Gwenyth met his gaze squarely, swallowing the tears burning their way up her throat. “Don’t you wonder if you warn the wrong woman?”
Derek’s mouth twisted into a tight-lipped, mocking smile. “As I said before, Miss Killigrew, I don’t know anything about you. But Anabel’s motives and manners are well known to me. I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.”
Despite the sorrow stabbing at her heart, a thoughtful smile lit Gwenyth’s face. “I’m thinking Rafe would be encouraged to know that.”
Chapter 24
Rafe downed the whiskey in one quick swallow. The bite had long since gone out of the potent alcohol, leaving a numbing heat to swamp his limbs and fog his brain. If only it had the same effect on his memory. Unfortunately he still pictured Gwenyth yesterday as she described her visions, the steely determination in her eyes as she refused him. A bitter smile thinned his lips. He’d knelt at the foot of a woman once before and been humiliated. Why should now be any different? And why the hell did he care so bloody much?
To halt the slide into maudlin self-pity, he reached for the decanter looking to refill his glass, but none remained. He’d emptied the lot. No problem. Brampton kept a stock of port wines and claret and there was sure to be a supply of ale somewhere. It was just a matter of getting up to find it.
He’d ring for a servant, but the hour was late and he hated having anyone see him this way. It had always been bad even when Triggs had been the one to coax him away from the bottle and wrestle him into his bunk. Here, the servants eyed him as if he was some form of half-tamed animal and his family skirted him like a newly released inmate of Bedlam. To discover him falling down drunk would simply affirm every low opinion they harbored.
Putting his hands upon the arms of the chair to steady himself, he tried rising. But the floor kept moving as if he were back on the Cormorant’s deck. Dropping into his seat, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and breathed deeply to quell the heaving in his stomach.
Beyond the walls of the library, thunder growled and trees scratched at the windows in the rising wind. Heavy weather had spawned an early summer storm. Leaning his head back, he stared out into the gloom. He’d lit no fire and the candles had long since melted into pools of wax in the hours since he’d retreated here to be alone. He’d wrapped himself in shadow, the better to indulge his depression.
A slash of lightning brightened the dark room for an instant, leaving the echo of a man’s form upon his eyes. Someone stood in the open doorway.
Rafe squinted into the darkness. “If you’re real, go away. If you’re naught but a shade you’re welcome to haunt this place with me.”
“It smells like a blasted distillery in here.” Derek stepped into the room. Lightning split the sky again. His brother wore an overcoat, and his hair curled wet against his collar. He carried no candle, but the end of his cheroot glowed scarlet.
“Go the hell away.” Despite the alcohol, Rafe’s voice remained steady.
His words did little to disturb Derek. He threw off his coat and fell into a neighboring chair. “Troubles, little brother?” Rafe felt his cold gaze weighing him. “Is it Anabel Woodville or Miss Killigrew? I can’t seem to get a fix upon your bedding partner on any given night.”
Derek’s words were precise and spoke of a man as loaded with drink as he was, but Rafe’s jaw tightened at the insult. “Jealous, Father Fleming?”
Derek gave a raw bark of laughter. “Of what? You’ve a high-born greedy slut and a low-born village healer vying for your affections. Neither one exactly my taste.”
Rafe thought the whiskey had numbed him, but Derek’s insults fought through the fog. “Tread carefully, Derek. I’m in no mood to be baited.”
Derek ignored him. “Tell me, who satisfies your lust? Anabel has that hellfire quality. But then you never know about those quiet soft-spoken types. I bet Miss Killigrew comes alive in bed. Not as quiet then, hmmm?”
“Hold your tongue.” Rafe’s words held a hard note of warning.
Derek drew on his cheroot. His face in the white flash of lightning was drawn in gaunt, harsh lines. “Have you tried bedding both at the same time? I’m growing aroused simply thinking about it.”
The gathering pressure of the past weeks and the maelstrom of conflicting emotions exploded into a white-hot fury. Rafe slammed his hand upon the table. The empty decanter smashed to the floor, spraying shards of glass like shrapnel. Slivers stung his face, and Derek touched a cut across his cheek.
Rafe threw himself out of his chair to clutch Derek by his collar. “I’ll not say it again! Don’t think blood will stay my hand.”
Derek shook off Rafe’s hold. “Why should I think kinship will hold you now when it never did before? Can you deny you’re laughing at us as you toy with Anabel all the while bedding your Cornish mistress?”
Rafe lunged, throwing a punch, but Derek spun away at the last moment, glass crunching beneath his boot heels. But instead of retreating, Derek bulled into Rafe, his heavier build bringing Rafe down. Shards of glass ripped into Rafe’s coat, piercing through to his skin.
Latent for months, Rafe’s battle instincts took over. He grabbed Derek’s leg, and with a quick skillful twist, Rafe dropped his brother to the floor beside him. Between one breath and the next, Rafe rolled his body up and over so that he knelt poised over Derek.
“Finish it, if you have the courage,” Derek snarled, gaze unwavering.
Rafe clenched his fist at his side, swallowing back his murderous impulses.
“Killing has grown very easy—perhaps too easy.” He let out a pent-up breath, but didn’t release his hold on Derek’s neck. His voice carried the steel of a sword blade. “Think what you wish, but never let me hear you say anything like that about Gwenyth again.”
Derek flung Rafe’s hand away, his breathing rushed and unsteady. “You demand no such respect for Anabel?”
Rafe’s jaw tensed as he realized his error. To evade answering and revealing more than he wanted to, he dropped Derek’s collar and pulled himself to his feet. “I’d hope that as a man of the church you’d respect all the women of your parish without my threats.”
Derek sat up. Blood dripped from the cut across his cheek, but he made no move to wipe it away. “Ahh, yes, I’m the pure and devout vicar of St. Kennets, aren’t I? I’ll try to watch my tongue from now on.”
Rafe sensed the bitter sarcasm behind Derek’s words but chose to ignore them. He’d extended his hand in friendship once and been rebuffed. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
A tension-filled silence stretched between the two brothers. Rain pebbled the windows. The casements rattled, and he smelled the dark earthy scents of forest and field in the rising wind as it found its way through every crack and crevice. Before the pressure stretched to breaking, Rafe strode for the door.
Derek’s voice, carrying a quiet intensity, stopped Rafe. “I feared you dead and then I wished you so. How else to explain the silence of years.”
Rafe despaired as the effects of the whiskey diminished beneath Derek’s onslaught. “Humiliation. Shame.” The rage of Gwenyth’s rejection gave way to an older, deeper fury. One he thought over long ago after similar nights of inebriation. He tightened his hand upon the door knob. “It was easier to just walk away. To forget.”
“To forget you had a brother?” For the first time Derek’s voice lost the hard edge of resentment. “I fought for you, Rafe. I never thought you’d done anything Lovejoy claimed. But he was here. And you were gone. Disappeared with not a word, not a sign that you cared about those of us you left behind.”
Rafe dropped his hand and swung around. “Did I know that? The only communication I received from this family came from Father who told me in as few scathing words as possible to never darken his door again. I was dead to him.”
“But you wouldn’t have been dead to me. You should have known that.”
Rafe sighed with memories best forgotten. “Had I come to you after…after Gibraltar, you’d never ha
ve recognized me, Derek. You’d have seen a broken shell of a man—a walking ghost. I was more dead than alive, and doing my best to finish the Navy’s job for them.”
Derek’s voice was grim. “What stopped you?”
“A man by the name of Cador Trebell. He found me drunk and freezing in the stews of Falmouth. He took me in, sobered me up and put me to work on his fishing boat. His son had died, and I took the young man’s place in Cador’s home and eventually in his heart. When Cador died, he left me the boat.”
“You never made the blunt you’ve got by hauling fish,” Derek scoffed.
Rafe allowed himself a smug smile. “No. My catch ran to more profitable prizes. I own or part-own seven ships now.”
“So why did you come back?”
“After I read that Father had died, I began to think I might return home. See if there was any way to pick up the pieces.” He rubbed a tired hand down his face. “I should have killed that bastard, Lovejoy. To accuse me of mutiny.” He spat the word. “I cared for little in those months—but to foment a rebellion aboard Ancamna? I’d have been better served had I sliced the sodding coward from his dick to his gullet. A cornered animal is the most deadly and the most cunning. Remember that, Derek.”
Sweat broke out upon his skin as he recalled the horrible night they’d come for him. He felt the bonds upon his wrists as he stood strapped to the capstan bar with his back on fire. He heard the rolling echo of the drummer and the slosh of water against the ships’ hulls. He saw shreds of his own flesh upon the upraised cat-o-nine tails before it fell.
“Baseless lies, all of them, but Lovejoy knew no one would stand up to him. He had half a dozen men he’d intimidated or bought off to vouch for his story. I had one terrified cadet who refused to come forward.”
Derek rose to his feet, taking a cheroot from an ormolu case he pulled from his pocket. “The evil that men do… It caught up with him in the end. He shot himself, did you know?”
“They planned to court-martial him for bribery, I read. And for irregularities in his ship’s books. A tidy end for someone who deserved so much worse.” Rafe sighed. “It doesn’t matter. With the fortune I’ve acquired and Anabel at my side, I can make them forget.”
Derek’s brows rose in surprise. “Anabel? Does Miss Killigrew know she’s been replaced?”
Rafe had given Gwenyth a chance, and she’d thrown it in his face. She wanted one thing from him and it had never been his name or his love. Anabel wanted both.
He couldn’t tell Derek any of this. The bargain between himself and Gwenyth smacked of the immoral if not the absurd. Instead he plowed a hand through his hair, a muscle quivering in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “She knows.”
Gwenyth sat propped up in bed with a book she’d found in the library. By the light of a candle and the glow from a fire, she turned page after page, only realizing at the end she couldn’t recall a single thing she’d just read. Her mind boiled and churned like the seas beyond Kerrow’s breakwater. The night grew older, but she couldn’t settle her mind enough for sleep to come.
She’d hurt Rafe deeply, but she could see no other way. He’d known all along she could offer him only this small part of herself. He’d accepted it in Kerrow, and been glad of it too. But things had changed. Like the turning of the season, their relationship had ripened and become something richer and deeper than they could ever have imagined that Beltane night. Now it was up to her to save them both from catastrophe.
She placed a hand upon her stomach. As yet, the life growing within her was no more than a spark, but she sensed even this tiny glimmer of the child to come. The realization of her pregnancy had come with the crashing flow of her regained Sight. In her anguish, she hadn’t understood the change. It was only in the quiet of her rooms later that she’d recognized the significance of what she felt stirring deep in her womb. Rafe had given her this greatest of gifts, even as she’d turned her back upon everything else he offered.
Without hesitation, she knew she would keep the child’s existence to herself. Now that she was aware of Rafe’s feelings, she couldn’t risk his use of the baby as a weapon to hold her. She must leave Bodliam and take her secret with her.
Thunder rumbled, but the storm had moved on. The heavy rains had passed. Gwenyth rose and drew on her dressing gown. Crossing the room, she slipped free the latch upon the window and pushed the casements wide. The moon shone through silver-lined clouds as they rushed across the sky, pushed on by the brisk winds. Sweet-scented air blew into the room, billowing the curtains, clearing the worst of her melancholy thoughts. But still she knew she’d never sleep, not while wondering about Rafe’s intentions and worrying that everything she’d risked by following him here was now in jeopardy.
Leaving the window, she opened her wardrobe. Pushed aside the fine silks and fancy muslins, the soft leather boots and dainty satin slippers. Rafe’s money had purchased her a wardrobe fit for an elegant lady. But her eye fell upon none of these fashionable gew-gaws as she rummaged. Instead, she pulled her rolled tapestry out and spread it on her bed.
Crawling back beneath the coverlet, she drew the tapestry up so that it lay upon her lap. Square by square she ran her fingers over the scenes, her mind falling into the ritual patterns of prayer she’d created as a child.
The animals.
The birds.
The flowers and trees.
She closed her eyes, seeing the images alive in her mind as she whispered the words.
Hearth and home.
Family.
Her heart clenched tight with homesickness. She ached for her cottage and her cats. She even missed Jago for all his curmudgeonly bullying.
The infinite sky.
The bounteous ocean.
She longed for the constant sound of the sea in her ears; she yearned for the soft rains that shrouded the cliffs in mist and the sun that turned the sea to molten gold at dusk.
Passing over the image of Herne, her hand paused upon the black center square.
Her heart’s desire.
She recalled the vision she’d had this afternoon. Rafe laughing as he danced with his daughter. Then the image changed and Rafe no longer swung a girl in his arms, but a woman. As she clutched the tapestry, Gwenyth pictured herself held firmly in his embrace, Rafe’s strong handsome face alight with pleasure and not, as she had last seen it, harsh with pain and anger.
Like the pricking claw marks of some small animal, a strange scratchy sensation began at her fingers and raced up her arm. With a cry of shock, she released her hold upon the tapestry, cradling her arm to her body until the persistent tingling subsided. She dropped her eyes to the center square. The space where she’d rested her hand was no longer a simple piece of black woolen fabric. Instead, it seemed as if a piece of the night sky had been stitched into its place, an inky well of endless darkness sprinkled with glimmering specks of stars. Gwenyth knew if she reached into that space, there would be no comforting warmth of Morvoren’s tapestry, but the chill of a spirit realm stretching beyond the boundaries of her world.
As she stared long into the infinite black emptiness, she caught the shadow flicker of one dazzling star. Before she could focus her gaze where the flash had been, the glow burned out. But Gwenyth knew she’d seen it. Knew it had been there.
Was this a sign that Herne had heard the whisper of her greatest wish? If so, god of gods, what would his answer be?
Chapter 25
Gwenyth startled awake to the opening of her bedchamber door. Her mind bleary and thick with sleep, she forgot where she was for a moment.
“Gram?” she whispered, still half-lost in disquieting dreams.
A voice broke the silence. “Captain Fleming, actually.”
She caught her breath upon an oath as she sat up. The abandoned tapestry slid onto the floor, any magic contained in its weave long since dispersed. She hadn’t been sleeping long; the fire still burned low in the grate, the sky beyond her window showed no paling that presaged dawn. Rafe le
aned against the doorjamb, jacket discarded, neckcloth gone. The heavy odor of alcohol clung to him. Even without the use of her Sight she knew instantly he was drunk and he was dangerous.
“I didn’t think you’d come to me tonight,” she caught back the tremble in her voice before adding, “or ever again.”
Rafe closed the door behind him with an audible click and strolled across to her bed. “We have a bargain. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me? My seed for your Sight.”
His voice was smooth as silk, but a shiver of dread slithered up her spine. Never had she beheld the violent, unpredictability of the smuggler captain. Naïve, she had assumed that laying aside the profession meant laying aside the deadly temper that made him a legend up and down the north Cornish coast. She saw now she couldn’t have been more wrong.
She gripped the bedclothes. She hated deceiving him in such a way. If only the creation of their child could be a joy shared between them. “That was our bargain. But things have changed, making our agreement seem foolish and pointless.”
“So you wish to void the contract?” His voice remained steady and even, but she sensed the tight rein he held on his fury. “What of the child? You’ve come so far,” he curled his lip in a sneer, “and sunk so low for the sake of this unborn daughter? Can you honestly tell me you’ll give her up?”
Gwenyth met his eyes. They shone in the glow from the fire, a deep smoldering red matching his volatile mood. But she refused to be cowed. “The child begs to be born, but I can’t force you to bring her forth. If you and I can’t reconcile our feelings with what must be, then she’ll be remaining a dream, and I’ll search elsewhere.” The lies were like ashes in her mouth.
“Elsewhere,” he echoed, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “How many men will share your bed before you gain the child you seek? How many ‘bargains’ will you make to keep your precious heart intact?”
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