“I fear they may be Radicals.”
“Oh dear, that kind of correspondence society…your father would certainly not approve. Do you have any proof they’re not just do-gooders?”
Harold shook his head.
“I was invited to one of their meetings by someone who called himself Wilkinson. He gave me a card.”
“Did you go?” Adam asked.
“No. They’ve not had the meeting yet. It’s this Wednesday evening in Falmouth.”
Adam huffed a long, drawn out sigh. It was one thing to be asked to spy – another thing to involve a friend. And if this group was as he thought, then Harold could find himself tangled up in something he hadn’t bargained on. Something ruinous. Something deadly.
“I didn’t want to say anything,” Adam said, at length, “but I’ve been approached by them, too.”
In the growing darkness, he heard, rather than saw, Harold’s surprise in the form of a slight intake of breath. “The same man by the sounds of it.”
“I suppose we did make a bit of a fuss at the Admiralty.”
Adam began to retrace their way back to the inn.
Harold fell into step. “Are you going to go?”
“I wasn’t, but now I suppose I’ll have to, if for nothing else than to keep you out of trouble. You’ve got your family’s reputation to think about. I have nothing to lose.”
Harold sighed. “Thanks, mate,” he said.
They walked on a few yards before Harold laughed. “Well, now that I’ve unburdened my soul, you can answer another question for me.”
Adam didn’t answer. It was invitation enough.
“Tell me how you met that lovely Miss Collins creature. She’s not a local girl.”
“She’s been in the area ten years. She was governess to Squire Denton’s daughter.”
“Not the same squire who got you impressed?”
“The very same squire, but different wife and different daughter by the time Olivia came along. In any event, the whole family is gone. The old man’s dead and the widow and daughter have left for London. Olivia tells me the house is going to be sold.”
He waited to see if Harold challenged him on the use of the governess’ first name. He did not, apparently distracted by the thought of Kenstec being for sale.
“Is it now? Perhaps we should take a look.”
Adam burst out laughing. “I don’t know what they’re paying Navy lieutenants these days, but I can tell you it’ll cost way above what you could afford.”
Harold was unperturbed. “You forget, I have a legacy from my grandmother and will be coming into a portion from both my mother and father. And I dare say you have a tidy sum from the Navy – we could form a corporation and buy it together.”
Adam snorted.
“No, don’t laugh! It’s been done before – and just think on it, when was the last time you ever did anything just for the hell of it?”
The light from the inn ahead beckoned, welcoming them.
“And besides, it would be a fine opportunity to spend some time in the company of the lovely Olivia…”
Adam wrinkled his nose. The familiarity had not gone unnoticed after all, but he would not give Harold the satisfaction of thinking there was more to the relationship with Olivia than just friendship.
Memories of their kiss still lingered. He tamped down the thought, grateful his face could not be seen in the dark.
*
Surely it was more than just sheer stubbornness that caused Olivia to refuse Jory and Polly’s suggestion to stay the night at inn. Not that she wasn’t grateful for the couple’s concern for her, but the more she pondered her circumstances, Olivia decided that a penny saved was a penny earned.
She’d been profligate with her book purchases today, although she couldn’t regret the acquisition. With her extra duty to the Dentons discharged, and no prospect yet for work, she would be better saving any penny from this point on. And it would not be fair to impose herself upon Jory and Polly, even at their insistence, if it prevented them letting a room for a fee they had given to her at no charge.
Besides, Olivia decided, she wanted to sleep in her own bed – well, the bed that had been hers for ten years.
And now here was Adam Hardacre insisting on walking her home. Even if she did have a mind to refuse him, she had a feeling he would pig-headedly ignore her wishes and do it anyway.
It was easier to give in.
As they paced through the dark, a breeze had sprung up and on it she smelled the rich damp smell from the estuary. Clouds, thick and full, were outlined in gold, backlit by the moon as they scudded across the night sky. She and Adam climbed the hill on which Kenstec House was set.
With him at her side, Olivia paused as they reached the top of the rise. She looked back toward Ponsnowyth.
“I love the view at this point,” she said. “You can always see down to the sea and, on a clear day, you can even see Falmouth. It had never occurred to me to look back at night ‘til now. I shall miss it when I leave.”
Out to sea, the clouds were even larger and fuller, and one glowed for a brief moment, illuminated by lightning. There was an electrical storm out to sea. It explained the odd, damp earth smell from the estuary that always presaged a cloudburst. In her mind, she said a quick prayer for those out there. A quickening breeze also told her it would be upon them before too long.
“What would you do if you didn’t have to leave?”
Adam’s question surprised her. For one small moment, she had forgotten he was there, distracted by the growing tempest out on the black horizon.
“I daren’t let myself even think it,” she whispered. “You know better than most about the importance of earning a living.”
Fleetingly, she thought of Peter Fitzgerald’s offer of marriage. What a dry and passionless proposal it had been. But did she want any different? An ardent avowal of passion and adoration would have been equally unwelcome. At least the suggestion was pragmatic, even businesslike.
Amiable companions.
Call her a romantic, but the wedding vows did say “love, honor and obey.” Could she consider entering a lifelong union without being in love first? If she accepted, would she grow to love Peter Fitzgerald?
She didn’t think so.
She turned and walked on, and Adam fell easily into step with her. She and her silent companion continued another four hundred yards until she spotted the stone entrance pillars that marked the drive to Kenstec House like sentinels.
Lightning flashed closer overhead and, after five paces, thunder rolled. She increased her pace, familiar with the fast moving storms that battered the Cornish coast.
Kenstec House loomed out of the landscape and the moon emerged briefly from behind the clouds to shine on the small tower turret that extended above the southwest corner of the original roofline.
It was an unusual addition to the roofline of what was a typical old English manor house. Below stairs, gossip had it that Squire Denton and his second bride had seen ones similar on their honeymoon in Italy and, in a fit of ardor for his new wife, vowed to build one for their home. Construction had only gotten as far as completing the walls and access to the roof. Plans for a cupola ended as their arguments began and the love between them ended.
To the best of Olivia’s knowledge, no one had ever stood on the top of the tower and looked out to sea. On a night like this, it would be a spectacle to behold.
Soon, she and Adam were at the kitchen door. Olivia pulled out the large iron key from her leather bag. Adam took it from her hand, unlocked the door and stepped in ahead of her.
“We’ll have to light the fire, I’m afraid,” she said, following him into the almost black room illuminated sporadically by flashes of lightning. “There’s a tinderbox and fire steel on the mantelpiece.”
Adam set quickly and efficiently to work setting and lighting a fire in the stove. Once the tinder had brought flame to a few small pieces of wood, he used a spill to light the lamp
Olivia held out to him. In a few moments, the kitchen was bathed in the lamp’s warm yellow glow. The fire grew in the grate.
“Thank you for the escort home,” Olivia said. “May I offer you tea? I’m afraid I have nothing stronger.”
She lit a couple more lamps and the kitchen seemed more welcoming than it had been before. With another soul in the house, Kenstec’s ghosts receded into the shadows.
Then a thought occurred to her. Adam must feel some of the ghosts here as well.
“Has much changed?” she asked, lifting the kettle and swirling it about to gauge the amount of water she had filled it with before leaving the house that morning.
Adam looked about and shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. I was never in this room. I only came to the house a few times. Mistress Denton – the first mistress – would hold a Christmas party for the village children but we saw no more than the entrance hall. Perhaps you’d like to give us a tour.”
“Us?”
“I mentioned to Lieutenant Bickmore that the manor was for sale. He is entertaining a fantasy of purchasing it. Would you mind indulging him?”
Olivia pulled two battered tin mugs from a shelf along with a small tea chest and set them on the kitchen table. She reached for the teapot. It was an old brown salt glazed earthenware pot relegated for the servants’ use. It was chipped in places so the clay showed through.
“I’m sure that will be all right. But prepare to be disappointed. Much of the furniture is either in London, or in storage to be sold at Criddle and Sons.”
She excused herself to take a lamp up to her room where she left it with the wick turned low. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the wind had picked up some more. A flash of lightning filled the windows. A moment later, thunder rumbled overhead.
The wind blowing through gaps in old stone and ill-fitting windows moaned and echoed through the house.
Adam cast his eyes to the ceiling suspiciously.
“Looking for ghosts? I’d always heard sailors were superstitious folk,” she teased.
“Spend enough time at sea and you’ll have cause to be,” he said. Then he added with an exaggerated sigh, “You would have been wiser to take up Polly’s offer to stay at the Arms. No, it’s not spooks and specters that concern me. It’s real two legged intruders I suggest you be worried about.”
Steam billowed from the kettle. Olivia took a tea cloth from a drawer. She lifted the kettle from the stove, crossed to the table, and filled the teapot. Black pekoe aromatics filled the room.
“What is there to steal? Everything of value has gone with Mistress Caroline and Miss Lydia. Besides, I refuse to live in fear. Life is too short to think about what might be. I’ll only be in the house for another few weeks at most. I’ve already written to several agencies about a new position, so you needn’t worry about me.”
“What if I choose to worry about you?”
“Then I thank you for your consideration. Sugar?”
As she prepared to pour the tea, the sound of the approaching rain rose like the trampling hooves of galloping horses, growing louder with each second until it was beating down right overhead. Olivia felt Adam’s presence behind her. He stood close enough that she could feel his breath on her neck.
Would he kiss her again? She decided if he did, she would not stop him.
Her heart started beating double time and her body reacted with an awareness of his warmth and scent of pine and a faint odor of rum. She remembered the passionate kisses in the woods, and wet her lips in memory of it.
She shivered and turned around.
Adam’s hazel eyes searched hers.
He raised his hand to her cheek and stroked it. He did nothing more than that. But it seemed to touch a nerve that went all the way through her chest through her stomach and settle lower.
“I want to know that it is you I will kiss, Olivia. Not a ghost.”
Her lips parted of their own accord. Then she tasted his on hers.
She shifted on her feet and he took her into a full embrace, his lips not once leaving hers. She reveled in each new sensation his lips and tongue taught her. Then his mouth fell to the side of her neck. How could one pressing of his lips there cause gooseflesh to run all through her body and leave tingling in her toes?
His hands on her back were spread wide, crushing her to him; her breasts pressed against the hard planes of his chest. Words from Constance’s diary recalled themselves to her as she described her own body’s reaction to Adam’s lovemaking.
But he had been but a boy then, as inexperienced as Constance had been. The Adam who held her now was a man who seemed to know every point to touch that would break down her reserve and send desire like quicksilver along every nerve. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him as ardently as he did her.
He gave open-mouthed kisses across her face, down her neck. His fingers ran through her hair, held her to him firmly.
“You’re wrong, Olivia,” he whispered in her ear, the eddies of his breath breathing desire into every part of her body. “There’s plenty here to steal…” – his lips touched the lobe of her ear – “…to plunder.”
She closed her eyes and gave in to the pleasure. When would she ever feel its like again? After years of putting herself second to the needs and wishes of her charge, to her employer, to her station, why should she not have passion, to give herself fully to the needs of her body? She was not a girl, no ingénue – Olivia Collins was a woman full grown. She knew what she wanted, but not how to ask for it.
And yet there was a ghost. Constance stood at the edge of Olivia’s consciousness and urged her on to reckless abandon.
Olivia did not seek permission. She touched Adam however and wherever she desired – the broad expanse of his back over the soft linen of his shirt warmed by his body, his neck, and his thick sandy-blond hair.
Then Adam’s hands quested lower as did his lips, branding her collarbone, before she was lifted into his arms. The rain pounded outside.
She gasped.
“Where is your room? Upstairs?”
She nodded, afraid to speak.
He carried her through the servants’ entrance, up two flights of stairs through a house now lit almost constantly by flashes of lightning. Although he’d not asked for directions, he came unerringly, as if by instinct, to her bedroom door. He lowered her gently to her feet. She stepped through the threshold into the subdued light of the room.
She waited to see what he would do next.
He took two steps in, swung the door closed behind him, and pulled out the key from the lock inside the door. She stood immobile. Adam Hardacre advanced, looking like a cat stalking its prey, his light-colored eyes mesmerizing her. The sensible part of her screamed to move, to tell him to go and to abandon this foolhardy venture; but she did not, could not.
He now stood within a hand-span of her. She trembled. He leaned in to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek.
“Stopping now is a cost to us both,” he said, voice low, only just audible above the rain. “Not stopping would be a price greater still.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dear God, was he going to make the same mistake again?
No.
At the thought, the urgent rush of blood in his groin eased a bit, and the clamoring of the cautious part of his brain ceased.
How could he do to Olivia what he had unwittingly done to Constance a lifetime ago?
He risked another kiss. This time on the lips. It was returned in equal measure. He’d seen men who had been thrall to the opiates used to dull the pain of their battle injuries. Long after the wounds had healed, they had to be weaned off the stuff.
Lust, passion, desire – call it what you like – was just as potent.
He placed the key in her shaking hand, closing her fingers around it, stroking their smooth skin.
“Lock yourself in here, Olivia. Lock yourself away from me tonight.”
He backed up a half-step.
“You
can’t go,” she said. “The storm…”
Adam groaned and bowed his head. The low lamplight illuminated the tattoo on his hand, reminding him of who he was. “I may not be considered much of a gentleman by some, so trust me when I say it is taking almost all the chivalry I possess to leave you here.”
“But–”
He put a finger to her lips. She would overcome his resolve with a single word – her eyes already articulated it, and his body wanted that promise fulfilled.
He backed toward the door. Olivia followed in silence.
“Is the study still furnished?”
She nodded.
“With a couch?”
Another nod.
“Then that will do me for tonight or until the storm passes.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears. Regret? Shame? Adam swallowed against a tightness in his throat. By God, what a cad he was. He would have made love to a woman who he knew was otherwise spoken for.
“Forgive me…” Her voice, husky and raw, was very nearly the undoing of him. He kissed her to silence, tasting the salt of her tears.
“There is nothing to beg pardon for – not from me. It’s just not our time, Olivia. Not yet.”
The furrow of her brow gladdened him in some perverse way. She cared to some degree. He took her hand with the key, their eyes meeting. Together, they felt for the lock. He left her hand there. Now he found himself in the hall.
“Sweet dreams, darling.”
He closed the door and waited. A moment later, he heard the sound of the key and then the bolt sliding home above the torrential rain and the howling wind outside.
Adam descended the servant’s stairs into the kitchen once more. Perhaps he shouldn’t stay at all. Olivia Collins was a respectable woman with a reputation to uphold.
He opened the back door and was hit immediately by a gale force wind. He steadied his footing just as he had done a thousand times before on the rolling deck of a ship. The damp and chill cooled his blood. Enough for him to think.
Then he felt it; the hair at the back of his neck lifted. A jagged run of lighting struck beyond the hill, nearly blinding him with its intensity, followed by an intense cra-ack! and a clap of thunder so loud his ears rang with it.
Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two Page 78