Dark Temptation

by CHASE, ALLISON

  Ready to make amends, even to offer her first name in recompense, she turned back around. He had ridden beyond the gate, but not in the direction she had expected him to go. ‘‘Aren’t you returning to the village?’’

  ‘‘Indeed not, Miss St. Clair.’’

  ‘‘Then . . . where?’’

  ‘‘To Edgecombe, of course.’’

  A shock of realization made her take an unsteady stride backward. It couldn’t be mere coincidence, not with such an uncommon name. Chad . . . Chadwell Rutherford . . . fifth Earl of Wycliffe. Now she understood why he seemed so familiar. That day at Edgecombe . . . it had been he who had glared out at her from the window. He who had disappeared again inside the house without a word of greeting.

  Openmouthed, she watched him disappear down the dark road.

  A crack rent the air as the schooner struck the rocks. The hull split upon impact. From the shore Chad watched helplessly as the ocean rushed to fill the gap. Screams and shouts poured out. Again the tide thrust the vessel against the bluffs. The framework shuddered. Wood splintered. Sails tore as masts toppled. Bodies came hurtling over the rails to splash like feed sacks into the heaving water or thud sickeningly against the rocks.

  Chad could only watch the carnage and pray and agonize over the how and why of it. What devilry had lured the craft into the headland?

  The answer singed the flesh from his fingertips. In horror he stared at the torch flaming in his hand, and at the other torches dotting the cove. By God and the devil too, he had done this. With his own hands.

  Dead for the cargo.

  He awoke with a lurch, breath knifing through his lungs. His fingers clawed the bedclothes from his sweat-soaked chest. His entire body throbbed. Stinging pain blurred his vision. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and struggled to rein in the terror of the dream, calm his exploding heart and see past the gruesome images flickering in harsh relief inside his skull.

  He lowered his hands and went still, listening. Searching the shadows hunched in the corners of the room, and feeling as though someone were watching . . .

  Had it been just a dream? Or a message from the apparition he’d met on Blackheath Moor?

  His thudding heart eased to its normal rhythm. Christ, what had he encountered last night? He’d been weary, lost, confused by the mist. Perhaps he’d merely stumbled into the chapel, fallen asleep and dreamed the rest. Yes, his own guilt haunted his nightmares—nothing else made sense. To believe he’d actually seen a ghost was ludicrous. The only true haunting last night had come in the form of a lovely if somewhat impulsive young lady, Miss St. Clair.

  The warmth of her curves against him, the fragrance of her hair beneath his nose, the endearing perplexity in those earnest features as she peered up at him . . . If he closed his eyes he could conjure those memories. Could almost conjure her. Feel her. Taste her. He wished he’d kissed her . . . just once. . . .

  Remembering her frankness and the damned naïveté that would send a young woman out alone onto a darkened, mist-shrouded moor, he opened his eyes. He had no business being anywhere near a female like that.

  He dragged himself out of bed, tugging to straighten the clothes he’d slept in. He pulled on his boots but didn’t bother buttoning his shirt. Beyond his windows, deep stacks of clouds were pushing in off the ocean, their blackened bases glowering over the waves. Bursts of lightning forked within them, followed by growls of thunder. On unsteady legs he crossed the room and heaved open the window. Warm air spilled into the room, oppressive with the promise of rain.

  He caught himself tiptoeing down the staircase as if afraid of disturbing . . . someone. ‘‘Don’t be stupid, Chadwell,’’ he said aloud. ‘‘If there were such things as ghosts, you certainly couldn’t hide from them.’’

  Nor could he hide from whoever had summoned him here. Go to Edgecombe and wait for instructions. What did they want? Watling had claimed that no one wished to kill him, at least not yet. But what use could Chad be now, with his money running out and most of his resources confiscated by the court?

  A notion struck him. There had been arrests besides Watling’s. Perhaps the others had already been caught. The message that summoned Chad here might have been nothing more than a condemned criminal’s idea of a final jest, a way to torment Chad for having testified against the ring.

  He cringed at the echo of his footsteps against the stonework of the main hall. Moving from room to room, he threw open windows and shutters and peeled the shrouds from furniture. The flitting of his own shadow made him flinch.

  The house was too quiet, too empty. When he’d closed up the place following his father’s death, he’d dismissed the staff and helped them find new positions. There had been neither the funds nor any good reason to keep them on. More recently his solicitor had arranged for a man-of-all-work who lived in the village and came occasionally to trim the gardens and prevent the place from moldering.

  By the fireplace in the drawing room Chad paused, staring up at the black-and-crimson shield that had hung above the fireplace for as long as he could remember. When his father had purchased Edgecombe a single rapier with an uncommonly small hilt had sat mounted at a downward angle over the shield, one half of an incomplete X. Supposedly the weapon had belonged to Meg Keating, and the story held that its missing mate belonged to her husband. When Jack Keating went down with his ship just off the coast of Penhollow, the sword presumably went with him.

  It had been one of his father’s eccentricities that he’d never wished to replace the missing sword, but preferred the lopsided display as a reminder of Edgecombe’s turbulent history.

  But now the mounting brackets held nothing; the small-handled rapier Chad remembered so well from childhood had vanished. Had his father for some reason moved the weapon? That hardly seemed likely, which left another possibility—theft. His ire rose at the thought of criminals stalking through his father’s home, stealing valuables . . . yet a quick gaze about the room revealed Franklin’s collection of ivory and gold snuffboxes, a pair of famille verte vases, the bronze mantel clock. Why take only the sword and leave the other valuables?

  Intending to see if anything else had been stolen, he continued his inspection of the house, but came to an uneasy halt in the adjoining game room. On the far wall the blank face of a closed door all but challenged him to turn the knob and walk through, something he hadn’t been able to do in over two years.

  The library. The room where his father had died.

  When the news had reached him, Chad had raced here at breakneck speed from London, sickened and horrified, racked with regret and knowing he’d be too damned late to change anything.

  The memory reeled through him. Blackened walls, charred furnishings, the suffocating bitterness of soot. Since then repairs had erased the evidence of the fire that stole Franklin Rutherford’s life, but no amount of wood or paint could remove the anguish that room held for Chad.

  Crossing the game room, he stood before the door, wrapped his hand around the knob and told himself it was just a room, that his father’s spirit didn’t dwell inside.

  That Franklin’s death hadn’t been, in part, his fault.

  Chad had received his father’s missive only a fortnight before he died.

  Dear Chadwell,

  It’s been rather a long while since I’ve seen you. Do join me at Edgecombe as soon as you may. We’ll hunt, play chess, eat what we wish when we wish and smoke our pipes without apology.

  I’ve missed you, son.

  —Father

  London had been in high Season at the time, and there had been that new actress he’d been pursuing for weeks. The thought of cutting short his exploits and exiling himself to this remote Cornish backwater . . . well. He’d sent a reply promising to be here by midsummer. By May Franklin was dead.

  By autumn of that year, upon discovering his inherited fortune was far too depleted to support the lifestyle he so enjoyed, Chad had shaken hands with Watling and entered into a devil’s
bargain.

  If only he had been here with his father . . .

  Bitter bile rising in his throat, he shoved away from the door. He wasn’t ready to face that room. God . . . not yet. Half-blinded by memories, by the damned shadows that draped like palls over every room, he made his way back to the main hall. The air felt heavy in his lungs, fetid on his tongue. The very atmosphere of the house pressed down on him like a weight. He needed to get out, to escape the stifling gloom.

  Wrestling open the terrace door with a tug that nearly shattered the glass panes, he staggered outside. The blowing, salt-laden air rushed by him, chilling the perspiration rolling down his sides beneath his shirt. The unsettling charge of the approaching storm pricked like needles at his skin.

  Vague sensations crawled through his gut. Growing urgency. Uncertain dread. An ominous assurance that whatever he must learn here, face here, he must see it through to the end. There could be no escape, not if he wished to restore even a shred of his honor.

  He could sit crouched in this house, watching the shadows over his shoulder and waiting for some unknown enemy to strike, or he could attempt to discover who had ordered him here, and why . . . and strike first. Miss St. Clair’s mysterious harbor lights—could there be a connection?

  The garden slope fell away beneath his desperate strides until he found himself at the western edge of the property, staring down at the frothing sea a hundred feet below.

  ‘‘You were not in your room last night.’’

  Sophie started at the rumble of her uncle’s accusing baritone. She had just left the room she shared with Rachel and was on her way downstairs, but Uncle Barnaby stood a few steps below the landing, blocking her way.

  His black hair, a mass of tumbling waves that fell below his collar, was held back from his bearded, scowling face by a squat tweed cap, and she could see by his damp trouser hems and the dirt smeared across his shirt that he’d been toiling in the fields for some time already. Time during which she had lain slumbering, making up the sleep she had missed during her strange jaunt on the moor.

  ‘‘Well, lass? Where were ye when ye should’ve been abed?’’

  ‘‘I . . . er . . . yes.’’ She drew a breath and swallowed. ‘‘I couldn’t get back to sleep after what I saw last night. Or thought I saw,’’ she added hastily when something ominous flashed in his eyes.

  Apparently he hadn’t fallen back to sleep either, or he couldn’t have known she’d been gone. What to tell him? Certainly not that she’d lost her way on Blackheath Moor and ended up riding on the back of a stranger’s horse, and in her nightgown, no less.

  ‘‘And?’’ he prompted in a demanding bark.

  ‘‘And . . . so . . . I walked down to the beach.’’ A partial truth, after all. She had, finally, stood looking down at the water last night, only to admit she’d made a mistake. ‘‘I needed to make quite certain it had been my eyes playing tricks on me, as you and Aunt Louisa suggested, and not the tragic occurrence I’d feared.’’

  His features drawing tight, her uncle surged up the remaining steps, crossed the landing and stopped in front of her. ‘‘What did ye see?’’

  Sophie’s heart thudded against her stays. She began shaking her head, more out of fear than in answer to the question. Why did he look like that, threatening and angry and . . . afraid, almost? He was like a stray dog that snapped because it was frightened and perceived everybody and everything as a threat.

  ‘‘I—I saw nothing, Uncle Barnaby. Nothing at all. The waters were dark, the harbor lights where they should be. I . . . must have dreamed otherwise.’’

  He straightened, but held her in his wary sights. ‘‘Why were ye gone so long?’’

  How did he know how long? Had he waited up for her, heard her return? She couldn’t help wondering what he had been doing in all that time.

  ‘‘I fell asleep,’’ she said. ‘‘I can’t say for how long.’’

  ‘‘On the sand?’’

  ‘‘Yes, on the sand. As soon as I awoke I came inside. I hadn’t realized you were up as well.’’ She attempted to smile. ‘‘Had I known I’d have offered to make you tea.’’

  He didn’t respond. His brooding regard lingered on her, his eyes hooded by his heavy lids. Sophie fought the urge to squirm. Footsteps and Aunt Louisa’s voice rising from the bottom of the stairs brought a welcome relief.

  ‘‘Sophie? Are you up yet, dear?’’

  The woman’s soft cotton bonnet appeared first, bobbing as she made her ascent. Then her face came into view through the banister newels and she went still. ‘‘Barnaby, what are you doing back in the house? I thought you and Dominic were herding the ewes into the south pasture today.’’

  ‘‘Aye.’’ His boots drumming loudly on the bare wooden floorboards, he turned and walked to the top of the stairs. ‘‘Tell your niece here it isn’t safe to wander about at night, no matter what she thinks she sees outside her window, or she might get hurt.’’

  He and Aunt Louisa exchanged somber glances as he squeezed past her down the steps. Aunt Louisa’s chin jerked back toward Sophie. ‘‘Goodness, no, Sophie. It isn’t safe. Were you out last night? You mustn’t think of doing such a thing again.’’ She scurried up the remaining steps. Clutching the top of the banister, she turned alarm-filled eyes to Sophie and breathlessly said, ‘‘Promise me, Sophie. Promise me you’ll not act in such a foolhardy manner again.’’

  Sophie promised, but the urgency of Aunt Louisa’s request, coupled with Uncle Barnaby’s stern warning, spiked a keen curiosity and made her wonder if she wouldn’t find ample reason to break that promise, and soon.

  The restless wind shuddered off the water, plastering back Chad’s hair and filling his shirt like a sail. Squinting against the gusts, he peered down at the coastline beyond Edgecombe’s boundaries.

  What of Miss St. Clair’s claims of misplaced harbor lights? Obviously no ship had crashed on the shoals last night. But could one have put in somewhere close by, safely unloaded an illicit cargo and sailed away without detection? And where would they have put such a cargo?

  Had the estate been used all along despite Chad’s adamant refusal to allow such an insult to his father’s memory? As a boy he had combed the cellars and the gardens searching for the legendary tunnel believed to have been used centuries ago by pirates. To his youthful disappointment he had found nothing.

  From his vantage point he detected no waters calm enough or clear enough to allow a ship safe anchorage other than Penhollow Harbor. Perhaps from water level he might discover something different. He leaned slightly over, staring down into the pounding waves. Beneath him stretched a hundred feet or more of narrow ledges, razor-sharp ridges and slippery cliff face. The prospect made his senses swim, his vision blur. He felt light-headed, disoriented. . . .

  ‘‘Lord Wycliffe?’’

  With a shout of alarm he spun about, swayed precariously and scrambled to catch his balance.

  Chapter 4

  ‘‘Miss St. Clair? Good God, don’t sneak up on a man like that!’’

  ‘‘I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’’

  ‘‘Startle me? You nearly sent me tumbling over the edge. What the devil are you doing here? And if you wouldn’t mind, you may release me now.’’

  Heart in her throat, Sophie had rushed forward when the earl appeared about to fall over the cliff, and now stood squeezing his arm in both her hands. ‘‘Oh, yes . . . sorry. But perhaps you shouldn’t stand so close to the edge.’’

  Vexation flared in his eyes. The muscles of his forearm bunched beneath her palms.

  She unclenched her fingers and backed a step away. ‘‘I . . . came to thank you for last night and . . . to apologize. And . . .’’ She trailed off, uncertain how best to continue.

  ‘‘And what, Miss St. Clair?’’

  His tone made her flinch, while the anger sharpening his handsome features made her wish she had ignored the impulse that had sent her here this morning.

  As
brooding as the storm gathering behind him, the earl stood waiting with arms crossed, an eyebrow quirked and his gaze boring into her with no small amount of impatience. By day he was even more magnificent than she had realized, his body tall and lean; his nose, cheekbones and jaw strong slashes in his handsome face; his eyes the rich amber of aged cognac. His fair hair was tousled by the wind, as was . . . good heavens . . . his shirt. Sophie averted her eyes, but not before taking in the astonishing details of a muscled torso sprinkled with whorls of gleaming golden hair.

  ‘‘Well, Miss St. Clair?’’ He tugged the edges of his shirt together and began doing up the buttons.

  With a blush hot on her cheeks, she attempted to gather her thoughts. ‘‘I brought you muffins.’’

  ‘‘Pardon?’’

  ‘‘Muffins. My aunt baked them this morning. Quite a lot of them. For the tavern. She sometimes provides the tavern with baked goods. I didn’t think she’d miss a few, so I snatched them hot out of the oven and, well . . . there they are.’’

  Dear heavens, she was babbling like an idiot. She turned and retreated a couple of yards, retrieving the basket she had hastily dropped when she had believed the earl might fall.

  ‘‘Molasses.’’ She extended the basket with an uncertain smile. The wind threatened to seize the bonnet off her head. She held the brim with her free hand and raised the basket another inch. ‘‘They’re quite wonderful, actually.’’

  With a frown he reached for them, staring down at the linen with which she had covered them, and the sprig of wild heather she had laid on top. When he didn’t smile, when his expression remained one of perplexity, a sense of the foolishness of her gift took hold. Muffins? She wished she had at least not included the heather.