Or . . . had it? Outside in the churchyard she was bemused to discover the air had nearly cleared. The moors stretched in every direction, glinting where the moonlight struck a granite peak here, a pool of water there.
‘‘It seems you were right,’’ she murmured. ‘‘This is most peculiar. There is a distinct difference in hue, you realize, between lamplight and reflected moonlight.’’
‘‘Here in Cornwall, people are forever mistaking one sight for another.’’ He stood beside her, his gaze sharp as he assessed their surroundings. He was a tall man—her head barely reached his shoulder—and solidly built, with broad shoulders, a trim waist and sturdy thighs, the muscles of which created a fascinating topography beneath his snug riding breeches.
But then, she hadn’t needed to study him to know that his was a powerful physique. At the memory of his arms around her, a tingle of awareness traveled from the tips of her fingers to her toes.
‘‘It’s a phenomenon having to do with the air currents sweeping in off the sea and mixing with the moor breezes,’’ he continued. He untied his horse’s reins from the railing. ‘‘It creates a unique sort of light, one that often plays tricks on the eyes.’’
‘‘Yes, my aunt made a similar claim earlier. About the harbor lights.’’ She frowned at the memory.
‘‘But you didn’t listen to her.’’ He walked his horse into the middle of the yard, where he adjusted the saddle and bridle.
‘‘No. Because in this instance she was utterly wrong. And . . . frightened, I believe.’’
He made no comment as he swung up into the saddle. Did he doubt her? Would he dismiss her claim as summarily as had Aunt Louisa and Uncle Barnaby? The horse danced in restless steps, but with a few soft words his master brought him under control.
‘‘Have you ridden pillion before?’’ He reached a hand down to her.
Sophie’s heart fluttered. Yes, she had ridden pillion—behind her father, her brother, her uncle Peter in London. Oh, but never, ever behind a fair-haired gentleman with broad shoulders and striking features with whom she had not the slightest acquaintance.
Then again, after those rather intimate moments in the chapel, they did have some slight acquaintance, didn’t they?
She grasped the offered hand, noticing how wholly it enveloped her own in a sure and steady grip. Warm and firm . . . like the rest of him. He removed his foot from the stirrup. She placed hers into it and gripped the back of the saddle with her free hand. As she hopped up, her body brushed the length of his leg, and as she swung astride behind him, her breasts pressed into his back. The sensations traveled inside her, producing most unsettling results.
‘‘Prince is as sure-footed a mount as could be wished for,’’ he assured her, ‘‘but nothing is certain on this terrain. You’d best put your arms around me.’’
Goodness. Riding in such familiar fashion behind a man not related to her in the least, dressed only in her nightshift, dressing gown and an ill-fitting cloak that was even now half falling from her shoulders—if this were London, her reputation would never recover.
But they weren’t in London. They were in the wilds of Cornwall, where such notions didn’t—couldn’t—hold such sway. Lives could be lost, and that certainly outweighed any notions of proper decorum.
Tomorrow she would be the girl her family wished. Tonight . . .
She put her arms around him, clasping her hands against his hard stomach. Her own stomach nestled against his back, her thighs against his hips, her cheek . . . She held her cheek aloft, but oh, how it longed to yield to temptation and snuggle against one of his formidable shoulders.
‘‘Hang on tight.’’
Sophie sighed and noticed how her breath stirred the fringe of golden hair across his collar. His hair bore a faint, fresh tang of sea air. Did his skin smell of the sea as well? He turned his face half around to speak to her, and she schooled the wayward notions from her features.
‘‘Can you tell me where you set out from?’’
‘‘Oh, er . . . my aunt and uncle’s home lies on the main road about a mile south of the village. Theirs is the last farm before the boundary of an abandoned old estate called Edgecombe.’’
He tensed slightly. She felt it in the various parts of her that were engaged so thoroughly and personally with his.
‘‘Did I say something wrong?’’ He wouldn’t, after all, be the first person to react adversely to the name of Edgecombe.
‘‘Theirs must be the farm I passed right before I veered off course.’’ She noticed he hadn’t answered her question, but the muscles of his back relaxed against her. ‘‘Do you see anything familiar yet?’’
She glanced out over rolling hills and silver-tinged brush. ‘‘It all looks the same to me.’’
He brought his horse to an abrupt halt. ‘‘Bloody unbelievable.’’
‘‘What is?’’ She pressed forward, bringing her chin to nuzzle in the solid curve of his neck and trying to ignore the warm sensation that rose inside her. This wasn’t at all like riding pillion behind Father or her brother or Uncle Peter.
‘‘I can scarcely believe it.’’ His incredulous words broke into her thoughts. ‘‘Surely the chapel could not have been so close to the road.’’
‘‘How strange.’’ She looked behind her expecting to see the silhouette of the chapel, but detected nothing but the empty moor. Puzzled, she turned back around.
Off in the distance the roof of Aunt Louisa’s house stood out as a darker stain against the night.
Her arms tightened around his sturdy torso. ‘‘We must find a way down to the beach. I believe we’re very near the place where it . . . would have wrecked.’’
They crossed the road and negotiated their way across an open headland. Leaving his horse to graze at a safe distance, they proceeded on foot, hand in hand at his insistence, to the top of the bluffs. From here both the farm and the village were hidden by the sharp angle of the coastline. Far below, moonlit waves rushed in and out of a narrow cove.
A shallow, boulder-strewn beach hugged the base of the cliffs. For quite some distance out, ocean-worn humps of rock jutted from the water, the currents frothing around them. Sophie’s heart contracted as she searched the heaving waters. Doubtlessly she hurt the knuckles of the man beside her with all her squeezing. Of a certainty no ship attempting to put in here could possibly have survived.
But as she scoured the shore for signs of tragedy, she detected no disturbance of any sort, much less the shattered remains of a ship or the ghastliness of bodies washing ashore.
‘‘I don’t understand. Perhaps we’re not in the right place after all.’’
He cleared his throat. ‘‘Or perhaps what you saw wasn’t—’’
The condescension in his voice sparked a burst of irritation. ‘‘Don’t tell me I was seeing things. Or that I was dreaming.’’ With one hand she tugged her borrowed cloak closed around her. ‘‘I was wide-awake. My eyes were not deceived.’’
‘‘Then where is this ship of yours?’’
‘‘It is no ship of mine. How on earth should I know what became of it?’’
He swiveled his head to study the coastline, raising his free hand to point to a distant glow lighting the water. ‘‘See there. I believe even the harbor lights are precisely where they ought to be.’’
She gritted her teeth. ‘‘I am not making this up.’’
‘‘I never assumed you were.’’ His voice took on a soothing tone. Maddeningly so, as if she were a frightened child to be mollified. His long fingers caressed her knuckles. ‘‘I’m quite certain you believe what you saw was real.’’
Sophie yanked her hand free and moved away.
He was beside her again in an instant. Moonlight gilded the harsh lines of a scowl as he reclaimed her hand with a strength she found fruitless to resist.
‘‘However solid this ground may appear,’’ he said, ‘‘the slightest misstep can send whole chunks sliding into the sea, and you with it. This is no pl
ace for dancing about, I assure you. Come; it’s time I took you home.’’
‘‘Yes, well, let me assure you, Mr. . . . whatever-your-name-is, that I neither care to dance nor do I require your assistance in finding my way home from here.’’ The wind parted the edges of her cloak. With only one hand at her disposal, she struggled to retain a measure of modesty. ‘‘I can follow the road perfectly well, thank you.’’
‘‘That may be, Miss whatever-your-name-is.’’ With a nimble tug he swung her around to stand toe-to-toe in front of him. A gust whipped her cloak open, and with it her flannel dressing gown, exposing the cotton shift beneath. His gaze burned her length as it dipped to take in the view, then just as quickly flicked back to her face. ‘‘You are in my care now, and I will see you safely home. We’ll have no further argument about it.’’
Indignation sizzled through her. How like her family he sounded. How condescending and superior and overbearing.
But the lips that spoke those words . . . they were full, lush, so very warm and close. . . . Sophie couldn’t help staring at his mouth, entranced by what was surely the only soft thing about this man, especially when he spoke so forcefully. Her own intended retort forgotten, she gazed mutely up at him and wondered what his lips would feel like against her own.
He grasped her elbows and lowered his head as if . . . as if he meant to do the very thing she pondered. But he merely peered into her face, then shook his head and made a little scraping sound in the back of his throat, as if he’d reached some disparaging conclusion about her but didn’t deign to share it. He compounded the insult by grasping the edges of both her dressing gown and cloak and drawing them closed around her with a familiarity that somehow belittled her, made her feel rather like a strumpet.
He offered his arm. ‘‘Come. You’ve no cause to be angry. What you need is a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you’ll see that all is well.’’
Too perplexed to reply, she let him lead her back to his horse and lift her up behind him, where she did her utmost to preserve as wide a gap between their bodies as possible. That became especially difficult when he clucked the horse to a canter, forcing her to encircle his torso and hold on tight or tumble over the animal’s rump. Still, she managed as best she could to sit her tallest and straightest.
Whatever had happened to the solicitous gentleman she’d met in the church? He had been nothing but respectful, even while holding her in his arms. He had shown her patience and concern, had listened to her and been alert to her needs. When had he transformed into a stern stranger eager to be rid of her?
Her fingers curled into frustrated fists against his shirtfront, but she realized he would certainly notice this. She relaxed her hands, which brought her palms flat against a firm, flexed set of abdominal muscles that thoroughly captured her fascination one instant and piqued her temper the next. She was behaving exactly like a strumpet, and like the capricious female Grandfather had accused her of being right before he packed her off to Cornwall.
‘‘I’m not angry,’’ she lied, then drew several calming breaths to make the assertion true. ‘‘If anything, I am relieved to have been wrong. I certainly didn’t want . . . Oh, but I simply don’t understand how I could have been so mistaken. It seemed so vivid at the time, so real. It is most peculiar.’’
He brought Prince to a halt and half twisted in the saddle. Beneath a tousled shock of hair, the even length of his nose and the square line of his jaw edged a sturdy silhouette against the night sky. ‘‘I’d advise you to let it go.’’
‘‘Have I any other choice?’’
He turned farther around, his eyes narrowing as he contemplated her, and suddenly, here in the wide open, with the mist gone and the air crisply clear, his fair hair and aristocratic looks seemed entirely familiar. Before her mind could work it over, he said, ‘‘You say one thing, yet I would swear I detect quite the opposite in your voice.’’
‘‘Meaning?’’
‘‘Meaning, Miss What’s-it, that you’d do well not to go chasing phantoms in the mist.’’
‘‘And if they are not merely phantoms?’’
‘‘All the more reason to steer clear.’’
His warning had the opposite effect he had intended, for a little spark ignited inside her. ‘‘Earlier you said the change in the shore lights could mean a number of things. Smugglers and wreckers are among them, aren’t they?’’
A muscle in his cheek bunched. ‘‘We’ve no reason to suspect any such thing.’’
‘‘Don’t we? I’ve done quite a lot of reading about Cornwall, and about this area in particular. Those lights could certainly indicate smuggling activities.’’
Yes, a century and more ago, Cornish waters were pirate-ridden. While swashbuckling men—and women—in cuffed boots and eye patches had long since vanished from the seas, smuggling had continued with subtle, yet perhaps more sinister methods.
Her gaze roamed his moonlit features, both smooth and stony, hard and yet possessing an underlying tender quality, or so she had thought earlier. She knew what she had seen tonight. And then this man, who seemed so strangely familiar, turned up as if conjured by the mist. Was he one of those phantoms he spoke of? Did he present a danger she should steer clear of?
For myriad reasons, Sophie rather believed he did.
‘‘I suspect you know more than you are willing to divulge, sir.’’
‘‘We found nothing amiss tonight. What can I divulge about nothing?’’
‘‘You are most perplexing. Please entice your horse to continue our journey. I find myself longing to be home.’’
‘‘Which is exactly where you belong. Giddyap, Prince.’’
They rode in taut silence until they reached Aunt Louisa’s gate. Sophie hitched her skirts to her knees in preparation for dismounting—without unneeded and unwelcome help, thank you ever so much.
But he was too quick for her, arching a leg over Prince’s mane and sliding to the ground. He reached up and caught her hand but made no move to help her down. Instead he pinned her in place with a piercing stare that roused yet another prickle of recognition. ‘‘I’m sorry to have angered you, but you’d do well to heed my advice. Go to bed and forget about tonight. And no more indulging in high-seas adventure stories.’’
‘‘Give me back my hand, please.’’
He complied, only to grasp her firmly around the waist, his hands finding their way inside both her cloak and dressing gown in a manner that sent her belly into a disquieting flip-flop. He lifted her from the saddle as though she weighed nothing at all, and stood her on the ground right in front of him, inches away, with the horse like a wall at her back.
She tried to move past him, but he blocked her path and wouldn’t budge. ‘‘God, you’re lovely,’’ he whispered, ‘‘with the moonlight gilding your hair and shining in those enormous eyes of yours. What color are they?’’
Was he flirting with her? Did he believe that because she had ventured outside in her shift it was acceptable to take liberties with her?
Or, good heavens, had he somehow recognized her from London, and made assumptions based on the rumors? Oh, but that was silly. If she had encountered this man before, she certainly would have remembered him.
‘‘I hardly see the point of such a question.’’ She tried again to ease out from between him and his horse, but he raised an arm and gripped the saddle, trapping her fast.
‘‘What color, Miss What’s-it? Blue? No, lighter than that, I think. Gray?’’
‘‘Yes, gray.’’ Damn her voice for trembling, her pulse for racing. ‘‘Satisfied?’’
He didn’t answer. Staring down at her, he traced the pad of his forefinger across her bottom lip. The gesture left her wobbly kneed, short of breath and entirely too confused to raise a protest. He leaned closer, nearly close enough to kiss her. ‘‘Promise me you won’t chase any more phantoms. It isn’t safe.’’
The velvet murmur of his voice sent a fiery shiver through her, and she wre
stled an overwhelming temptation to bring the notion of that kiss to completion. Had the gentle stranger she’d met in the chapel returned? Or was he merely trifling with her again?
She squared her shoulders. ‘‘I try never to repeat my mistakes, but I hardly see the point of promising you something when I’ll likely never see you again.’’
His eyes darkened with some inscrutable emotion. ‘‘Then do not promise me. Promise yourself you’ll be more careful, more prudent in the future. The night holds many dangers, Miss . . . ?’’
‘‘St. Clair,’’ she replied before stopping to consider the wisdom of telling this puzzling stranger anything about herself. Was his last comment meant to caution her or frighten her? Of what? Him? If he wished to harm her, he’d certainly had ample opportunity before now. Still, he made her feel crowded, small and very alone with him here in the dark. She resisted the temptation to dart a nervous glance over his shoulder to the house, to judge the distance between her and the door.
‘‘My name is Chad,’’ he said softly.
His tone melted like honey through her. Then she realized what he’d done. She held back a huff of exasperation, but only just. How ill-mannered to introduce himself with his given name only. The impropriety of it slithered through her, once again making her wonder if he considered her a less-than-decent woman.
Suddenly she saw herself through her family’s eyes—half-dressed, her hair in shambles, riding pillion behind a man who obviously held her in no great esteem. Her family would be shocked, scandalized, disappointed in her all over again.
‘‘I thank you for your assistance tonight, sir.’’ She put frosty emphasis on the sir. ‘‘I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you. Good night.’’
His eyebrow quirked; his nostrils flared. Stepping around her, he gathered the reins and mounted his horse. ‘‘You have been no inconvenience, Miss St. Clair. I bid you good night.’’
Turning, she intended to enter the house without another look back, but a twinge of conscience slowed her steps. She had wished to quell his arrogance, but perhaps she had made too good a job of it. The odd circumstances of their earlier meeting had foisted a disarming familiarity upon them, which perhaps accounted for his cheek. But he had done her a good service tonight and deserved better than her terse dismissal.
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