Dark Temptation

by CHASE, ALLISON

  Every instinct demanded he continue his search for Sophie, yet he could not ignore the little ghost’s sorrow. ‘‘Tell me what happened to you.’’

  Papa took me to sea. ’Twas my birthday. We went to France. We went to sea, and I died.

  ‘‘Yes, but . . . how?’’

  A storm came. The ship foundered. And the people . . . they rowed out, rowed out to save the cargo. All were not off. I screamed and screamed. No one came. Not even Papa. The ship was swallowed . . . swallowed by the waves.

  ‘‘What people? Who saved the cargo and left you to die?’’

  She gave a forlorn shake of her head, and the horror, the sheer terror of what her final moments must have been, pushed him back down onto his knees. ‘‘I’m sorry. I’d have saved you if I could. If I had known.’’

  You can save her. The evil is killing her. Killing her soul.

  ‘‘I’ll do anything I must. Just help me. Guide me to her. To the chapel. I’m certain she’s there.’’

  She shook her head. She is safe for now.

  ‘‘I don’t understand. How can she be safe?’’ There is another.

  ‘‘Another what?’’ he shouted in frustration. ‘‘What are you trying to say?

  She cannot see me. Cannot hear me. Her soul is dying. You must help her.

  ‘‘Who must I help?’’ He got to his feet, standing tall despite the unsteadiness spreading through his limbs. ‘‘I’ll do whatever you ask. Just tell me who she is.’’

  Mama.

  ‘‘That isn’t enough. She could be anybody. What is her name? What is your name?’’ He strode forward, reaching into the icy mist. ‘‘Damn it, don’t go yet.’’

  The wraith faded away. A glimmer of moonlight pierced the clouds, briefly illuminating the sloping hillsides, the granite crags and the crest of a lonely spire.

  ‘‘Sophie!’’

  Her cloaked figure huddled against the newels of the iron railing. Relief sent him dashing between the headstones. She didn’t move, barely raised her head as she peered at him through sodden ribbons of hair.

  He sank to his knees on the step below and took her in his arms, rejoicing when she didn’t resist him. His mouth found hers and devoured it, like a single warm blessing to a man lost at sea. Her fingers tunneled into his hair, tugging with sharp little pains that somehow anchored him, brought him comfort. Again and again he kissed her, suckled her lips and tongue until he drowned in the relief of having found her.

  He crushed her in his arms and felt desire streaking through his loins. Even here. Even now. He couldn’t hold her without wanting all of her, without yearning for the haven of being inside her.

  He drew back, yet remained so close their shared heat steamed between their lips. ‘‘What are you doing out here? Why didn’t you go inside, out of the cold rain?’’

  The questions burst out harshly, his voice grating with the awful fear of losing her, of believing he had already lost her.

  ‘‘I couldn’t bring myself to go in alone, without you.’’ Her sobs trembled into his chest, touched him soul-deep. ‘‘This place is ours, where we have always been safe together.’’

  ‘‘You’re safe now; I swear it.’’

  ‘‘Am I?’’ She leaned away, eyes brimming with a despondency that stilled his heart, his breath, the blood in his veins. Her arms slid from around him, and her back came up against the chapel door with a thud of finality that echoed inside him. ‘‘Dominic said—’’

  ‘‘I know. Kellyn told me about his accusations. I can explain.’’

  ‘‘Can you?’’ Her chest heaved; her nostrils flared. ‘‘How many times have I entreated you to do just that? To explain your sudden scowls and silences and the darkness that so often shadows your eyes. Always you pushed me away. For my safety, you said.’’

  ‘‘It was for your safety. You must believe that.’’

  ‘‘Must I?’’ She surged to her feet, a glimmer of hope peeking through the bewildered anger that claimed her features. ‘‘Tell me I can trust you. Tell me I haven’t been a fool to believe in you thus far.’’

  ‘‘You’re no fool, Sophie.’’ He stood and reached for her again.

  ‘‘Aren’t I?’’ She strode past him and down the steps. Then she whirled to face him, hands fisted at her sides. ‘‘Dominic said you know those brigands at the farmstead. And that you not only helped finance the ship I saw approaching the coast that night, but that you are partly responsible for the stolen cargo it contained.’’

  Against the surrounding darkness her tearstained cheeks glowed ghostly pale, while in her eyes challenge and outrage burned fiercely bright. And he realized his Sophie was gone, vanished like a wraith. The Sophie he might have had, the beautiful, smiling countess he had imagined earlier in her relatives’ kitchen, would never be his.

  Stepping down from the stoop, he filled his lungs with damp night air. ‘‘Dominic was mistaken about my knowing those men,’’ he said miserably. ‘‘I have never seen them before. Nor can I identify the ship you saw, or the men who sailed her. I dealt with a limited number of contacts, which is a way to ensure that no one man knows enough to bring the entire operation down.’’

  He moved closer to her, stopping short at the revulsion and alarm on her face as she backed away. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets to assure her that he posed no threat. ‘‘But yes, I may well have financed that ship. For two years, after inheriting a nearly bankrupt estate, I put my warehouses and private property at the disposal of smugglers. I provided funds to bribe customs inspectors to sign off on bills of lading that didn’t match delivery destinations and look the other way when black market or stolen goods were slipped through depots along with legitimate freight.’’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘‘And wrecking?’’

  She meant the deliberate scuttling of ships. Killed for the cargo. His guilt lashed at his temples, making him dizzy. ‘‘Yes,’’ he whispered. ‘‘That happened too, though neither by my hand nor, at the time, to my knowledge.’’ He clutched a fist to his chest. ‘‘I swear it.’’

  ‘‘My God.’’ Her hoarse whisper iced his soul. And there it was, the look he’d dreaded, the scathing abhorrence inscribed in the slash of her mouth, the steely glitter of her eyes.

  He reached out to her. ‘‘Sophie—’’

  ‘‘Don’t.’’ She backed away another step. A grim laugh escaped her. ‘‘Each time I ventured too close to a discovery, you came charging to the rescue, or so I believed. In truth you were merely diverting my attention. Oh, what an inconvenience I must have been.’’

  ‘‘I’d have given my life to keep you safe. Would still give my life for you.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t want your life. Only your heart.’’

  If only he could tell her his heart was and would always be hers, but what good would it do to offer the very thing she scorned?

  A dismal silence stretched between them. The air grew colder, the churchyard dimmer, and for a moment he feared the little ghost had returned. But his shaking hands told him it wasn’t the outer temperature dropping, but a stony chill inside him, beginning at his extremities and marching steadily through him.

  Sophie strode between the gravestones, pulled up short and, with a swirl of her hems, faced him again. ‘‘The tunnels. They were too cleverly disguised for anyone to simply stumble upon them. You must have known where they were all along. I suppose you reasoned that by revealing them to me you might continue to use them under the pretense of investigating.’’

  ‘‘I swear to you that before today I didn’t know where those tunnels were, or even that they existed. I found them because . . . I was led to them.’’

  ‘‘By whom? Surely not Nathaniel.’’

  ‘‘A ghost.’’

  Her expression told him he sounded insane. And how could he argue otherwise? He didn’t believe in ghosts—or hadn’t until tonight. But looking back on everything that had happened since his arrival in Penhollow, it was the only explanation that mad
e sense.

  He plowed his fingers through his hair, pulling it on end until the roots ached. ‘‘The night we met a ghost led me across the moor and to this chapel. It—she—prevented me from drowning the day we scaled the cliff. It was she who guided me to the tunnel beneath the house, and who helped me slide free of the gap we created in the cave-in debris.’’

  Sophie’s eyes turned as cool as the mist. Beneath her silent scrutiny Chad burned, writhed, died.

  ‘‘Liar.’’ Her eyes filled with fresh tears, fresh bitterness. ‘‘To think—God forgive me—I gave myself to you today. I threw myself away for a lie, for a phantom pleasure I foolishly believed could be real.’’

  Her words sliced at his soul. The trembling energy fluttering beneath her cloak alerted him to her intention of fleeing. Before she could take more than a step, instinct born of a frantic and stubborn refusal to give up sent him after her. He knew he should let her go; she’d be better off without him. Still he reached across a peaked granite marker, catching her wrist and halting her flight. ‘‘My feelings for you are real, Sophie. Never doubt it.’’

  ‘‘They cannot be, for the man I believed in isn’t real. If any ghost has wandered these moors it has been you, haunting me with an illusion that doesn’t exist.’’ She struggled to yank free of him, but he held her fast. The headstone stood as a half barrier between them, preventing him from stepping closer or pulling her into his arms.

  ‘‘The man who made love to you today does exist; I swear it,’’ he said. A resounding pain thundered inside his head, but he pushed past it, struggling to find the right words. True words, even if she would not accept them. ‘‘That was me, Sophie, not a phantom. I despise the things I’ve done—the crimes I’ve committed. I came to Penhollow to make amends. To try to discover the name of the individual at the center of the crimes, and stop them once and for all.’’

  ‘‘Why should I believe you?’’ Her voice sounded far off, echoing in his ears with a watery timbre.

  ‘‘I’m sorry . . . so damned sorry . . . you were caught in the middle. I tried to send you away.’’ The pain traveled beneath his skull. He blinked and raised his free hand to wipe icy perspiration from his brow. ‘‘I tried to stay away from you. I couldn’t . . . I . . .’’

  ‘‘What’s wrong with you?’’ The words undulated as if spoken beneath heaving waves. Her image blurred as a dark haze obscured his vision. He swayed.

  Reaching out, he caught the edge of the tombstone. He released Sophie in the process, but she didn’t run. Though poised for flight, she eyed him with uncertainty. He shut his eyes and fought for balance, opening them when a light pressure closed around his shoulders. Her hands.

  His own hands clenched the biting granite of the headstone. Somehow her gentle but steady grip lent him the strength to fight past whatever illness had taken him so unawares. Drawing in huge drafts of air, he straightened. The pain receded and his head began to clear.

  ‘‘Are you ill?’’ she asked with a reluctant concern he hoped to God he didn’t imagine.

  Did she—could she possibly—still care?

  Chapter 21

  Sophie’s mind reeled with the turmoil of the past days. Death. Guns. Tunnels. Assault. And now this dreadful confession and Chad’s implausible explanations. They crashed over her like a deadly tide yanking the solid ground out from under her and leaving her floundering.

  The Earl of Wycliffe, a peer of England . . . a smuggler? A criminal no more trustworthy than those ruffians at the farmstead? And now on top of it all a ridiculous tale of ghosts—as if some other hand and not his own had guided his wicked actions. How could she have so misjudged him?

  As his trembling shoulders steadied beneath her palms, she snatched her hands away, fearful that even scant contact would leave her once more vulnerable to his lies.

  Her insides withered around a pulsing regret. She had given her virginity to a man who, despite his present protestations, thought nothing of trifling with her. Humiliation left her throbbing with tears she refused—refused—to shed. The wind plucked frigidly at her cheeks. With fisted hands she wiped away the last traces of moisture, shook her streaming hair out of her face and raised her chin to him.

  ‘‘You speak of ghosts,’’ she said evenly. ‘‘Everything you have told me, every experience we have shared, has been but a specter of the truth. Perhaps it has been my own fault. You are right. You tried sending me away more than once, and I wouldn’t listen. I believed in a dream and refused to awaken. But I am awake now. And for the first time I see you plainly.’’

  With rapid steps she strode to the end of the row of stones and gazed out onto the rolling moor. She felt more than heard him come up behind her, and cursed herself for experiencing an aching tenderness that seemed to exist of its own volition. Even now he haunted the deepest places of her female yearnings.

  She jumped at the spark caused by his fingers on her nape.

  ‘‘Don’t turn away from me, Sophie.’’

  She heard the plea in his voice, the desperate hope. Unable to resist, she stole a glance at him from over her shoulder. It seemed the very life had drained from his features, and she experienced a moment of crushing doubt.

  Could he care so little for her and still look so gray, so dashed in spirit?

  ‘‘It is cold,’’ she said, ‘‘and there is nothing to be gained by lingering in this abandoned place.’’

  ‘‘It is not abandoned as long as you and I are here together.’’ He moved around her until they stood toe-to-toe. He touched her cheek, a graze of his fingertips that set fire to her flesh. ‘‘Can you deny the magic of this chapel? Always where we need it, though never in exactly the same place?’’

  She raised her hand to her face, as if she might rub away the longing aroused by his touch. ‘‘The moors confuse, trick the eye. This chapel does not move about like some living, benevolent creature waiting to serve us.’’

  ‘‘Doesn’t it?’’

  She ached to believe such a prospect could be true, but the logical part of her refused to give the notion credence.

  ‘‘I hurt you today,’’ he whispered. ‘‘God, I’m sorry for that. This morning meant more to me than—’’

  ‘‘Don’t you dare speak of this morning.’’ Her heart wrenching, she squeezed her eyes shut, blotting out the sight of him—and trying to overcome the devastating desire his very image evoked. Even after all these hours, soreness pinched her inner thighs, bittersweet stabs that conjured the passion of him inside her, the length and breadth of him filling her, impossibly, miraculously.

  ‘‘Sophie, I . . .’’

  ‘‘You what? Say it and have done.’’

  He parted his lips—those velvet, sensual lips—and drew a breath. But when she believed he might speak, he instead released a rasping sigh. The familiar shadows filled his eyes, once more shuttering his thoughts and rendering him a stranger.

  She swallowed a sob, but not before it tangled audibly in her throat. ‘‘I wish to return to Aunt Louisa’s.’’

  ‘‘Yes, we should both return to your aunt’s farm.’’

  She opened her mouth to tell him that he was unwelcome there, but he held up a hand to forestall her.

  ‘‘By your cousin’s own admittance he and his father are involved in Penhollow’s smuggling, and they might very well have some of the answers I seek. I intend to wait for your uncle to return and question him about what he knows. One way or another, Sophie, I will put an end to this, beginning tonight. Before the passing of many more days, the men who attacked Dominic—and, more important, their leader—will be apprehended. Or dead. Or I—’’

  He broke off, but his words left her with the disquieting impression that he had meant either his adversary would be dead . . . or he would.

  ‘‘Lord Wycliffe, please come into the house. It’ll do you no good to stand outside in the damp night air.’’

  In a gesture that felt as hollow as a freshly dug grave, Chad smiled his thanks at Rachel,
who beckoned from the kitchen doorway. He made no move to comply with her request. He would not offend Sophie any further with his presence.

  His confession had hurt her as irrevocably as their lovemaking had changed her. Should he have held his tongue and let the truth be damned? The longing to turn back the hours and undo his wretched honesty bored a veritable hole through his chest.

  But could he have continued to live with lies hanging between them? The man he used to be, prior to coming to Penhollow, might have. But he wasn’t that reckless, unthinking young rogue any longer. He understood now, all too well, about responsibility, and consequences, and the price of one’s actions. Not just the outward costs—loss of fortune, privilege, freedom. Those he could shoulder. The inner costs were another matter. Honor. Self-respect. Love . . .

  In those final moments at the chapel Sophie had challenged him to ‘‘say it and have done.’’ And, dear God, he’d come narrowly close to doing just that, to blurting the whole of what he had come to feel for her. How ironic that those very feelings had forced him to hold his tongue. With nothing to offer her in life but desperate straits and tainted honor, he had seen no other choice.

  Her cousin had disappeared into the kitchen. Now she returned to the threshold and held out a bottle and cup to him. ‘‘Kellyn left this earlier, said it might do you good. Have some now. It’ll help prevent you from catching cold.’’

  A wry smile curled his upper lip at how like the vicar she sounded. Would that his concerns were so simple. He went to the stoop and accepted the offered items from her hands, thanking her again for her kindness. She too would soon find her world altered, probably not for the better. If her father refused to cooperate, the man might eventually land in prison, or worse, depending on the depth of his involvement with the smuggling ring. Changing the harbor lights to guide an illicit vessel to shore was one thing. Chad hoped to God neither Gordon nor his son knew of, or had any hand in, the scuttling of ships.