It was too bright. She held up her hand to shield her eyes and saw one of the local hackneys in front of her. Dazed, she stumbled over to it, fumbling with her reticule. She found a crown and held it up. It was too much. She didn’t care.
The drive took the crown. “Innesford, my lady?”
Of course. Everyone knew who she was, here. She nodded and climbed mutely inside. The driver clicked the horses into motion and she clung to the back corner of the seat, ill with shock and shivering.
At last, she was at the house. She almost fell getting out of the cab and held on to the door until she was steady. Then she hurried into the house and called for Mulloy, who came running up from the kitchen, surprise on her face. “You’re back, my lady? Where is everyone else?”
Natasha almost groaned again. Of course, the family would not be far behind. Corcoran would have nudged them into carriages by now.
She couldn’t face them. Raymond would be among them and she desperately needed time to think.
“Pack my things, please, Mulloy,” she told her maid. Her lips weren’t working properly. She removed her gloves and bonnet and gave them to her.
“Pack, my lady?” Mulloy asked, puzzled.
“I…I am returning to London at once.” Although she had no idea what she would do there, except that it was away from Cornwall.
“But, my lady, everyone is here, aren’t they?”
“Do what I ask, please,” Natasha said stiffly. She looked around. She couldn’t stay in the house. She couldn’t be here when they returned. She moved through the house, leaving Mulloy gawping at her. Across the big drawing room and through the beautiful French doors, out onto the terrace. Her boots crunched on the gravel, then she was walking on lawn, freshly mowed and rolled in preparation for the gathering. She hurried. At the end of the lawn, which went for a very long way, there was a hedge with a gate. The gate was never locked, for all these lands, including the cliffs and the beach, belonged to the estate.
Natasha stepped through the gate, onto the wood slat path that led through the untamed countryside, to the very edge of the cliff. There, the path turned into steps that zigzagged down to the little cove beneath, with its turquoise waters and crescent beach. At the far eastern end of the bay was Innesford itself, the little village right on the promontory, with the harbor wall curving around protectively and the lighthouse at the end of it.
The wind was always strong here, throwing up enormous waves against the bluff at the other end of the cove. As Natasha started down the stairs, it wailed at her. Tendrils of hair whipped across her eyes. Above, gulls were hovering in the updraft, watching for fish.
She kept going. The keening of the wind matched the ache in her heart. This was where she needed to be.
By the time she reached the beach, though, the wind had dropped to an intermittent gust. It was only at the top of the cliffs that it had torn at her. Now, though, her hair was in disarray and hanging about her face. She unclipped it and shook it loose, then brushed her fingers through it. She picked up her skirt and headed over to the big pile of rocks. On the other side, the wind would be almost completely buffered and the very last of the daylight would warm the rock face.
The sand there was dry and soft. She tucked her skirt under her and settled on the sand itself, with her back against the rock, the fine wool of her skirt spread around her like a circus tent.
At last, she could think.
The only thought that would come to her was the overwhelming, astounding fact; she was Susanna. Raymond had loved her for years.
It occurred to her that perhaps Morven had lied about this, too. Except that it fit too neatly with everything that had puzzled her about Raymond. Nearly every question she had ever had was answered.
“Natasha.”
She looked up, startled.
Raymond stood at the edge of the rocks. His hands were held in tight fists. His black eyes were narrowed with concern.
“How did you find me?” Natasha asked, dismayed.
“You left tracks in the sand.” He pointed to the trail of deep boot prints in the damp sand in front of the rocks.
“Oh.” She had forgotten about tracks. “I’ve never tried to run away before.”
“Is that what you are doing? Mulloy babbled about going to London and that you looked as if you were sleep walking. It has taken me this long to find you…” He came a little closer.
It was there in her middle, squeezing the life out of her. She blurted it quickly, unable to stop. “I know who Susanna is.”
Raymond grew absolutely still. Wariness touched his face. “You…know?”
“Annette has returned. She acquainted me with the truth.”
He turned pale. His eyes cut away from her. He took a step, then another, as if he could not keep still, now. “You learn the truth and then you run away,” he said softly. He closed his eyes and dropped his head. “I would have asked for just a little more time…” he whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Natasha cried. “Why must I find out from her?”
He spun on his heels. “You have to ask that?” He threw out his hand. ‘I was eighteen, Natasha! You were married and so in love with your husband no one else existed. What was I supposed to do? Sing sonnets to you at your bedroom window?”
“You really…loved me, since then?” she asked, in a horrified whisper.
He lowered himself to one knee, the other tucked up against his chest, careless of the dark fabric of his trousers in the sand He looked at her. “Not at first,” he admitted. “It was a simple crush then. Only it would not let me go. It just…grew,” he ground out. “Every time I saw you, it grew a little more. Everything you did added to it. Your sweetness. Your love for everyone in your life. Your beauty…” His brow creased, as if he was in pain. “All other women were hags, compared to you.”
Natasha lifted her knees up and hugged them over her skirt. She shivered. “I didn’t know. I didn’t even suspect.”
“You weren’t supposed to know,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I hid it. I told no one. I knew how utterly hopeless it was, only I couldn’t stop loving you. It built, every year. The idea of taking a wife…” He pounded his knee with his fist. “Well, I was brought to it at last. My father’s family waged a campaign to bring me to the altar come hell or high water and they managed it at last, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Rose got only a body. My soul and heart were yours and always would be.” He uncurled his fist and looked at the mottled marks on his palm. “Then, when I had finally accepted my fate, Seth died.”
Natasha’s heart squeezed.
Raymond kept his gaze on his hand. “I knew I was being punished for my sin of loving a married woman. There I was, married myself, and you…” He shook his head. “I watched you cope. That first year without Seth, the strength you showed, to pick up all the pieces of his life and carry on, for Cian and your children. I couldn’t tell you then, but my love for you almost consumed me. It was a bitter year, that year,” he added softly.
Natasha closed her eyes. That year had passed almost trance-like. She had moved from one day to the next, doing what was needed, barely alive. Her children and their needs had pulled her through it.
“Then Rose died, giving birth to little Vaughn,” he said. “I saw it as a sign that I was cursed to move through life alone. That was to be my fate.”
“You didn’t think to tell me, even then?” Natasha asked.
“Why would I do that?” he replied, looking at her. “You were in mourning. So was I—and I learned, I really was mourning Rose, in my way.” He shook his head. “I would never have told you. I never intended to. Then, last June, I saw you at the cemetery, with tears on your cheeks.” He turned his head away and his hand curled into fists again. “You know it all from there,” he said heavily.
“Why not tell me when…when we kissed? Or when I saw you at Henley? There were so many times you might have spoken!”
“And said what, Natasha?” he asked, his tone re
asonably. “Right at the moment when you were tentatively opening up your heart, braced for the world to hurt you again, waiting for something to go wrong and prove to you that you were wicked for even wanting to feel again…that was when I should have told you that I have obsessed about you for thirteen years and loved you for ten? You would have closed up like an oyster.”
Natasha pressed her face against her knees. He was right. She would have been terrified to know that another man wanted her so badly. She was shaking with the knowledge even now. Yet it was different, now.
“Since June I have lived with the slenderest of hope,” Raymond said. “I was so afraid that anything I did might snap that thread and snuff it for good. I had sleepless nights, wondering how I might get you to love me, if it was even possible—for you were a bud, opening up and it was wondrous to see.”
Natasha lifted her head to look at him, startled.
He gave her a small smile. “Whatever happens now, that is one thing I will always be glad I could do for you. I helped you live again. Just as you helped me.”
“You did do that,” Natasha said softly.
He sighed. “I would have gone on waiting for you forever, as long as that hope remained alive.” He dropped his head.
Natasha’s eyes stung with the tears she had been holding at bay. “I do love you,” she whispered.
Raymond jerked, as if she had struck him. His chin came up and his eyes glittered. “Yet you run away,” he breathed, his chest rising and falling quickly.
“Because of Seth,” she said. It hurt her throat to speak the words. “And now, because I know who Susanna is. Don’t you see, Raymond? I thought we were a pair, you and I. I thought we had both lost someone we loved, only you never did lose Susanna. You never had her at all. Your love has remained constant and faithful. Your honor is unscathed, while I…I have fallen in love with another man. I’ve betrayed my love.” She closed her eyes and hid her face again.
Raymond rested his hand on her shoulder. It was the lightest of touches. Even now, he was trying manfully not to influence her, to give her the time and room she needed to make up her own mind. “To love another doesn’t take away from the first,” he said softly. “You have demonstrated that your entire life. Your capacity for love is infinite. You loved Seth and every one of your children. You love your friends, every single one of their children, adopted strays and all. You pour your heart into your work with the Orphan Society. There is always room for more. One love does not take away the other.”
Natasha lifted her head.
Raymond was right next to her, now, as close as he could get without stepping on her skirt. He was still accommodating, giving her room.
She drew in a shuddering breath. “Fight for me, Raymond, damn it. I don’t want your understanding. I want you!”
He pulled her to him. “Say that again,” he breathed, his voice strained.
“You’ve brought me this far,” she whispered. “Take the last step. Don’t leave me here.”
His kiss almost crushed her. He pulled her against him and they both fell into the soft sand, so she was lying on top of him. Suddenly glad of the secluded corner of the cove that hid them, she rested over him as the kiss extended and deepened.
When he let her go, he wiped her cheeks, then brushed her hair over her shoulders. His gaze met hers. “Marry me,” he said, his voice low. It rumbled against her torso, too.
“Is that a demand?” she asked, delighted.
“Yes, damn it.”
“Then yes, I will marry you.” She hesitated. “Only…perhaps we should tell the children, first? And…oh, lord, Elisa and Anna and Vaughn and Rhys, they’re back at the house, my God…” She tried to rise.
Raymond held her down easily. “They will wait for a few more minutes,” he told her. “Take some time for yourself, first.”
She relaxed against him.
Raymond cupped her face. “I love you. With every breath I take, I love you.”
Natasha shivered. “And I love you.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “And I am happy!” she said wonderingly. “This could not be a less romantic spot for a proposal, except I am wildly happy anyway.”
Raymond turned his head to look at the waves and the gulls above. “This is the perfect place,” he said. “This is where it all started.”
She looked at him. “Started?”
“This is where I saw you for the first time as a woman and desirable.” He laughed and sat up, bringing her with him. “You don’t know. Of course you don’t. Do you know why I called you Susanna?” He pushed her hair back again, as the breeze caught it.
“Because of the story in the bible,” she said. “That woman told me.”
“Well, then.” He laughed.
“I don’t understand. What has this place to do with it?”
“The very first Family Gathering,” he told her. “I was eighteen and I used the carriage house because I didn’t want to sleep with the children in the dormitory.”
“I remember,” Natasha said, frowning.
He kissed her briefly. “Do you remember Seth stealing you across the garden in the night, with you wearing naught but your nightdress?”
Natasha drew in a sharp, shocked breath. “Oh my lord!” She covered her mouth. “We came down here.” She looked around. “The house was full of people and Seth was feeling hemmed in. We came down here to breathe salt air and…” Her cheeks burned. “We swam in the ocean.”
Raymond nodded. “Naked.”
“You watched!”
“I could not stop watching. I couldn’t make myself look away. I stayed up there.” He lifted his chin to indicate the cliff tops. “That was the start of it for me. I had noticed you as a woman and I not go back to thinking of you as my honorary aunt after that.”
“You stopped calling me Aunt Natasha years ago,” she agreed.
“That was the year I stopped,” he said gently and kissed her. “And the year I started to love you, instead.”
Chapter Fifteen
Everyone except the smallest children was in the drawing room. Corcoran was busy filling snifters and passing out cups of tea.
As Natasha and Raymond stepped into the drawing room through the French doors, she could hear the younger children upstairs, stomping and yelling in sheer exuberance. The first night of a gathering was always an energetic one.
Annalies hurried over to them. “There you are!” she said. “Mulloy was making no sense, talking about London and ghosts. You were on the beach?”
Elisa moved around Natasha, appraising her critically. “You have sand all over you,” she added.
Vaughn came up to Raymond’s side and brushed at the shoulder of his jacket. “So do you,” he said.
Raymond nodded. He held out his hand to her and Natasha took it. Her heart hammered.
“Everyone, I would like you to meet my Susanna,” Raymond said.
The silence stretched for too many hard beats of her heart. Natasha watched Elisa, her breath suspended.
Annalies drew in a sharp breath, her hands pressed together, a smile forming. She did not speak, though. Her gaze flicked toward Elisa and Vaughn.
It was Will who broke the silence. He groaned, holding his head. “The Book of Daniel! I missed it completely!”
Jack frowned. “Isn’t that about a nude woman in a garden?”
Will shoved his elbow in Jack’s ribs, silencing him.
Vaughn let out a gusty breath. “Well…”
Raymond squeezed Natasha’s hand even tighter. “We will be married as fast as we can arrange it. I would prefer tonight, only Natasha says tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Nonsense,” Elisa said firmly. “You can’t possibly be married before the end of the week. We have a dress to see to and a wedding breakfast.” Yet her eyes were glittering with tears as she spoke.
Natasha let go of Raymond’s hand and hugged her.
Elisa clung to her, her normal sense of decency abandoned. Natasha could feel her
shoulders shaking. Annalies patted Elisa’s back, biting her own lip.
“I think champagne is in order, Corcoran,” Rhys said softly.
“I believe so, sir,” Corcoran said and hurried off.
Elisa stepped back and straightened her dress and cleared her throat, then dashed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I am happy for you. Both of you. I don’t understand why I did that.”
Vaughn took her in his arms and she hid her face against his shoulder.
Rhys rested his hand on Raymond’s shoulder. “You don’t want to wait? Call bans and formalize it?”
“The way you did?” Raymond asked him bluntly.
“Ah, well.” Rhys took Annalies’ hand. “None of us is a good example to follow.”
Raymond shook his hand and picked up Natasha’s hand again. “A quiet wedding, as fast as possible. No more waiting.” Then, in front of everyone, he turned to her and kissed her.
Chapter Sixteen
Raymond found her in the formal garden behind the maze, sometime after the last of the family had left for Truro and the train. He took Natasha in his arms and kissed her soundly.
Natasha was happy to be kissed, right there in the open.
“Hello, Mrs. Devlin,” he murmured against her lips. “Are you hiding out here?”
“Enjoying the silence, Mr. Devlin,” she admitted. “It has been a very noisy week.”
“Gathers usually are noisy. This one was much louder than usual.” He turned, bringing her with him, his arm around her, to see what she had been doing. “Very domestic,” he observed. “Does Henty not prune the roses for you?”
“He does,” Natasha admitted. “However, this particular bush seems to only respond to me. Henty near killed it for three years before I took over. He says it’s actually something in the soil here—the limestone—that makes it grow, only he’s just superstitious enough to ask me to cut it back before the frost.” She sighed. “It bloomed for the first time, the year Seth died.”
Soul of Sin (Scandalous Scions Book 2) Page 17