Seacliff

by Andrews, Felicia

  A woman’s voice called his name petulantly.

  He glanced toward the rectory and away again. He wasn’t exactly ready for her again, not now, and he was beginning to doubt, too, the high value he’d placed on that bit of Flint’s largesse. The idea of taking in a young woman, unmarried and with a child, had increased his standing in the village, and his reputation as a true Christian. After all, the Reverend Lynne was known for his piety, sobriety, and chastity. What safer place for Morag Burton than in his keeping? He grinned, and quickly released a grateful prayer that the child had spared him the honor of having any of his features.

  Caitlin was aware of none of the faces looking on as she rode from the commons to the high road; she concentrated only on keeping her seat on the roan as it took the sharp turn into Radnor’s Lane, slid heart-stoppingly, and burst forward straight out again. She was sitting taller now, trying to spot movement around Falconrest as she approached it. But it had been so long since she’d been there that she’d forgotten what was normal, and she slowed when the towering trees about the wall blocked her view.

  The sun had dipped lower. Shadows crossed the lane to huddle at the wall’s base. A long chain hung from a hole in a wooden box near the gate, and without dismounting she grabbed and yanked it. In the distance she could hear the tolling of a deep bell. She pulled the chain again and maneuvered the roan so that she was framed in the gateway. A hand quickly combed through her hair and pulled the cloak more snugly across her chest.

  She waited.

  She wondered at the lack of fierce barking that should have accompanied her summons.

  The feeling that someone was watching her became overpowering, and she looked up and down the lane, half expecting to see Flint coming toward her, insolently, confidently, and at his own pace. But there was no one. The lane was deserted, and Falconrest looked on indifferently.

  She pulled the bell chain again, and the deep ringing had barely been caught by the breeze when she saw Jones striding across the grass from the side of the mansion. He was wearing a black frock coat, a puffed black ascot, black breeches, and stockings. Never a garrulous man, he seemed to intend by his dress and demeanor to cow people into leaving before he’d spoken a word. She saw him falter as soon as he recognized her, and she raised a hand to beckon him should he decide not to admit her.

  He came on, however, stopping only ten feet from the gates. “Richard,” she said anxiously, “I’ve just heard about Griffin. I must talk with him.”

  Jones, with lean face and sparse black hair seemingly set in plaster, blinked once.

  “Richard, for God’s sake, you know who I am!”

  “I do, m’lady,” he said, his voice matching his funereal appearance, somber and humorless. “Master Griffin is unavailable.”

  Her hand clenched in front of her tightly. “Dammit, Richard…” She put the fist to her lips and forced herself to think. “You are positive he will not receive me.”

  Jones nodded, without expression. “Will you give him a message?”

  The steward nodded again.

  “Tell him—” She knew what she was about to say was irrevocable, but if he was goaded to come to her so she could learn the truth, she was willing to take the chance. “Tell him I recall our conversation at the ringstones. He told me something then; you need not know what it was. Tell him he was right. Tell him I must talk with him before he does something stu—before he acts on the ridiculous accusation made by his enemies. Do you have that, Richard?”

  Jones nodded a third time and, neither bowing nor a waving, he turned and began walking away.

  “Richard!” she called after him frantically. “I will wait at Seacliff for his answer.”

  The bay had turned a deep gray-green, and the swells heaved laboriously as the tide moved into shore. Gulls and terns skimmed low over the water, heading for the coves south of the valley where the wharves were receiving the fish-laden trawlers. The horizon was blurred with a faint gray mist, and through it the cyclopean red glare of the sun spread sullen fire over the surface.

  Caitlin retreated from the balcony reluctantly, closing the door softly behind her and leaning back against it with a sigh. Her cloak was draped over the back of Oliver’s chair; her blouse was unlaced to expose a fair portion of her breasts. Her hand toyed idly with the tip of one lace, the other hand slapped impatiently at the side of her skirt. Against her back the panes felt cold, but she only straightened her shoulders; she did not move away.

  He hadn’t come.

  Somehow, during the long ride back, during the interminable dinner, she’d thought Griffin would be right behind her, pounding on the doors before she’d done with her fruit. But everything had remained quiet. Not even Flint had left his apartments to distract her with his acerbic commentary.

  And Gwen… Despite Caitlin’s instructions she was not in the house, and no one seemed to know where she had gone.

  With a shudder, then, she pushed away from the French doors and took a lighted taper from its sconce over the mantel. Cupping the fragile flame with the palm of her hand she knelt to light the kindling, and with a series of gentle puffs she set the logs to blazing. She blew out the taper and set it down beside her, held her hands to the dancing fire and felt the warmth flow comfortably up her arms.

  The sunset’s red glow shifted to black night.

  The heat of the fire brought a flush to her cheeks and forehead, made her open her blouse even farther. A vagrant thought told her to move back, but she remained seated in place; a cramp in her calves made her grimace, but she remained; and when the silence of the great house grew too heavy for her, she finally pushed herself to her feet and turned to make her way downstairs.

  But Griffin was standing in the doorway. “You asked for me,” he said.

  Not all the candles had been lighted, but the flames behind her bronzed his face and flicked shadows across his chest. He was cloaked and booted, and from one hand dangled a bulging canvas rucksack.

  Recovering swiftly from the shock of seeing him, she lifted a hand to cover her exposed breasts. “I wanted to know,” she said softly, her throat dry, her tongue moistening her lips. “I was told—”

  He dropped the rucksack and with an arched brow crossed to stand before her. “You were told I’ve been branded an outlaw. Perhaps you were told I was granted this honor because I killed a man.”

  She nodded once, quickly, aware of his penetrating gaze and the tiny reflection of flame in his dark eyes.

  His smile was sour as he stood beside her to watch the fire. “Do you believe this of me, too?”

  She would not turn away; she faced him squarely. “You would never murder, Griffin Radnor. I don’t care what anyone says, you would never murder a man.”

  His voice was soft, almost tender. “Thank you, Cat. But a man died last night.”

  She closed her eyes, drew her lips between her teeth and bit down.

  “I knew you were well,” he continued quietly, head down, one hand massaging the back of his neck. “Lovely Gwen could have been lashed like Davy, but she let me know how you were in spite of the danger. I sent messages, but you were too ill to receive them. I did send messages—just as I sent you letters in Eton.”

  I never heard them, or read them, she thought in dismay; I never received any of them at all. But she kept her silence.

  “And one time… well, one time I even tried to come to you for a moment, but I was… detained, as it were.” He grunted at the memory. “They should have killed me, but they didn’t. I don’t know why.”

  “Flint.”

  “Yes, and your husband.”

  She turned to him, startled, then laid a hand to his arm. “Oliver? But why? Why you? I knew, I suspected he wanted Falconrest, but to go to such lengths!” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “There’s more, Cat, much more.” His hand stole to hers and pressed it to his arm. “Shortly afterward, I went to London. Oliver is not the only one who knows men not exactly eager to meet the king. I
made some inquiries, heard some talk and—” His move was swift. Before she knew what had happened he was holding her shoulders, peering at her intently as if searching for a lie, hoping for a truth. “Surely you must know.”

  “I know nothing, Griffin,” she said. “It is hard enough to imagine that Oliver brought me down himself, with some sort of potion, and in that time…” Her face twisted, and her lips quivered. “While I was ill, Seacliff was taken from me. Oh, it was my fault, too. I was more than ready to let him take over the responsibilities, much as he did when Father died. I wanted all the fun, Griffin, the way it used to be. But by the time I realized that most of the fun came from Father’s hard work, it was too late.”

  He nodded. “There aren’t many who would believe that, you know, but I do. Most of them in their little huts would rather continue in their belief that you’ve gone English. And I feared so, too,” he admitted in shame. “Then you were ill, and I was attacked, and in London and elsewhere I learned about some of Morgan’s underhanded dealings.”

  “What?” she demanded. “What more can there be?”

  “An army,” he said. “A troop, actually. A hundred men or so.”

  “Well, I already know about that,” she told him. “He’s been summoned to London to raise an army for the fighting.” Griffin laughed shortly and shook his head as he would to a child who insisted on believing a fancy. “Cat, you will never learn, will you? It’s all there before you, and you’ll never learn at all.”

  “Learn what, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Sir Oliver went to London, yes. But not to raise an army. He means to bring together those men himself… and to bring them back here.”

  “I don’t… that’s impossible! It’s not sensible.”

  “Sensible, sane, I don’t care what you say it isn’t, but it’s true. Why he’s doing it, I don’t know yet. I was hoping to find out more last night. I was at the Stag’s Head, hoping to buy a few gins for a man of Flint’s and let him babble. But I was a fool to think it would be so easy. He led me outside for a wee talk, and I was done at again: This time a man died, and Flint’s men were witnesses against me.”

  She saw then the ugly bruises at his temple, and the deep scratches that ran like claw marks along his neck. She touched them with a finger, and he covered her hand tightly.

  “I didn’t kill him, Cat. I never touched him. There was a man, a great skeleton of a man—”

  “With a white patch,” she whispered, and told him quickly where she’d seen him first, then listened as he explained how the others had pinned him down while they claimed he’d been the one to murder the man. A lucky lunge, however, freed him, and he returned to Falconrest.

  “And I must leave that, too,” he said, his regret couched in anger. “The king’s men will be here within a few days, and since Flint’s the steward here and no villager’s willing to speak up for fear of his life..

  “I must leave. For a while I must leave.”

  She tossed doubt and caution aside. Fear and loneliness overcame her as she cried out and flung her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. He could not leave her, not now when she needed him most. With Griff gone, who would fight for Seacliff with her? What powers of her own could she bring forward against a man who thought her nothing more than a dead flower to be uprooted and cast aside?

  She wept while he stroked her back and glared at the fire; she sobbed as his hands slipped into the nest of her hair and warmed themselves there; she lapsed into a mournful silence while she felt his lips press against her forehead.

  “Where… where will you go?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  His voice carried a brave attempt at a smile: “Where do all good Welsh outlaws go, Cat?”

  The mountains. So often a precious setting for her dreams, now grown forbidding as they beckoned Griff Radnor. He would not return. She knew he wouldn’t. The men who fled there were condemned to fighting for survival, every so often creeping down to a village for foodstuffs or news, then fleeing again into the mountains, as sentries of the king’s army made their haphazard way through the land. And the danger was doubled by those who, for a few silver coins, betrayed the outlaws’ presence to a steward or a nobleman anxious to keep on the good side of his sovereign.

  No, he was as good as dead. At this very moment she was embracing a dead man.

  He softly touched her chin, lifting it and locking gazes with her while he traced the lines of her face, the fullness of her lips, the velvet course of her throat with his finger.

  “Griff,” she said huskily as he bent down to kiss her, “take me with you.”

  “Yes,” said James Flint from the doorway. “Why don’t you do that, Mr. Radnor? Why don’t you do that, and add kidnapping to the charges.”

  Caitlin spun out of Griffin’s embrace before she knew what she was doing, marched up to Flint, and faced him with her fists at her hips. She paid no heed to the two men who flanked the steward; she saw only the spark in Flint’s eyes, and she wanted to snuff it out.

  “Get out,” she hissed. “Get out of my quarters.”

  “You presume too much, my lady,” he answered, his gaze shifting to Griffin. “You are harboring a criminal here, and it’s my duty—”

  “Your duty be damned!” she cried, and slapped him as hard as she could. When he recovered after a few startled seconds, he attempted to snare her hand, but Caitlin ducked agilely under his arm and butted her head into his stomach. Taken unawares, Flint was driven back into his men. He lost his balance and toppled to the floor. Caitlin threw herself on top of him, forming her hands into talons that raked his face while her feet kicked blindly at his shins and calves. He bellowed, while the others were too astounded to do anything but gawk. And their hesitation was their undoing. As soon as Caitlin had slapped Flint, Griffin exploded into a dead run that had him leaping over the sprawled bodies into the outer rooms, slamming doors behind him as he headed for the ground floor and a safe exit.

  Before long, Flint grabbed her wrists and pulled her away, then lumbered awkwardly to his feet while shouting orders for the pair of guards to begin the chase without him.

  When they were alone, disheveled and panting, he flung her hands away as if they were contaminated.

  “You will not get away with this, my lady,” he vowed. “I have,” she told him with more courage than she felt.

  “No,” he said. “You may think so now, but I can tell you it’s not true.” He brushed at his jacket, at his shirt, then straightened his hair. Releasing a sniff, he began walking away. But as if having second thoughts, he reached the corridor doorway and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Look outside, my lady, look outside. It’s coming winter, in case you hadn’t noticed. And once I am done with you, you’ll be wishing I would be as merciful to you as I was to your father. He died swiftly. You shall not be so lucky.”

  And as he closed the door softly behind him, he was smiling.

  PART THREE

  Captive

  Seacliff, Wales, 1775-1776

  21

  Like the almighty fists of an enraged God rising out of the netherworld, storm clouds appeared over the horizon. They came as black, gray, vivid streaks of white, dull flashes of blue-white that struck like swords in manic fury, titanic monsters crying for prey. Soaring over the water that churned below, they dragged dark veils of rain beneath them, gusting wind that tore at the treetops, turned piles of dead leaves and fallen twigs into maelstroms of ghostlike creatures. The flocks headed instantly for their pens; the herds lumbered toward their barns. Horses reared in their stalls, pawing at the air, their eyes widened in fear; birds huddled in their nests, chickens and hogs scrambled for their shelters; and hearths throughout the valley steadily moaned as the wind took grip of even the chimney-tops.

  Martin Randall reached through his casement windows and drew the heavy shutters closed. Locking them, he lowered the windows to cut off the drafts that stabbed ice at his bare arms. He was stripped to the wai
st in spite of the deadly cold, the fires of his forges giving him heat enough to withstand almost any freezing weather. His back muscles rippled as he bent over to lift an iron-banded chest from the floor, and as he turned to carry its dead weight into the back room, the firelight caught the shadow of a mark. It reached up over his waistband at his spine—a wing, an iridescent wing that his forges had scorched dark over the years since he’d had the figure tattooed in southern Spain. None in the village had ever heard of such bodily defilement before, and after his return he’d been castigated and made fun of until his great strength in wrestling had subdued most of his detractors.

  The women, on the other hand, found the design intriguing, and more than once he’d been able to lure them into his bed on the promise that they’d see the image in all its wickedness. He grinned mirthlessly as he thought of the way Quinn Broary had traced its outline with her hands, then grinned more widely as he kicked open the door and saw her start from his pallet. He nodded toward the back, and holding a sheet to her naked figure she unlatched the door. Wind immediately invaded the cottage, but Randall ignored it. He had no idea if his contribution, and that of a few others, would be picked up on such a night; on the other hand, it was on just such nights that they came down from the mountains to replenish themselves. He knew it was a risk. Only last week a farmer who worked land at Falconrest had been flogged to death for spreading rumors that Griff Radnor had bested Flint in a fight somewhere in Seacliff.

  No one cared if it was true or not; just the thought of Radnor strolling into the lion’s den, den of English thieves, was sufficient to bring a secret smile to most men’s lips.

  Randall lugged the heavy chest to a copse at the rear of the house, shoved it far out of sight and dusted his hands on his thighs. His skin prickled at the rapidly approaching storm, and he tasted snow in the air. And finally he felt the cold. The image of Quinn’s arms, then, her red hair and round, ruddy face sent him hurrying back inside. When she embraced him, he was shivering, and she knew without asking that it was not just the cold.