Lily (17 page)

“Don’t forget the scratch,” he murmured, eyes closed, his hard mouth relaxed for once in a dreamy half-smile.

She used her nails in a light graze all over his back and shoulders, and again his hum of pure pleasure made her smile. It was no wonder he was strong, she mused, watching his hard muscles ripple and flex under her fingers. She’d known from the beginning that he was no idle country squire, but in recent days she’d discovered that he was as involved in the running of his estate as any workman he employed, and this period of enforced inactivity vexed and frustrated him. She’d also learned, from meetings she’d overheard in this room or in her capacity as message-carrier between him and Mr. Cobb, Francis Morgan, and others, that his authority was absolute, and yet his employees respected him for traits like fairness and consistency and farsightedness, not simply because he was “the master.” Lowdy had told her he was a troubled, unhappy man, at odds with the world. If that was true, she knew now that he did not allow whatever devils plagued him to intrude on his working life. He controlled them. But occasionally she wondered at what cost.

Her musings reminded her. “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you—Mr. Morgan would like to speak to you on a matter about the mine this afternoon. He sent a note, and wondered if four o’clock would suit you.”

“Fine,” he grunted, pushing himself onto his back. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

She plumped his pillows and stacked them behind him, and he sat up. She reached for the nightshirt at his waist, to help him put it on again, but abruptly he took both of her hands and brought them to his chest. It was a maneuver that forced her to lean over him until their faces were quite near. She’d learned by now that she was invariably the loser in anything approaching a physical struggle with him, and that a facade of imperturbability was her only defense. But he was opening her hands and pressing her palms to his chest, and the dark, tickly hair under her fingers was a disconcerting surprise. So was the strong, steady thudding of his heart.

Her voice was anything but steady when she said, “I’d better go, then, and tell the footman to take your message. To Mr. Morgan. That you’ll see him at four—” She had to stop when he put two fingers on her lips.

“You’re beautiful, Lily. You’re lovelier today than you were yesterday. Or the day before.” He was besotted, and yet he could swear it was true. Healthy color glowed in her cheeks, and her extraordinary eyes seemed brighter, greener.

She knew she was blushing. “I’m eating better,” she blurted idiotically, “and—and sleeping more since I’ve been keeping your hours.”

“Then we must make sure you continue to keep my hours.” He cupped his hand behind her neck to draw her closer. She smelled like no other woman he’d ever known: she smelled like soapsuds.

His mouth was beautiful, and he was going to kiss her. She wanted it so badly it frightened her. “I don’t think you need me anymore,” she got out huskily. “I don’t think you’re very sick.”

“Wrong,” he contradicted, shaking his head slowly. “I’ve never needed you more.” He surrounded one of her open hands with his and dragged it down the hard length of his chest, his flat belly. She only realized his intention when he murmured, “Let me show you.”

She jerked her hand away and jumped up. Her heart was racing and she felt out of breath, and relieved and disappointed at the same time. It was hard to know what to say to him.
How dare you?
had an insincere ring; after all, this was only what their intimate game of advance-and-retreat had been leading to for four days. And it was hard to stay angry when he was grinning up at her with that cocky, utterly unapologetic gleam in his eye. Odd—what she wanted to do most was laugh at him.

But she made her face stern and began to fumble with plates and glasses at his bedside. Turning away, she got halfway to the door with the tray, intending to leave without speaking at all, when he stopped her.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

She made a quarter-turn toward him. “Downstairs.”

“All right. You have my permission to leave.” He didn’t miss the tightening of her lips or the subtly acrid glare she shot him. “But come back in half an hour. I want you to help me get dressed. Then I think I’d like to walk outside. You’ll accompany me.”

She made herself face him, concern momentarily overcoming her pique. “Are you sure you’re strong enough for a walk?”

“Oh yes,” he said, folding his hands over his stomach and smiling suggestively. “I’m strong enough now for lots of things.”

A lame double entendre, thought Lily. Nevertheless, it made her blush—which, of course, was exactly what he’d intended. “Very good, sir,” she said through her teeth. That only made his leer of a smile widen. She whirled around, dishes rattling. Something that sounded surprisingly like a chuckle followed her out the door.

“Is it really necessary for you to hold
on
so?” Lily muttered, making her voice cross.

“Why, certainly. I’m recuperating from a serious wound; I’m still desperately weak! If I fell, I could do myself a grievous injury.”

She slanted him a disbelieving glare. He’d tucked her hand under his arm so that to an observer—and she imagined there were many, for as they strolled along the headland path they could be seen from any window at the back of the manor house—it might appear that she was supporting him. Since he was perfectly capable of maintaining this sedate, unhurried pace without assistance, she knew it was just one more of his tricks, an excuse to touch her. She ought to be annoyed. Annoyance was the farthest thing from her mind.

But she couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking of. Not very long ago he’d been careful—insultingly so—not to be seen with her by anyone, even his staff. Now their roles seemed to have been reversed, for she was the one who worried about the appearance of impropriety that the intimacy of their new relationship created. Because she was not a Cornishwoman, she’d never really been accepted by the other servants, and nowadays she was more isolated from them than ever. No one insulted her to her face, but only because it was assumed that, as his mistress, she was under the master’s protection—at least for the time being. Trayer’s insolence took subtler forms, while his mother treated her with a silent, dangerous contempt. The maids twittered and gossiped when they thought she couldn’t hear; the male servants watched her covertly and exchanged knowing looks. Only Lowdy, broad-minded and unshockable, seemed indifferent to her fall from grace, although she badgered her all the time to know what was going on. When Lily would answer, “Nothing—he’s ill and I’m minding him, that’s all,” Lowdy would lift her eyebrows in a comically worldly-wise manner and say,
“
Mm
-hmm,”
with heavy skepticism.

“Have you ever seen the running of the pilchards, Lily?” Devon asked, breaking in on her thoughts.

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s a wild sight. They come from the deep water west of the Scillies and run along the coast in huge shoals. Once when I was a child, there was a school of them that stretched all the way from Mevagissey to Land’s End. That’s over a hundred miles if you figure the windings of the coast. My father took me to see it.”

She glanced up at him again, intrigued. This was the first time he’d spoken of his family to her, or of anything personal.

“The whole town comes out to watch from the cliffs. The water looks as if it’s alive with a great seething army of fish, being chased by hordes of hake and cod and seagulls and people. A kind of mania comes over everybody. Fishermen on the shore and in boats all along the coast stretch drift nets, and the pilchards struggle to escape, and you can’t hear yourself think for all the shouting and laughing.”

“When does it happen?”

“It starts in July. You’ll see it.”

July was two weeks away. Yes, she supposed she would see it. She hoped she would. The thought staggered her.

“Did you grow up here, then?” she asked shyly, thinking that a few days ago she would not have dared to ask him that question.

“Part of the time, when I would come to visit my father. The rest of the time I lived in Devonshire with my mother.”

She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t, and she lacked the nerve to ask him why his parents hadn’t lived together. But she wondered. “Do you have other brothers besides Mr. Darkwell?” she ventured after a minute.

“No, but I’ve a sister. She lives in Dorset. I don’t see her often.” At the top of the cliff steps, he stopped walking and looked down at her. The afternoon sun was behind her, back-lighting strands of her heavy, dark-red hair like a halo around the delicate oval of her face. Her eyes were a guileless gray-green, grave and intelligent, and she watched him with complete absorption, as if everything he said fascinated her. She was lovely, and he’d had enough of talk.

The new look in his eyes stirred Lily, made her cast about anxiously for something else to say. “Do you—expect your brother back soon?”

“Soon, yes. Let’s go down to the water, Lily.”

“But—are you sure? You ought not to tire yourself on your first day out.” He only smiled, and courteously preceded her down the steep stairs. After a second’s hesitation, she followed.

A pile of jagged stones jutted out from the base of the rock cliff, across the tawny shingle to the shore. The tide was out; sun dazzled the choppy surf, dancing on wavelets, casting black shadows on the dark sides of the huge, hulking boulders that seemed to doze in the sucking sand.
I will miss this,
Lily thought unexpectedly, breathing in the wild salt wind. The idea shocked her, for she had not been happy here. But it was true—she would miss this remote splendor, the beauty and loneliness of the sea and the unkempt, inhospitable land.

He led her along the shore a little way and stopped among a silent circle of sea rocks, dry now, a safe distance back from the foamy line where the waves broke. They stood with their backs to a rugged, waist-high boulder and stared out at the Channel. As their silence lengthened, Lily threw a furtive glance at Devon’s hard-edged profile, but as usual it told her nothing. He was a strange man in many ways, and her intuition had warned her long ago that he would be capable of hurting her. Yet she missed him when he wasn’t with her, and was unexplainably happy in his company.

She glanced away, blushing, when he turned his head and caught her watching him. “How do you feel?” she asked, to cover her nervousness.

“I hurt, Lily. I’m in terrible pain.” The stark alarm in her eyes made him smile quickly, to reassure her. “I need the cure again, and you’re the only one who can give it to me.”

In her relief, she couldn’t help laughing at him. He touched his knuckles to her cheek, silencing the saucy reply she had ready. Heat gathered inside, so swiftly it scared her. He stepped closer, and she felt solid rock against the backs of her legs. “You—I thought you wanted to get some exercise, Mr. Darkwell.”

“I intend to, Miss Troublefield.”

He bent to kiss her, and just for a second she stiffened—because the name he’d never called her before unlocked so many unsettling memories. But the gentleness of his kiss melted her, scattering thoughts of anything but this moment and the heavy sweetness of his lips on hers. His tenderness disarmed her completely. One of her hands crept to the side of his face; the other opened on his chest, caressing him shyly. Holding her breath, she let him nibble at her lips. He moved his head slowly from side to side, and his open mouth stroked hers with each skimming pass. Her arms went around him in the most natural embrace, and the kiss deepened while everything seemed to slip away from her, all the boundaries and restraints she was used to. “Oh, don’t,” she sighed when his hands slid up so softly to touch her breasts. But she didn’t stop him—couldn’t stop him.

He murmured, “No?” and through her dress began to trace slow circles around the soft swell of her bosom with his fingers. She ought to stop this, it was wrong, it couldn’t lead to anything but disaster. But she was drugged, and deprived of every sense except the one that was monitoring the achingly gradual progress of his fingers toward the sensitive tips of her breasts. “Let me love you, Lily,” he whispered. “Say yes. I have to make love to you.”

She tried to shake her head, but he was kissing her again and it wasn’t possible. She was poised on the edge of something indescribable, and each second was separate from the past or the future, each moment new. She did not know what she would do. So she held perfectly still, eyes closed, and let the delicious fondling go on; she even forgot to kiss him back. He left her lips to murmur his urgent message in her ear, punctuating it with the soft, persuasive caress of his tongue. She was melting, weakening; she longed to give in to him. It was the helplessness of her desire that alerted her to the danger, and the fear of losing herself that gave her the strength to stop him.

“No, I can’t,” she whispered as she wrenched his hands away and twisted out of his reach.

In disbelief, Devon watched her walk away, hugging herself, staring out across the glittering water. He shut his eyes, just for a second, and said through gritted teeth, “Are you trying to drive me crazy? Because if you are, it’s working.”

She turned back. “I’m sorry—I made a mistake!”

“No, I did.”

“No,
I
did. I shouldn’t have let that happen.” Her voice was quaking. “I apologize if I misled you into thinking there could be something between us. There can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just—it’s impossible. I can’t do what you want me to do.”
What I want to do.

“Why?”

She shook her head, helpless, at a loss. “Please, don’t make this so hard. I can’t—see you anymore, like this. You don’t really need me now anyway. I have to go back to my old work. Please!” she cried when he swore and started to interrupt. “You’re a gentleman, you won’t take advantage of my situation, I know you won’t. Let me go, Devon—sir—” She curled her hands into fists and drew a shuddery breath. A major part of her dilemma was contained in those stumbling last words, for in truth she didn’t know what he was to her, or what she should be to him.