by Rebecca Ward
“But he will not see me,” Cecily promised. “I must go into the village to take the widow Amber some ointment. Go and meet James and help Aunt Emerald entertain the gentlemen, Delinda. I will slip out of the back way.”
Cecily had originally intended to take the trap to Wickart-on-Sea, but once outside, she saw that the day had turned sunny. There was a westerly breeze that made it quite warm and pleasant, and besides, she felt in need of exercise. Setting her grandaunt’s basket of medicines over her arm, Cecily set out to walk briskly along the sea road.
She did not know why she felt so lighthearted until it occurred to her that this was the first time she had gone out alone since arriving at Marcham Place. Always before this she had been in the company of her aunt or attended by a servant, and that morning there had been Lord Brandon. Cecily’s dark brows puckered as she recalled his lordship’s sudden appearance.
What was he doing in those woods? she wondered.
She had seen nothing except a torn-down groundkeeper’s hut and a path that ended in a thicket of trees. That and mud, and hidden roots that had caused her to stumble into Lord Brandon’s arms—
Hastily turning her mind from discomfiting memories, Cecily put thoughts of Lord Brandon aside and concentrated instead on Delinda’s problem. And she did have a problem. There was no way the sap-skulled Corinthian was going to notice Delinda unless she had some help.
Cecily’s thoughts were interrupted by a gull that swooped down close to her. She stopped walking to admire the snow-white bird and then realized that at this point the sea road almost melted into the sand. It was low tide, and a long sweep of sandbar lay exposed by the retreating water. When she followed the thick line of gold with her eyes, Cecily saw that it stretched past the Widow’s Rock and actually led to Wickart-on-Sea.
The smell of salt was raw and intoxicating. As Cecily watched sunlight dance invitingly on the blue waters and on the distant spire of the village church, another memory surfaced. When she was five or six, she had once accompanied her parents to the seaside. She had taken off her shoes and stockings and gone wading in the cool water, where she had splashed and tried to catch fish. She had collected shells and even found an indignant hermit crab.
The memory of that day—her parents’ happy faces, the sun, and the sound of gulls swooping overhead—all brought an ache of homesickness for times that could never return. Cecily looked about her and saw that no one was nearby. What harm would it do if she walked to the village across the sandbar?
She sat down on a convenient rock and rolled off her stockings. Then she put them and her shoes into her basket, hitched up her skirts, and ventured out onto the sand. The silky sand was cool between her toes, and when she reached the water, the feel of it was wonderfully cool, also.
Barefoot, with her skirts looped high over her ankles, Cecily began to walk over the damp sandbar. Memories of her parents seemed very close, and as she strolled along, she smiled to recall them as they had been—not sickly or old or poor but young and full of life and joy. How beautiful they had been, she thought, and inconsequentially remembered Lord Brandon’s words. “When a man has seen the sun, neither the moon nor all the stars will satisfy him.”
“Go away,” Cecily told Lord Brandon. “Stop bothering me.”
She took a step forward and sank up to her ankle in water. Surprised, Cecily looked about her. She had been so lost in thoughts of her childhood that she had not fully realized she had walked almost into the shadow of the Widow’s Rock.
“Oh, good heavens!” she exclaimed.
While she was walking, the tide had started to come in, and the sandbar on which she was standing was surrounded by water. Cecily tested the depth of that water and sank up to her knees.
“What a fool I am,” Cecily exclaimed.
As she attempted to retreat, the sand under her feet seemed to be yanked away. There was a riptide there—a very strong one. For the first time, Cecily was worried.
Ahead of her hulked the dark fist of the Widow’s Rock. Behind her stretched miles of sparkling blue sea. There was no one about, no one who could help. Cecily backtracked away from the riptide thinking, I will have to go another way.
But what other way was there? As the thought touched her mind, she heard a halloo across the water and saw a man standing on the shore. Even though the light was at his back, Cecily recognized Lord Brandon. Not bothering to wonder where he had come from, she waved frantically at him.
“You look as if you are in trouble,” Lord Brandon called.
She nodded vigorously. “Can you get someone to come and help me? A fisherman with a boat, perhaps?”
“No time for that. The tide comes in swiftly hereabouts. Stay where you are.”
He didn’t mean to come after her himself? But apparently that was just what he was about to do. As Cecily watched, Lord Brandon removed his tasseled boots, took off his jacket and waistcoat, peeled off his silk stockings, and rolled up his breeches to the knee. Then, to Cecily’s shocked surprise, he also removed his shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked nervously.
“Only a fool goes swimmin’ fully dressed.” As calmly as though he were going on a stroll around the garden, Lord Brandon waded into the water.
“How did you get all the way out there?” he wanted to know.
“I thought that I could walk to the village across the sandbar. I did not pay any attention to the tide. Oh—be careful,” Cecily cried, as Brandon sank up to his chest in water. “There is a strong riptide here.”
“You forget that I know these waters very well.” But while Brandon was mouthing these words, he was thinking that he had never seen Cecily look so charming. With her hair tousled by the wind, her skirt hem tucked up and wet, her feet bare, she looked irresistible.
“Cully and I used to swim and crab around here,” he reminded her. “Don’t worry. I’m a strong swimmer.”
“So am I,” she said, “but I do not trust that riptide. Besides, these herbs would be lost if I tried to swim for it.”
“Neither you nor the herbs will come to harm,” he said. He had reached the sandbar, and she noted that he was dripping wet. His breeches clung to his lean hips and horseman’s thighs, and water droplets glinted on his bare chest. The effect was disquieting in the extreme.
“I am sorry,” Cecily said stiffly, “that I have behaved in such an idiotic way. I fear that I have inconvenienced you horribly, sir.”
“Don’t regard it, Miss Verving. It’s not every day that I’m allowed to rescue a maiden in distress.”
He took a step closer to her. Instinctively she retreated. “What are you going to do?”
“To carry you to the shore,” Lord Brandon announced. As he spoke, he lifted Cecily into his arms and held her quite effortlessly. “Watch out for the basket, Celia.”
She knew that she should tell him not to address her so familiarly, but that was not so easy when she was in his arms, with her own arm wrapped around his neck. At such close quarters Cecily was conscious of the fact that Lord Brandon’s hair was deep gold, almost the color of honey, and that it curled at the nape of his neck. She noted the small white scar behind his ear and the curve of his lips. The warmth of his body reached her even through their wet clothing.
Cecily felt dizzy, as though her brain was not getting enough oxygen. In order to say something—anything to break the charged silence between them—she said, “You are right about the tide. It is rising very quickly.”
“In Dorset many things happen quickly.”
Was it her imagination that his arms tightened about her? Cecily did not care for the leap of her pulse. “I am very grateful to you, sir,” she said formally.
To listen to her, she was as cool as an ice maiden. Yet her gray eyes were full of uncertainty, and her mouth was soft and definitely kissable. Brandon had to fight with himself to concentrate on what she was saying—something about the Widow’s Rock.
“It is fortunate for me that you arrived when you
did,” Cecily was saying. “I did not know you came as far as the Widow’s Rock on your morning walk.”
“I do sometimes.”
Something in the ease with which he replied told her that he was lying. “Did you have a pleasant visit with Captain Jermayne?” she wondered.
“Jermayne?” Lord Brandon drawled. “Was he at Marcham Place? I’m sorry I missed him, ’pon my honor.”
Which was another lie. Cecily was sure that Lord Brandon had seen the captain ride up. Rather than face a man who could penetrate his disguise, the duke’s son had slipped away. “Captain Jermayne knows you well, does he not?” she queried. “After all, you were comrades-in-arms.”
“I wish, Miss Verving, that you will stop referrin’ to my military career. It was a lamentable business, ’pon my honor.”
“Then we will talk of something else. We are passing the Widow’s Rock, where the mysterious rider rescued the mail coach. Do you believe that he was a smuggler, Lord Brandon?”
“Not bein’ in the confidence of the brethren of the coast,” he pointed out, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
“What a gallant man he was—and he wore a ring like yours, too. I wonder—”
Cecily’s words broke off in a little shriek as Lord Brandon missed his footing and nearly fell. Cecily clasped him about the neck. Her basket flew one way, and she almost flew the other. She gave an involuntary cry as the water reached out for her.
“It’s all right, I have you.”
Brandon could feel her tremble in his arms. There was a light in her eyes, and her mouth was a rosy flower. A fierce need to kiss that mouth rose in him.
His arms were around her, holding her tightly clasped against the hard wall of his chest. Cecily registered this fact a moment before she saw the look in his eyes. The next moment, his lips had found hers.
His mouth was cool and sure. He tasted of salt and warmth and of some ineffably wonderful ingredient that caught at her heart. The constant mutter of the ocean, the cries of the gull, even the warmth of the sun died into a stillness broken only by the pounding of her own pulse.
He had not meant to do this, had not meant to kiss her, must not kiss her—warning voices were shouting in Brandon’s brain advising him of his folly. He ignored them. Nothing seemed to matter to him, nothing would ever matter again except the woman in his arms. He breathed in her subtle flower scent, tasted the trembling sweetness of her lips. He would never, could not ever, let her go.
A sea gull swooped low, screamed almost in their ears. Cecily did not even hear it. There seemed to be a wildness in her blood, and she was as breathless as though she had been whirled about in a dance. She felt dizzy and unbalanced, but at the same time she had never before felt so completely alive.
But though she did not heed the sea gull, Brandon did. Of a sudden the dazzlement in his mind cleared, and he felt the pull of the undertow beneath his feet. Underlying the surge of his emotions, the chill voice of his sanity was reasserting itself. What he was here in Dorset to do was too important to set aside.
Though to do so was unspeakably hard, Brandon forced himself to stop kissing Cecily and asked, “The ground is treacherous hereabouts. Are you all right, Celia?”
His drawl was forced. His voice sounded raw with the effort it took to control it, but she did not hear that note, for she was busy fighting her own battles.
“That is not my name,” she tried to say sternly, but to her annoyance, there was a quiver in her voice. “Please put me down so that I can retrieve my basket.”
The slight tremor in her voice made Brandon want to draw her close to him again. Instead he said, “A few more steps and we’ll be on terra firma. Ah, here we are.”
He set her down on the damp sand, then turned away to catch her basket out of a wave. “Somewhat wet but none the worse for wear,” he commented. “If I know Lady M.’s potations, they’ll be better for a dash of salt water.”
Their hands touched as Cecily took the basket from him. Even this fleeting, accidental contact made her feel as though a lightning bolt had stroked her skin. Hastily she took several steps backward away from him.
“You had better put on your shoes and your stockin’s,” Lord Brandon suggested. “It’s a long walk to the village.”
In silence she wrung out her dripping skirts and put on her hose and shoes. Then he said, “Let me carry the basket to the village for you.”
When she turned, she saw him fully dressed. Except for his wet breeches, he looked as he always did. “It is not necessary,” she replied.
“It is to me. You see, Miss Verving, I confess that I behaved out of character today.” Lord Brandon pulled his snuffbox from his pocket and snapped it open. “I so seldom am called on to perform heroic acts that I was carried away by the romance of the moment. I assure you I forgot myself entirely. My, er, actions were not worthy of a gentleman. I beg you to forgive me.”
Cecily raised her chin and watched him inhaling snuff. He must think very little of her intelligence, she thought wrathfully, if he felt he could fob her off with Bambury tales.
Lord Brandon did not fool her for a moment. He had kissed her not because he was carried away by the moment but because he wanted to end an uncomfortable discussion.
In his own way Lord Brandon was as smug as James Montworthy. He was certainly as odious.
“Of course,” she told him, coldly. “No apology is necessary.”
“You are too good. But in penance, allow me to carry your basket to the village, Miss Verving.” He looked down at his sopping breeches. “From Wickart-on-Sea I can send a message to Andrews so that he can bring me some dry clothes. He will probably swoon when he sees the condition I’m in, but anythin’ is preferable to walkin’ into Marcham Place lookin’ like this. My reputation would be ruined.”
In silence Cecily handed him her basket. Let his deceitful lordship accompany her to the village or go to Jericho as he willed, she thought; it was all one to her.
Chapter Seven
Turning her back on Lord Brandon, Cecily began to trudge toward the village. She was determined not to turn around and see whether he was following, but the silence stretched and stretched. Perhaps he had changed his mind and was not coming after all, she thought.
Cecily glanced over her shoulder and looked straight into his dark eyes. “Ah,” he drawled, “the fair damsel relents and forgives me.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Lord Brandon.”
Brandon smiled at her icy tone. “Kind of you to say so, ’pon my honor. Whether Andrews will ever forgive me for going wadin’ in my clothes is another matter. If they saw me now, my friends would give me the cut direct.”
“I wonder that you do not return to London,” Cecily snapped.
“It’s too hot at this time of year. Stiflin’. The stench would be excruciatin’ for someone with delicate sensibilities.” Lord Brandon waved a languid hand. “Besides, I am very fond of Lady M.”
It was almost on the tip of Cecily’s tongue to ask him why, if he was so fond of his godmother, he was running the risk of embroiling her in his schemes. With difficulty she reminded herself that she had no proof of his involvement with the smugglers.
Lord Brandon continued, “I used to come to Dorset every summer until I was twelve. My brothers, all several years younger than I was, stayed home in Pershing, but I begged to come here.”
Cecily remained dampeningly silent. This did not deter Brandon, who drawled on, “My mother, the duchess, was a busy woman. She had her hands full with arrangin’ and attendin’ balls and assemblies and musical evenin’s. She had the younger boys and our sister to deal with, too—Elizabeth’s come-out is still the talk of the ton—so she was glad to pack me off to Lady M.”
In spite of herself, interest stirred. Cecily rationalized that if she could get Lord Brandon talking about himself, he might make some incriminating slip.
“Did your father also wish to send you to Dorset?” she asked.
“Pershing was ra
rely home. He was a soldier while I was growin’ up, always away on some military campaign. Then Mother died, and he turned to politics. But whenever he was in residence at Pershing, we toed the mark.”
While he spoke, Brandon saw his father clearly. With his dark, flashing eyes, decisive voice, and air of command, he had won battles on the field and in parliament by sheer force of personality. Men were anxious to stay in his good graces, and it was rumored that even Wellington did not care to cross the Ice Duke.
“When he gave a command, we obeyed—that was about the sum of our relationship with Pershing.” Cecily noted the dry note in Lord Brandon’s voice as he added, “His mission was to make men of all of us. No easy task.”
Not for poor, shiftless Leonard, who rebelled against authority and spent years in useless profligacy before marrying and raising a quiverful of brats as unruly as himself. Not easy for bookish Thomas, either, though Thomas was almost as stubborn as his sire and had become a cleric in spite of Pershing. Easier for Clarence, who had been their mother’s favorite—a sweet-tempered if empty-headed lad who embraced a military career as though born to it. And as for himself . . .
For a moment Brandon contemplated his reasons for being in Dorset and the effect that his recent actions would have on the duke.
“Our father was a hard man to bridge at the best of times,” he continued at last. “Dorset was my favorite place because here I could run tame in and out of Lady M.’s house. In a way it was my only real childhood.”
Though Lord Brandon’s tone was casual, Cecily felt a quiver of sympathy. A scene from her own childhood had touched her mind, and she recalled an impromptu picnic. Her mother had spread a white cloth and put out bread, cheese, and honey and apples, and her father had read aloud from Tacitus while Cecily made daisy chains for them all. Later, when Father was old and ill and they were always in need of money, it had helped to remember the scent of daisies and the taste of apples and the sounds of happiness.
“Not everyone has a magical childhood.” Surprised out of her thoughts, Cecily looked up and saw Lord Brandon watching her. “You didn’t tell me if you lived in the country. Did you?”