Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  “And perhaps Adam and Eve—your wishing stones.”

  She laughed. “And perhaps Adam and Eve. Ah, there you are, Giles,” she said, taking Stephen’s hand and springing lightly down from the battlements with a swirl of silken skirts. “You did forget our dance but fortunately the Duveen’s guest, Mr. Linnington, rescued me. Have you met Mr. Linnington, Giles? Stephen Linnington, Giles Avery.”

  The dandy in violet taffetas, about to make some sharp remade about those who stole dances intended for another, found the wind taken out of his sails by Imogene’s chiding remark. He choked an acknowledgment to the introduction and whirled Imogene away as the music struck up. Over that stiff violet shoulder, Stephen could hear Imogene laughing.

  “Will ye do me the honor, Mistress Bess?” he asked absently and they were off across the floor.

  Bess’s wide gray eyes were looking at him gravely. “You must forgive Giles, Stephen. He’s wild in love with her, you know. ’Tis said their betrothal will be announced at any moment.”

  Stephen’s only response was a slight tightening of his arm muscles—those long ropy muscles that could split a man with a sword. If Bess noticed that, she made no comment, only continued to consider him with those large, grave eyes and a slightly pensive air. Preoccupied with thoughts of Imogene, Stephen was not to know the effect he had had on dreamy Bess, who thought him in all ways wonderful and dreaded the moment he must leave the Scillies to take up with the life he had left behind him when he was shipwrecked on their shores. For the moment she was content to dance with him and pretend that Stephen was in love with her and that tomorrow—some lovely rose-scented tomorrow—he would ask her to be his wife. She felt shy with him and she cast down her eyes and thrilled to his lightest touch.

  Ambrose came up and introduced him to some other people. Bess was swept away and Stephen found himself dancing with a succession of young girls whose names he could not even remember. And then he was dancing with Bess again, but he found himself looking over her shoulder at Imogene, who was smiling winsomely at a new partner. When the dance ended, they all found themselves together in a group containing stout Lady Moxley, who considered herself the leader of island society. Lady Moxley’s outdated farthingale bumped against Stephen as she turned a ceruse-whitened, disapproving face to the beauty in pink silk. ”Have ye lost your whisk, then?’’ she asked tartly, eyeing Imogene’s dainty exposed bosom with disfavor. “For I thought ye were wearing one when ye arrived.”

  “I was,” declared Imogene in a blithe voice. “The wind took it. ’Tis probably floating away to sea by now.”

  Lady Moxley sniffed and Ambrose, catching Stephen’s eye just then, gave him a significant look. But Stephen took that opportunity to return Bess to her brother and claim Imogene for another dance.

  “Did ye mean what ye said about sailing to Saint Agnes tomorrow?” he asked.

  “If the weather be fine. ...” Her gamin smile mocked him.

  “And if it be not fine?”

  “Then,” she shrugged deliciously, “ye must try and find me, must ye not?”

  “Or perhaps,” he suggested equably, “we could see each other rather sooner. After the guests go home, you could slip away and I could help ye look for your blown-away kerchief below the castle walls. ’Tis a clear night. It should be easy to find it.”

  “ ‘Slip away’?”

  “Aye. Don’t tell me ye’ve never done it.”

  She gave him an irritable look. “Of course I have.” No need to tell him that nothing had come of it, that she had enjoyed slipping away with an ardent swain on occasion and amused herself with his hot kisses. Sometimes she'd even let an eager questing hand wander too far—but always she’d stopped prudently short of endangering her virginity.

  His turquoise eyes gleamed. This was better than he’d hoped.

  “I’ll wait for you beneath the castle wall.”

  She tossed her head so that her golden curls bounced. “I won’t be there.”

  “And how will ye comfort yourself when ye’re married to yon exciting lad in violet?” he prodded. “Ye’ll have only your memories then, my lass! And wouldn’t you like to remember a search for a kerchief and perhaps a moonlight swim?”

  She gave an irritable shrug that set her delectable breasts in motion again. “Giles will be—manageable,” she snapped. “We’re not betrothed—yet. But if we were, he’d swim with me in the moonlight anytime I chose.”

  Stephen snorted. “Now, perhaps—though I doubt me you’d be willing to shock him by bringing up the subject. But after ye’re married—never! For then ye’ll be his possession, tightly guarded. There’ll be no slipping out then! Indeed, he’ll probably sleep with one leg over ye to make sure ye don’t stray!”

  “You’re—impossible!” she gasped.

  “Nay, ’tis Giles that’s impossible. Look at him, every hair in his yellow wig combed and pomaded to perfection. Think how elegant he’ll look when he takes it off and sets it carefully upon a wig stand and ties up his shaved head in a ribboned cap and comes to bed?”

  He was laughing at her! How Imogene would have liked to strike the smile from that bold countenance, for wigs were a sore point with her. She thought her guardian, so dignified in his great curled periwig, looked ridiculous without it, his head seemed shrunken inside his beribboned nightcap. How often the image of some shaven-headed dandy had risen up before her with distaste, for she knew that men of fashion who wore wigs kept their heads shaved. And Stephen Linnington, with his elegant head of thick gleaming copper hair—all his own, obviously—was bent on enjoying her discomfiture.

  “I shall be too busy unloosing my ropes of diamonds and pearls to notice Giles’s wig!” she retorted.

  Before he could taunt her further, the dance ended. Seething, Imogene fairly pulled Stephen toward Giles, who was standing between two of his friends: a slender, dark, rakish lad in fawn brocade whom Stephen identified vaguely as Mowbrey, and a smirking thick-lipped youth in wine satin whose eyes never left Imogene’s rapidly rising and falling breasts.

  Giles stepped forward to claim the next dance and Imogene, with a vengeful look at Stephen, allowed Giles to take her hand. “ ’Tis so hot!” she complained, fanning herself energetically with the pink-plumed fan that dangled on an ivory chain from her wrist. “A dip in the sea would be cooling. Think you that I in my chemise and you in your smallclothes could swim out to the point?”

  “Mistress Imogene!” Giles gaped at her and cast a horrified look at his grinning friends. “Surely, ye jest!” He almost stumbled over his own boots as he made haste to lead his spirited lady out upon the floor.

  Imogene’s face was flushed, and to Stephen’s regret, her reply was lost in the music as a scandalized Giles Avery bore her away from them, but Mowbrey’s lip curled as he turned away “Giles does not know our lustrous Imogene if he thinks she jests!”

  “What?” murmured his companion avidly, turning to join him. “And has she gone swimming with you in her chemise?"

  “Better than that, in her altogether. She—” A sudden burst of laughter from a coquettish girl floating by drowned the rest of his comment but from his companion’s sudden sputter of laughter Stephen had no doubt what it was.

  He strode after the pair, clamped his heavy hand down on the speaker’s shoulder and spun him around.

  “I think you besmirch a young lady’s reputation,” he grated and dusted his knuckles bruisingly across the lad’s surprised cheek.

  “What business is it of yours, sir,” gasped Mowbrey, turning pale as he looked up into that dangerous face, “to eavesdrop on a private conversation?”

  “I make it my business. Take back your lying words about Mistress Wells.”

  “ ’Tis no lie!” Bluster, now that a group was collecting around them. “For all know that she—”

  A sudden hard blow to his mouth rattled his teeth and he ended his comment by spitting blood.

  “Admit ye lied about Mistress Wells!” thundered Stephen.

&
nbsp; “I will not!” The cornered youth gave a wild look around him, saw that there was no escape from the eager onlookers who pressed forward. “I—I demand satisfaction, sir.”

  ”Good, I’ll give it to ye at sunup. Ambrose—” for Ambrose Duveen had pushed through the spectators—“will ye be my second and make the arrangements?”

  “A duel, Stephen?” Ambrose looked shaken.

  “Hardly that. I’ll be teaching a young puppy to guard his tongue in the future—if I decide to give him a future.” Stephen fixed his quarry with a gleaming eye. “Pray well this night, Mowbrey—it may be your last opportunity!”

  Turning first white and then red, his brocaded opponent looked about to leap forward, but the thick-lipped youth restrained him. Looking excited, he pulled Mowbrey away, while the lad pulled back crying, “Do not drag me off, Cowles! Faith, I’ll humble the fellow here!”

  “Listen to Cowles,” advised Stephen in a cold, carrying voice, “or ye’re like to take not one drubbing but two!”

  Ambrose tugged at Stephen’s arm. “ ’Tis madness to quarrel with Tom Mowbrey,” he said in an undertone. “His father’s Lord Constable and if ye should chance to kill him, he could make trouble for ye!”

  “I’ve no mind to kill him,” growled Stephen, moving away through the throng with Ambrose tagging after. “Just to let a little of his hot blood for him.”

  “In heaven’s name, why?” cried Ambrose. “Ye met him only this evening, what could ye find time to quarrel about?”

  “I liked not his insinuations about Mistress Wells,” said Stephen shortly.

  “About Imogene?” Ambrose’s eyes widened. “But everyone knows—”

  He found his words cut off by a strong hand that cruelly twisted the lace at his throat. “Say not one word about Mistress Imogene Wells,” came Stephen’s level voice, “or I’ll forget ye’re a friend and cross blades with you!”

  Ambrose paled—and swallowed as the strong fingers were withdrawn from his windpipe and he could breathe again. “So it’s that way now, is it? ’Twixt you and Imogene?”

  “There’s naught between us.”

  “Yet you’re her champion?”

  “Aye,” growled Stephen, “and in this Godforsaken place she needs one.”

  Ambrose bristled, and then chewed that over mentally. Stephen, he told himself sorrowfully, like so many others, had been instantly stricken with desire for Imogene; it was a malady from which many had suffered yet all had recovered. Doubtless Stephen would, too. He went away to find Cowles and make arrangements for tomorrow’s duel.

  “You mustn’t do it,” Bess told Stephen wildly. She had hurried across the room when she heard the news of the impending duel, which had flashed like wildfire through the crowd. “His father is—”

  “Lord Constable. Ambrose told me.”

  “But he can make desperate trouble for you!” cried Bess.

  “Mistress Bess.” Stephen’s voice softened at her obvious disarray. “I’ve had trouble made for me by experts. I doubt me this Lord Constable can make my problems any worse.”

  “But they say the quarrel was over Imogene and she isn’t yours to defend! She’s—”

  “Mine to defend. Exactly right,” came a Cornish voice and Stephen swung around to see that Giles and Imogene—a rather pale Imogene—had joined them.

  “That’s as may be,” drawled Stephen. “Meantime I’ll fight my own battles on behalf of any lady I please.”

  “Imogene,” appealed Bess. “Do something! Stephen may be killed!”

  “I did not ask him to fight for me. Indeed, I’ve no wish to be brawled over like any tavern wench!”

  Before Bess could more than sputter her indignation, Ambrose stuck his head between them. “We should go home now,” he told Stephen decisively. “For ye’ll need your sleep to have a strong sword arm tomorrow. I see Mowbrey has already left.”

  “I won’t be accompanying you.” Stephen looked straight at Imogene. “For whether death strikes me down tomorrow or no, I’ve a mind to stroll for a while beneath the castle wall before coming back to Ennor to sleep.”

  “Ye’re mad!” cried Ambrose. “ ’Tis already late and Cowles and I have arranged for a dawn engagement beneath this same wall! Mowbrey will spend the night with Cowles, who lives but a short distance away, and you—oh, I must insist!”

  “Insist all ye like,” grinned Stephen, his narrow gaze still playing over Imogene’s rapt face in which the color was rising. “But I’ve a mind to cool myself off with a moonlight swim and I may not be back till late. Indeed, I may not be back at all, but wait for my opponent here beneath the wall he’s so fond of.”

  Bess protested unhappily and Ambrose left them, shaking his head. But as Giles reached out to pull her away, Imogene, whose gaze had been locked with Stephen’s, shook her head as if to clear it.

  “Whoever is mad enough to wander the night,” she declared ringingly, “I shall be sleeping. For whoever is heavyeyed, I at least plan to be fresh for tomorrow’s battle!”

  Stephen grinned but Bess gave Imogene a look of pure horror for her heartlessness.

  And the ball went merrily on.

  CHAPTER 2

  Now that the ball was over, Imogene Wells, who, along with her maid, Elise, and her chaperon. Mistress Peale, were houseguests at Star Castle, could not sleep. She tossed in her unfamiliar bed and told herself that Stephen Linnington had been but baiting her, toying with her—he was not even now strolling beneath the stone walls and perhaps gazing up at the battlements, wondering if she was leaning over them searching for his lean figure in the darkness. She told her strumming heart decisively that she did not care a fig about that silly duel to be fought tomorrow. Tom Mowbrey was no swordsman, and Stephen, with his lean fencer’s body and that determined gleam in his turquoise eyes, could doubtless handle him. Softhearted Bess had been merely hysterical that a houseguest of the Duveens might come to harm.

  Still, Imogene could not sleep.

  Suddenly, goaded by the thought that he might really be out there waiting for her, she rose from her bed, rose stealthily, not to disturb Elise, who lay snoring soundly on a nearby cot. Quickly she slipped into a sky blue linen kirtle and doublet. She was about to tie on the huge detachable sleeves that were so fashionable, sleeves through which her ruffled white lawn chemise sleeves could be thrust, when a sudden thought occurred to her. A smile pricked the corners of her mouth and she dropped the big sleeves and snatched up a white lawn whisk and stole from the room.

  Soundlessly she made her way up to the battlements where the sleeping musicians, much the worse for drink and sleeping it off stertorously beside their instruments, lay sprawled. She tiptoed by them and leaned over the parapet, her eyes searching the dry moat for a dark figure... there was none. All the world seemed gone to bed.

  The only safe course was to go back to bed herself because she knew in her heart, although it annoyed her to admit it, this man could be dangerous—to her. He could change the course of her well-ordered humdrum life.

  Still the thought of him down there somewhere in the moon-streaked darkness tempted her and she lingered, leaning pensively on her arms on the parapet in the moonlight staring out at the dark islands and the dark, glittering sea stretching ever away.

  There was more to life than these islands and a guardian who was determined to marry her off, she told herself rebelliously. And—she sighed—she had so little time, for in June she would be seventeen.

  Until June . . . she had only till June and then her guardian would force her into marriage with Giles Avery. Not a betrothal she could lightly break—marriage. Marriage to the heir to the greatest fortune in Cornwall. And wasn't that what she wanted? she scolded herself. She toyed with the thought of marrying Giles, imagining how it would be.

  There would be a garlanded wedding, a boisterous wedding with guests from afar and bride’s ales, and ribbon favors to be cut from her gown. And while the guests went on roistering there would be ... a wedding night. Her eyes dark
ened at the thought, for she knew in her heart that she could never love Giles. They would be close together in a big bed with the curtains drawn around them, sinking in a smothering feather mattress, flesh pressed against flesh. . . . She hugged her arms around her body, feeling suddenly cold in her light linen doublet.

  But this was the way things were done—in Cornwall and all the rest of England. And who did she know who had married for love? It was customary for parents or guardians to arrange marriages for the young before . . . before they could break free and make their own choices, her rebellious heart told her.

  She pushed aside the thought. Think of all that lies ahead, she told herself desperately. Think of the fine clothes, the jewels, the balls ... no, with Giles there would be very few balls; he did not really care much for dancing—fine clothes, yes, and strutting about like a peacock, taking snuff—but dancing, no. He had often told her it was too fatiguing.

  Looking out over the far dark islands, she saw how it would be: Handsomely gowned—and considered lucky for a girl with no dowry—she would go to live at Giles’s family’s Tudor manse near Lands End and after the wedding trip he had promised her, she would probably never see any more of the world at all. She would spend her life—when she was not being ordered around by Giles’s mother—attending Giles’s needs, bearing his children, and watching a paunchy young man grow into a portly middle age. Of evenings, when her feet were tapping to dance she would have to sit demurely plying her needle and watch Giles work over his account books or smoke his pipe—and make conversation with his parents, whom she had met once and found unutterably dull. Or for a real treat Giles might ask her to play cards with him, for he had told her—with sparkling eyes, as if it were an important state secret—that at his home they played cards twice a week. It was their sole revolt against the Lord Protector’s puritanical hand.