by Deana James
Suddenly, aware of him, Vivian grew hot. Flustered, she straightened in the saddle.
"Relax, Vivian," he murmured. "I'm only looking."
His words alarmed her afresh. Her free hand flew to the neck of her blouse to find the linen stock disarranged. With trembling fingers, she smoothed it back into place.
He looked away; his mouth curved mockingly. "I'm no lovelorn rustic swain. I've never had a taste for a roll in the grass. Just imagine how uncomfortable that must be. And despite the sunshine, I suspect portions of the anatomy would get quite chilled."
She blushed furiously and made a motion to pull Barbary's head around, but Piers caught her wrist. The ride had freed her mind briefly. Now the tension returned full strength. She could feel her stomach clench and her breath come short.
"Don't ride off," he warned. "Remember I promised Tyler you'd ride with me. I can't break my promise."
Reluctantly, she eased up on the reins.
"Good." Piers allowed the stallion to drop its head to crop a mouthful of the dry meadow grasses. He stared at the gray clouds scudding in from the sea. "The day is going to turn off cold after all. We'll have to be returning soon. But I wanted to speak to you far away from the house. I seem to remember my father giving you permission to make whatever improvements you wanted in that mausoleum back there on the cliff."
She frowned. Somehow she had not expected he would want to talk about housekeeping.
"With his voucher you certainly don't need mine," he continued, "although you have it and welcome. Tear it down to the ground for all I care."
She looked at him quizzically.
He smiled. "But I have an idea that may please you more. I’ve made up my mind that in the spring well be moving to Stone Glenn."
She swung round in the saddle, her face lighting with wild hope and happiness. Reaching across the space that separated them, she caught at his arm and stared deep into his eyes.
"I don't know why you're acting so amazed. Surely, you didn't think that I loved this moldering pile with Larne presiding like the demon king over every dinner."
She shook her head and pulled his hand over palm up. Patiently, he allowed her to make the letters "Thank you" in his palm.
"No thanks necessary," he replied.
Reluctant to break the communication, she wrote, "Now!"
He shook his head. "For now I have business obligations that must be seen to. But very soon we are going to be ending the business."
She tossed his hand back into his lap and shook her head.
"Do you think you know what the business is?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
He shrugged. "You'd have to be stupid not to have figured it out. You must also know that marriage with you makes the 'shipments' from France unnecessary so far as we are concerned. By spring I shall be able to put all these illegal ventures to rest."
She shook her head and made a slashing motion across the saddle horn.
He laughed bitterly. "No, my dear. I cannot simply cut them off right now. Not and come out with a whole skin. Smuggling is a way of life here on this coast. It's not considered a crime but a profession. And quite a few men as well as their families depend on our business for their livelihoods. We can't simply abandon them."
During his confession he had watched her reaction. The play of expressions across her face intrigued him at the same time it frustrated him. "I wish you could talk," he complained. "I want to hear for myself what's going on behind those blue, blue eyes."
His words cut her like a knife, all the more dreaded because of its familiarity. The pain, the frustration stripped the skin off and left her raw and bleeding. Her hands clenched on the reins jerking the gelding's head up and making him back.
"Here!" The viscount raised his voice. "Don't get upset. I don't care if you can't talk. I just meant that—”
She turned the horse back the way they had come.
He spurred his mount alongside her. For a few minutes they rode in silence. "I only want to know what you're thinking," he told her. "When we get back, let's go somewhere quiet and you can write down what you think about all this. For instance, whether or not you like this horse better than the one you rode yesterday."
Her mouth curled in a sneer.
"Or," he continued smoothly, "whether or not we'll have a good meal tonight from Cook."
She allowed herself a faint smile. He was teasing her. She had begun to realize that he actually had a sense of humor and teased her more often than not. Unfortunately, neither one of them had had much to laugh or joke about in their short acquaintance.
He was watching her mouth. "Oh, Lord," he cried. "Can it be? Watch out. Oh, no. Her face will crack."
She could not help herself. She flashed him a full smile.
He smiled in return. "Good. Now, come on. The day is going to close down on us before we know it. A quick gallop along the seashore and then back up along the high trail."
The plans were abandoned in a moment when Tyler came thundering up. "Beddoes needs to see you real quicklike, sir."
Piers's face turned dark in an instant. "Oh, he does."
"Yes, sir." Tyler's face glowed red from the wind and from his own embarrassment. "Said it had to do with a change in plans."
"Change in plans?"
"You'd best come, sir."
Piers cursed feelingly. Without apology, he turned to her. "You'll have to excuse me. I’ll have to be riding fast. Tyler will escort you."
She nodded with a shrug.
"Maybe she'd better come with us," Tyler suggested. "Jack ain't at the house. I'm to bring you to him."
"Damn him. Vivian, you'll have to come."
She shook her head, pointing toward the beach and the winding trail that led up to the back of the house.
"A lady can't ride alone."
"She don't have no business—”
Piers cut the groom off sharply. "I shall decide what is Lady Polwycke's business, Tyler." He turned to her. "Are you sure?"
She nodded, placing her hands together in a prayerful attitude.
"Will you come straight home?"
She nodded again.
"Very well. Lead on, Tyler. This had better be important." The two men galloped off leaving Vivian alone to pick her way down to the sand.
************************************
The whitecaps whipped the waves into great chopping canyons. The wind was icy cold. Vivian soon realized she was not enjoying the ride as she had imagined that she would. Still the moments of freedom were precious despite the discomforts.
How many bundles and barrels had floated in here? She shuddered. And how many lives had been lost in bringing them in? If she thought very much about her marriage, she would start to weep and weeping did nothing except make the eyes red and swollen.
Her guardian had been a thief; her solicitor, an accessory; and now her husband, whom she had married to escape their clutches, had confessed to being a smuggler.
Yet all was not completely and irrevocably gloom. Besides his confession, he had told her that he intended to quit and take her home.
At that thought her eyes did fill with tears. She had not been home in over a year, not slept in her own bed nor walked in her own garden. What had happened to her garden last spring? What had happened to the house itself? Had Sebastian looted it? Were the furnishings and paintings, the silver and crystal, in short, her inheritance still there?
Pain knifed through her, so intense that it bent her over in the saddle. Through a film of tears she could see the entry hall-the diamond tiles, the crystal chandelier, the Persian carpet, the-
"Miss Marleigh!" A man was hurrying toward her across the sand!
She straightened in the saddle and lifted her crop. Though the tears still wet her cheeks, she had mastered the pain. The gelding felt the grip tighten on the reins and threw up his head. He laid back his ears at the approaching stranger and shied.
"Miss Marleigh. That is-Lady Polwycke!"
She hesitated.
"Milady."
Captain Rory MacPherson came to a halt several yards from her, drab seaman's garb flapping in the wind. His face was all rugged concern, his eyes kind.
Where had he come from? Her eyes swept the rolling waves empty of vessels of any kind. He could not have been boating. If he were fishing, where was his gear?
And then she knew, knew with deadly certainty why he was dressed as he was here in this inlet. He was spying on incoming vessels. He was out to catch the smugglers and with them her husband. The realization threw her into turmoil. What was she to do?
She wiped at her cheeks with the back of her gloved hand and managed a tremulous smile.
"Lady Polwycke." Hand extended, he came up to her horse's head and laid a hand on the rein. "May I be of assistance?"
His warm words uttered with such heartfelt sympathy touched her tender feelings again. A pair of crystal tears started down her cheeks.
"Milady," he whispered.
She turned her face toward the sea while she struggled for control.
"May I be of some assistance? Any assistance at all?"
The sea wind swept her tears away although it left her cheeks feeling cold and tight. She looked toward the heights. More and more clouds were rushing in. A storm was blowing toward them. She had promised that she would return to the house directly.
He took another step closer. The toe of her right boot almost touched his chest. "I only want a minute of your time."
She did not want to refuse him. Yet did she dare stay? What if she told what she knew? But what did she know? Really?
He held out his hand. "Please."
She gave hers into it and lifted her leg from around the horn. He stepped closer still and then his hands went to her waist as she left the saddle. Her hands came to rest briefly cm his shoulders as he lowered her to the sand.
He was much taller than she, a little taller even than her husband. His red hair was the true Scotsman's fire-in-the-thatch. His eyes were blue as a spring sky and as gentle. They stood staring into each other's eyes measuring each other, the blue-blooded English lady hardly out of her girlhood and the garrison captain, almost twice her age, with lines deeply grooved around his firm-set mouth.
"I'll not beat about the bush, milady. I meant what I said the other day. It didn't take much of a brain to figure that you were caught between a rock and a hard place. And now I come upon you and find you—” He stopped. His big hand rose as if impelled by something beyond his ken. One long rough finger reached out to touch her cheek. Feather light, he traced the path her tears had left.
Vivian felt her skin prickle. A warmth spread as blood rushed into the spot. Her lips parted slightly to breathe in more of the bitter air.
Startled, he dropped his hand. "If you want to come away from that house, I'll keep you safe," he promised, his voice slightly hoarse. "I’ll be happy to escort you wherever you want to go."
At first his words made no sense to her bemused mind. Then sadly she shook her head. Stooping, she wrote in the sand with her crop, "Where would I go?"
He dropped to one knee to read and then looked into her face almost at a level with his own. "Why, home! "lour home. You must have relatives."
"None," she wrote.
He wiped the words away with a swipe of his big hand. "Friends? People who've known and loved you all your life?"
"My guardian." She wrote, her mouth curled.
"Friends. Friends of your family, your father."
"Father dead. Mother dead. No friends."
"But everyone has friends." His eyes were wide, incredulous, and very, very blue.
She shook her head.
"Then I’ll be your friend. It won't be easy, but I have a small house, a housekeeper, a”—he hesitated biting his lip—”son. My wife is dead. Years ago. There's only me and Reiver. But he's a bonny little boy. We'd be honored."
She put her gloved hand over his mouth to stop the river of words. Her smile was brilliant and tear-filled. Cognizant of the honor he did her, she would not have had words had she had the power of speech.
His mouth moved against her glove. His eyes above it were agonized. She took down her hand. Their eyes spoke to one another as she lifted her lips and fitted them to his.
Only the briefest of instants. Then she pulled away, faltered back across the sand into Barbary's shoulder. Her heel caught in her skirt, almost throwing her, but she grasped the stirrup and instead of straightening dropped down to her knees.
When he would have put his arms around her, she waved him away. With the crop she began to print. "You can't. Ruin you. Ruin your life, your son's. Married." She looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Married. Forever."
"I love you," he whispered. He went down on his knees before her. "I loved you the first minute I saw you, so proud, so white-faced. And I knew what had just been done to you."
She flushed and dropped her eyes. For a space she had forgotten that terrible afternoon.
"When I saw-what I saw-it made me sick. For you. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. We can go away. To America. There's nothing here in England for a Scotsman anyway."
"NO!" She wrote it in great capital letters.
"But—”
"I made a vow." At those four simple words, he seemed to collapse. Then without looking at her, he rose. His feet turned unsteadily in the sand, but he righted himself and put his arm around her shoulders as she, too, rose and shook the sand from her skirt.
"Then there's nothing more to be said." He put his hands together to toss her into the saddle. "I do respect you for your vow, milady. I hope your husband respects you, too."
She nodded as she settled herself and gathered the reins. Then she looked down at him. The tears were back on her cheeks, he noted. Then she reached for his hand. Turning the palm up she wrote three words.
"The truest friend."
They were not the words he wanted to hear, but he closed his fist over them to hold them against his heart.
She touched her heel to the gelding's flanks. The sand spurted as she galloped up the beach. When she came to the foot of the cliff trail, she looked behind her. He had disappeared.
Chapter 16
"Forget it, Beddoes. We can't take the cargo out of here tonight. The beaches are crawling with riding officers. For all we know, the roads leading north are, too."
The smuggler swept his greatcoat apart and hitched up his wide leather belt. The hilt of his volley gun protruded ominously only a couple of inches from his hand. "That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, yer lordship. We need to get the stuff out of here. Sooner or later, they'll find the entrance and then—” He made a rude sound with his mouth. "You've got to give the word."
Piers ran his hand through his hair. He knew himself to be right in his estimate of the danger. But he also knew-as Beddoes did-that he had ordered shipments moved in more dangerous circumstances than this. Ordered them and gloried in the danger. For the first time since the smuggling had begun, he was not eager to be gone from the house.
Likewise, he acknowledged, his reluctance-evident by the vehement objections he was making to Beddoes-came from his desire to stay with his wife. He wanted to climb up the ladder and through the winding passages into the cellar and from there into the house and his own bedroom. He wanted to bury himself in her. His whole body tightened suddenly as a wave of heat swept through his loins.
With the physical surge came an equally emotional surge of anger that he had to clamp his teeth together to contain. The entire enterprise was a stupid and totally unnecessary risk for him now. He no longer needed the revenue to support that pile of rotting gray granite above him. He could go to Stone Glenn tomorrow. His wife would probably cry for joy if he went upstairs and made such a suggestion.
He swung around glaring at the great mound of goods, a veritable caravan of French contraband worth thousands of pounds. He could move to wealth and comfort, but his men could not. Divided amon
g them, the money meant enough to live on through the winter. Otherwise, they would have great difficulty feeding their families. If his responsibility were only to the men, they could take their chances. Criminals, even smugglers, did not expect a steady income. But these men had wives with babes, old mothers and grandmothers, all of whom had no part in this, no say in who their menfolk were nor how they made a living. Innocents would undoubtedly starve to death if he abandoned them.
His brows drew together in a heavy frown. The sea roared and ebbed, filling the caverns beneath the cellar with its eternal noise. Because of it the oldest part of the house had become virtually unlivable. Therefore, subsequent owners had built wings where the bedrooms were located and an entire new front. In one of those bedrooms his wife would be waiting for him.
A breaker stronger than its fellows flung spray across the piece of sail that covered the mound. Droplets of it wafted to him, wetting his face. He shivered.