Counting on a Countess

by Eva Leigh

  God—he needed to get her away from this place, from her relatives, and whatever else seemed to trouble her.

  Reluctantly, he pulled back enough to growl, “I need you back. With me. Doesn’t have to be London—we can go anywhere. So long as we’re together.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m needed here, too.”

  “For how long?”

  “Not forever.” She opened her eyes, and her gaze verged on pleading. “Please, Kit. Let’s not quarrel about it.”

  She looked so strained and stretched thin, it would be churlish to press her about it now. However, “We will discuss this. Soon.”

  He let her go when she eased from his arms, but the ache he felt at her loss was immediate.

  “Care for a tour?” she asked after a moment.

  Kit frowned at the sudden change in topic. “I’ve taken a thorough inspection of the house. Unless there’s a secret dungeon I’ve missed.”

  Her laugh seemed a touch forced. “You’ve read too many of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.”

  “I’m merely waiting for some banditti to carry me off and force me to wed their captain.”

  “We could take the tour farther afield,” she offered. “I could show you some of my favorite places. I promise this part of Cornwall isn’t strictly devoted to toadying uncles and their derelict houses.”

  “I would like that,” he answered. Here, at last, would be a chance to learn more about her—what she liked, what she loved. Each revelation was as precious as a pearl.

  Somehow, he would make everything right between them.

  The ride into Newcombe was a short one. The way took them along the edge of the cliffs, then descended down into the tidy little village. Just beyond the village stood the bay, with fishing boats and other small vessels rising and lifting on the waves.

  “That’s Sam Franks’s grocer shop,” Tamsyn said, pointing to one storefront. A young, blond man wearing an apron stood on the front step and watched them pass with no attempt to disguise his curiosity.

  “Jack and Ellie Edgar run the public house,” she added, nodding toward the establishment. Men gathered in the window to stare, their interest in Kit as evident as the grocer’s.

  She seemed oblivious to the many inquisitive looks that trailed them, but Kit noticed. He saw more than a few men narrow their eyes with suspicion and caution. The women they passed on the street stopped and whispered to each other.

  He’d had warmer welcomes from fallen Spanish towns. His body immediately responded, snapping into alert readiness. He could fight or flee at a moment’s notice.

  “This is Josiah Williams’s all things shop,” Tamsyn announced, bringing their horses to a stop. They dismounted. “We’ll just pop in for a moment. I need to buy quills.”

  “Wait a moment,” Kit said, holding up a hand. “Isn’t that Nessa?”

  The woman was walking down High Street with a basket hanging from her arm, looking preoccupied. She came to a stop as she noticed Kit and Tamsyn, her eyes wide with surprise.

  “I hadn’t seen her yesterday,” he realized. “Why aren’t you back at the house?” he asked Nessa.

  “I . . .” The older woman seemed at a loss for words.

  “She lives in the village,” Tamsyn explained smoothly, “with her son, his wife, and her grandchild. She comes up every day to help me.”

  “So why is she here now?” he wondered.

  “The baby’s sick,” Nessa said quickly. “And so is his mum. I’m looking after both of them.”

  “I can manage without her until they get well,” Tamsyn added. “Come, let’s leave Nessa to her errands so she can return home and nurse them.” She tugged him toward the all things shop.

  Nessa hurried away, and Kit frowned as he watched her disappear down a side street. But Tamsyn kept urging him into the shop, so he moved on.

  The bell on the door chimed as Kit pushed it open, causing everyone within to freeze and stare at him. Kit nodded guardedly as Tamsyn strode in.

  “Good morning, Josiah,” she called out to a middle-aged man handing a customer a spool of thread.

  “Miss Tamsyn,” Josiah answered. His gaze flicked to Kit, then back to her, a question in his eyes.

  “This is my husband, Lord Blakemere,” she announced to the people in the shop. She made introductions, and though Kit didn’t retain most of the customers’ names, he felt their unease as though he’d fallen into a puddle of oily water in the middle of the road and hadn’t cleaned his face.

  “Pleasure meeting you,” Josiah said after a brief, awkward silence followed the introductions. “Are you planning on staying long, my lord?”

  “The duration of my visit hasn’t been determined,” Kit replied neutrally. “I only arrived yesterday.”

  “And you’re staying at Chei Owr, are you?” asked a woman carrying a basket.

  “He is,” Tamsyn answered.

  “It’s fallen on hard times—no offense, Miss Tamsyn,” she hastily added. “There are first-rate inns in Perranporth.”

  “If it’s just the same,” Kit said drily, “I’d prefer to be closer to my wife.”

  “Of course, of course.” The woman nodded, but she shot a glance at Tamsyn. “We’re, ah, fond of her, too, my lord.”

  “Oh, aye,” the people in the shop chorused, and this, at least, was said with genuine feeling.

  A faint blush stained Tamsyn’s cheeks. “Some cut quills please, Josiah,” she said to the shopkeeper.

  He hurried to one drawer lining the walls and pulled out a long paper envelope, which he passed to Tamsyn. “Very fine prime quills. No seconds or pinions for you. Free of charge, Miss Tamsyn.”

  “You persist in saying,” Tamsyn said wryly, “and I’ll persist in refusing.” She took a coin from her reticule, then gently pried open Josiah’s hand before pressing the coin into it and curling his fingers around the money.

  Though it made sense for a shop to extend credit to local gentry, it was odd that Josiah Williams wanted to refuse payment. As though he owed Tamsyn something.

  “What are ye plans for the day?” an elderly man in farmer’s clothing asked Kit. His accent was so thick it took Kit a moment to understand what he’d said.

  “I plan on taking him on a tour,” Tamsyn replied. “See the local sights, et cetera.”

  “Oh?” the older man asked with a pointed glance.

  “The harbor and along the beach,” she said. “Some of the coves. A few aren’t precisely traversable, are they, Ben?”

  “No, they aren’t,” the man agreed readily. “Best to stay away.”

  Everyone in the shop nodded vigorously.

  “Because pirates use them for hiding their booty,” Kit joked.

  Tamsyn laughed rather loudly, and a few of the customers joined her.

  “The day’s getting ahead of us,” she said brightly. “We’d best hurry along if we want to see everything. And there’s so much to see.”

  “Planning on tiring me out?” he teased.

  She pushed out another laugh. “It’s very different from London. Early rising and early to bed.”

  When he lifted a brow at the word bed, a carnal pink tinged her cheeks.

  He fought a growl, wanting to see that pinkness all over her body.

  She interrupted his erotic thoughts as she announced, “Time to move on.” She headed to the door and hurried outside as if sharks were intent on making her their supper.

  “It was my pleasure to meet everyone.” Kit bowed before he also took his exit.

  “Small villages can be so guarded toward newcomers,” Tamsyn said when he joined her in the lane. “I hope you won’t judge them too harshly.”

  “They think highly of you.” He stepped closer and smiled down at her. “For that, they cannot earn my enmity.” Much as he wanted to kiss her, they were far from alone. He glanced at the all things shop window. Faces pressed against the glass disappeared.

  As she led him toward the water, Kit sent one last look over his shoul
der. The streets were suddenly deserted, and no faces appeared in the windows. He wanted to love the village because Tamsyn loved it. Yet coldness crept up his neck—as it often had in the moments before an ambush.

  “This view from the harbor is the very definition of the word charming,” Kit remarked as he and Tamsyn walked on the pier. Water lapped at the pilings, and the smartly kept boats rose and fell on the waves as though they breathed.

  Fishermen mending their nets and tending to their vessels called out greetings to Tamsyn as she strolled on Kit’s arm. Their gruff smiles faded as they greeted Kit with a wary, “Morning, my lord.” He nodded in response, while all the muscles of his back tensed with the knowledge that he was being carefully watched.

  Despite the cool reception from the locals, he’d spoken truly that Newcombe had a lovely harbor, especially when the sun broke through the morning haze and shone upon the water.

  “I’ve always loved coming here,” Tamsyn said as they stood at the end of the pier.

  “Understandable,” he answered. He glanced back at the fishermen, who made a pretense of working while covertly watching him. “It gives one a sense of possibility.”

  “And permanence,” she added. “The village has existed for hundreds of years, maybe more. There have always been men here going out onto the water to get their sustenance from the sea, and their families have always waited on the shore for their return.” She spoke with fondness, but also pain.

  “It seems a precarious existence,” he said softly, watching the way the breeze caught in her hair. At the water’s edge, he could well imagine her the offspring of a handsome ginger fisherman and a seductive mermaid. Tamsyn was elemental, alluring—and elusive.

  She caught him openly staring at her, but she didn’t blush or look away. Instead, she held his gaze, her hazel eyes richly captivating. “All good things come at a cost.”

  “Sometimes the price is worth it,” he murmured. Only through sheer force of will did he keep from skimming his fingertips down her cheek and lower, along her neck where her pulse gently throbbed.

  She drew in a deep breath, turning her eyes toward the water. “This is my favorite scent—the wind carrying the smell of brine. If someone could distill and bottle it, I’d wear it like perfume.”

  “I can feel it chasing away any vestiges of London smoke lingering in my lungs,” he noted. “Just the same, I like the way you smell now. Like flowers and salt.” He enjoyed how she lowered her lids. “Mind, it’s only the fact that we have an audience that’s keeping me from rubbing myself all over you.”

  A tiny, sensuous smile curved her lips. Heat washed through him. He hadn’t forgotten her taste, her feel. If anything, the time away from her had sharpened his need until it became a knife’s edge, carving him from the inside out.

  Damn her home’s lack of a wide-enough bed. Beds weren’t a precondition for lovemaking, but they surely were accommodating.

  Seeking to shift the tide of his thoughts, he continued, “I can see why you were homesick in London. I’d miss a sight like this one, too.”

  “But you’re a sophisticated city gentleman,” she protested.

  “Doesn’t mean I cannot appreciate a lovely view. Why, I’d wager fifty pounds that if Londoners knew about this place, they’d flood Newcombe for a bit of scenic, restorative beauty.”

  She looked dubious. “There’s no pavilion like at Brighton.”

  “Once I wagered with abandon,” he said with a wry smile. “Now that I must be more chary of my betting, I reserve it only for certainties. And without doubt, I’d stake money that this village would draw urban visitors by the hundreds.”

  “A lovely dream, but a dream nonetheless.” She sighed and turned away from the view. “We’ll just have to go on existing as we always have, balancing precariously at the water’s edge.”

  Together, they strolled back down the pier. She guided him off to the left, toward a stretch of beach past a boardwalk, but asked, “Do you mind getting sand on your boots?”

  He glanced down. He hadn’t had room to pack an additional pair of boots, and the ones he wore were dusty from his journey to Cornwall. “These are already in a sad state. I may have to comfort my valet when it comes time to polish them.” He didn’t mention the time after Waterloo when he’d picked some dried mud off his boot, only to discover that his fingertips had come away red. The dirt had been saturated with blood. “What about your shoes? They look a trifle delicate for a trek across a beach.”

  “That’s easily remedied.” She bent down and quickly undid the ribbons of her shoes before stepping out of them. She wasn’t wearing stockings. “Been doing this all my life.”

  The sight of her bare feet shot pure lust through Kit. He drew in a long breath, wrestling for calm. It might be considered a breach of decorum to make love with her on the pier, in full view of people who had known her since her birth.

  Holding her shoes, she stepped from the boardwalk onto the beach, then grinned as she wriggled her toes in the sand. His breath caught at the sight of her unabashed joy.

  “There’s a series of coves we can walk to from here,” she said.

  He waved them forward. “Guide us there, intrepid leader.”

  They walked along the sand, from inlet to inlet, sheltered by the cliffs. The pale stone rose high, with the barest fringe of green grass peeking over the top, as if afraid to look down and see the vertiginous height.

  For all the landscape’s beauty, he was more transfixed by watching Tamsyn flirt with the water from the crashing waves. She held her skirts up, revealing her ankles. Like a sandpiper, she followed the line of sea foam as it reached up the damp beach and retreated again. At times, she would stay in place, allowing the water to cover her feet and soak into the hem of her dress.

  He bent and tested the temperature of the water, expecting it to be warm. It wasn’t.

  “I’ve been thinking of you as part mermaid,” he noted. “Now I know it must be true. How else to explain your ability to tolerate the icy water?”

  “This is positively balmy from how cold it gets in the winter.” She picked up a shell and handed it to him. “But from May to August, it’s perfectly lovely for a brisk swim.”

  He turned the shell over in his hand. Such a fragile thing, so easily broken. But it weathered the sea and stood against storms.

  Kit slipped it into his pocket, running his thumb over the grooves in the shell. He pictured the place on his mantel where he’d put it—no, better yet, he’d keep it in the table beside his bed, to take out and admire just before falling asleep.

  “Who taught you to swim?” he asked.

  She stopped walking and frowned. “I can’t remember. It seems like I always knew.”

  That made him smile—thinking of her playing in the waves, the sun making new freckles on her skin, her hair damp and full of salt, like a creature of nature.

  “Like I said, a born siren.” He glanced up toward the bluffs. “We’re not far from your home,” Kit noted. “If we kept heading north, we’d encounter the beach that’s just at the foot of the cliff by the house. Is it part of the property?”

  “It is,” she said, and added quickly, “but no one goes there.”

  “Haunted?”

  “Full of rocks. It doesn’t make for a good walk. In fact,” she went on, “we ought to turn back and go to the village to pick up our luncheon.”

  Kit remembered glancing down at the cove on her family property yesterday. From the bluffs, it hadn’t looked rock strewn at all, only covered with more sand. There had been a rocky outcropping at the far end of the inlet—he wondered if that was what she meant.

  The instinct that had kept him alive for years while fighting flared into alertness again. That sense of alert dimmed when he was with her, yet something in this place continued to needle him. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore it or quiet the voices of doubt that whispered to him, telling him something wasn’t right.

  But he followed Tamsyn back down th
e beach, hoping against hope that for once, his instincts were false.

  Chapter 25

  Tamsyn was in one of her favorite places, yet unease kept its needles in her—poking into her neck and along her arms, keeping her in a constant state of apprehension.

  Carrying their basket of food, she led Kit from where they had tethered their horses, down into the ancient forest’s dell. Huge mature oaks shaded grassy banks sloping toward a creek, and the sunlight filtered through their leaves, turning everything cool and green. She tried to take comfort from the permanency of the place. No matter what happened in her life, the old trees would go on as they always had, the creek would continue to run, and all the living things that made this wood their home would persevere regardless of her tempestuous existence.

  She cast a look over her shoulder to watch Kit as he ambled after her, a woolen blanket in his arms. His attention was fixed on the shadows between the trees, as though searching out hidden enemies. Yet he seemed to find the environment safe enough to glance upward at the leafy canopy and smile.

  “This part of the world has more than its share of enchanted sites,” he said, picking his way around a stand of ferns. “Hardly seems fair to the rest of the country.”

  “We take our enchantment seriously,” she answered with a solemn nod. “Woods like this are called koswigow. They’re full of old magic.” She stopped at a place where the ground was relatively level. “This will be a good spot.”

  “Are you certain?” He peered into the shadowy places beneath the ferns. “We might be trampling over the fairy folk’s palace. I’ll wind up with donkey ears or speaking only in gibberish.”

  “No need to worry,” she assured him. “We’re old friends, the spyrysyon and me. And you’d look charming with donkey ears.” She pointed to the ground by her feet. “Let’s put the blanket down here.”

  He did as she asked, laying down the coarse covering. “You haunt this spot as much as the fairies?”

  “Nearly.” She sank down onto the blanket, removed her bonnet, and began unpacking the basket. It would be a simple luncheon of pasties, ale, and strawberries—a meal she always enjoyed. “Some of the girls in the village were frightened of it here. Like you, they feared retribution from the spyrysyon for trespassing.”