The Marsh Hawk (10 page)

“C-come,” she called guardedly, fearing that it might be the earl himself.

To her great relief, it was the housekeeper who entered, bearing a tray. A chambermaid followed on her heels carrying Jenna's riding habit, which the girl carefully draped over a wing chair at the edge of the Aubusson carpet in the center of the room. She then went straight to the hearth, where she began to coax the dwindling fire to life again with fresh logs and the bellows.

Mrs. Rees set the tray down on the drop-leaf table across the way and folded her hands across her crisp, white apron, like a quaint mechanical doll.

“The master wants the fires kept going in your rooms, my lady,” she said. “It's cold here on the water clear into June sometimes, what with the storms and all.”

“How is the master this morning?” Jenna queried.

“He's just come home, my lady.”

“Just come home, did you say?” Jenna frowned, perplexed. Where on earth had he gone at two in the morning?

“Just a bit ago,” the housekeeper replied with a nod. “He's waiting for you down in the conservatory, my lady.”

Jenna got up and reached for her riding habit.

“Oh, no—no, not till you've eaten, my lady,” Mrs. Rees said, raising a quick hand in protest. “The master was most particular about that. You're to take your time, my lady.”

The maid, a plain little mouse of a girl, whom Jenna had heard the housekeeper address as Molly, straightened up from her chore at the hearth and helped Mrs. Rees carry the drop-leaf table closer. They left her then, after giving her directions to the conservatory, and she began to eat the delicious fare consisting of coddled eggs, grilled sausages, and warm cheese scones oozing freshly churned sweet butter. In spite of the housekeeper's directive, she ate quickly, and flushed it all down with the wonderful Darjeeling tea that accompanied the meal. It was a wonderful breakfast, and she regretted that she was far too anxious about her situation to enjoy it.

The halls were cold and damp out of the fire's reach, and Jenna began to appreciate the reasoning behind having them lit into June. Thistle Hollow, her own estate east of Launceston, was far enough inland to be spared much of the battery of wind and water that plagued the Cornish seacoast, and it wasn't nearly as dank.

The conservatory was on the first floor facing the drive, far from the threat of flogging by storms driven landward by the sea. Towering walls of leaded glass jutted into the courtyard. Inside, a veritable jungle of plant life, both domestic and exotic, thrived in a near-perfect atmosphere. Situated on the southeast corner of the house, the breathtaking room got sun most of the day, when the coast was lucky enough to see it.

When she entered, the earl was standing beside the east wall watching heavy sheets of rain slide down the panes. Though her step was light, it turned him around, and he reached her in three strides. Taking her in his arms, he gazed deep into her eyes, with his own eyes dilated and penetrating in the half-light called by the storm.

“Did you sleep well?” he said.

“Yes, my lord,” she murmured.

“I liked it better when you called me Simon.”

“That's going to take some getting used to,” she said. “I misspoke. It's hardly proper.” Hot blood rushed to her cheeks. Was she blushing again, in spite of her resolve?

He smiled and pulled her closer. “Nothing else about this business is proper. Why should we stand upon ceremony over names? Besides, it is what I wish . . . when we are alone, if that better suits your sensibilities.”

“Take care! Your wound!” she cried, as her hand grazed the bandage beneath his cambric shirt.

“I told you, it's nothing to worry over—just a scratch.” He hesitated a moment before asking, “Why did you come to the dueling ground?”

“I couldn't bear it, yet I had to see—to be there. I was so afraid . . .”

His liquid sapphire eyes looked into her soul.

“The land we fought on is rich in legend, you know,” he told her. “The tale goes that, back in the mists of time, the saints and giants fought on Bodmin Moor. The saints were claiming too many wells and erecting too many crosses to suit the giants, who elected Uther to represent them in a duel of sorts—a rock throwing contest. It was St. Tue, who fought Uther for possession of the place. The rocks they threw took form in the shape of a standing stone, and all went well for the saints until the last toss. The final rock was too heavy for St. Tue, and, as legend has it, an angel came and carried that stone up to crown the Cheesewring menhir, where it sits defying gravity to this very day.”

“How perfectly lovely,” Jenna murmured. “I thought I knew all the legends, but I've never heard that one.”

“While we're on the subject of saints, there is a Cornish saint named ‘Kevern,' you know. He is the namesake of my title, but I am not he, by any means—or anything like him. I am no saint, Jenna, I promise you, and I have never believed in legends, or angels, either until now. Until a heavenly creature saved my life in that place yesterday. Thank you, my angel.”

“When I saw Rupert running at your back . . .”

“I would have challenged the blighter myself if he hadn't saved me the trouble, after the way he humiliated you in company at the masque,” he said, his strong hands soothing her. “But I would have chosen a more appropriate place to call him out. A title does not a gentleman make. Whatever possessed you to accept his suit, Jenna—a man like that?”

She clouded. Part of her desperately wanted to confess to him then and there, to tell him that she had done murder on the old Lamorna Road two months ago, and that she feared her sin would come back to haunt her and wanted shelter from it among the Marners. There needed to be honesty between them, and she needed to lift the burden weighing upon her conscience. She hadn't been able to confess it to Rupert. She hadn't trusted him enough. But this was the man she loved.

“My father wished it,” she said instead. “And, after he died, Mother pressed for it.”

It was a half-truth.

“I've loved you from the first moment I saw you on that staircase,” he revealed. “I don't pretend to be able to explain it, but there it is. I can't begin to tell you what it did to me thinking that your response to me in that garden was because of your love for Marner . . . because you thought to buy his safety with those kisses.”

“And I thought that you were offering
me
that proposition.”

He held her away and stared with wounded eyes that told her such a thing had never occurred to him. She couldn't bear to look into them.

“It seems that we have been blundering along at cross purposes,” he said, “but not anymore.” He produced a gold ring encrusted with rubies and diamonds from his waistcoat pocket and slipped it on her finger. “Will you marry me, Jenna?”

She stared into those earth-shattering sapphire eyes and melted. They were like whirlpools, sucking her down into unfathomable depths. It was madness. She'd only known of the man's existence for five days. She knew nothing about him except what she needed to know—that, bizarre though it was, he loved her and she loved him.

“Yes, Simon,” she murmured, and surrendered her lips to his kiss.

It was a soft, gentle embrace, not the volatile explosion that had rocked her in the garden, but it aroused her more totally. And she moaned at the firestorm of rapturous excitement pulsing through her from nothing but the slightest touch of those warm, sensuous lips that were capable of much, much more.

She wanted more.

After a moment, he held her away and searched her face.

“You're sure?” he murmured.

“I'm sure.”

“My God,” he said, holding her close, clearly loath to let her go.

But there was something she needed to know, something that had played havoc with her curious nature since the dueling ground. Still . . . if he had wanted her to know, he would have explained, wouldn't he? It took her a moment to summon the courage.

“Simon,” she began at last. “Crispin called you ‘Uncle' yesterday. Are you . . . ?”

A frown stole his smile and wrinkled his broad brow. Taking her arm, he led her to a white wicker love seat beside the south wall, and sat with her there.

“Jenna, I must ask you to forget you heard that,” he said. “You couldn't possibly imagine the lengths I've gone to in order to preserve anonymity . . . for both their sakes. Even in this house. Phelps is the only one under this roof who knows. He's been with me since I was a boy, and he is privy to all of my personal affairs. I'd trust him with my life, and have done so on more occasions than I care to tally.”

“Of course, I shan't betray your trust. You don't even have to tell me, I only—”

“No—no, I want to tell you,” he interrupted, laying a gentle finger over her lips. “There must be no . . . secrets between us.”

A pang of conscience stabbed her at that, and her eyes clouded, recalling the dark secret she had elected to keep from him. But the moment passed, defeated by curiosity.

“I had a brother, thirteen years older than myself,” he was saying. “I wasn't quite fifteen when he met and fell in love with a distant cousin of the Duke of York. They committed an indiscretion, and the girl became pregnant. Father wouldn't sanction their union, and he disinherited my brother in all but title and lands. He would have stripped those from him as well if the law allowed, but since he couldn't, he cut him off without a halfpenny when he married her without his approval. Edgar—that was his name—stole enough blunt from Father's vault to buy himself a commission in the army, eloped with the girl to Gretna Green, then took his bride with him to India. Though it wasn't encouraged, there were provisions at the post for the wives of officers, with the proper connections, of course, and Edgar was well liked.

“There was a dreadful scandal here on the home front, as you can well imagine. Cutting one's eldest son and heir off without a feather to fly with hardly goes unnoticed by the ton. The girl's family reacted in much the same way that Father did, which is probably one of the reasons I so resent the aristocracy—the self-serving social hypocrisy that drives them to put more store in things material than in humanity. It's what killed my father, that. He died a bitter old man.”

“How awful for you,” Jenna said.

“I loved my brother,” he went on. “I never saw him alive again. He was killed by bandits in the hills near Delhi—the Thuggee, a secret society of religious fanatics who performed ritualistic murder in the name of some heathen Hindu god. British officers were highly prized targets. Edgar was carrying out a routine dispatch exchange between posts and just . . . disappeared. Eight months later, they found his remains buried under a pile of rubble. The twins were just three years old. Their mother died shortly after of cholera.”

“Oh, Simon, I'm so sorry.”

“The army contacted Father, of course, but he refused to acknowledge the children. Neither would their mother's family. I was still at school. There was nothing I could do on my own without losing my inheritance, and I couldn't risk that if I were to help them once Father passed.

“Making short of it, I appealed to the Church, and the twins were brought home and fostered by a good family until Evy was old enough to be housed at a convent school in Yorkshire, and Crispin at an Anglican boy's boarding school in Manchester. I couldn't go against Father's decision and acknowledge them as family without making them illegitimate. I couldn't do that to my brother's memory, or to them. But they know. At least I have the satisfaction of that, and Phelps knows, because it was he who helped me achieve it.”

The rain was drumming on the glass walls as if begging admittance, and Jenna shuddered. Pulling her closer, he soothed her absently.

“When Father died,” he continued, “though they were entitled to nobility, I had to reinvent it for them because of the way Father cut Edgar off. I literally blackmailed the Duke of York into allowing the truth—well, a stretched version of it, anyway—to circulate that they were, in fact, quite legitimate distant relatives, hence their titles. Since the duke's branch of the family is so convoluted, no one questioned it.

“You see, I knew that York's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke, was selling commissions and promotions. I threatened to put that knowledge into the right hands and he agreed to acknowledge the twins as distant relations.” He popped a cryptic chuckle. “The whole coil came out anyway, and the poor blighter was forced to resign his military commission two years ago. For all I know, he thinks I'm at the root of that. I'm not, I assure you. It was his own carelessness that damned him. But I do permit myself to wallow in the irony of it from time to time.

“It all turned out well in the end. York's just been reinstated, and I brought Evy and Crispin out of hiding with their new identities. They're finally secured, but all of that will be for naught if the truth should surface now.”

“You never need fear that I shall make it known,” Jenna said. All at once she clouded. “I feel awful about Evelyn. I'm afraid I was quite jealous of her, Simon, and not very pleasant. I'm dreadfully sorry about that.”

“Don't be sorry, my love,” he said. He ground out a guttural chuckle. “But for your jealousy, I never would have suspected that you might return my feelings.”

Jenna stared. She was incredulous.

“You were quite obvious,” he told her. “Charmingly so.”

“She's in love with you, you know.”

“She has a adolescent crush on me, which I have never encouraged, yes,” he said. “She's only eighteen, Jenna, and I am her benefactor; it's only natural.”

She gasped. “I took her for much older!”

“They're just children yet. At least I see them that way.” He smiled that heart-melting smile, all the more precious for its rarity. “Once Evy is presented to society, she'll find a proper suitor, and I'm buying Crispin a naval commission. All that should have been in the works long ago, and would have been but for Copenhagen.”