Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon

by Catherine Gayle

  It must be high tide now, like it had been that day. The water would be up against the banks, pulsing with the life of the ocean. Threatening to take anything within it out into the sea, never to be seen or heard from again.

  And yet, Miss Hathaway sat there and watched with no discernible emotion taking over her visage. The desire to know what was going on inside her head became so strong within Aidan that he almost had to force himself to leave. All he could think of doing was marching over to Miss Hathaway, gripping her shoulders, and shaking her until she told him everything he wished to know before kissing her senseless.

  He was still trying to calm himself, making an effort to slow his pulse and return his breathing to that of a sane person, when Miss Hathaway’s lips parted slightly. Even though the room was crowded and there was no way he could have possibly heard anything coming from between those lips, he imagined he heard a soft, “Oh.”

  Then she was on her feet and making her excuses. She placed a hand to her forehead, feigning a headache or illness or being overly tired—he couldn’t be certain which, since he was fully on the other side of the room from her.

  She made her way to the door. Sir Henry followed her, holding out his hand as though to offer her assistance. Miss Hathaway shook her head, using her hands to gesture him back to the rest of the group they’d been seated with.

  Then she darted through the doors and was gone.

  Once the drawing room doors closed behind her and she was certain no one had followed her, Emma raced through the corridors in the direction of the kitchens. They’d had a lovely roasted quail for supper, and if there was any of that left, it would do perfectly.

  No servants stopped her on her way. Thank goodness. More than likely, many of them were occupied with either seeing to the guests’ current needs or preparing for their future needs, which served her purposes quite well. While she had no qualms about pretending to have a headache in order to escape the drawing room, there was no call for her to have to explain her deception should word somehow reach guests in the drawing room.

  Emma hadn’t really thought through all of that before setting her plan into motion. She’d just seen Kingley pawing at the window and imagined she’d heard him whining with hunger, and then she’d decided to act.

  When she turned the final corner and discovered the stairs down to the kitchens, still without being stopped, she let out a sigh of relief. Lying had never been a particular skill of hers, so she did it as sparingly as possible. She took the stairs as quickly as she could, and then came to an abrupt stop when the cook and all of the various kitchen maids looked up at her, startled.

  Perhaps she was a bit mad, but this was no time for her to worry about it; nor was it time to allow the servants to deter her.

  “Can we help ye, Miss Hathaway?” Cook bustled around a table, wiping her hands on an apron as she came. “Ye could ha’ just rung for a maid, ye know. They’d be glad te bring ye anything ye need, should ye just ask.” She tucked a graying strand of hair that had escaped her mobcap behind her ear and put a hand out as though to indicate that Emma should follow her. Before she knew what was happening, the cook had turned her back around and guided her back up the very steps she’d just raced down.

  Blast, that wouldn’t work.

  “Yes, I know.” Emma stopped moving and turned yet again to face the cook. “But what I need must be kept secret.”

  Based on the expression on the older woman’s face, one would have thought a murder had just taken place right before her eyes. She planted one hand on each hip and gave Emma a scowl that would have put Mr. Cardiff’s to shame. “I keep no secrets from Lord and Lady Burington, miss, and I won’t be changin’ tha’ for ye or anyone else, mind.”

  But Vanessa and David wouldn’t be bothered in the slightest if she fed Kingley, Emma was sure of it. “It needn’t be kept secret from Lord and Lady Burington,” she hastened to say, grateful when the cook’s eyes softened by a minuscule degree. “Just the rest of the guests, you see.”

  This caught Cook’s notice. Her bushy eyebrows rose in question and a decided gleam struck her eyes. “And wha’ secret might this be?”

  A few minutes later, Emma was being shuffled through the servants’ stairways and corridors so as not to be seen by any of the other guests, her hands filled with a plate of quail, carrots, and peas.

  When she arrived at the door leading out to the west side of the house, near the bay window that overlooked the estuary, the scullery maid who’d been sent to guide her gave a little curtsey as she opened the door. “We’ll send Horner to lock it after you come back in, miss. Just bring the plate back to the kitchens.” She scurried away through the wending halls before Emma could properly thank her.

  Carefully, Emma made certain the door was closed, so as not to rouse unnecessary suspicions, but that she could still open it. Then she moved around the corner until the bay window was in view. Candles lit the drawing room inside, casting the others aglow in dancing flickers. With the light of the moon the only thing illuminating the out of doors, she was certain no one would be able to see her. Certainly not if she didn’t go close to the window.

  Taking cautious steps, she made her way along the side of the main house. It wouldn’t do to fall into an unexpected hole or trip over an unseen plant. “Kingley?” she called out softly. Perhaps a bit too softly, since he didn’t come to her. But she couldn’t risk anyone inside hearing her, so she daren’t shout.

  “Kingley,” Emma repeated with a bit more heft behind her voice. Surely, with all of the noise in the drawing room from the revelers, they wouldn’t hear her.

  He still didn’t come.

  Having the forethought to have brought a lantern with her to light her way would have been the intelligent thing to do. Instead, she had to rely solely on the light of the moon. Emma reached out her free hand, using it to guide her path along the side of the great house until she feared moving any closer to the bay window.

  “Kingley!” she called out once more, growing in confidence that she’d never be heard through the massive stone walls. “Kingley, I’ve got some food for you.”

  And then she heard his bark, off on the other side of the house.

  Without a thought, she dashed off to meet him, nearly sprinting in her haste to move past the window. Her slipper caught on a root or something, and she jolted forward but only just managed to avoid falling flat on her face. Kingley barked again as he raced around the side of the house, making a mad dash to reach her. “No, Kingley, not here.” She was still directly outside the bay window! They couldn’t stop there.

  What had she been thinking? Anyone inside the drawing room could have noticed her at that proximity. Emma chanced a look inside to see if anyone was peering out.

  Mr. Cardiff’s cold, blue eyes locked onto hers for a moment, piercing her with their intensity, but just as quickly he looked away.

  Her heart came to a standstill and she broke out into a cold sweat. Had he truly seen her? He couldn’t have. It must have been her own fears that had planted such a thought into her mind. Besides, it wasn’t as though Mr. Cardiff would care one way or another. Emma brushed away the notion that he’d noticed her and then rushed on to meet Kingley—out of view of the drawing room’s occupants.

  When they came together, he dashed in circles around her, jumping up and down while his tail wagged from side to side.

  Emma took care not to stain her gown as she took a seat on the grass, and then laughed at herself. Heavens, she’d already fallen. Surely it was already stained. She set the plate down beside her. Kingley was so excited to see her that he kept nudging her hand with his head and licking her fingers instead of eating.

  “Silly dog,” she said with a laugh. Then she picked up a bite of the quail and held it out in her palm beneath his nose.

  Kingley sniffed it and then ate it. Soon enough, he found the plate and worked his way through his meal without another sound, aside from his jaw working. When he finished, he curled up besi
de her and dropped his head on her lap, letting her pet him and scratch behind his ears.

  “You’re really a very sweet dog, you know?”

  Of course he didn’t respond to that. She stayed out with him for as long as she dared. At last, she realized she must go back inside. If someone were to search for her, to see if she’d recovered from her headache or if she needed anything…well, she shouldn’t be missing.

  Kingley came with her, guiding her in the moonlight, as she took a wide berth in front of the bay window. Once they were past it and she could see her way to the servants’ door ahead, Emma patted him on the head. “Be a good pup, and I’ll be sure to sneak you some more food tomorrow.”

  He let out a whining sort of sound that she took as acquiescence, and then he darted off into the distance. Emma watched him go, laughing at his exuberance. Dogs were such honest creatures. All one must do to earn their eternal devotion was show them a little care. If only men were so easy to handle. Once he was out of her sight, she turned back toward the door and took a step—but walked straight into the very solid expanse of a man’s hard chest.

  What in God’s name am I doing outside following after Miss Hathaway? It shouldn’t matter to him in the slightest what she was doing, let alone why she was doing it. But when he’d seen her stumble and nearly fall while skulking around outside the bay window, he had been unable to stop himself from making his own exit. He’d gone off to search for her outside to demand an explanation for just what, precisely, she thought she was doing outside alone at night.

  And now he had her. Quite literally, as a matter of fact.

  She’d bumped head-first into his chest, her pert nose brushing against the hollow at the base of his neck, and his arms had instinctively shot out to steady her, as though they had a mind of their own. Indeed, they must have. He wouldn’t have attempted to save her from a fall, would he? Yet even though several moments had passed since her initial stumble, Aidan had yet to release her.

  It was unfathomable, really. While his head told him to let her go and return to the house, his hands wouldn’t cooperate. They remained firmly affixed to her upper arms, as though they’d become permanently attached. Her heartbeat pounded against his chest, and her breaths came out feather-light but fast, tickling against the underside of his chin much as the light scent of lemons tickled his nostrils. Instead of pushing her away and putting a reasonable distance between them, he wanted to draw her closer. To drink her in. To drown in her scent.

  More and more, Bedlam seemed the perfect destination for him.

  Miss Hathaway scowled up at him, her brown eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Kindly let me go,” she finally said into the charged stillness between them, her haughty tone making him want to draw her closer still, which was nothing short of befuddling. “I shouldn’t want to be missed.”

  But she’d already made certain she wouldn’t be missed. Before she left the drawing room, she’d claimed a debilitating headache—that was what Sir Henry had informed Aidan when he’d gone over to investigate her sudden departure.

  Why had she claimed illness and yet gone outside alone to stumble about in the darkness instead of to her chambers to convalesce?

  “What in God’s name have you been doing out here alone?” Aidan demanded. “In the dark, no less!” He hadn’t intended for his tone to be so gruff, and he halfway regretted it when she flinched against him.

  Granted, he hadn’t intended any of this.

  For a moment, he thought he saw a glimmer of tears forming in her eyes. But that couldn’t be. The Miss Hathaway of his memory had always been an unfeeling girl, more concerned with what happened in the pages of a novel than what happened to the people around her. Such people did not care about anything enough to warrant tears in Aidan’s experience.

  The way she looked after Morgan would seem to contradict the impression he’d had of her from before, though. Did ladies who would toss their own good reputations aside in defense of a friend often cry? He didn’t know.

  “What I’m doing is of no concern to you, sir,” she said a moment later. The tears were gone. They must have been a figment of his imagination—something flittering through his mind despite the fact that it wasn’t real.

  She pushed against his chest, and only then did he realize she’d been holding a china plate in her hands. A plate? She was outside, alone, at night, traipsing around and losing her footing…carrying a plate. Yet Aidan was certain she’d been present for supper. He’d hardly been able to keep his eyes from her the entire meal, confound it all.

  A dog barked in the distance, and then he understood. “You’ve been feeding that mutt, haven’t you?”

  “What if I have?” Miss Hathaway’s lips turned down in a frown, and his eyes fell to them against his will. Being so close to those lips did nothing to help eliminate his earlier vision from his mind. They were far more lush than he’d realized from across the room, more supple. They looked to be as smooth as silk.

  This was no time for his thoughts to stray back to all of the delightful things her mouth could be doing. He’d already spent far too much time thinking of such things when he never should have allowed his mind to travel that path in the first place.

  Aidan gave himself a mental shake, willing the unbidden lust away. “If you feed that dog, Burington will never be rid of it. It will bring its fleas and whatever else it might have with it to infest all of the animals here. Is that what you want?”

  “Kingley doesn’t have that many fleas,” she muttered.

  “Not that many,” Aidan repeated, mocking her tone. Damn, but he needed to rein himself in.

  This was going altogether poorly. Emma Hathaway’s presence this summer was wreaking havoc on him in a way he’d never imagined. He could no more stop his thoughts from drifting to inappropriate places than he could remove his foot from his leg, but surprisingly he didn’t want to. It may not have been his plan to fall in lust with her, but lust was rarely something he wished to avoid.

  He bit down on the inside of his cheek before going on, hoping the small amount of pain would help him remember himself. “Meaning he has fleas, much as we all expected.”

  Aidan wanted to shake some sense into her, not that he really thought such a thing were possible. She’d gone off alone in the night without a thought other than to feed a mangy cur. She was little more than a brainless twit. He had no doubts on that score. That didn’t mean she deserved to be mocked as he’d just done. She’d caused him to lose all sense of his reason, all sense of decorum.

  Miss Hathaway granted him no opportunity to apologize for his rudeness. “I don’t know why it should matter to you one way or another. You seem to be here for no reason other than to stalk Morgan’s every move and to remind me how much you despise me at every turn.” Somehow, her frown deepened, yet again drawing his eye and his thoughts to a place they had no business being. “Speaking of Morgan, shouldn’t you be in the drawing room with her instead of out here with me? Surely you can find a reason to get in her way right now, imposing yourself upon her instead of upon me. I can’t imagine you have nothing more important to do than stop me from feeding a starving dog.”

  Only one bit of her speech resonated with him. It stuck in his head and refused to leave. “I don’t get in Morgan’s way.” It left him more irritable than normal that this infuriating woman was trying to redirect their conversation. “And your feeding that hound matters to me because Burington is my friend. I won’t have you doing anything that will cause him problems.”

  “No, I’ve already caused enough problems for the people in your life, haven’t I?” she shot back.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, you have.”

  She pursed her lips together, which only served to make her look like a prim governess. Her eyes flashed a mere moment before she stomped one of her slippered feet down on top of his boot.

  He would have laughed at the lack of pain it caused him, were it not for the instant flood of tears that hovered just on the brink of
spilling down her cheeks. Good God. She was the one who’d assaulted him, and she was behaving like he’d tried to ravish her.

  “Blast!” Miss Hathaway hopped on her other foot, trying to reach down to the one she’d just harmed, but he hadn’t released her arms. She flailed about, kicking out her legs while her arms flew at anything and nothing. “Let me go. You are impossible.”

  “Be still,” Aidan grumbled. The blue muslin of her gown whipped about from all her exertions, entangling both his limbs and hers even as he fought to contain her struggling. It was no use, particularly since she fit so perfectly against his frame, like she was made just for him and no one else. In her innocence, she couldn’t possibly have an idea of the effect her movements were having upon him, but Aidan was entirely too aware of certain parts of his anatomy. He’d have to be mad to let her go.

  “Callous, unfeeling, insensitive…” The litany of her insults rang out into the empty night air, echoing in his mind. She kicked again, this time connecting with his calf, and the swirling fabric of her gown tightened around both of their legs. With a jerk, she tried to disengage herself, but she only succeeded in shifting all of their weight until he fell with her beneath him.

  Somehow, he twisted mid-fall so he hit the ground first with her on top. Her gown was trapped beneath him, and she couldn’t move an inch.

  Aidan wrapped his arms fully around her torso, entrapping her arms and keeping her still against him. With all of the fury she had built up, now was not the best time to release her—lest he end up covered in scars from her scratching at his eyes or something else of the sort.

  A furious woman was not to be underestimated.

  “Insufferable, churlish, despotic, tyrannical…” The stream of her contempt seemingly had no end, and her voice continued to rise in pitch.