“Is that him?” An older woman with a gold-headed cane hobbled toward him. She squinted up at him. “I say, he is a handsome one, ain’t he?”
“Are you the new lodger?” A man in an old-fashioned powdered wig addressed Adam. “You don’t look sickly to me.”
“Battle fatigue.” Sir Henry raised his tea cup. “Saw many a fine man succumb after Valley Forge.”
“Come now, young man, don’t you know your manners?” An old woman in a much beribboned cap joined the first woman in staring up at him. “Introduce yourself.”
Suppressing a smile, Adam bowed. “Adam Kendrick, at your service, madam.’
The first woman nodded approvingly. “He has a nice way of speaking, don’t he?” she said. “And a fine seat. Is he married?”
“I don’t know.” The capped woman turned to squint at Adam once more. “Are you married?”
“No, madam, I am not.”
“Are you a gambler?” the first woman asked.
“Or a drinker?” the capped woman added. “It don’t do for a man to drink too much.”
Adam wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to answer their questions. Perhaps it was the absurdity of the situation, or the patent harmlessness of his inquisitors. “I have little use for gambling,” he said. “And seldom drink overmuch.”
“Well, that’s nice then.” Both women beamed at him.
“D’you think Lady Delaware would like him?” the man in the wig asked.
“Oh, I think he’d suit her very well,” the woman in the cap answered.
“I said as much myself this morning,” Sir Henry proclaimed.
Adam stared at them. Was Lady Delaware running some sort of genteel Bedlam for senile nobility? And what was all this nonsense about him and Clarissa Delaware?
“Hop down from there and join us.” Sire Henry brandished his tea cup again. “We’re having spotted dick for nuncheon.”
Adam might have pointed out that they had only recently eaten breakfast, but saw no point. “I beg pardon, but I must ride on,” he said. “Must exercise my horse, you understand.”
“Oh perfectly.” Sir Henry nodded knowingly. “I was quite the horseman myself, you know. Rode to hounds with Lord Albritton.”
Bowing once more for the ladies, Adam turned Peleus and guided him back through the gap in the hedge. He waited until he was some distance from the house before he burst out laughing. Of all the things he had expected to encounter at Waverley House, a group of aged lunatics was not one of them. Just what could he expect to discover next?
Clarissa did not often leave the house in the middle of the day, but this morning she craved both solitude and fresh air. She had spent a restless night, plagued by thoughts of Adam Kendrick. Whenever she closed her eyes, he was there, his gaze searching, his voice caressing.
I should never have agreed to let him stay, she thought as she hurried along the path leading to the sea. His presence was too disturbing. Where before she had managed to go days without thinking of Jared, now she found her thoughts constantly returning to her sham of a marriage, picking at that wound.
Was it because Mr. Kendrick was a handsome man who reminded her of what it meant to be a woman? She could not deny the physical attraction she felt for him, but nothing would ever come of it. She wasn’t free to be with anyone else, and she had no one to blame for that but herself.
She reached the shingle beach and paused to remove her shoes. She left them on a boulder and, holding up her skirts, picked her way across the rocks to the ocean. The cool water lapped at her ankles and her toes sank into the gravel. A salt breeze tugged at her bonnet, bringing with it the smell of fish and brine. She closed her eyes and smiled, luxuriating in the sensations. Here in this place, she could almost imagine herself a girl again, playing in the ocean, with no responsibilities and no cares to disturb her.
“What a fetching picture you make.”
She thought at first her dreams had returned to haunt her, but when she snapped open her eyes, she saw Adam Kendrick riding toward her. “What are you doing here?” she called.
“You said I might go riding. I saw the path and took it.” He swung off the horse and tied it to a weathered piling, then started walking toward her, waves lapping over the toes of his boots.
“You’ll ruin your boots,” she said.
He glanced down at his fine leather top boots. “This is an old pair. And I daresay they can be cleaned.”
She turned to walk down the beach, away from him, but he soon caught up and fell into step beside her. “Do ships ever come here, to this cove?” he asked.
“Sometimes. Not often. The water is not that deep here.”
He looked around them. “Still, it’s well sheltered and not too rocky. I would think it would be convenient to have goods shipped here for Waverley House.”
Was his interest merely that of a man whose own livelihood lay in shipping? Or was there some other reason for his questions? “My father would occasionally have goods shipped here, but we are not that large a household now. It’s just as easy to have goods brought in by wagon.”
They walked along in silence after that, though Clarissa remained too aware of him to relax. Though he said nothing, his very presence introduced new sounds: waves slapped against his boots, and the wind whipped back the shoulder capes of his coat.
“What brings you here in the middle of the morning?” he asked when they had reached the end of the spit of land and turned to walk back.
“I wanted to be alone.” It was rude to speak so bluntly, but she wanted him to go away.
“It’s a lonely place, isn’t it?”
She looked up and found him staring out to sea. His expression was one of great sadness. But why? What loss had brought him such sorrow? “Why are you really here, Mr. Kendrick?” she asked.
His gaze met hers, and she shrank from its intensity. “I was told you could help restore to me the peace I have lost,” he said.
She almost laughed at the absurdity of this statement. How could she restore peace when she knew none herself? She regarded the waves lapping at her ankles. “If I knew of a medicine that could give everyone the peace they desire, I would be a wealthy woman indeed.”
“Then is your seeming serenity a pretense?”
His words struck too close to the truth. She didn’t like to think a stranger could see so deeply into her soul. She tried to move away, but stumbled on the uneven shingle.
He was quick to catch her, one hand clasping her arm, the other on her shoulder, steadying her. As if drawn on the tide, she leaned toward him, sheltering in his arms. His hands were warm, his touch gentle. He had broad hands, with long fingers. Did those hands know how to pleasure a woman? Would they know how to pleasure her?
She pulled away from him, splashing water across his breeches in her haste to retreat. “I don’t know what you mean by such liberties, Mr. Kendrick, but I am not a woman who is vulnerable to your glib words and knowing looks.”
“Aren’t you?” His gaze locked to hers, naked desire sending a bolt of heat through her. Then he looked away, all propriety returned. “I beg your pardon. I’ll not intrude on you again.’
He strode back up the beach to his horse and mounted once more. Clarissa stared after him as he rode away without a backward glance. When he was out of sight, she felt bereft. What would have happened if she had moved into his arms, instead of away? Would she had known joy, or only another kind of sorrow?
A seabird wheeled and screamed overhead. The cry echoed in Adam’s mind as “Fool!” Was he some stripling, ruled by lust, so that the touch of a woman’s hand sent good sense flying out of his head? He had come here to question Clarissa Delaware, not to make love to her. Yet the moment he had clasped her arm, he had wanted her with a strength that shook him.
He had seen her take the path toward the sea and had followed, suspecting that she was going to rendezvous with her husband, or to send a signal to a ship waiting offshore. Instead, he had watching as she removed her
shoes and hiked her skirts to wade in the sea. Standing in the waves, the wind tugging her hair loose from its bindings, her wild beauty mesmerized him.
He abandoned his plan of spying on her and rode toward her. He told himself here was his chance to interrogate her, yet that was only pretense. Any excuse would have sufficed to be near her. To talk to her. To look into her eyes and hope for some silent communication to pass between them. When she had stumbled, he had put out his hand to her, but it was he who had been caught, snared by the softness of her skin and the tangle of her russet curls.
Then she had drawn away, and broke the spell. He saw her once more as a woman to be wary of. Why else would she have been at the beach in the middle of the morning except to bring a message to her husband? No matter her story that Lord Delaware had abandoned her; what man could have left a woman like this behind? They must meet still, in some secret place. Once he discovered that place, he would be on his way to rescuing Devon.
He guided Peleus up a rocky slope and stopped to look out at the sea. Instead of the empty expanse of gray waves, he saw Clarissa again, droplets of water sparkling on her bare ankles, her wind-whipped gown clinging to the soft curves of her body. She was a sea siren, waiting on the rocks to ensnare unwary sailors. If he did not guard his heart, he feared he might be the next to fall under her spell.
He turned to start back down the slope when a flash of yellow among the rocks caught his eye. Dismounting, he stooped and retrieved a woman’s glove of lemon kid. He shook the dirt from it and a circlet of red wax fell into his hand. As he examined it more closely, he recognized part of a seal one would use to close a letter. He held it up to the light, and his throat tightened. Stamped deep into the wax was a stylized ‘W’, over the drawing of a wave. What was Clarissa Delaware’s seal doing in this remote spot? Had she delivered a letter here, to a man hiding from the law? A man the post could not reach, one she knew only too well?
CHAPTER FIVE
Clarissa made it a point to have tea with her guests at least twice a week. The meal afforded her a discrete opportunity to gauge their well-being, and gave them a forum to air any complaints. “Clarissa, dear, do you think you could provide me with more of that wonderful salve for my rheumatism?” Mrs. Landers, an elderly widow from Kent, asked as Clarissa poured out that afternoon. “It is so very soothing – much better than that nasty stuff my last physician prescribed.” She wrinkled her nose. “That noxious substance smelled like tar and burned most uncomfortably.”
“Clarissa’s remedies always smell so nice.” Miss Mosely smiled and helped herself to a cream bun. “Like a lovely fragrance any lady might wear – not like the sick room at all.”
“What’s most important is that Clarissa’s remedies work.” Mr. Fletcher, a retired vicar from East Anglia, his powdered wig the height of fashion four decades before, dropped three lumps of sugar into his cup. “The cold packs you prescribed have been the key to warding off the gout that plagued me for years before I came here.” He studied the selection of pastries on the stand in the center of the table.
His hand hovered over a scone heavily studded with currants. “Do try the fruit tart,” Clarissa urged. “I remember it is a particular favorite of yours.”
His eyebrows rose. “Is it?”
“Oh yes. You positively raved about them last time.”
“Of course.” He added the tart to his plate. Though Clarissa had no doubt the compresses she had prescribed had helped with his gout initially, she suspected the real credit for the ailment’s abatement lay in a less rich diet and a serious reduction in the amount of port he consumed.
None of her current charges were truly ill beyond the normal indignities of advanced age. They were here because it was more convenient for their families to pay to have someone else deal with their frail bodies and wandering minds. In addition to good food, comfortable surroundings, and what remedies she could offer for their aches and pains, she often believed her attention and that of Emma and the children was the very best medicine she could offer. In return, she had grown quite fond of them all, and at times even drawn on their lifetime of experience for good advice.
“We met the new boarder this morning,” Sir Henry said. “Or rather, I met him at breakfast and then he rode up while we were in the garden.”
“Such a handsome man,” Miss Mosely said.
“A very fine seat,” Mrs. Landers said, her cheeks quite pink. “And he assured us he is neither a gambler, nor inclined to over-indulge in strong drink.”
Clarissa managed to hide her dismay that the old dears had been questioning Mr. Kendrick, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. They had little enough to occupy their interest.
“It’s so nice for you to have someone staying here who is closer to your own age,” Miss Mosely said.
“Miss Freed and I are almost exactly the same age,” Clarissa said.
“Well, yes, but that’s not the same as having a handsome man here,” Mrs. Landers said. “An unmarried man.”
“Perhaps you forget,” Clarissa said. “I am a married woman.”
The many folds of Mrs. Landers’ face deepened, but she said nothing.
“This Kendrick fellow certainly didn’t look ill to me,” Mr. Fletcher said. “And he didn’t sound barmy.” He bit into the fruit tart and spoke around the mouthful. “So what is he doing here?”
“Now, sir, I couldn’t possibly discuss another person’s medical condition with you,” Clarissa demurred.
“Battle fatigue,” Sir Henry said. “I saw many a case of it when I was in the colonies.”
“I wonder where Mr. Kendrick is?” Clarissa asked, both out of concern for Adam, and to forestall another of Sir Henry’s war stories. “I can’t think he’d want to miss his tea.” She rang the bell.
A moment later Sally, the parlormaid, hurried in. “Yes, m’lady?”
“Mr. Kendrick hasn’t come down for tea,” Clarissa said. “Do you know if he is in the house?”
“He told Mary he had the headache and wasn’t to be disturbed,” Sally said.
“Thank you, Sally.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “I’ll go up and see if there’s anything I can do for him.” Though she wondered at Mr. Kendrick’s true motives for coming to Waverley House, she believed the pain he suffered was real. The fact that she hadn’t been able to offer him any relief disturbed her. Though she had no formal medical training, she prided herself on her ability to relieve suffering with the herbal treatments she had perfected over the years.
She mounted the stairs and made her way along the corridor to Mr. Kendrick’s room. She tapped lightly on the door, then, when no answer came, she rapped more firmly. “Mr. Kendrick? It’s Clarissa Delaware. I apologize for disturbing you, but I’m concerned to hear you are suffering from the headache so badly you missed taking tea.”
No answer. She pressed her ear to the cool wood of the door, but heard nothing – so restless turnings, no snoring. She frowned at the door, then tried the knob. Locked. She knocked again. “Mr. Kendrick? Please answer me. Are you all right?”
Still no reply. Should she summon a footman to break down the door? If he wasn’t unconscious, merely sleeping soundly, he wouldn’t thank her to embarrass them both that way. She turned away. If he didn’t appear for breakfast in the morning, then she would see about getting the door open, but not before.
Rather than return downstairs, where she would be bombarded with questions about her new guest, she went to her quarters. She could finish the list of supplies she needed for the stillroom and perhaps even read a few chapters in Miss Edgeworth’s new collection of stories before she had to change for dinner.
Her mind thus occupied, she stepped into the pleasant chamber just off her bedroom that she used as a sitting room. This had been her mother’s retiring room when Clarissa was a girl, and she still had fond memories of sitting in her mother’s lap at the same writing desk that Clarissa used now, watching as her mother wrote letters in a fine hand.
; She started toward the niche where the desk resided, then drew back with a gasp. Adam Kendrick turned toward her, a handful of her correspondence in his hand. Anger, so cold it burned, rose within her. She drew herself up to her full height. “Mr. Kendrick, explain to me why you are going through my desk,” she demanded.
“My quill shattered and I was searching for a new one,” Adam said. He suspected she recognized the lie, but he counted on her being too much of a lady to challenge him. In any case, he had found nothing damning in the letters he had been able to read. If she was corresponding with Lord Delaware, she was clever enough to keep his letters out of sight.
She marched forward and took the papers from his hand, then plucked a fresh quill from a holder at the corner of the desk and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, and tucked the quill into his breast pocket. He forced himself to meet her penetrating gaze. Few women were bold enough to look a man directly in the eye this way, but Clarissa did not shy away. Her hazel eyes fixed on him, anger sparking with a heat he felt directly in his groin. He sensed passion within her, coiled like a beast, ready to pounce, and felt an answering fervor within himself, testing the control on which he so prided himself. It was almost – almost – enough to override the pain that pounded behind his sightless eye. As if fed by her stare, and the tangle of emotions she called forth, the pain pounded harder, tightening the lines around his mouth.
The anger faded from Clarissa’s gaze, replaced by a softness that might have been his undoing. “Oh, you really are hurting, aren’t you?” she said, her voice a soft caress. She took his arm, and led him to the sofa across the room. “Sit, and tell me more about this.”
“There is nothing to tell.” He tried to shake her off, but she held fast.
“It’s not going to do you any harm to talk about it,” she said. “And doing so may give me the information I need to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” he said, even as he lowered himself to the sofa.
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