"Who's the ghost, then, that haunts this place?" he asked, pausing at the edge of the ruined garden, his gaze fixed on the broken stone walls of the house that rose, three stories tall, to a blackened, collapsed roofline.
"Do you feel it?" she asked, looking not at the house but at the man beside her. "The chill?"
He nodded, his face oddly tight. She still wasn't convinced, herself, of the existence of such things as ghosts. But this place had always disturbed her, and she thought, studying the way his eyes narrowed, that it affected him, too. "So what happened here?" he asked.
There was an elm, near a broken fountain at the edge of the garden, that had escaped the fire. She went to stand with one gloved hand resting on the cool bark, her gaze on the blackened stones before them. Sometimes, when she breathed deeply, she thought she could still smell the smoke, still hear the crackle of the flames. "The house was built by a man named Grimes. Mathew Grimes. He was a widower who came here from Sydney with his only daughter, Claire." At the mention of the name, Jessie felt the chill in the air deepen, so that she shivered. "She was sixteen, and very lovely. Her father was supposedly devoted to her."
"You say that as if you don't believe it."
She shrugged. "He was... a very hard and ambitious man. He wanted this house to be known as the grandest on the whole island. That's why he built it here, so it could be seen from the sea. He even imported a massive staircase made of ancient oak, taken from some Elizabethan manor in England. It was quite spectacular. I remember seeing it when I was younger and my father brought me here on a visit."
She thought he might say something, but he didn't, so she went on. "One morning, the household servants awoke to discover Claire lying at the foot of the stairs. Her neck was broken. Her father claimed she must have arisen during the night, and fallen."
He came to stand beside her, close enough that she could have touched him, although she didn't. "Was there a reason to doubt him?"
She nodded. "The servants heard them having a terrible argument the night before. It seems Grimes had discovered Claire was in love with one of the convict servants, and he was threatening to send the convict away." She couldn't look at the man beside her, although she was powerfully aware of him, of the energy that seemed to emanate from him, like a conflagration in the air between them, searing her flesh. She sucked in a quick breath that fluttered the black satin ribbons of her hat. "That's when Claire told her father she was carrying the convict's child."
She could feel his gaze on her, hard. "So her father killed her?"
She shifted until her back was against the tree, and looked at him. "No one knows. Perhaps he struck her and knocked her down the stairs accidentally. Or perhaps he pushed her. It would have been a terrible disgrace, if the truth had become known."
He tilted his head. "Yet it did become known."
"There were whispers. But Grimes was a brutal, ruthless man, and his servants were too afraid to speak out openly."
He went to stand with one booted foot braced against the broken foundation of the old fountain, his elbow resting on his bent knee as he stared again at the house before them, his face intent. "And the girl's lover?"
"A few days later, Grimes accused the convict of stealing some of the silver."
He swung his head to look at her over his shoulder, his gaze sharp. "And?"
"He was hanged."
A strained silence settled over the clearing. She could hear the cry of the gulls above the cove, the rush of the nearby sea sweeping in and out over the sand. Then he said, "So how did the house burn?"
She swallowed, a useless attempt to ease the ache in her throat. "A year later, exactly, to the date of the convict's death, the house caught fire. No one knows why. The household servants were locked in the basement, but someone opened the door for them, so they were able to escape. It wasn't until they were outside that they heard Grimes pounding on his bedroom door upstairs. He was locked in."
"No one let him out?"
She stared at the blackened, empty windows, then looked away, shaking her head. "That grand old oaken staircase went up like a torch. There was nothing anyone could do." Overhead, a lorikeet flitted from branch to branch, chattering noisily. She watched it in silence for a moment, her fingers curling against the trunk's bark. "The servants said that at the end, they could hear him screaming his daughter's name over and over again, begging her not to let her lover kill him."
Gallagher let out a huff that wasn't anything like a laugh. "I can't say I feel sorry for him. Who haunts the house, then? Claire?"
Jessie felt the breath leave her chest in a painful sigh. "Some say it's all three. The sadness that seems to hang over the place comes from Claire, while the unnatural coldness is Mathew Grimes. But the anger..."
"The anger is the convict," he finished for her, his foot slipping off the foundation stones as he turned to face her.
"Yes," she said, meeting his gaze.
They stared at each other forever. The sun filtered down through the leaves of the elm overhead, stirring fitfully in the afternoon breeze. He stood silhouetted against the golden brightness of the clearing behind him, a lean, dark man, beautiful and frightening. She stared at his face, at the dramatic line of cheek and jaw, held defiantly high and proud. Too proud, she thought, for one in his position, and she felt a great fear for him, a fear that caught at her chest with an unexpected pain. She drew in a deep breath, trying to ease it, and smelled again that elusive hint of smoke and charred wood. Startled, she sucked her lower lip between her teeth ...
And saw his gaze fasten on her mouth.
Something shifted, deep in his eyes, something that seemed to echo the turmoil of emotions that welled up inside her, hot and wild and needy. The sea breeze caught at her skirts, fluttering them out before her as she took a step toward him, then another. He thrust out one hand as if to stop her, but she simply put her hand in his, and after a moment his fingers closed around hers, hard, and pulled her to him, his hips resting against the fountain behind him so that she settled naturally into the widespread vee of his thighs.
"This is a mistake," he said, his hands riding low on her hips as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"I know," she said, or started to say, except that his palms were already sliding up her back, drawing her closer to him, her head tilting as his mouth sought hers, found it.
It was like coming home, to be kissing him. She knew it again, that warm liquid glow that spread through her body, that stole her breath and her will and her conscious awareness of anything beyond the wonder of him, of his kiss and his touch. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, holding him to her. She heard a moan vibrate deep in his throat, felt his grip on her hips tighten, felt the hardness of him, the heat of him, pressing against her. And still, it wasn't enough. She wanted to feel his hands, his lips, all over her. She trembled, ached, burned for him. And she knew with awful clarity that touching him, or even kissing him, would never be enough. She wanted him to take her, to take her the way a man takes a woman he is hungry for, fierce for—with no thought of the consequences or tomorrow.
"God, how I want you," he murmured against her open mouth. "I want to touch you all over... kiss you all over..." He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back, knocking her bonnet off so that it dangled from its ribbons as he kissed her neck, the sinews of her throat, his breath warm against her flesh. His hands swept her body with a fierce desperation, then suddenly stilled.
He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes dark with desire and what might have been a hint of anger. "This was a mistake," he said, his breathing harsh, rapid.
She stared into his face. "Don't keep saying that."
She bit back a gasp as his hand closed over her breast, the sensation so sharp it might have been pain, only it wasn't. "Don't you understand?" he said, his jaw hardening, his voice coming out tight, almost cruel. "Do you have any idea what it means, when a man says he wants a woman? Do you know what I want
to do to you?"
"I know."
His hand moved over her breast in a rough, agonizing caress, tanned, scarred fingers against black satin that they watched together. "Do you?" he said, his hand still roving her breast, his face taut. "Do you understand that when I say I want to touch you, I mean I want to touch all of you—all those secret places where you've never been touched before, where you've probably never even dreamed of being touched. It means I want to lay you down in this grass with your skirts rucked up about your waist and your flesh bare beneath my hands." His fingers found her nipple through the cloth of her dress, and the pleasure was so piercing, she almost cried out with it. He saw, and his lips curled into a fierce smile. "And when I say I want you, Miss Jesmond Corbett of Castle Corbett, it means that I want to bury myself inside of you, I want to take you, hard and rough and hungry. Here. Now. Because I am a hard man, and my life is rough, and you have no idea of the hunger that burns inside me."
He was being deliberately raw, deliberately trying to push her away from him with his words. He didn't understand this was a part of what attracted her to him, this dark side of him, this side that was lawless and dangerous.
"You think to frighten me, with what you're saying," she said, holding herself very still. "But I'm not afraid."
"You should be. Believe me, Miss Corbett, you should be."
She shook her head, her hand coming up to close over his and press his palm against her aching, wanting breast. "I am, but not of you. I'm afraid of a life half lived, of losing myself in other people's expectations of me. The only time 1 feel like myself anymore is when I'm with you."
The crease beside his mouth deepened. "That's not you, is it, sitting there at your mahogany dinner table every night, drinking champagne and watching the candlelight sparkle on all your fine crystal and silver?"
The edge of acridity in his voice surprised her. "I'm there, but I'm hidden. And I'm afraid that someday, I won't be there at all."
His face gentled. "You don't have to be marrying your Mr. Harrison Tate."
She swung abruptly away from him, a wave of consternation sweeping her as she realized that she herself had not given one thought to Harrison, to her betrothed, God help her. She knew she should be feeling guilty for finding such pleasure in another man's kiss, another man's touch, for loving another man. But when she thought of Harrison, all she felt was helpless despair.
"How can I not?" she whispered, hugging her arms close to her body. "I have been promised to him since I was born—I pledged myself to him over two years ago. He loves me."
"Do you love him?"
She kept her face turned away, for fear he might see the truth of her love betrayed in her eyes. "I don't want to hurt him."
He pushed away from the edge of the fountain and straightened, coming to stand behind her. "Even if marrying him hurts you?"
"You see," she said, smiling sadly, "that's why I need you in my life. To remind me that there's another way to look at things."
He laid his palm against her cheek, urging her around until she was looking up into his dark, intent face. "And this thing between us, this wanting? Where does that fit into your life?"
A terrible pain gripped her heart, stole her breath. "I don't know."
"Yes you do. Whether you marry your Mr. Harrison Tate or not, there can never be anything between us." He nodded his head toward the blackened, tragedy-haunted ruin beside them. "You know it, and I know it."
They didn't see the boat until they left the ruins of the formal garden and took an overgrown path that wound along the water's edge.
Its staves smashed, its upended white-painted hull smeared with mud and brown seaweed, the ketch's small boat lay amid the reeds that lined the upper part of the estuary. "Look," she said, pausing on the path, her hand coming up, unthinkingly, to touch his sleeve. "Who'd have thought the force of the storm would drive it all the way up here?"
A faint ripple disturbed the surface of the water, rustling the reeds and setting the boat to rocking, gently, on its ends, the movement slow and sluggish and a bit sad. Then something about his stillness drew her attention to the man beside her, and what she saw in his face stole her breath, and turned her sadness to fear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Beatrice was in her rose garden snipping spent blossoms, a pair of secateurs in hand, a basket looped over her arm, when Jessie let herself in the gate from the yard.
"Jesmond," Beatrice called, lifting her head to peer out from beneath the wide-brimmed straw hat she always wore in the garden. "If I could have a word with you, dear?"
Jessie hesitated only a moment, then made her way through the concentric rings of Bourbons and damasks, rugosas and ramblers, that were her mother's greatest joy. Unlike her children, Beatrice's roses grew in strict conformity to her wishes. And they seldom died. "Your garden's looking lovely this year," Jessie said, kissing the air beside her mother's pale cheek.
"Do you think so?" A slight frown puckered the bridge of Beatrice's thin, aristocratic nose as she stooped to snip off a spent bloom. Beatrice might allow her gardeners to water her roses and tend the rest of the park, but she always insisted on pruning and deadheading the roses herself. "I must confess, I am rather worried about black spot. We've had so much rain."
Jessie laughed softly. "I'm convinced your roses wouldn't think of succumbing to something as ordinary as black spot."
"Hmm," Beatrice said, stepping back to critically assess the symmetry of a white Bourbon. "You were a long time coming back from the funerals."
Jessie kept her gaze carefully fixed on the bloom before her. "I decided to go for a walk along the beach afterward."
"While you were gone, I had a visit from Captain Boyd."
Jessie looked up. "Captain Boyd?"
An unusual touch of color tinged Beatrice's cheeks, making her look both younger and prettier. "The captain of the frigate, the Repulse. He mentioned that he saw you at the cove yesterday. With That Woman."
"You mean Genevieve Strzlecki?" Somehow, Jessie managed to keep her voice light, casual, although her heart was thumping wildly. I'm not a child anymore, she reminded herself. I can't be beaten, or locked in the tower room and kept on bread and water for days. And still, all she could find the courage to say was, "I took shelter at the cottage when the storm struck."
"Really, Jesmond." Beatrice shook her head and tssked in that way she had. "She is not at all a proper person for you to know. You never seem to give a thought to what people will
say."
The ribbons of Jessie's hat suddenly felt too tight. She untied them with swift, angry jerks, and pulled the hat off. "On the contrary, Mother, I seem to do nothing but worry about what people will say, with the result that I live my life in accordance with everyone else's thoughts and wishes instead of my own."
Beatrice stared at her daughter with that puzzled, faintly apprehensive expression Jessie knew so well, for she'd seen it often enough, all the years of her growing up. "I'll never understand you," Beatrice said, cinching her lips down into a thin, sour line that was also familiar. "Perhaps Harrison will be able to manage you better than I have."
At the thought of being "managed" by her future husband, Jessie felt a wave of panic surging through her. She told herself that Harrison loved her, which surely meant he liked her as she was. Once, she had believed that. Only, she was beginning to worry that it wasn't true, and that in marrying Harrison she would be exchanging the critical, disapproving frowns of her mother for those of a husband.
Jessie swung away, her gaze sweeping the upper verandas of the house. "Where is Warrick? Do you know?"
"Really, Jesmond. We were discussing something of importance here. Warrick rode off shortly after midday, to return that ridiculous donkey to its owners. I told him I saw no reason why he shoul dn't send one of the men, but he insisted on doing it himself. He seems to have no notion of the degree of dignity to be expected from a landowner of his station. And look at this," she continued in the same to
ne of voice, her secateurs snipping viciously at the offending bush before her. "Black spot. I knew it. I've always had trouble with this particular bush. I'm seriously considering having it removed."
Jessie stood, the sun warm on the black satin of her dress, and watched, silently, as her mother attacked the rosebush, her problems with her unsatisfactory children temporarily forgotten. She became aware of a strange heaviness in her chest, an ache that was like a sadness for things lost, or perhaps for things she'd never had but wanted desperately. It was a feeling that was to stay with her the rest of the day, although she never came any closer to understanding it.
The boy sat on the rough drystone wall that encircled a small, muddy croft beside the house, a knife and what looked like a thin wooden pipe in his hands. He watched Warrick rein in his showy chestnut gelding before the hut's crude door, the donkey braying foul-temperedly and lagging on its lead. An uncut thatch of fiery gold hair framed a delicate, elfin face and a pair of wide changeling eyes that stared up at Warrick. In age, the boy could have been anywhere between thirteen and seventeen, his thin, almost feminine face at odds with his height. He didn't smile, and he didn't move.
"You must be Dicken," said Warrick.
"Aye." The boy shifted his attention back to the wood in his hands, the knife moving with a swift, sure efficiency that had Warrick wondering if it was this knife, this boy, who had ended Parker Jones's life.
Warrick raised himself in his stirrups, stretching his back, the saddle leather creaking. In the distance, a dog barked, although he could see no one, the sun shining warm and bright on an empty hillside of wind-ruffled grass. "Is your sister around?"
"Aye."
Warrick kneed his gelding up to the wall and held out the donkey's lead. "Thank you for the use of your animal."
For one, blazing instant, the boy met his gaze, then shrugged and returned to the pipe. "Take the rope off her halter and let her go. She won't stray."
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