by Mary Balogh
“Sean Hayes is dead,” he said, “as is Sir Basil Hayes. Sir Edwin Baillie is of a different stamp altogether.”
His mother was dipping her quill pen rather determinedly into the inkwell when he left the room and closed the door behind him. What, he wondered, had possessed him to ask Moira Hayes to reserve a set of waltzes for him? He wanted nothing more to do with her than was necessary. He certainly did not want to touch her. She had been dressed very demurely this afternoon. She had even been wearing a cap, which for some reason had irritated him. She had conducted herself with quiet decorum and had succeeded in looking dignified even during the worst of the pomposities and impertinences of her betrothed. And yet he had felt, contrary to all surface appearance, that there was a passionate femininity leashed just behind the veneer of gentility. He might have been wrong. He very probably was. She was a twenty-six-year-old spinster, about to make a very proper and dull marriage with a pompous ass. Of course, there had been her hidden anger and the strange silent communications that had occurred between them. They had been real enough.
He did not want to touch her. He did not want to risk unleashing what he was not even sure was there. Or perhaps, he thought in some astonishment, what was leashed was not so much in her as in himself. If it was so, then he need not worry. He was long accustomed to discipline, to self-control.
He was to waltz with her. He wondered if she knew the steps and found himself hoping that she did not. It was far too intimate a dance to perform with someone who knew the steps—and someone one was afraid to touch.
* * *
WHEN Moira delivered baskets of Christmas baking to some of the poorer families in Tawmouth on the day before Christmas, she went alone, with only a maid for company. The outing gave her a much-needed feeling of freedom despite the fact that Sir Edwin had insisted upon both the maid and the carriage in which they rode to the village. He was too busy writing Christmas letters to his mother and each of his sisters to accompany her himself, for which dereliction of duty he apologized profusely. Lady Hayes was busy with the cook and the Christmas puddings.
It was rather a lovely day, Moira thought, even though the fishermen were predicting snow within the next few days. The blue sky was dotted with fluffy clouds, which allowed the occasional sunny interval. The breeze was fresh and brisk but not unduly cold or fierce for the time of year. It would have been the perfect day for a walk to the village along the valley. Alas, for her betrothed’s sense of propriety, she was forced to ride, all cooped up inside the carriage with a hot brick at her feet and a blanket over her legs. She wondered if she would ever be allowed to walk anywhere again after their marriage. The half-humorous thought nevertheless brought a twinge of alarm. While not by any means a harsh man, Sir Edwin was almost impossible to defy.
The maid had a married sister in Tawmouth and was more than pleased to pay her a visit on Miss Hayes’s suggestion after all the baskets had been delivered. Moira intended calling upon Harriet Lincoln and perhaps persuading her to look about the shops. But the temptation of the outdoors was just too strong. Like a truant schoolboy, she hurried along the street that would take her to the seawall, a waist-high granite structure that marked the end of the valley road and protected the unwary pedestrian from the long drop to the beach below. She braced her hands on top of the wall and drew in deep breaths of the bracing sea air.
Beneath her, the golden beach stretched away to either side. A few fishermen worked at the boats moored against the long stone quay away off to the right, but there was an inviting air of solitude about the beach. The tide was out. A few gulls screamed and wheeled overhead. She should turn and make her way back to Harriet’s, Moira thought. But she walked instead to the only gap in the wall. Beyond it a flight of steps descended sharply against the side of the wall to the beach.
Normally, she would not have hesitated. Must she do so now merely because she knew that Sir Edwin Baillie would disapprove? He would more than disapprove. He would doubtless deliver a lengthy lecture that would feature his mother’s early teaching. He would remind her, after many verbal tokens of his respect and regard, of what she owed her position as a lady and as the betrothed of the baronet of Penwith. Was she to bow to his will for the rest of her life? Was she to retain not even a modicum of independence, of self-respect? This was Cornwall. It was hardly improper to walk alone on a deserted beach at Tawmouth. And so she would say with calm firmness if he should somehow discover the truth. For the truth was, of course, that she was already halfway down the steps.
She had always loved the beach, both as a playground and as a place where dreams could be allowed to take flight. She had come here a great deal with Sean. Their parents had been somewhat indulgent, allowing them more freedom of movement than many children had. They had built sand castles, gathered seashells, paddled in the water, chased each other while shrieking with laughter or frustration or plain exuberance. And sometimes, beyond the jutting headland that hid the deeper cove beyond from the village and the quay, they had come across Kenneth, and he and Sean would exchange insults until they began to play together—smugglers and pirates, games involving sword fights with lengths of driftwood brought up by the tide, and scrambles up the cliff face. Moira had always been sent away to search the pools or to keep watch or simply to behave herself. She had often suspected that those meetings were deliberate, that the two boys had planned them.
As a child she had adored Kenneth, the handsome blond boy from Dunbarton, whom they were strictly forbidden to so much as acknowledge. She had used to watch him while he played with Sean, imagining him turning to her and inviting her to play, wanting her to play. He never had. He had been unaware of her existence, a mere girl. Until much later, that was.
Later, after he had been away at school for a few years, during one of his holidays, she had met him there alone. She could no longer remember where Sean had been. She knew that she had left her governess in the village, doing some shopping for her mother. She had rounded the headland into the cove and he had been there, sitting on a rock, apparently dreaming. He had looked at her without recognition at first but with definite appreciation. Then recognition had been there too. And he had smiled. At her. For the first time ever.
Foolish girl. Oh, foolish young girl that she had been to be so beguiled by male beauty and charm. She had been so very flattered. She had fallen mindlessly in love.
She strolled toward the cove now, remembering. So many memories. They made her feel old, dull. She had not really expected life to come to this, an aging woman about to contract a marriage of convenience with a man she had to make a conscious effort even to tolerate. But no, it was not so much that she was an aging woman as that she was a mature woman who had learned that the reality of life and the dream of life one had when young were, more often than not, poles apart. Life was not so dreadful now. She was not destitute. She was not abused. She was not—
She stopped suddenly, rooted to the spot with alarm as a huge black dog came loping out from beyond the jutting cliff. Its pace increased to a gallop when it saw her, and it came charging in her direction, barking ferociously. She had always been terrified of dogs. This one was more monster than dog. If she had been capable of any movement at all, she would have turned and fled in blind panic. But even the instinct for survival could not set her in motion.
5
“NELSON!” The word of sharp command was perfectly audible above the barking. It could have proceeded only from the throat of a man accustomed to making himself heard above far more deafening noises.
The dog’s pace decreased to a lope again, and he circled about Moira, his bark considerably less ferocious.
“Sit!” the same voice commanded and Nelson sat, his tongue lolling from his mouth as he panted and gazed at Moira with unblinking eyes.
She held her teeth clamped firmly together, as if only by doing so could she keep herself from disintegrating into several pieces. She kept her eyes on the
dog although her brain had begun to tell her to whom that voice belonged—as if she had conjured him with her wayward memory. Her brain was also reminding her that she was quite alone, without even the respectable presence of a maid—just as she had been during that first meeting with him up on the cliffs.
“He would not have attacked.” Two black top boots had come into view as well as the lower part of a greatcoat. “Not without my command.”
She raised her eyes. He was standing a few feet off, his hands clasped behind him. He was quite alone, as she was. “Not without your command?” she said. “But with it, he would have torn me to pieces?”
“He would have restrained you with sufficient force to prevent you from attacking me,” he said, his faint smile succeeding only in making him appear haughtier than usual.
“I must be thankful,” she said, “that he is well enough trained not to attack first and look for your command second.”
“He would not have got out of Spain,” he said. “I made the mistake of feeding him there once when he was just one of scores of abject strays. He attached himself to me after that with flattering devotion. But I set certain conditions to his remaining with me. He has never attacked without my permission. But he has saved my life more than once.”
“I shudder to think,” she said, “what became of those from whom he saved you.”
“I would not tell you if you asked,” he said. “You would not wish to know.”
She was feeling angry at her own paralyzed fear and at the fact that he had witnessed it. “And do you think it fair, my lord,” she asked, “to allow such a war-hardened beast to run loose about an unsuspecting nation?”
“Why, Miss Hayes,” he said, and there was definite hauteur in his voice now and perhaps annoyance too, “the nation is full of thousands of such beasts, most of them two-legged and most of them ignored and unwanted by a country for whose honor and freedom they fought through hell. Fortunately, most of them, like Nelson here, know a thing or two about discipline and obedience to commands.”
Nelson had decided that he had sat for long enough. He approached Moira and pushed his nose against her gloved hand.
“Are you still afraid of dogs, Moira?” the Earl of Haverford asked when she drew back her hand. “Even when they come to apologize and make friends?”
“No, of course not.” She patted the dog’s head and felt enormously proud of herself. He had always had a dog with him as a boy. She had always cringed from it even though the one she remembered had been a friendly little mutt, which had liked to jump up on her and lick her face.
Nelson was gazing up at her with intelligent eyes and was nudging at her hand for more petting. She smoothed her hand between his ears. She felt embarrassed and tongue-tied. She wanted to escape. Should she just bid him a good morning and walk on? Or walk back the way she had come? She should have made some observation about the weather, she thought when the silence had stretched a little too long, but doing so now would seem awkward. Why had she given in to temptation and come down onto the beach?
“Why are you walking here alone, Moira?” he asked.
Indignation wiped away embarrassment. She looked up at him. It was enough that she had Sir Edwin to give her such reminders of her status as a lady. She had been forced to ride down the valley swathed in blankets and hot bricks inside a closed carriage, with a maid for company. “Because I choose to do so,” she said. “Why are you walking here alone, my lord?”
“Because I have a houseful of guests in need of entertainment,” he said. “And because today the Christmas festivities are beginning in earnest and my educated guess is that I will not have a single moment to myself that is not stolen for the next week or so. Because I remembered that Nelson needed exercise and judged that none of my guests, especially the ladies, would wish to accompany us. They are all terrified of him. Foolish, are they not?”
Perhaps, she thought, those same lady guests would be wise to be fearful of him. Although he spoke with a half smile on his lips, as if he were making a joke, there was something dangerous about him, a certain coldness about his eyes. He had changed, she thought. He was not the Kenneth she had known. This was a man who had faced death and had seen death and had inflicted death and had become, perhaps, indifferent to it. This was a man who had commanded other men and who, she did not doubt, had made himself feared. And yet even as a boy he had liked to go off alone sometimes. Sean would not have met him otherwise. She would not have met him. But his eyes had been soft and dreamy in those days.
She looked back down at Nelson and patted him some more. “I have been busy with Christmas preparations,” she said, “and with receiving callers relative to my betrothal. I have been accustoming myself to the presence of a stranger at Penwith—a stranger who is also the owner and master there, and my betrothed. I came to Tawmouth this morning to deliver Christmas baskets. I needed a little time to myself. Do you know how tedious it is always to be trailed by a maid?”
“I believe,” he said, “it is for your safety.”
She had an alarming feeling of déjà vu. She had asked him the same question once before. And he had answered with the same words—before kissing her. Her eyes widened.
“Am I not safe with you, then?” she asked.
His expression was controlled, his eyes cool. But they lowered to focus quite unmistakably on her mouth for a few moments. “You are quite safe,” he said.
No, she was not. “I must return to Tawmouth,” she said abruptly, “and my maid and carriage.”
He raised both eyebrows. “I shall not offer to escort you, Miss Hayes,” he said, “but I will swear not to report your little truancy to Sir Edwin Baillie. My guess is that he would be less than pleased.”
She opened her mouth to make a sharp retort about caring nothing for pleasing her betrothed. But she was betrothed to him and owed him her loyalty.
“Good day to you, my lord,” she said, and turned to make her way back along the beach to the seawall. The Earl of Haverford and Nelson stayed where they were or went back into the cove. She did not look back to see which.
She had the uncomfortable and quite mistaken feeling that something intimate had passed between them, that it had been a guilty and clandestine meeting, something to be kept from Sir Edwin—and even her mother—at all costs. He had looked at her mouth and she had looked at his. . . .
* * *
THERE were just too many kissing boughs at Dunbarton. Or to be more accurate, since kissing boughs were at least clearly visible and therefore possible to avoid half of the time, there were too many sprigs of mistletoe stuck up in all sorts of unexpected places, and too many females lying in wait for unsuspecting gentlemen to alight beneath them. Though one or two of the ladies—the younger, prettier ones—were volubly and quite insincerely complaining of the reverse.
Kenneth had kissed every female in the house, with the exception of the servants, at least once before Christmas Day was out. He had kissed giggling cousins and simpering aunts and coy great-aunts. He had kissed his puckering niece. He had kissed a blushing Miss Juliana Wishart. He had kissed her three times in all, in fact, though not once by his own designing.
She was extremely pretty, with hair as blond as his own, with wide blue eyes, and trembling rosebud lips. She was enticingly rounded and fashionably and expensively clad. She was good-natured and smiled frequently. She was compliant and eligible—and her parents, Baron and Lady Hockingsford, were downright eager. The pursuit was on, and everyone at Dunbarton, from his mother on down, appeared to be aiding and abetting the courtship.
She was seventeen years old. She was the veriest infant. He could not force his eyes to see her as anything more. Kissing her was very like kissing his niece—but potentially far more dangerous. One did not kiss a seventeen-year-old young miss three times, even beneath the mistletoe, without raising expectations and arousing speculation.
Havi
ng kissed Miss Wishart three times, Kenneth felt uneasily as if some declaration had been made—or should be made. The girl had sat beside him in the earl’s pew at church and had ridden home in his carriage with his mother and hers, and with him, of course. She had been seated beside him for Christmas dinner and had been his partner at cards afterward before being a member of his team at charades. One of his aunts had even referred to her as “your Miss Wishart, Kenneth, dear.”
His Miss Wishart?
He had been quite prepared to look the girl over, to consider her as a possible candidate for wife. But having looked, he had rejected. He could not imagine living with the girl for the rest of a lifetime, making a companion of her. And he could no more think of having marital relations with her than he could think of doing so with his niece or any other child. His mother had suggested that the Christmas ball might be a suitable occasion on which to announce his betrothal. Most of his family members and most of his neighbors would be in attendance. Spring would be a wonderful time for the wedding. He should suggest spending an hour of the afternoon before the ball with Lord Hockingsford, she had added.
“Lady Hockingsford has been my close friend since we made our comeout together,” she said. “This is something we have hoped for and even dared plan ever since Juliana was born. You can make us both very happy and proud.”
He had been thirteen when Juliana Wishart was born, Kenneth thought—only four years younger than she was now. He had been at school already. He felt horribly trapped and pressured, but he would not marry merely to please his mother and her particular friend. He would not marry at all—yet. He was not ready for such a step. At the ball, he decided, he was going to have to steer clear of Miss Wishart after the opening set, which somehow, he had discovered, he was to dance with her. He must dance with all his female guests and with all his female neighbors. He was already engaged to waltz with Moira Hayes, he remembered.