by Jo Beverley
“Do you know where the Preventive officer is?” she asked in a quiet voice that wouldn’t carry.
“Gifford?” David sent one of the nearby men off with a quiet command, and she saw some trouble on the cliff. A man fallen, probably. ‘There’s a dummy ship offshore five miles west, and with luck he and the boatmen are watching it, ready to fish up the goods it drops into the water.“
Luck. She hated to depend on luck.
“Poor man,” she said.
David turned his head toward her. “He’ll get to confiscate a small cargo like Perch did under Mel. It’ll look good to his superiors, and he’ll get his cut of the value.”
Lieutenant Perch had been riding officer here for years, with an agreeable working relationship with the Dragon’s Horde gang. He’d recently died from falling down a cliff—or being pushed—and now they had young, keen Lieutenant Gifford to deal with.
“Let’s hope that satisfies him,” Susan said.
He gave a kind of grunt. “If Gifford were a more flexible man we could come to a permanent arrangement.”
“He’s honest.”
“Damn nuisance. Can’t you use your wiles on him? I think he’s sweet on you.”
“I don’t have any wiles. I’m a starchy housekeeper.”
“You’d have wiles in sackcloth.” He reached out and took her hand, his so solid and warm in the chilly night. “Isn’t it time you stopped working there, love? There’ll be money aplenty after this, and we can find someone else who’s friendly to the trade to be housekeeper.”
She knew it bothered him for her to be a domestic servant. “Probably. But I want to find that gold.”
“It’d be nice, but after this, we don’t need it.”
So careless, so confident. She wished she had David’s comfort with whatever happened. She wished she weren’t the sort to be always looking ahead, planning, worrying, trying to force fate....
Oh yes, she desperately wished that.
She was as she was, however, and David didn’t seem to accept that she had a strange unladylike need for employment. For independence.
And there was the gold. The Horde under Mel Clyst had paid the late Earl of Wyvern for protection. Since he hadn’t provided it, they wanted their money back. She wanted that money back, but mainly to keep David safe. It would pay off the debts caused by the failed run and provide a buffer so he wouldn’t have to take so many risks.
She frowned down at the dark sea. Things wouldn’t have been so difficult if her mother hadn’t set off to follow Mel to Australia, taking all the Horde’s available money with her. Isabelle Kerslake. Lady Belle, as she liked to be known. A smuggler’s mistress, without a scrap of shame as far as anyone could tell, and without a scrap of feeling for her two children.
Susan shook off that pointless pain and thought about the gold. She glanced behind at the solid mass of Crag Wyvern as if that would spark a new idea about where the mad earl had hidden his loot. The trouble with madmen, however, was that their doings made no sense.
Automatically she scanned the upper slit windows for lights. Crag Wyvern served as a useful messaging post visible for miles, and as a viewing post where miles of coast could be scanned for other warning lights. Apart from that, however, it had no redeeming features.
The house was only two hundred years old, but had been built to look like a medieval fortress with only arrow-slit windows on the outside. Thank heavens there was an inner courtyard garden, and the rooms had proper windows that looked into that, but from the outside the place was grim.
As she turned back to the sea, the thin moon floated out from behind clouds again, silvering the boats on the water, lifting and bobbing with the waves. Then the clouds swept across the moon like a curtain, and a wash of light drizzle blew by on the wind. She hunched, grimacing, but the rain was a blessing because it obscured the view even more. The sea and shore below her could have been deserted.
If Gifford had spotted the dummy run for what it was, and was seeking the real one, he’d need the devil’s own luck to find them tonight. Let it stay that way. He was a pleasant enough young man, and she didn’t want to see him smashed at the bottom of a cliff.
Lord, but she wished she had no part of this.
Smuggling was in her blood, and she was used to loving these smooth runs that flowed with hot excitement through the darkest nights. But it wasn’t a distant adventure anymore.
It was need now, and danger to the person she loved most in the world—
Was that a noise behind her?
She and David swiveled together to look back toward Crag Wyvern. She knew he too held his breath, the better to hear a warning sound.
Nothing.
She began to relax, but then, in one high, narrow window, a candle flared into light.
“Trouble,” he murmured.
She put a hand on his suddenly tense arm. “Only a stranger, that candle says. Not Gifford or the military. I’ll deal with it. One squeal for danger. Two if it’s clear.”
That was the smuggler’s call—the squeal of an animal caught in the fox’s jaws or the owl’s talons—and if the cry was cut off quickly, it still signaled danger.
With a squeeze to his arm for reassurance, she slid to the side, carefully, slowly, so that when she straightened she wouldn’t be close to Captain Drake. Then she began to climb the rough slope, soft boots gripping the treacherous ground, heart thumping, but not in a bad way.
Perhaps she was more like her brother than she cared to admit. She enjoyed being skilled and strong. She enjoyed adventure. She liked having a pistol in her belt and knowing how to use it.
As well that she had no dreams of becoming a fine lady.
Or not anymore, at least.
Once, she’d been caught up in a mad, destructive desire to marry the future Earl of Wyvern—Con Somerford, she’d thought—and ended up naked with him on a beach....
She physically shook the memory away. It was too painful to think about, especially now, when she needed a clear mind.
Heart beating faster and blood sizzling through her veins, she went up the tricky hill in a crouch, fingers to the ground to stay low. She stretched hearing and sight in search of the stranger.
Whoever the stranger was, she’d expect him to have entered the house. Maisie might have signaled for that too. But Susan had heard something up here on the headland, and so had David.
She slowed to give her senses greater chance to find the intruder, and then she saw him. Her straining eyes saw a cloaked figure a little darker than the dark night sky. He stood still as a statue. She could almost imagine someone had put a statue there, on the headland between the house and the cliff.
A statue with a distinct military air. Was it Lieutenant Gifford after all?
She shivered, suddenly feeling the cold, damp wind against her neck. Gifford would have soldiers with him, already spreading out along the headland. The men bringing in the cargo would be met with a round of fire, but the smugglers had their armed men too. It would turn into a bloody battle, and if David survived, the military would be down on the area like a plague looking for someone to hang for it.
Looking for Captain Drake.
Her heart was racing with panic and she stayed there, breathing as slowly as she could, forcing herself back to control. Panic served no one.
If Gifford was here with troops, wouldn’t he have acted by now? She stretched every quivering sense to detect soldiers concealed in the gorse, muskets trained toward the beach.
After long moments she found nothing.
Soldiers weren’t that good at staying quiet in the night.
So who was it, and what was he planning to do?
Heartbeat still fast, but not with panic now, she eased forward, trying not to present a silhouette against the sea and sky behind her. The land flattened as she reached the top, however, making it hard to crouch, making her clumsy, so some earth skittered away from beneath her feet.
She sensed rather than saw the man tur
n toward her.
Time to show herself and pray.
She pulled off her hood and used it to wipe the soot around so it would appear to be general grubbiness. She tucked the cloth into a pocket, then stood. Eccentric to be wandering about at night in men’s clothing, but a woman could be eccentric if she wanted to, especially a twenty-six-year-old spinster of shady antecedents.
She drew her pistol out of her belt and put it into the big pocket of her old-fashioned frock coat. She kept her hand on it as she walked up to the still and silent figure, and it was pointed forward, ready to fire.
She’d never shot anyone, but she hoped she could if it was necessary to save David.
“Who are you?” she said at normal volume. “What is your business here?”
She was within three feet of him, and in the deep dark she could not make out any detail except that he was a couple of inches taller than she was, which made him about six feet. He was hatless and his hair must be very short, since the brisk wind created no visible movement around his head.
She had to capture a strand of her own hair with her free hand to stop it blowing into her eyes.
She stared at him, wondering why he wasn’t answering, wondering what to do next. But then he said, “I am the Earl of Wyvern, so everything here is my business.” In the subsequent silence, he added, “Hello, Susan.”
Her heart stopped, then raced so impossibly fast that stars danced around her vision.
Oh, Lord. Con. Here. Now.
In the middle of a run!
He’d thought smuggling exciting eleven years ago, but people changed. He’d spent most of those years as a soldier, part of the mighty fist of the king’s law.
Dazed shock spiraled down to something numb, and then she could breathe again. “How did you know it was me?”
“What other lady would be walking the clifftop at the time of a smugglers’ run?”
She thought of denying it, but saw no point. “What are you going to do?”
She made herself draw the pistol, though she didn’t cock it. Heaven knew she wouldn’t be able to fire it. Not at Con. “It would be awkward to have to shoot you,” she said as firmly as she could.
Without warning, he threw himself at her. She landed hard, winded by the fall and his weight, pistol gone, his hand covering her mouth. “No squealing.”
He remembered. Did he remember everything? Did he remember lying on top of her like this in pleasure? Was his body remembering . .. ?
He’d been so charming, so easygoing, so dear, but now he was dark and dangerous, showing not a shred of concern for the lady he was squashing into hard, unforgiving earth.
“Answer me,” he said.
She nodded, and he eased his hand away, but stayed over her, pressing her down.
“There’s a stone digging into my back.”
For a moment he didn’t respond, but then he moved back and off her, grasping her wrist and pulling her to her feet before she had time to object. His hand was harder than she remembered, his strength greater. How could she remember so much from a summer fortnight eleven years ago?
How could she not? He’d been her first lover, and she his, and she’d denied every scrap of feeling when she’d sent him away.
Life was full of ironies. She’d rejected Con Somerford because he hadn’t been the man she’d thought he was— the heir to the earldom. And here he was, earl, a dark nemesis probably ready to destroy everything because of what she’d done eleven years ago.
What could she do to stop him?
She remembered David’s comment about feminine wiles and had to fight down wild laughter. That was one weapon that would never work on the new Earl of Wyvern.
“I heard Captain Drake was caught and transported,” he said, as if nothing of importance lay between them. “Who’s master smuggler now?”
“Captain Drake.”
“Mel Clyst escaped?”
“The smuggling master here is always called Captain Drake.”
“Ah, I didn’t know that.”
“How could you?” she pointed out with deliberate harshness, in direct reaction to a weakness that threatened to crumple her down onto the dark earth. “You were here for only two weeks.” As coldly as possible, she added, “As an outsider.”
“I got inside you, Susan.”
The deliberate crudeness stole her breath.
“Where are the Preventives?” he asked.
She swallowed and managed an answer. “Decoyed up the coast a bit.”
He turned to look out at the water. The sickle moon shone clear for a moment, showing a clean, strong profile and, at sea, the armada of small boats heading out for another load.
“Looks like a smooth run, then. Come back to the house with me.” He turned as if his word were law.
“I’d rather not.” Overriding her weakness was fear, as sharp as winter ice. Irrational fear, she hoped, but frantic.
He looked back at her. “Come back to the house with me, Susan.”
He made no threat. She had no idea what he might be threatening, but a breath escaped her that was close to a sigh, and she followed him across the scrubby heathland.
After eleven years, Con Somerford was back, lord and master of all that surrounded them.
Chapter Two
Susan felt dazed, almost drunk with shock. How could it feel as if eleven full years had disappeared like melting snow? And yet it did. Despite the physical changes in both of them, and a virtual lifetime of experiences, he was Con, who for that brief time had been the friend of the heart she had never found since.
Who for an even briefer time had been the lover she could never imagine finding again.
Con. Con, short for Connaught, his second name, because his first name was George and his two friends were called George, and they’d all agreed to choose other names....
Her mind was dancing crazily, flinching off memories and feelings, then ricocheting back to them again.
He’d simply been Con when she’d known him.
She bit her lip on nervous laughter. In the biblical sense. The sweetest, steadiest young man she’d ever known in any sense. She’d teased him about being her Saint George, who’d save her from any dragon.
He’d promised to be her hero, always.
In almost the next breath she’d told him she never wanted to see him again.
The house loomed ahead with only the one candlelit window to break the blackness. Con was back, but he wasn’t Saint George anymore. He was Wyvern. He was the dragon.
“There’s a door on this side, isn’t there?” he asked.
“Yes.” She stepped past him, but even she had to feel for the door in the dark. When her unsteady hands found the iron latch, the door opened silently into light, for she’d left a lamp burning for her return. Once inside she quickly closed the door, then turned, afraid of what she might see.
She saw lines and angles that had not been there before, and two white slashes up near his hairline that hinted at danger narrowly missed. He’d been a soldier for ten years.
And yet, he was still Con.
His rebellious, overlong hair was now trimmed severely short. She’d run fingers through that long hair, sticky with sweat....
His eyes were the same steady gray. She’d thought they were as changeable as the sea, but she’d never dreamed of seeing them so stormily cold.
He was earl. In theory at least, he ruled this part of England. In practice, the smugglers took the free in Freetraders very seriously. He looked like the sort of man who might try to stop the smuggling, and that could get him killed.
She was suddenly as afraid for him as of him. Lieutenant Perch had come to a bloody “accidental” end. That could happen to anyone who got in the way of the Freetrade. She didn’t think David would kill to save himself and his men, but these days she wasn’t sure.
David would kill to save her. She was sure of that.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, not even sure if she meant about the sm
uggling, herself, or everything.
Con was looking at her with an unnervingly steady gaze. He probably didn’t approve of the jacket and breeches, but was there something more personal in his scrutiny? Was he contrasting her with the fifteen-year-old, as she was him?
“What am I going to do?” he echoed softly, silver eyes still resting on her. “Having ridden hard for far too long, I plan to eat, have a bath, then go to bed. The servants seem to be in short supply, however, and my housekeeper is also missing.”
There was no choice but to admit it. “I am your housekeeper.”
His eyes widened and it was wryly pleasant to shock him. “I was told my new housekeeper was a Mrs. Kerslake.”
“Told? Told by who?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid, Susan. It won’t wash. Swann has been sending me regular reports ever since I inherited.”
Of course. Of course. She felt stupid. Not a spy, but Swann, the earldom’s lawyer, who rode out from Honiton every fortnight to check his client’s property.
“I am Mrs. Kerslake,” she said.
He shook his head. “One day when I’m less tired and hungry, you must tell me how this all came about.”
“People change.” Belatedly she added, “My lord,” desperate for distance and protection. “And a housekeeper doesn’t actually scrub the grates and bake the cakes, you know. You will find everything in order.”
She seized the lamp to lead the way out of the constricting room.
“But I didn’t find everything in order.”
She turned back sharply, alerted by his tone.
He was still angry. After all these years he was still angry. Fear surged through her in a sickening wave. This was a man to fear when he was angry.
He frowned. “Are you all right?”
She’d probably gone sheet white. “Like you, I am tired. If you expected a better reception, my lord, you should have sent warning. Come along and I will see to your needs.”
She opened the door, wishing she hadn’t used quite those words. What was she going to do if he wanted her in his bed? She didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t want anyone else to kill him. She didn’t want to stir anymore trouble around here than they already had.