Dark Temptation

by CHASE, ALLISON

  His thoughts returned to the matter of the harbor lights. Any inhabitant of the village would have quick and easy access to the quay at night, but who might have gotten away with it without anyone else knowing?

  A sudden thought ushered in another bout of dizziness. As the sensation wafted through him, he braced his feet, pressed a hand to his temple and said, ‘‘What about Grady?’’

  Chapter 22

  ‘‘The Irishman?’’ Sophie’s uncle emitted a bark of laughter. ‘‘He’s stark raving mad.’’

  ‘‘Is he?’’ Chad shot back. ‘‘Or is that what he wishes people to think?

  Uncle Barnaby’s expression became serious, but in the next instant he waved a hand in the air and made a dismissive sound.

  ‘‘You supposedly went to Mullion today.’’ Chad’s voice plunged to an accusing baritone. ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘To arrange to sell off some of our lambs before the cold sets in.’’ Aunt Louisa held out her hands. ‘‘Why else?’’

  Chad swung about to face her. ‘‘And did you happen to run into Grady there? He left for Mullion yesterday to report the deaths of the three sailors to the coast guard.’’

  ‘‘Why, no . . . we never saw him.’’ Aunt Louisa’s nervous glance wandered to her husband, then darted back to Chad. ‘‘But Mullion is a larger town than Penhollow. We simply didn’t cross paths.’’

  Something in her aunt’s demeanor prompted Sophie to wonder if the couple was indeed hiding something. ‘‘Are you certain, Aunt Louisa? The time for secrets is long past.’’

  ‘‘We did not see the Irishman,’’ the woman said without blinking.

  ‘‘And I suppose neither of you would happen to know,’’ Chad said evenly, ‘‘why a man who claims he’s sailing to Mullion would leave his boat tied up in the inlet where you, Gordon, light the torches at night?’’

  Uncle Barnaby shoved to his feet. ‘‘I don’t know what you’re implying, but I swear on the lives of both my children I’ve no knowledge of the Irishman’s whereabouts, nor that of his blasted boat. If it’s moored in an inlet south of here, I’ll be damned if I know why.’’

  Several long moments passed as the two men regarded each other, rather like two bulls debating whether to charge. Sophie half expected fists to begin flying, until the rigid line of Chad’s shoulders relaxed. ‘‘Perhaps I’m a fool, but I believe you.’’

  Like a pair of conspirators, he and Uncle Barnaby reached an uneasy truce and began making plans to apprehend the villains at the moorland farm. Chad insisted they would learn much from those men. Uncle Barnaby agreed, though he stubbornly maintained that an earl had no business taking part in such a confrontation. He suggested enlisting the help of his brother-in-law, the powerful, baldheaded Reese, instead. Chad balked at the former notion, but concurred with the wisdom of bringing the Stormy Gull’s barkeep along.

  As the men alternately plotted and argued, Sophie watched Chad intently. He wasn’t well—she’d stake her life on it. He made a first-rate job of covering, but she detected minute details the others wouldn’t notice—the sleeplessness smudging his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the slight tremor in fingers usually as steady as the granite crags on the moors.

  He’d shown symptoms of illness earlier at the chapel, and twice again since returning to the house. No, more than that. She considered the countless times his features had suddenly tightened for no apparent reason. The others wouldn’t have caught it, wouldn’t have known how to interpret it. But she did. She had seen such signs of distress in him before, such as when he’d battled the Devil’s Twirl and been heaved against the rocks, or when he’d fought his way through the gap in the cave-in.

  Though he soldiered on now, she knew something continued to ail him, and she couldn’t force herself to turn away and cease to care. Even when she tried convincing herself that her regard went no further than that of any decent individual toward another, a pain beneath her breastbone and the constant gnawing of worry in her belly belied the assertion. As did a constant desire to take his face in her hands and touch her lips to his.

  What a fool she had become when it came to this man.

  Sometime after midnight her aunt suggested that everyone snatch a few hours of sleep before the men put their plans into action come dawn. Ian had fallen asleep in a kitchen chair, his head cradled in his arms on the table. Sophie had nudged him, but he had let out a snore and slumbered on with a sailor’s ability to sleep in any position, under any conditions.

  As Uncle Barnaby helped Dominic to his feet and the family headed for the stairs, Chad approached Sophie.

  ‘‘At first light the vicar will take you up the coast in his curricle.’’

  ‘‘Up the coast? Why?’’

  Looking as though his eyelids were weighted, he blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘‘He’ll bring you as far as Mullion, and from there you can arrange transport to Helston and anywhere else you wish.’’

  She struggled to maintain an impassive expression, to betray none of the emotions clashing inside her. She should be glad to leave this place—a place she had never wished to be. And glad to leave him, a man who, despite their shameless familiarity, remained little more than a stranger to her.

  Yet the prospect of continuing her life without him left her feeling utterly empty and as though the future could not possibly hold a single meaningful moment.

  ‘‘Why send me away?’’ She attempted to inject enough haughtiness into her voice to mask the quiver in her throat. ‘‘Especially now, when we’re certain I’m in no danger here in my aunt and uncle’s house. Or are there more secrets you wish to prevent me from learning?’’

  ‘‘Damn it, Sophie, I’m not asking you to trust me. I want you gone from here—do the reasons matter so much?’’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘‘Nowhere in Penhollow is safe. Take your cousins and your aunt and go with the vicar. There must be other relatives you can go to. I’ll provide the fare for all of you.’’

  ‘‘I, for one, am not going anywhere.’’ Dominic, having made it to the foot of the stairs with Uncle Barnaby’s help, gripped the banister and pulled up straighter. ‘‘Damned if I’m about to run off on Father.’’

  Uncle Barnaby shook his head. ‘‘What good do ye think to do me here, boy, in the shape you’re in?’’

  ‘‘Would you be rid of me so easily, then?’’

  A sigh rumbled from the man’s broad chest. ‘‘Nay, son, I suppose I wouldn’t at that. Stay if ye’ve a mind to. You’re a man grown and may do as your conscience advises.’’

  ‘‘Then I’m staying.’’

  ‘‘As am I,’’ Aunt Louisa said from a few steps above them.

  ‘‘I’m certainly not leaving, then.’’ Rachel descended from the upper landing to meet the censure of the others.

  ‘‘Don’t be silly, child; you’re to go with Sophie,’’ her mother said.

  ‘‘Better you’re somewhere far from here, for now,’’ her father agreed.

  ‘‘You’d be daft to stay, you witless chit.’’ A wry, half grin took the sting from Dominic’s rebuke.

  His sister stood above them, arms crossed and feet braced. ‘‘I hardly see why it would be silly, daft or witless of me to do exactly as you three mean to do. I’m part of this family, and I’ll not desert the rest of you.’’

  The girl’s quiet courage filled Sophie with admiration, with sudden pride in these obdurate relatives of hers. Though she never would have expected it, she realized she would miss the Gordons, even surly Dominic and dour, brutish Uncle Barnaby. Theirs was a fortitude born of the rocky crags and the unremitting sea. Yet what had happened to Dominic today proved they were not invincible, that they were as vulnerable as anyone else.

  For her brave but gentle cousin’s sake, she knew what she must do. Walking to the staircase, she reached up through the newels and clasped Rachel’s hand. ‘‘I think you and I should leave. This is not my quarrel. Nor is it yours.’’

  The younger girl whisked
her hand free. ‘‘I won’t run away. My family needs me.’’

  ‘‘Of course they need you,’’ Sophie said as kindly as she could. ‘‘But our being here will only be a hindrance. If your father and Chad are going to work together to apprehend murderers, they oughtn’t to be fretting over our safety, ought they?’’

  A portion of Rachel’s defiance faded from her features. ‘‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. . . .’’ She aimed a questioning glance at her father.

  ‘‘She’s right, lass.’’

  ‘‘Please listen to them, Rachel, and go.’’

  All heads turned toward the parlor, where a tousle-haired Ian stood staring up at Rachel, a fierce expression burning in his eyes. Sophie’s breath caught. She knew that look, had seen it countless times on Chad when he had feared for her safety, when he had held her in his arms, when he had entered her body and made her his.

  But she had also seen another look on Chad’s face, a shadowy mask of secrets and guilt. She hoped her ingenuous cousin would never see such a look on her young fisherman’s face, or experience the heartache of learning its meaning.

  ‘‘Please, Rachel,’’ he said again in a whisper.

  And as Rachel nodded her acquiescence, Sophie’s heart swelled with affection for the couple, but not without a twinge of envy. Barnaby Gordon disapproved of Rachel’s attachment to Ian, yet here the youth stood, willing, for her sake, to incur her father’s anger.

  If only Chad had possessed the same quiet courage, he might have at least spared her from the pain of his lies.

  And from the pain of loving him.

  Sophie shivered in the dawn chill. Her bags were packed, waiting alongside Rachel’s to be loaded into the vicar’s curricle as soon as he arrived. While the others finished Aunt Louisa’s hastily cooked breakfast of eggs and blood pudding, she stood alone on the beach, draped in the elongated shadows of the dunes.

  Restless waves hurled whitecaps to break against the sandy shore. Dots of foam spattered her dress, occasionally her cheeks. She didn’t bother wiping the moisture from her skin, but let it mingle with the tear or two she could not blink away.

  Leaving brought a sense of finality she suddenly couldn’t bear to face. If she could only convince her heart of what her mind knew; that Chad Rutherford was not the man she had met in the chapel on Blackheath Moor, not noble and honorable and true. She wondered, had the mist conjured the illusion of him, or had she done that herself, with her loneliness and her yearning to find something exciting and worthwhile in this harsh country?

  Perhaps in this he could not be blamed.

  ‘‘I thought I’d find you here.’’

  A shiver went through her at the velvet rumble of his voice, but she did not turn away from the churning sea. That he found her here didn’t surprise her. He had remained at the farm last night, cramping his tall frame onto the same settee Dominic had abandoned when he went upstairs to bed. She had slipped down to the shoreline this morning wishing to avoid useless arguments and final, pointless appeals, but it seemed he could not let her leave without parting words.

  She wished he would. She wished he had returned to Edgecombe, or anywhere, rather than force her to endure the mutinous desire stirred by his presence. The memories of every kiss, every touch—and the painful longing they evoked—would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Why wouldn’t he walk away and grant her a moment’s peace?

  ‘‘Sophie, I . . . I wished to . . .’’

  The heat of his palm hovered at her nape. He stepped closer, until the graze of his chest against her back set her skin aflame. She lurched and spun about to face him. He stood in shirtsleeves, the linen plastered to his muscular frame by the raw winds.

  ‘‘To what?’’ she demanded. ‘‘Apologize?’’

  ‘‘I would, if it were possible. I know I’ve lost your trust, probably for always.’’ The breeze plucked his golden hair from his brow, exposing a healing abrasion across the fine arch of his temple. The circles beneath his eyes mirrored the gloom of the clouds scudding over the water. The rasp of his tired voice echoed the restless ocean gusts.

  Unwilling to give in to the tugs of sympathy and concern pulling tight across her heart, she looked away, following the flight of a storm petrel as it swooped over the waves. ‘‘How can you speak of trust? I trusted you with so much. So very much. Why could you not show the same faith in me?’’

  ‘‘If I’d told you the truth from the beginning, would you have understood? Forgiven me?’’

  ‘‘Your transgressions are for the law to forgive. But your lies and your theft—those I find unforgivable.’’

  ‘‘Theft?’’ His brow creased in genuine puzzlement. ‘‘Isn’t that also a matter for the law?’’

  ‘‘I mean what you stole from me.’’ Her heart. Her virginity. Yet, in truth, he had stolen nothing from her. She had given herself gladly and eagerly. A trembling certainty rose up inside her that if they stood together much longer on the deserted, windswept beach, she might give herself again, walk into his arms and surrender her heart, her being.

  ‘‘I am a scoundrel, Sophie. And yes, I stole from you what my own life so desperately lacked: your courage and your spirit, and your sweet, stubborn determination to do the right thing, no matter the cost or risk to yourself.’’ His arms came up as if to reach for her, then dropped to his sides. ‘‘Is it any wonder I could not resist you?’’

  His voice had softened to a murmur that both caressed and tormented her. She allowed herself a glimpse of his cognac-colored eyes, expecting to see shadows and obscurity but finding only anguish—and regret so deep she feared she might drown in it if she looked at him a moment longer. She stared out at the sea.

  ‘‘Please believe I never wished to hurt you,’’ he whispered behind her.

  ‘‘If only you hadn’t lied, perhaps we might have found some way to breach the rift between us. But even as you finally confessed the truth of your involvement with smugglers and wreckers, you lied again.’’

  He circled her, a denial plain on his face. ‘‘I told you everything last night. I swear I left nothing out.’’

  ‘‘It isn’t what you left out,’’ she said, ‘‘but what you included.’’

  He shook his head, held out his arms. ‘‘What?’’

  Her anger rising, she clutched her hands to keep herself from grasping his shoulders and shaking him. ‘‘Ghosts. Your ludicrous assertion that a ghost has been leading you through Penhollow, dictating your actions. I suppose next you’ll tell me a ghost made you break the law. Perhaps ghosts murdered those three sailors caught in the nets of Ian’s fishing boat.’’

  ‘‘God, no. The mistakes I made were my own fault. And as for murder, human hands did that.’’

  ‘‘And what of your hands? Whom have they hurt? Whom have you—’’

  She couldn’t say it. She had trusted those hands on every part of her body; their touch had propelled her to unimagined heights of ecstasy. Were his hands also capable of murder?

  ‘‘I swear to you, I’ve never laid a violent hand on anyone. My crimes were ones of complicity, of facilitating something I didn’t fully comprehend. And because I didn’t take the time to understand the repercussions of smuggling—that lives are often sacrificed—I shall never fully escape my guilt.’’

  ‘‘You are doing an inordinate amount of swearing. I wish I could believe in your sincerity. . . .’’ And yet part of her feared doing just that: being taken in by him again and letting him manipulate her.

  ‘‘At least believe this,’’ he said. ‘‘The ghost is real. I denied the possibility at first, but after what I saw and felt last night before I found you, I have no choice but to heed the apparition that has been dogging my steps since I arrived in Penhollow. That is why I’m sending you away with the vicar, rather than taking you to safety myself. This ghost has charged me with a task, and I must stay and see it through.’’

  More lies, even now? Painfully, unbearably, her broken hea
rt turned to ice. ‘‘You must think I’m the greatest fool ever born.’’

  Kicking up a dervish of sand, Sophie pushed past Chad. Even before his mind fully formed the intention, he strode after her and caught her by the shoulders.

  ‘‘Let me go.’’

  ‘‘Not yet, Sophie. I cannot let you leave with so much still unspoken between us.’’ Perhaps he couldn’t let her go at all. The thought terrified him. He’d fancied countless women over the years, shared his bed with many of them, but forgotten them easily enough once they’d gone.

  Oh, but not Sophie, the one woman he should forget, who should be allowed to forget him. He could never deserve her, and the life he might once have offered her—that of a wealthy, respected countess—might never again exist. But for all that, he could not command his fingers to open their grip and release her.

  Nor could he allow her to go away believing there had never been an honest moment between them, that he had played her false at every turn.

  ‘‘Think about it,’’ he urged, ‘‘and you’ll see I’m telling you the truth. Yesterday morning when I pushed my way through the fallen debris in the tunnel I caused a further cave-in. Yet later you and I were able to shove rocks out of the way without raising so much as a rumble of complaint from the earth.’’

  ‘‘We were lucky.’’

  ‘‘We had help. The morning I swam to you from Grady’s boat, my strength had run out from fighting the current. I went under. I thought I’d drown, but it was as though something or someone reached in and dragged me from the waves.’’

  Some of the tension drained from her shoulders. ‘‘I saw you struggling. . . .’’