O'Roarke Hall. I think I'm going to start--properly that is--with in here."
"Really?" She lifted her glass to her smiling lips. “But I thought you'd already started in--"
"Now then, Destiny, I said properly, didn’t I? And properly it will be. No more, no less, the justice I intend doing this place, building on the work of generations."
"Oh. Well, cheers then."
"Yes." The mouthful he swallowed was long and satisfying. "These chairs, for example, the ones that came on the ark, I’m thinking ‘bonfire’. Along with the paintings. All these frowning ancestors. Getting rid of them will go a long way to taking the chill off the place. And I’m not even talking striking a flint. I mean it’s not as if they’re my ancestors after all.”
“Bonfire?” One little word that was surely as good as the Doom Bar Hall three. A little word that would have her singing sooner when he put his proposition on the table because there would be nothing for her to do but sing. "Well, I suppose … now you come to mention it … " She glanced over her shoulder. "It is quite cold in here.”
"Then have some more wine." He pushed the wine bottle towards her. "Yes. As for the colors, well, while I am a great fan of the French style, I don’t know about you but I think this room would look best, painted plain, ordinary white.”
Christ. Had he really said all that? As if he really knew what he was talking about too. But then not many people around here would know whether he did, or not. Not even her. And that was the beauty of this. Confidence, the first he’d felt since Eirwin, flooded.
What kind of foolhardy way had he been carrying on? Certainly i
t was not in a way that reminded him of how good he was at his work, or that he was going to pull this job off. He had fallen low indeed. But this was an end of it.
“Amazing." It was such an end that, while the smile she offered was dripping with heat and honey, everything that was earthy about her, he saw beyond it to what wasn't. What wanted to take him by the throat in fact and squeeze hard. "You don’t think you would want to be in Divers O'Roarke Hall for a while first, though? Get the feel of the place before doing anything so major? I mean white walls and the French style, while all very nice … ”
“Just who is the designer here, Destiny? Hmm?”
“You tell me," she chuckled. "I thought it was you? But then again …”
A nice try. But when he’d been beaten senseless, left for dead, had his ribs broken and his eye nearly kicked out, when he’d seen with his other one just how paltry bloody awful it was to be the law and the blood he’d failed to staunch seeping from Eirwin’s shattered breast bone, did Destiny Rhodes really think it mattered whether she believed him or not?
Last night maybe? Yes, that was a mistake because he’d never expected to see what his curse had done, never expected to stand in this house again and face her, to find himself confronted by so many ghosts—and not just Rose. But tonight? It was time to land the fish. In many ways having this house from her was revenge for Rose. He was here to work after all even if her provocative essence was winding round his senses.
Maybe he was working though? Like old times? And that warmth and laughter oozing from her wasn’t feigned? And all this wine on an empty stomach was making her as foxed as a pickled ferret? He just wasn’t seeing it for the snake of that scent round his nose. But there was a good way to find out. Insult her further. He reached to refill both their glasses. It wasn’t like he wasn’t a master at keeping his own head clear.
“It's too bad you don't like my ideas, when God knows, but your family were never ones for design."
"Well, we can't all be good at everything."
"Or maybe at nothing at all?"
"If you say so. But then I never had the benefit of an education. I'd have liked to ... Hic. But me father? Well, that daft, old bugger thought I should get married. I mean? I mean, come on now, although of course, then I did. To the richest man in Devon at that. So, just maybe he wasn't that daft and I didn't need an education, after all?"
Would she really find all this so very funny, she nearly ended herself, if she wasn't soused? The woman was a grieving widow. One that same rich man's family had given a pittance to.
"Well, Destiny--"
“Oh, that’s me all right. Destiny by name. Destiny by nature.”
"The thing is--"
"Ooh."
"I will be away a lot in London, mainly using here for entertaining."
"Lucky you ... Hic. Gosh, you can see what I mean about this wine. It's sodding rancid, so it is. In fact a real bouquet of--" She sniffed the glass cautiously, then threw the contents down her throat. “Cat’s pee.”
"Now. I don’t know about the state of your wine cellar--"
“Not very good. Certainly not worth getting hung over. Did you hear that? Hungover? That was a joke by the way."
"Indeed if you even have one, but it’s important--"
"Oh, I couldn't agree more. Cheers."
"I leave the place in good hands when I’m gone. The hands of someone who knows how to cut certain corners. Someone who knows and understands they’re being given a good deal, given they’re no longer in control. Someone local who knows where to come by certain things at a good price for that entertaining, shall we say? The drink especially."
"Oh, the drink is all we need. Long live the drink. Here. Fill up me glass."
"What do you say, Destiny?”
She raised her chin, fixed her hot, glazed look on him as only she could in the darkening shadows. She even chuckled faintly right at the back of her throat. Trust him? Or not? Put the fishing net away or not? Even if she had every reason to tell him where to go, having that reason and acting on it, were two very different things. And did he really want so very much? How the hell else was she able to hang on here if she really was that impoverished? Besides, look at her. Did she even know what she was doing?
Any moment ... Any moment now ...
No wonder his mouth was dry with anticipation. She set her elbow on the table and in that instant her mouth hardened, her cheekbones sharpened and the light went out in her eyes.
“Tell me about your wife, Divers.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bloody, damn bitch. Having filled the brass goblet with claret, Divers O’Roarke flung it against the fireplace. Not that it made a deal of difference. Brass goblets? Who the hell had brass goblets? They bounced all over the fecking rug, splattering everything with the contents. Dark red drops dribbled down the ancient stone. What satisfaction did that give him, standing here amongst the guttering candles and the remains of the dinner, in flickering shadow-light, that damnable smell of beeswax in his nostrils? He never lost his temper like this. Not so he wanted to rip the mantelshelf from the wall. He leaned his palms on the mantelpiece, raised his chin, growled through his clenched teeth.
“And don’t say I told you so.”
“I’m not,” Gil said. “Just wondering what the hell you said.”
“I told her Lydia was not for discussion. What the hell else could I say?”
“Look sir, if this is unraveling, you still have the Dymchurch consignment, the money—which I know you don’t want, but—"
“Well, if you know, why the hell are you—"
“I’m not. I’m just saying."
"Well, don't."
"So? A grieving widower? What’s the problem?”
He made a fist. The problem? That even after all these years Destiny Rhodes’ capacity to eat her way beneath his skin was undiminished. That she’d outsmarted him.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I just … “ Need to stop falling apart. Thinking Eirwin, seeing Rose.
When having to have one of Lyon’s spies come here was nothing out of the ordinary why fear that ordinary? Why not just agree to bringing in a Lydia? He had once before. On his first job.
“Well then … I take it that nothing is what she gave you?”
“She was always tighter than a spider’s arse.”
“Family loyalties, is it, sir? I suppose if they brought you up—”
“They didn’t. That lot couldn’t bring up a dead frog. My stepmother brought me up.”
His stepmother who they'd despised and sent to live in that maudling farm cottage that was damp and stunk of pigs because she’d disgraced the family, running off with some Irishman whose tongue was the only silver thing about him.
Gil’s footsteps echoed in the cavernous room as he strolled to the table to clear it.
“Well, then the point of having Destiny Rhodes here seems less than before, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”
“You say what you want, man. You will anyway. you always do.”
Actually he did mind. He minded terribly. Hell’s teeth, why should he have Destiny Rhodes thinking she’d got one up on him when he was now standing in a ten foot hole? And to have the servants back would look like capitulation? When, it fact, it was her, or them now? Whoever would give him the in. And really, he didn’t want any female spy of Lyon’s here. The previous one had been old enough to be his mother, not his wife. And still he'd had to fend her off.
He raised his chin, stared at himself in the shining glass.
“Children.”
“Children, sir? What about them?”
The dark, liquid flicker in Gil’s eyes said everything that was to be said about his brilliance.
“Yes. Talking want, that is what I want. I want you to go and get me some.”
***
My God, what was that racket, that high pitched screeching racket? A dream? If so it was a sodding inconsiderate one, dragging her from the one place she could go and find
solace, from the world, from her pain, the only place she could breathe. The satin winding sheet of sleep. Destiny hugged the pillow tighter. Hugged it over her ears. Oh God, let her get back to the dream of Ennis, alive, vital, a stray lock of hair falling over his eyes as he shielded them from the sun and told her, ‘I love you, Destiny, and I don't mind how much you drank at that table last night.’ Her Ennis, surrounded by children.
Childen? She leapt up as if she’d stood on a fish hook. One for each toe as she sprung across the floor.
What the hell was he doing surrounded by children? She didn’t have any children. So what the hell were children doing here? The scrunch as her nose smacked the pane sent shock waves spinning. She all but slithered to the floor.
Children? My God, was she seeing this right? Hearing it right was bad enough. But children were down in the grounds. Five? Maybe six. No, seven, there were seven, all different ages. The boy in the cloth cap and the coat not meeting in the middle, slouching on the edge of the grass looked about six. The two girls playing some kind of tag all over her herb garden looked far too damned big to be playing anything certainly in muddy clogs.
She blinked, rubbed her eyes. It wasn’t a dream, or it would go away. The children were real. Had they heard she didn’t live here and they thought because she’d gone they could run all over the place?
Well, they couldn’t. Not over her dead body. Her feet, like hammers, struck the floor. Even before she reached the wardrobe she’d torn off her nightgown.
***
“You.” The screech, directed at the boy on the far side of the lawn, was out before she could stop it.
“Can I help you, Destiny?” Divers O’Roarke called from somewhere behind her.
“Presupposing I need any. Otherwise that will be the day.”
After last night, it would, which was why she tore across the gravel, her breath ripping holes in her chest, her jaw set, her boots scrunching on flying stone. No-one could help her, least of all Divers O’Roarke, who suddenly appeared at her side. Hadn’t she broken her back tending that lavender border? Look at it. The stalks flattened, the tiny buds scattered everywhere. . A herd of rampaging cows couldn’t win first prize in any competition for doing any more damage.
O'Roarke's Destiny (Cornish Rogues Book 1) Page 8