The Marsh Hawk (11 page)

“You were injured,” she responded.

He nodded. “Along with a hundred and sixty-three other men on our vessel alone, Jenna. Nearly seven hundred men were wounded in that battle, and over two hundred and fifty died. My piddling wounds seem quite insignificant compared to that. Despite it all, we won.”

“Were many ships lost?”

“Not a one, though many were badly damaged. Ours was one of the worst hit. I served on the
Monarch
, under Commander Mosse. A friend of mine from my school days, Nathaniel Ridgeway, the Earl of Stenshire, was aboard as well. We were a scandalous pair. We'd shipped together many times and always watched each other's backs, but that day was like no other. There was no time for antics. We were caught between the sand banks in the King's Channel when we engaged the Danish fleet. We both took a hit. He fared better than I did, and went on to take more hits in other battles. I wasn't so fortunate. But we weren't the only ones who fell that day. We lost fifty-six men. It was quite an event. I'll tell you about it sometime.”

“And that is the kind of future you want to buy for Crispin?” She couldn't imagine it.

“That, my love, is the only justification I can allow for my ties to the aristocracy,” he said, clouding, “the only investment a decent man can make that will benefit the country, not just line the pockets of high-in-the-instep, toadying ‘pinks of the ton,' like Marner. It is a noble profession, and in it a poor man can be just as noble as a rich one. That is the lesson I hope to teach Crispin.”

Jenna's take on that issue was strictly maternal; his was fraternal. They were polar opposites. That conflict was old as eons. They would never agree, and she was wise enough not to pursue it. Instead, she nodded. Something else was still troubling her, something closer to the moment.

“Simon, I would like to apologize to Evelyn. I need to see her.”

“That will have to wait,” he said. “There'll be plenty of time later for mending fences . . . all the time in the world.” He took her hands in his. “Jenna, I know you were planning an elaborate society wedding with Marner, but do you really need to have all that folderol to be happy?”

She stared. His meaning was unclear, and she didn't know how to answer.

“I don't want to wait,” he explained, “not while you complete your trousseau, not until all the social brouhaha is played out. I don't want to alarm you, but I didn't like some of the menacing remarks Marner made when we left him on Bodmin Moor. He's no gentleman; he's proven that. I want you to remain right here at Kevernwood Hall until we can be married. I want you under my protection.”

“I don't need a fancy wedding, Simon. I was using my trousseau as an excuse to delay my marriage to Rupert.”

“I'll buy you the most elegant trousseau on the continent—”

“I don't want to wait, either, Simon,” she said, laying a finger over his lips to silence him as he had done to her earlier.

“What about your mother?”

Jenna gave a start, and gasped. She'd totally forgotten about her mother.

“Shall I send Phelps to Moorhaven to fetch her?”

“No!” she cried, shaking her head. “God, no!”

“We can't just leave her there, Jenna,” he scolded, suppressing a smile.

“No, but we don't have to bring her here, either. Mother can take care of herself, Simon; she's well able. I'm not being unkind. It's just how she's made. She thrives upon drama. She's a survivor, quite capable of dealing with the situation, I assure you.”

“I have no doubt, but I would like to get off on the right foot with her, if it's all the same to you, and there is a rather stiff code of etiquette regarding prospective in-laws, you know.
I
may be rather unconventional, but I'm sure, judging from what I've observed of the lady, that your mother is not.”

“You aren't marrying Mother.”

“God be praised for that! But still, I rather think she'd make a better ally than she would an adversary. That aside, technically, you know I should have spoken with her beforehand, and but for these bizarre circumstances—”

“Oh, no!” she cut in. “Don't worry about Mother. Let me deal with that. I'll compose a missive and have it posted to Thistle Hollow.” She laughed. “I'll have her send some of my things on as well.” She fingered the skirt of her riding habit. “This is all I've got. My portmanteau is still at Moorhaven.”

“Leave it,” he said. “There's a dressmaker in the village. Evy's used her and she's quite good. I'll have her come 'round and see to your needs at once.”

“I hardly think that would be proper,” she protested.

Simon let loose a hearty guffaw. “Nothing about any of this is ‘proper' in the academic sense,” he said, “and yet, impossible though it seems, never in my life has anything ever seemed more proper.”

He got to his feet and pulled her up alongside him. The air around them smelled of the extraordinary plant life that made its home there. She picked out top notes of acanthus, eucalyptus, and, oddly, rue, along with several different species of mint, all thriving in huge porcelain pots resting on the slate floor amongst similar containers overflowing with forget-me-nots. Mingled with the exotic aroma of Simon's tobacco, the result was practically hallucinogenic.

His gaze was drawing her in again—in behind those incredible dark lashes—into the very essence of him. He was so incredibly handsome, and yet there was a hint of sadness in those eyes that cast a mysterious aura about him. There was something he hadn't told her, something he hadn't exorcised. It fed the desperation in his embrace. Wild, feral lights flashed in those eyes. They were dilated with desire as he buried his hand in her hair and arched her head back, bending slowly, excruciatingly slowly, until their lips met.

He deepened the kiss, and she tasted the lingering presence of latakia sweetened with wine in his mouth. It heightened her senses. He had probably drunk the wine for courage to propose—wine, because it wouldn't cloud his mind like brandy, but would blunt the edges of his apprehension that she might refuse his suit. She adored him.

The tongue that had parted her lips and glided between her teeth probed gently, exploring, curling around her own, conjoining with it in a strange, voluptuous dance she was powerless to resist. The more it coaxed, the more hers followed, plunging passionately inside the satiny depths of his warm mouth, and their moans combined as he encircled her waist and pulled her against his lean, corded body.

He was aroused. The bruising power of him leaned against her. It was a delicious pain that called her closer not even understanding why, or what the harnessed power in that magnificent body was capable of unleashing.

The jacket of her riding habit was open, exposing the lowcut underbodice gathered with ruching, and he spread it wider. His lips glided to her throat; the roughness of stubble just beginning on his chin excited her, the contrast of textures sending shock waves of fiery warmth to the same mysterious recesses that he had ignited when he'd first held her.

Perspiration beaded on his brow. The exotic scent of tobacco and wine grew stronger, seeping from his pores, spread by the heat radiating from his skin beneath the cambric shirt. Her heart was racing, beating wildly against his. Her blood had caught fire also, kindled by the skilled tongue sliding now along the curve of her arched throat. Her whole body seemed about to burst into flame. Was he reminded, as she was, of the touch of his roughened fingers against the soft exposed flesh over-flowing her décolleté, when he'd held her in the moonlit garden perfumed with lilacs at Moorhaven?

Yes!

His hand slipped lower. She held her breath. This was forbidden. So were the feelings his touch aroused. She had never even let Rupert—or anyone else for that matter—kiss her the way Simon did, much less touch her intimately. But somehow with Simon it seemed perfectly natural, and right.

His fingers deftly undid the ties and spread the ruching on her underbodice. Her breath caught as his hand plunged inside and came to rest above her heart . . . then lower still. For a moment, she thought he would kiss her there. She scarcely breathed in anticipation of that silken tongue and rough stubble against the tender skin of her breast. She could almost feel the tug of those sensuous lips encircling the nipple that had hardened under his touch, and a new wave of ecstasy riveted her. If he were to do so, she was certain she would surrender—or faint—or die. But he didn't.

All at once, those renegade fingers, so gentle for their size, closed her jacket with painstaking control, though his hands were shaking. Then, crushing her close in his arms again, he buried his moist face in the cloud of her hair that his passion had set awry.

“I have to go,” he murmured, his voice husky with longing.

“
Go?
Go where?”

“To London, Jenna. I cannot stay here with you in this house . . . not now . . . not like this. I shan't compromise you in that way.”

“But, Simon—”

“Shhhh,” he murmured. His warm mouth closed her lips. When he lifted away, she looked into his hungering eyes, darkly glazed and half-shuttered. “If I stay, I won't be able to stop myself, Jenna,” he said. “And I won't do that to you. I want it to be perfect between us, my love. I want us to remember it always.”

“I don't want you to leave me,” she murmured, blinking back tears.

“I shouldn't even be here now,” he said, “but we needed to have this conversation. I love you, Jenna. I will do nothing ever to cause you harm.”

Their lips met again, but briefly, and though he held her away, the ghost of his arousal still lingered.

“I'll go 'round to the church in the village on my way and see to the arrangements,” he said. “The vicar there is a close friend of mine. We were at school together before he entered the University and took Orders. He knows about the twins as well. It was he who gave me the idea to contact the Church for help years back. You'll like him. His name is Robert Nast, and he will call upon you. I spent the night at his vicarage after I brought you here. I couldn't stay under the same roof with you without a chaperone, Jenna—not after the way I literally abducted you from that dueling field before witnesses.”

So
that's
where he'd gone. She loved him more than ever, if that could be possible.

“How long will you be away?” she wondered, unable to disguise her disappointment.

“You won't see me again until our wedding day, my love,” he said. “I will not have vicious gossip damning us the way it damned my brother.” He loosed one of his signature guttural chuckles. “Believe me,” he murmured, “it shan't be long.”

The storm spent itself on the coast through the night, and the following dawn broke steeped in a breathless mist that clung with stubborn persistence to the estate for most of the day. Jenna woke at first light lonely for Simon. But for the exquisite ruby and diamond ring on her finger, she would have sworn the events of the past few days had been a dream.

She passed most of the morning familiarizing herself with the house and the servants. There were a number of footmen, stewards, kitchen maids, scullery maids, chambermaids, and laundresses. There was a butler and underbutler, a cook, a groundskeeper and his wife, a gamekeeper, and several grooms. Entirely too many for her to hope to remember all their names on short acquaintance, and she decided to concentrate on the ones with whom she would have the most contact. These included several of the primary footmen, Lawrence, Charl, and Peter; the housekeeper, Mrs. Rees; Horton, the butler; her chambermaids, Anna and Molly; and, of course, Phelps, who to her surprise had not gone on to London with Simon. She wondered about that, but there were just so many other things to think about then that she didn't dwell long upon it.

Before he left, Simon asked her if she wanted him to send for Emily, but she declined. Since she shared Emily with her mother—not out of necessity, but rather because her mother had her first and couldn't bear to part with her—Jenna didn't want to uproot the girl. Besides, she could only imagine how her mother must be coping with the situation. Taking Emily from her now would be disastrous. Simon offered to hire a personal maid for her, but she declined that offer as well and chose instead the mousy little Molly, who was delighted over the elevated new station that would take her eventually to London, and all of the excitement of Town life. It was a good choice. Everyone was pleased, and with that decided, Jenna set out to explore Kevernwood Hall.

Mrs. Rees explained that the mansion itself was almost three centuries old, except for the conservatory, which Simon's father, the second Earl of Kevernwood, had added before Simon was born. The house, nearly half-covered with ivy, was hewn of stone, seeming to rise from the very granite that formed the base of the cliff it crouched upon. It was an enormous rambling structure, four stories high, rising from a well-landscaped lawn with its back to the sea. To her amazement, it even had battlements.

There were a number of outbuildings on the estate, including the stables, carriage house, groundskeeper's cottage, game-keeper's cottage, and a strange-looking round stone tower almost hidden in the orchard. Constructed of the same stone as the Hall, it looked like a miniature medieval keep.

Inside the manor proper, the corridors were narrow and damp, the rooms enormous and full of stone presence. The hearths were very spacious; the mantels on nearly all of them held in place by elaborately carved marble statuary. Over the years much of the house had been renovated, but the effect was jarring. Modern trappings such as the Chippendale, and Duncan Phyfe furniture, Persian rugs, and odd pieces upholstered in chintz and brocade that dominated seemed out of place, and had been chosen for comfort rather than any pretense at aesthetics. Few women had had a hand in the decorating, Jenna decided. It was definitely a man's house. The crossed swords, standing halberds, trophies, and formidable-looking Rutherford ancestors glowering from gilt-edged frames only reinforced her theory. It was cold and depressing and damp, to say nothing of dreary, and she was beginning to understand why Simon spent so little time on the coast.