This Perfect Kiss (29 page)

Jealousy was a strong rival to love. “Someone with no teeth and a penchant for eating garlic and onions will do.”

He laughed. “I, too, am a possessive man, love.” He traced the curve of her spine with his fingertip. “I am trying to tell you that you can trust me,” he declared softly. “You do not have to be afraid to be vulnerable. Let me love you, Christel.” What he was proposing frightened her, and he seemed to know that. “Let me help you. I will not allow anything to hurt you.”

“Unless of course a rabbit bolts and throws us from this horse.”

He captured her laugh against his mouth, then pulled away slowly, lingering. “Indeed. My ardor is such that it makes it dangerous to be on this horse.”

His lips touched hers, feather light, undemanding, yet filled with promise. Then, with desire a living thing between them, he turned the horse to go home, cooled only barely by the crisp night chill.

For a long time, as Christel sat spooned against his chest, with his arm around her waist and his words returning fresh in her mind, she realized that not only was he asking her to trust him but the very request was a sign of good faith and proof that he trusted
her
. But then she had already known that, or he would never have allowed her near his daughter. He knew her better than anyone did, and still he trusted her.

She also knew a little something about him. Camden St. Giles possessed a deep sense of responsibility for what he considered the sins of his past, his part in the failure of his marriage and the part he believed he'd played in Saundra's death. Nothing would ever make up for what he'd lost at the hands of those he'd trusted, but she would try.

T
he steel-gray sky had not yet colored with the sunrise as Camden opened his curtains and looked outside into the mist of a new day. He leaned a shoulder against the window and raised a cup of coffee to his lips as he observed Christel in his bed. He'd not shaved. He wore a silk robe tied at the waist. He'd been unable to sleep. He'd spent too many years of his life possessing no heart not to realize that something elemental had shifted inside him. She made him feel things he'd thought gone forever, and now he found that he wanted to protect her.

“You look like a pirate prince, m'lord.” The sleepy voice came from the bed and arrested his hand as he started to take another sip of coffee. “Lord of the manse, ruler of the world.”

He sat on the mattress beside her. “I
am
ruler of the world, at least the one visible out this window.”

She sat up and took his coffee to her lips. “Am I your concubine then, and is this room your seraglio, m'lord and master?”

He smoothed the tangled hair off her face. He wanted her as more than a concubine, as more than a lover or a mistress. “I could not manage a harem. You are enough concubine for me.”

She blew on the coffee. “That is good”—she sipped, her eyes smiling—“because I will not share you either.” Her gaze touched the window. “I need to return to my room.”

“I will take you.” Although the kiss he gave her mitigated his words. He wanted to keep her in this bed. But soon his staff would be stirring, and she did not want people to find her in his bed.

He rose, found her clothes and helped her dress. Then he kissed her, inhaled her softly into his senses and let her go.

T
he next few weeks progressed without incident. The investigation into the fire went nowhere. Camden knew that in Christel's mind, the cottage was gone and it would do her no good to mourn its loss. He also knew it was a lie; though she never let him see her tears again, he sometimes heard her weeping silently in her pillow.

She spent her afternoons in the classroom with Anna, and as the days warmed, she took Anna's lessons outside.

To Camden's surprise, Tianna came often to see Anna and Christel. They spent time together in the woods, and Tia taught Anna how to collect herbs and other medicines for Doctor White. Christel absorbed it all like a dry sponge in need of water. On occasion she followed Tia and Reverend Nunn when they went to visit some of the tenants on Blackthorn land.

Sometimes when Camden returned late, he would go to Christel's room and hear Tia and Christel talking into the early morning hours before falling asleep. He knew that Tia had stayed over and he would not be able to see Christel until morning. Christel had told him that she and her sister had made a pact not to talk about Saundra or Leighton or him, but that still left a lifetime between them. She told Camden everything.

Tia hadn't ever married because she'd wanted to be a doctor and help those who needed help, though she would have married Leighton had he ever asked.

Christel told Tia about her own marriage and a little about the war. They talked about their father and the fact that, in his way, he had abandoned them both. Camden sensed the sisterly bond forming and welcomed it for Christel, and only hoped he was not making a mistake in trusting Tia not to hurt her. He didn't know Tia well enough to know her character. She had always been the plain brown mouse in the room when Saundra had been present, doing little to make her presence known. But if she was a friend to Christel, then he welcomed her in Christel's life.

By the end of May, the fields were plowed and planted, and the business of being a landowner occupied his time. He began to receive a slew of invitations, from teas to balls hosted at neighboring estates, debuting young daughters coming of age. The mamas were out in droves, and those who had not gone to London for the Season stayed to pursue him.

On the days when Camden was not in Prestwick on business or tending to some judicial matter with one of his tenants, Christel would find him in his library, bent over paperwork or accounting books or merely reading about animal husbandry, which was very different from tactical naval warfare.

They managed to carry on their relationship outside Blackthorn Castle at night, sometimes in the day, finding ways to be alone on the beach, the pagoda, the stable, anywhere no one else was. Occasionally it was too much for them to wait, and, impatient, they made love on the desk in his library or the Persian rug in his small, secluded salon, where he oft went for solitude. More and more, he found his mind drifting to her when he should have been working. Found his thoughts pulled by the primal realization that he wanted her to belong to him.

She had told him it no longer mattered to her that people suspected they were lovers, but she would not flaunt the relationship, certainly not while she was Anna's governess.

But like him, she was restless. She found him once on the lower terrace, smoking a cheroot and holding a glass of whiskey, standing in almost the exact place she had come across him the night of the ball nine years ago.

Only this time, rather than kiss her, he backed her up against the ivy-encrusted embankment and made love to her.

“Are you happy with our life the way it is?” he asked with a restrained violence he did not recognize in himself.

“Aye,” she said, holding him to her trembling body. He was still shimmering from an organism that had left him weak-boned and feeling more alive than he had ever felt. “I am happy.”

He wanted to disagree, but then she kissed him in that perfect way she kissed, her lips warm and shaped to his, inviting him to dance with her. And raising her arms around his neck, she led with uncurbed pleasure. Her back against the cool stone, surrounded by pungent juniper, she led him all the way to the stars.

He was in love with her.

He had known it for some time. The feelings were so strong, so overwhelming, that they were like a vise tightening around his chest.

At times, when his grandmother entertained guests or when he visited neighboring estates, he would find himself standing apart, listening to the chatter that inevitably came with such visits. He would imagine what it had once been like for Christel when she was younger and living at Rosecliffe, when she would watch such functions, hidden on the staircase, believing, as she had told him, in fairy tales, wondering what it would be like to walk among them as equals.

Then he would listen to the gossip and look at society all bound up by their silly rules and stringent etiquette, and realize why Christel once chose to live in breeches and climb trees rather than take part in the lives of the fashionable set.

For all of his desires to make her part of his life, she was still who she was, part American, part Scottish, neither rich nor exceedingly worldly, the bastard daughter of an illicit union. And though his own heart would no longer be confined, more than his whimsy shaped her future. He knew that when a year was up and Christel had repaid him, she planned to find a way to support herself, independent of her life with him.

He didn't know at what point in the last few months he had decided that he would take Christel as his wife, but he suspected the idea had always been there in the back of his mind.

He also knew that with her sense of societal mores and need for independence, she would reject the idea forthright. But he was patient, perusing her slowly, chipping away at the glass walls she'd erected, which skewed her view of the world. She might not have intended to live at Blackstone Castle forever, even if he was determined that she should.

Chapter 18

I
t was a warm sunny day in June that brought Christel and Anna to the Fountain Court. The court took its name from a pleasant marble fountain complete with white horse statues and continuous running water. It opened into an area fronting the terrace on one side and an ornamental outer portal on the other, with full view of the sea. Their day started with a watercolor session and lunch and ended when Anna found a baby bird hopping through the grass.

A pile of white and gray feathers scattered nearby gave evidence that a hawk had most likely eaten its mother. Anna became upset and began to cry. “But what will it do without its mother, Miss Christel? 'Tis not fair that a baby has no mother. She will die.”

Christel removed the contents in the wicker basket and placed the baby bird inside. “I do not think its wing is broken. I think all we have to do is put it someplace where it can grow just a bit more.”

“What will it eat without its momma to feed her?”

Mrs. Gables came outside to see what the commotion was. As the baby bird continued to hop in agitation, the consensus found that Christel should find Doctor White for a prognosis.

Christel took the basket. Dog leaped up from his place in the sun and followed closely on her heels, interested in the squeak coming from inside. After much searching, Christel finally found Stephen on his knees, doctoring a pony's cracked hoof. He was quite a distance from Blackthorn, in the older, unused area of the estate that used to house the stable near Ghost Rock, so named for the howling sound heard when the gale wind whistled over the cliffs. She had not been in this area since her return to Scotland.

“What are you doing out here?” Christel asked.

He peered up at her from beneath the rim of his tricorn. “I was on my way to Dunure to see a patient. Not anymore, 'twould seem.”

Christel knelt beside him and shouldered Dog away from the basket. “I have another patient for you.”

He examined the bird by delicately poking his finger at the wings. “Barely a week old. I do no' feel any broken bones.”

Christel looked toward the nearby tower, its walls glowing gold in the warm sunlight. Stephen tented a hand over his eyes. “ 'Tis been out of service for a decade.”

“That is the old lighthouse.”

“Aye, it once served to keep incoming ships away from the shoreline during rough weather. The new one south of here was built to replace this one. Even before . . . Saundra . . . even before she took her life here.”

This was the tower from which Saundra had leapt to her death. There were two on each corner of the estate that overlooked the sea. “I always thought it was the other one,” Christel said quietly.

Stephen shook his head. “Nay. She came here that night. 'Tis dangerous enough with much of the cliff having fallen away years ago. I suppose if a person wanted to end her life, this would be the place to come.”

Christel covered the basket with the baby bird inside. Leaving it beside the horse, she walked to the old structure.

A tall stone archway opened to an enclosed courtyard. The open space connected the old stables on one end with the coach house, where the drivers and coachmen used to live, on the other. A locked iron gate blocked access. Christel gripped the rusted bars and peered inside. Weeds and thorny vines grew in the stone courtyard.

“This is part of the original castle,” she said. “Built in the time of William Wallace.”

Stephen stood next to her. “Aye.”

It was a lonely, silent place in contrast to what it once must have been. She stood back and let her eyes travel upward to the lighthouse tower belfry. Even the slitted windows had been plastered over.

“How do I get up there?” Christel asked.

“You cannot. He closed off this place forever after the accident. No one comes here.”

“Accident?” Christel asked, turning her head to peer at him. “Why do you say that?”

He shrugged lightly. “I would prefer to think of Lady Carrick's death in that way.”

“You cared for her.”

He nodded. “She was always kind to me growin' up. We were friends.”

Christel faced him.

“When she spent time at Rosecliffe, she spoke often aboot ye,” he said. “Months after she died, I found a letter in my belongings with a note that I mail this to ye after she was gone. She wanted you to raise Anna.”

“You
sent the letter?”

“I was not sure that you received it. I am guilty of having read some of it and writing the rest myself. She wanted ye here. I considered it her dying wish.”

“Do you believe it was a suicide note, then?”

“All I know is she wanted ye to be here, Miss Douglas.”

Christel walked to the lower rock wall that looked out over the cliff. A breeze tugged at her hair and skirts. At least it was warm for June, which allowed her to be out here. She stepped back and saw a faint boot print almost directly next to her foot. She knelt and ran her fingers over the hardened ridges in the mud.

“Someone
still comes here,” she said. “This print was made after the last rain, when the ground was soft.”

How many days had that been? Two?

Doctor White walked to where she stood. “Could be Lord Carrick, for all we know. The size boot is near the same. There is no crime comin' here,” he said, leaning his hips against the wall and looking out across the sea. The Arrann Isle was faintly visible through the heavy sea mist. “As you can see, there is no better view of the world than here.”

“What happened the night she jumped?”

“I was no' living here yet, but from what I know of the story she had had something of an argument with his lordship. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, she accusin' him of hatin' her and tryin' to destroy all her happiness, him tellin' her he was leavin' and takin' Anna and she'd not be seein' the girl again.”

Folding his arms, Stephen leaned a hip against the stone wall and peered up at the tower. “No one knows why she ran up there. There would be only one reason, I suppose. The place has been crumblin' into the sea for centuries and no' been in use for years since they built the new stables and carriage house on the south side of Blackthorn Castle. I had heard that his lordship had always planned to be tearin' it down. But that his mam had apartments here and he used to spend a lot of time with her when he was a lad.”

Brushing specks of dirt and brick mortar from his hands, he turned. “I should be goin' back to our feathered patient before Dog figures out how to nose open the top of the basket. I will attempt to make that wicker basket into some sort of cage for now.”

Christel thanked him for taking the bird. “I would like to stay a little longer,” she said.

After he left, Christel walked along the wall and peered over at the rocks below. A chill went down her spine.

The old lighthouse tower had been built into the face of the basaltic cliff. Centuries ago, the cliff had crumbled enough to form a pathway down to the beach. She could see the old goat trail, the one she used to use to sneak up from the beach without being seen. A person on foot could follow the trail up or down the side of the cliff, which was why when she was a little girl she had always worn sturdy shoes and breeches when she'd gone treasure hunting in Blackthorn Cove. She knew the trail well. From up here, debris blocked the descent so that she could not climb down the lower tower wall, but she could certainly climb up from the beach.

Christel returned to the lower terrace and took the cart road down to the beach. From this end of the cove, the entrance was only accessible during low tide. The water looked to be coming in. Tucking the hem of her skirt into her waistband, she barely evaded a crashing roller. She worked her way around the tidal pool and up onto the higher rocks. The old goat trail was five feet across in places and as narrow as two in others.

A freshening breeze carried with it the high-pitched whistle that came from the wind screaming through the cracks and crevices in the rock. She followed the path up the cliff to where it had crumbled around the backside of the tower. She found a window, covered only by ancient wooden shutters. She grabbed a rock and broke the latch.

Christel wrapped her fingers around the ledge, scrabbled up the stone wall, and promptly fell over the sill, nearly landing on her head as she tumbled into the stairwell. She felt a bright bolt of pain as a finger jammed back, then her elbows hit, then her chest. She gasped in air thick with the reek of mold and sea kelp. Braced against her palms, she sat, collecting her wits and her breath. Finally, brushing the hair off her brow, she looked around, grateful for the sunlight coming in through the window. Streamers of dust marked its path.

She climbed to her feet. She disliked the narrow walkway. The damp stone walls enclosed her like a tomb. But she walked up the curving stairway past the main floor where the doorway into the courtyard had been bricked over. She followed the wall until she reached the top and came face-to-face with a heavy oak door slightly off its hinges and ajar. The belfry was open to the sea. Bats and seagulls nested inside and on the stone ledge. Guano covered the floors and walls.

She hesitated. Then, wrapping the bottom of her skirt over her nose and mouth, she gingerly stepped over the disgusting mess as she made her way to the high ledge. A three-legged stool lay overturned in the corner. She stood on it and leaned out. Camden had been right when he'd once told her a person could not fall from inside. A person would have to climb out onto the ledge and then walk out another four feet to jump.

She leaned out to look left and upward. Steps led from the crumbling stone ledge to the cupola. Glass enclosed the old lantern room that had once housed the lard oil fires used to warn off ships. She turned inside to look at the walls. The door to the lantern room looked to have been sealed decades ago as well, when the lighthouse went out of use. One could still reach the cupola by accessing the stairs from the ledge, probably once used by workers to clean the glass.

There would be no reason for Saundra to go up there,
Christel thought. She could find no hint of conspiracy afoot, no reason to doubt the facts as they seemed laid out before her.

Christel remained on the stool a moment longer. The sun was lower in the sky than it had been and threw vibrant light against the wall. With one last glance, she started to turn away when the glint of something gold caught her eye. She pushed up on her arms and leaned out to reach the bottom stair. The flash of gold was lodged in a crevice half covered in the remnants of an old bird's nest. She would not have seen it at all had it not been for the position of the sun. Christel worked it out from the crack.

The gold had long since tarnished. The ring itself was made with tiny emerald and ruby cabochons—the gift her father had once made to her and Tia on their thirteenth birthdays.

The ring belonged to Tia.

“I am glad you know,” her sister said from the doorway. “You have no idea how hard it has been carrying everything that happened that night on my shoulders.”

Heart pounding, Christel climbed down from the stool. They faced each other from across the filth- and offal-ridden room.

“I have no intention of harming you if you are concerned,” Tia said.

“Did you kill her?”

Tia's eyes shone with tears. “ 'Twas a horrible accident.”

“Then if you do not mind, I would prefer to get out of this room.”

T
hey made it back outside. Christel used the stool to climb out the stairwell window. Once outside, she dropped to the path and sat. She wanted to tear off her shoes and clothes and throw everything into the sea. Far below her, down the goat path, waves crashed high on the rocks, blocking her escape. She could wait twelve hours for the tide to recede again, or she could try to climb over the crumbling debris and go up. She remained sitting as Tia dropped from the window and fell next to her.

Neither spoke. They sat with their backs against the rock wall. The goat path stretched out unevenly in front of them. Christel leaned back her head and shut her eyes.

“You were on the ledge that night with Saundra.”

“I did not murder her,” Tia said. “She . . . she fell.”

“Why were you both up there?”

Tia shook her head. “Saundra was going to destroy everything. She wanted to leave Blackthorn Castle. She wanted the gold. I could not let her take it. If Sir Jacob found out . . .”

“The gold?”

“There is twenty thousand pounds' worth of gold coins sitting in the lantern house. Leighton, Saundra and I are the only ones left who know the truth. We made a pact to tell no one it was there.” Tia struck out at the tears on her face. “If Sir Jacob found out . . . he would have us hanged.”

Everything began to pour out.

“It had all been so noble in the beginning. The gold was headed to royal coffers in the war effort against the colonies. Leighton had friends on the inside. Everyone involved had agreed that it would be used for the good of those around here. Something happened. Men were killed that night. But not by Leighton's men. They were alive when Leighton left the ship.”

“Do you believe Sir Jacob executed his own men?”

“We could never prove it, any more than Westmont could prove it was Leighton who took the gold, and without proof, he could not search Blackthorn Castle outright. But Westmont was around here a lot. Saundra had already fallen in love with him before Lord Carrick returned from Yorktown. She kept it a secret from everyone, and when Lord Carrick came home, Westmont broke it off with her.

“She was distraught. Later, when she told Westmont she was with child and begged him to take her away, he would have none of it. He took her to a woman who could rid her of the babe. She came to me shortly afterward and told me everything because she was afraid of what she had done. Shortly after that, she started to bleed and Lord Carrick learned she had been with child.”