Miracle (20 page)

Clayton wanted no part of the girl; none whatsoever. Not if he knew what was good for him.

A breeze touched his cheek, then another. Slowly, the mist began to move, to swirl. A single beam of sunlight cut through the gray, a shaft of butter yellow that dissipated the clouds with its warmth. Little by little, the world revealed itself, took form and shape and pale color. Clayton looked down. He stood on the ledge of a precipice some fifty feet above a stony, shell-studded expanse of sand.

Before him stretched the ocean, glistening and white- topped, reflecting the blood-red sun that balanced on the watery horizon, filling the sky with streaks of crimson and yellow. On the beach, emerging from the mist, was . . .

He closed his eyes. He kept them closed while pain thumped inside his temples.

It was that damnable grog again. He simply could not imbibe without it doing odd things to his mind.

Clayton eased open his eyes; he stopped breathing.

The silver-white beast pranced at the edge of the frothing green water, haunches and shoulders rippling, massive neck arched, and magnificent chiseled head turned into the wind. It seemed as if Clayton could feel each thunderous footfall, could hear the short, sporadic snorts emanating from its distended nostrils, each breath a billow of smoke in the frigid dawn air. But it was the woman on the beast's back that captured his attention.

Exquisite. Her long red hair a banner; blowing in the wind. Breathtaking. Her face aflame with the color of the fiery sun. Heart-stopping. Oh, God, she was an angel, for nothing that wild and free and beautiful could possibly be human. Her long, pale legs, revealed by the scanty garment she wore, clung to the animal's sides as it moved fluidly through the rushing waves. She wore no shoes. She sat upon no saddle. Gripped no reins with her white hands, but clung gently to the creature's smoke-gray mane, as if she and the snorting steed were one.

They danced, she and beast, as if to some magical music audible only to their ears. The dragon . . . the unicorn
. . .
the mythological Pegasus trotted in place, long, perfectly shaped legs pumping up and down while its hooves flashed like gold in the warming sunlight.

Clayton turned away. He stumbled over a clump of brushwood and a scattering of heather and spiny
wildflow
-
ers
before stopping abruptly. He covered his face with his gloved hands, then ran his hands through his hair, stared down at the trampled grass, and took a deep breath.

Slowly, he turned back toward the sun, squinted his eyes against the intensifying light, and shielded the rays from his face with one hand as he cautiously moved to the precipice again and focused on the beach below.

The sea rushed and ebbed, foamed and hissed. Gulls and auks and other sea birds dove toward the torpid surface of the water. The angel and unicorn had vanished—if they had ever been there at all.

"Can you imagine, Benjamin, that very soon now, our civilization may well see man traveling underwater? That we all might well be journeying from continent to continent by way of a submarine vessel?"

"A lot of balderdash, miss. Had God intended man to swim underwater like a lot of fish, he would have given us gills."

"Oh, but imagine the possibilities! Surely you were aware that in 1775 David Bushnell of the American Colonies recorded in the
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
a letter stating that he had all but succeeded at his attempts to manufacture the perfect underwater sailing vessel. It wasn't until 1785, however, that a gentleman scientist, Robert Fulton, expanded Bushnell's research to an extent that Napoleon himself has invited Fulton to France in hopes that Fulton might build him a fleet of underwater battleships for his navy."

"Good God," the manservant muttered. "I shudder to imagine the consequences of such a machine. The next thing you know, we'll be flying through the skies in the belly of some iron monster."

"And I suppose if God had intended us to fly—"

"He would have given us wings,
m'lady
."

Miracle watched the valet do his best to clean the mud and damp grass from Salterdon's clothes. For the first time in an hour, she felt drained of energy, unable to dredge up the necessary small talk that would, perhaps, alleviate the manservant's concern over his employer.

Carefully, she placed a warm, damp cloth on Salterdon's forehead, allowed her fingertips to hesitantly toy with the fringe of dark hair spilling over his brow. She wasn't certain she wanted to acknowledge the worry she had experienced when Salterdon had not returned from Niton by midnight. After all, for the entire ride home to the castle after their confrontation at the tavern, she had fumed and fussed aloud about his arrogance and his ability to disturb her emotional well-being. She had ordered him to get out—to leave Cavisbrooke—and she had meant
it . . . at
the moment. Now, however . . .

Unbelievable, when just days before she would have proclaimed good riddance and tossed his belongings after him in the dirt.

She shouldn't have stormed out of the tavern and left him to find his own way back to the castle. The countryside wasn't nearly so peaceful as it appeared. There were village folk who looked on anyone with ties to
Cavis
-
brooke
as an oddity, if not an outright threat. And, of course, there were the cliffs, always threatening to slide into the ocean with no warning. Only a few short months before, an entire section of the Undercliff had given way, burying a family who had only thought to frolic there in the sunshine.

His eyelids fluttered. "He awakes," she announced softly and urgently. Benjamin, who had paced the floor since arriving back at Cavisbrooke with his employer, unconscious, in the bottom of a cart, leapt to His Grace's aid.

"There, there, sir. You'll be fine in no time. Try to breathe deeply. Yes. That's right. In and out. By Jove, I knew I shouldn't have allowed you to walk into Niton alone. The moment I suspected something might be amiss, I should have come looking for you. Can you tell us, sir, who did this to you?"

His lips moved.

Miracle leaned forward, as did Ben. They waited for him to speak again.

"It doesn't matter," Salterdon finally said and closed his eyes again.

Miracle sat back and studied His Grace's face. "The fire is dying, Benjamin. Will you fetch us more peat?"

"Right away, miss."

She waited until the servant quit the room, then, sinking deep into a worn and comfortable chair, Miracle continued to regard her patient closely, as she had for the last hour while he slept. She noted that the lines of his angular and chiseled face, normally so rigid, seemed not so hard and far less cynical during sleep. Yet, he was not without that ruthless air that was always so apparent in men of his station.

At last, he opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling, breathed quietly without moving. Finally, he said, "I dreamt I was flying."

Miracle smiled, albeit reluctantly, and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. "Where were you flying?" she asked.

"Above the sea. I could feel the wind beneath me and the sun on my face.
I
wanted to go higher, but I was afraid."

"Afraid of what, Your Grace?"

"Of falling."

She tilted her head. "Had we never conquered our fears of falling we would never have learned to walk."

"Touché.
How long have I been here?"

"Since mid-morning. Benjamin grew worried and traveled to Niton. He found you near the cliffs."

He raised his head and winced, touched his swollen eye with his fingertips, then focused on her. The study was intense. She felt vulnerable and exposed.

Leaving her chair, Miracle moved to the window and centered her attention on the gray horizon. "I should have warned you at the tavern that there could be trouble. The young men of this island may, on the surface, find pleasure in entertaining the gentry who holiday here, but they also hold a great deal of resentment for the upper classes. The down, sir, can prove to be a treacherous place after dark for anyone with a full purse."

"I suspect you were too busy mentally murdering me yourself."

"Perhaps. I suppose I should thank you for your rather gallant defense of me, although I must confess, most of what they say is true. I have to wonder, though: Would you have displayed such bravado had you not known it was I sitting in the distance?"

"Meaning?"

"Mayhap your valiancy was only a ploy to win my admiration."

He offered no response but lay quietly on the settee and stared at the ceiling. There was a deep cut on his lip. Miracle found herself watching it, and his lips that looked firm and soft, too. She had never really noticed a man's lips before—and certainly not this man's—nor had she ever pondered the idea of those lips kissing her . . . until now. She suddenly wanted to take back the hateful words she had shouted at him the night before—demanding that he leave. She took an unsteady breath and gripped her hands together.

"Their stories—the lads at the Hound—have they yet convinced you that Johnny and I are lunatics?"

"I haven't yet come to that conclusion . . . totally."

She looked at him hard: his face, his penetrating eyes, the dark, untamed hair that tumbled over his forehead and down his neck in a confusion of upturned ends. There were abrasions on one cheek that appeared red and angry. She could not think of what to say, whether to again defend her peculiar lifestyle or acknowledge it because, in a flash of insight she realized that she had come to care what he thought.

"I've never been one to defend my philosophies," she declared in a rushed, slightly panicked tone. "'
Tis
no one's business how we live or think or feel. Not their's . . . or yours."

Salterdon lay back and closed his eyes. His cheeks looked suddenly ashen. Miracle hurried to him, went to her knees beside him, ever so carefully touched her fingertips to his slightly swollen forehead.

With no warning, he grabbed her wrist. She fell against him, her face near his. "I'm beginning to wonder who, exactly, is the insane one here," he said in a low whisper. "You . . . or me. Surely it must be me, because I'm beginning to not give a damn about what they say or what I see or hear. But that's not what bothers me most."

Pulling her closer, so close she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers and the warm brush of his breath against her mouth, he murmured, "You bother me. What are you? An angel? A witch? A savant or a lunatic? Have you cast some spell on me, Lady Cavendish, so I see spiritual beings astride flying horses, and faceless crusaders riding dragons? Who are you? Answer me,
dammit
,
or
—"

"Or what, Your Grace? Will you finally leave Cavisbrooke?"

For a long moment, he said nothing; yet, when she attempted to pull away, he braced the back of her head with his free hand and twisted his fingers in her hair. "Be still," he ordered her. "Be very still and I'll release you. Good. Just relax. I won't hurt you. I only want . . ."

"What do you want?" she demanded. "You come to my home uninvited. You invade my privacy. You seem to think that I'm yours for the taking. Rest assured, sir, that I am not."

He released her wrist, allowed his fingers to relax in her hair. "What are you afraid of?" he asked more gently, tentatively stroking her cheek while he searched her face with his hypnotic gray eyes. She felt, suddenly, a warming within her, a softening, melting invasion of her senses. In an instant, her world focused to a pinpoint: his lips that were slightly parted and breathing lightly on her cheek. And while the instinct to flee became an overwhelming urge, a part of her could only lie there, pressed against him, while her world filled with the sight, sound, and smell of him. She began to tremble.