Scandalous
Chapter One
"'Tis sorry I am to be the bearer of ill tidings, Miss
Gabby."
More than sorry, Jem Downes sounded positively miserable
over the news that he had crossed an ocean and parts of
two land masses to bring her, Lady Gabriella Banning
thought. His rheumy brown eyes met her widening gray ones
sadly. Behind him, the aged butler, Stivers, bowed himself
out, closing the door with a muffled click. The smell of
damp from Jem's clothes overrode the faint scent of sulfur
from the coal fire and tallow from the candle sputtering
at her elbow. Jem's hat was in his hands; his travel-
stained clothes were splotched with moisture and dotted
with shiny-wet raindrops from the unrelenting downpour
outside. His boots and trousers were flecked with mud. In
the ordinary way of things, the family's lifelong servant
would never have dreamed of presenting himself to her in
such a state. The fact that he had not waited for the
morrow, or even to put off his soiled apparel, spoke
volumes about his state of mind.
Almost unconsciously, Gabby braced to receive the blow.
Her lips compressed and her spine stiffened until she was
sitting regally erect behind the massive desk tucked into
the corner of the estate office, to which she had retired
after dinner to go over the household accounts. Until this
moment, her biggest worry had been whether or not just a
few more shillings could be squeezed from the estate's
already pared-to-the-bone expenditures. Jem's words caused
her heart to give a great lurch, and effectively drove the
family's financial picture from her mind. Nevertheless,
she fought to preserve a calm demeanor. The only outward
sign of her sudden anxiety was her rigid posture, and the
convulsive tightening of her fingers around the quill she
held. Conscious of this last, Gabby carefully put the pen
down near the ink pot, and placed her pale, slender hands
flat upon the open ledger in front of her.
Outside, thunder crashed with enough volume to penetrate
even so deep within the fortresslike walls of Hawthorne
Hall. The fire in the hearth flared suddenly, no doubt
because windblown raindrops had found their way down the
chimney. To Gabby the sudden thunderclap and the
subsequent surge of light and heat seemed almost
portentous. With difficulty she repressed a shudder. What
now? she thought, staring hard at Jem. Oh, dear Lord in
heaven, what now?
"You have seen my brother?" A lifetime of living with the
meanest sort of bully had taught her the value of
maintaining an outward imperturbability, no matter what
disaster was about to befall. Her tone was as cool as
hock.
"Miss Gabby, the earl is dead." Clearly aware of the
terrible import of his news, Jem twisted the soft felt hat
in his hands until it was almost unrecognizable. Fiftyish,
with short grizzled hair and sharp features, he had the
slight, wiry frame of the jockey he once was. At the
moment his posture, hunched under the weight of what he
had to tell her, made him seem even smaller than usual.
Gabby drew in a short, sharp breath. She felt as though
she had sustained a physical blow. Rejection of her plea,
even a reprimand for daring to make it, if Marcus was in
personality anything like their father, she had been
prepared for -- but not this. Her half brother, Marcus
Banning, who, upon their father's death some eighteen
months before had become the seventh Earl of Wickham, was
a mere six years her senior. Two months previously, when
it had become obvious that the new Earl was in no hurry to
come to England to claim his inheritance, she had sent Jem
with a letter for her brother to the tiny island of
Ceylon, where Marcus had lived most of his life on a tea
plantation owned by his mother's family. In it she had
explained their circumstances as concisely as she could,
and asked Marcus for permission -- and funding -- to take
their sister Claire to London for her long overdue come-
out.
She had sent Jem off with little hope. Still, something
had to be done. Claire was already nearly nineteen. Gabby
could not bear to think of her sister marrying Squire
Cuthbert, the stolid, middle-aged, long-widowed owner of
the neighboring property, who was her most persistent
suitor, or Oswald Preston, the local curate, by default.
Both, in their different ways, were top over tail in love
with Claire, and, having been unwelcome at Hawthorne Hall
during their father the sixth Earl's lifetime, were now
frequent visitors. Claire was kind to them because
kindness was an integral part of her nature, but the
thought of her wedding either the portly squire or the
sanctimonious Oswald was enough to make Gabby ill.
"My brother is dead?" Gabby repeated slowly. A knot formed
in her stomach as the ramifications began to ricochet
through her head. "Jem, are you certain?"
A foolish question. Ordinarily she would never have asked
it. Jem was not likely to make a mistake about something
so enormous as the death of the new earl, after all.
Jem looked, if possible, even more miserable. "Yes, Miss
Gabby. Certain sure. I was there when His Lordship met his
end. He was out with a party hunting a tiger, and the
beast charged from cover when none expected it. Someone
fired in a panic, and the shot struck him. He was gone
just like that. Nothing to be done."
"Dear God." Gabby closed her eyes, feeling suddenly light-
headed. In the months since her father's death, she had
both hoped for and dreaded the coming of Marcus, the half
brother she had met just once in her life. Everything
would be changed with the advent of the new earl: her
position, and that of her younger sisters, was bound to
alter. For the better, she had hoped, although, as fate
had taught her to, she had feared it might be for the
worse.
But what could be worse than seeing Claire, and Beth after
her, suffer the same fate she had herself? To be
alternately bullied and ignored by a father with an
abiding contempt for females and not even the smallest
scrap of natural affection for his offspring; to be kept
so short of money -- and this when their father was a very
rich man -- that the amount of food on the family table
was ofttimes insufficient; to be left to wither away on
the vine with scant prospects for a husband or children or
any life beyond the vast isolated acreage of Hawthorne
Hall?
Suddenly Gabby knew what could be worse: to lose their
home entirely, and the funds that had allowed them to live
adequately if not well in it. To be forced to leave
Hawthorne Hall, to make their own living as -- and this
was if they were fortunate -- governesses or companions.
Beth was too young to take up any post, Gabby realized as
she tried calmly to consider it, and Claire -- would
anyone hire Claire? Claire, whose beauty was so arresting
that she turned heads when she did no more than walk down
the streets of York, which was the nearest town of any
size? No respectable woman would be likely to offer
employment to Claire, Gabby realized with a deep sense of
forboding. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, with her
nothing-out-of-the-ordinary looks and the limp that had
resulted from an accident she had suffered at age twelve,
she herself was the only one of the three who was in the
smallest degree employable. Would she be allowed to keep
her sisters with her in any position she was fortunate
enough to obtain?
Not likely. Almost assuredly not. Especially not once a
prospective employer set eyes on Claire.
What were they to do? The question curled, cold and
snakelike, around Gabby's heart, bringing near panic with
it. Suddenly Squire Cuthbert and Mr. Preston began to seem
almost like lifelines in a raging sea. Certainly, if faced
with the choice, Claire would consider marrying either
better than being cast upon the world with little more
than the clothes on her back.
But wait, Gabby told herself firmly, trying to quell her
rising fear, it was early days yet. There had to be other
alternatives. It was just that none had as yet occurred to
her.
"Did he leave -- a family? A son?" A last faint hope
fluttered in her breast as Gabby opened her eyes to look
at Jem again.
"His Lordship was unwed, Miss Gabby, and childless, I
think. Doubtless he would have chosen a proper English
bride when he came home to take his place as earl."
"Yes." Gabby took a deep, steadying breath. Whatever was
to become of her and her sisters, there were immediate
steps that had to be taken, people who needed to be
notified of the earl of Wickham's death. She had so
recently performed the same functions after the demise of
her father that she felt quite like an old hand. Mr.
Challow, her father's chief barrister, would need to be
informed, for one, and Cousin Thomas...
Gabby went cold at the thought.
With Marcus's death, the earldom and all that went with it
passed to the nearest male heir, the Honorable Thomas
Banning, son of her father's late cousin. Her father had
loathed Thomas, and Thomas, together with his horrible
stiff-necked wife Lady Maud and their two simpering
daughters, had returned the earl's animosity with
interest. She had seen him and his family perhaps half a
dozen times in her life, most recently at her father's
funeral. He had been barely civil to her and her sisters,
and his wife and daughters had not been even that.
She, Claire, and Beth were now at Thomas's mercy, Gabby
realized with a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Her father, in his terrible misogyny, had made no
provisions in his will for his three daughters, as she had
learned to her dismay only at the time of his death. They
had no income, no funds of their own. They had been left
totally dependent on the generosity -- or lack of it -- of
the new earl.
Not for the first time, Gabby wondered if her father, upon
dying, had found himself in hell.
Terrible as it was for a daughter to entertain such a
thought, she could not help but feel that, if so, it was a
reward well earned by the misery he had caused, and
continued to cause, those whom he should have most
cherished in life.
Perhaps Thomas would allow them to continue to live at
Hawthorne Hall, Gabby speculated without much hope. It
might please his wife to have Matthew's miscellany, as she
disparagingly called Gabby and her sisters because each
was the offspring of a different, subsequent countess of
Wickham, as dependent poor relations.
But then Gabby thought again of Claire, and knew even that
faint hope was misplaced. Maud would not want Claire
within a mile of her own whey-faced daughters.
"Miss Gabby, His Lordship writ you a letter."
At Jem's words, Gabby's attention focused on him again.
"A letter?" Her voice, she was surprised to discover,
revealed no hint of her distress.
"The night before he -- before he was took. He was on the
trail after that tiger I told you about when I caught up
with him, away off in the wilds with just those heathen
native servants of his. He called me into his tent and
gave me this to give to you." Jem fumbled in the leather
pouch that hung at his side, and extracted a slightly
crumpled and stained letter, which he passed to her.
Gabby took it, broke the seal, and spread it out. It was a
single sheet containing just a few lines scrawled in a
firm black hand. Another sealed sheet, wrapped inside the
first, was revealed as she unfolded the missive. This she
set aside.
My dear Gabby, the letter began,
My own knowledge and the tales I have heard of our
father lead me to believe that you have, if anything,
understated the case in which you have been left. I beg
your forgiveness for not attending to the matter earlier.
Indeed, I freely confess that I have been remiss in not
seeing to the welfare of my sisters, and hereby give you
permission to take our sister Claire to London for the
Season. You do the thing up in high style, and draw on my
funds as needed and at your discretion. A letter to that
effect is enclosed, which I suggest you present to Messrs.
Challow, Mather and Yadon, attorneys at law, with my
compliments. As it happens, my circumstances are such that
I find myself viewing a trip to England with favor, and
may join you in London myself before many weeks have
passed. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance, and
to reacquainting myself with Claire and baby Beth, at that
time.
Yours most sincerely, Wickham
Unexpectedly, Gabby felt a lump form in her throat as she
stared down at the bold script. Her brother sounded both
likable and as if he were disposed to have a care for
them, and this sheet of paper, along with his scarce-
remembered visit to Hawthorne Hall when she had been no
more than eleven, was all she was ever to know of him.
It seemed hard. But then, she had learned, such was life.
The other sealed letter was indeed addressed to Messrs.
Challow, Mather, and Yadon, she saw as she picked it up,
then glanced again at Jem.
"Gabby, Gabby, is that Jem you're talking to?" The library
door flew open without warning.
Lady Elizabeth Banning, an exuberant red-haired fifteen-
year-old still faintly round with puppy fat, burst into
the room. Like Gabby, she was dressed in the unrelieved
black of mourning for their father although the obligatory
period of time for such had passed, for the simple reason
that they were the newest gowns any of the sisters
possessed. The dispersal of funds for the purchase of
mourning garments had been reluctantly allowed by Mr.
Challow after the death of their father, although by
rights, he said, he should not be approving any
expenditures at all without the sanction of the new earl,
whose funds they now were. Even continuing the minimal
allowance that had in the past permitted Gabby to run the
house had been the subject of some debate within the law
firm, he told her, with the consensus being that, without
notice from the new earl, the best course of action was to
let things go on as they had been until they received
instructions to the contrary.
"Oh, Jem, it is you! What did our brother say?" Beth's
spaniel-brown eyes had fixed on Jem at once, sparing Gabby
the need to answer her original inquiry. She bore down on
the pair of them, firing questions as she came. "Did you
find him? Did you give him Gabby's letter? What did he
say? Can we go? Can we go?"
"I'm sorry, Gabby, I tried to stop her, but you know how
she is," Lady Claire Banning said with a sigh as she
followed her younger sister into the room. Not even her
sober black gown could detract from Claire's dazzling
combination of silky raven curls that spilled in charming
profusion over slender shoulders, huge, thick-lashed
golden-brown eyes, porcelain-pale skin, and perfect
features. In addition, her figure was round where it
should be round, slim where it needed to be slim, and
altogether delectable. "She just could not contain herself
one moment longer."
If Claire could just have her season, Gabby thought,
looking at her sister almost achingly, she would be
overrun with eligible gentlemen wanting to marry her. The
sad thing was that here, right under her own hand, was the
very instrument that would have given Claire the future
she needed, that she was entitled to by right of birth,
that she deserved.
Marcus had granted permission for Claire to have her
season. He had practically given Gabby carte blanche to
fund it, too.
But Marcus was dead. The letters he had sent were now no
more than worthless scraps of paper. As soon as Cousin
Thomas was apprised that he had become the earl of
Wickham, they would be very fortunate indeed not to be
cast out of Hawthorne Hall forthwith.
A growing despair knotted Gabby's stomach. What she had to
tell her sisters was too, too cruel. If only, she thought,
throat aching, Marcus had survived just a scant three more
months, just until Claire had had her season....
"For goodness' sake, Jem, can't you talk? Did you or did
you not find our brother?" Beth demanded, bouncing like an
excited puppy around the man who had taught her and her
sisters to ride and hunt and fish and enjoy almost every
imaginable outdoor pursuit. Over the years the sisters had
come to regard him as coconspirator and friend rather than
servant, and were on terms of disgraceful intimacy with
one who was in actuality no more than a groom.
Jem looked even unhappier than before. "That I did, Miss
Beth, but...."
He glanced helplessly at Gabby, who looked down at the
letter in her hand and took a deep breath, willing herself
to sound composed as she broke the dreadful news.
At that moment Beth spied the letter, and with a quick
movement and a gleeful cry snatched it from her sister's
hand.
"Beth, wait...." Gabby groaned, grabbing for the letter,
but speech was more of an effort than she had imagined and
her protest was too strangled to deter her sister, who
danced out of reach with a tantalizing grin. To learn how
close all their hopes had been to being realized could
only make the truth harder to bear....
"Oh, Beth, try for a little decorum, do," Claire put in
crossly, throwing herself down in a chair near the fire
and trying to pretend that she, too, was not vitally
interested in the contents of the sheet that Beth now
eagerly perused. "I declare, I've never in my life seen
such a hoyden as you're turning into."
"At least I don't break my neck craning it to look into
every mirror I pass," Beth retorted, glancing up for a
moment to glare at her sister. Then as she returned her
attention to the letter her face broke into a beatific
smile and she looked at Claire again. "Oh, Claire, you're
to have your season! Our brother says we're to go."
Claire's eyes widened, and soft color rushed into her
cheeks as she sat up straight in the chair. "Beth, truly?"
Her gaze flew to her older sister. "Gabby?"
She sounded almost afraid to believe that so wondrous a
fate could be hers.
As indeed, Gabby thought, looking at Claire with a sudden
sharp sensation that she could only conclude was
heartbreak, she was right to be. What she would not give
to be able to provide this one thing for Claire....
At that moment the fire popped as loudly as a sharp
clapping of hands and flared again, higher and hotter than
before, momentarily drawing everyone's startled attention
to it. The color of the flames tinted the pale skin of
Gabby's hands an eerie shade of red, she saw, glancing
down at the letter to the barristers that still rested
beneath them. She had no doubt that her face was turned
the same, suddenly most appropriate, hellish hue.
Because the most dreadfully sinful notion had just
occurred to her....
"Read it for yourself." Beth thrust the letter at Claire,
then perched on the arm of her sister's chair, watching
the older girl's face with an air of jubilant expectancy.
When Claire reached the end, she gave a little squeal of
excitement. The two younger girls put their heads, one
bright red and one raven black, together and began
reciting the words aloud with increasing glee.
As her sisters read, and the fire died back down, Gabby
made a decision. She was, she discovered with some
surprise, a true Banning after all. Gaming ran strong in
their blood, and now it was her turn to wager all on a
daring throw of the dice. She stood, a too-thin woman of
no more than medium height clad in head-to-toe black
bombazine, her untamable chestnut hair dragged into a
reasonably neat chignon at her nape, her pale, squarish
face with its small, straight nose and decided mouth and
chin brought to sudden vivid life by the fierce resolve
that glowed from her usually calm gray eyes, and walked
with the deliberate care she had learned to take to
conceal her limp around the desk until she reached Jem's
side.
"Have you told anyone else of this? Talked to anyone on
the ship, perhaps, or since you landed in England?" Gabby
asked for his ears alone as they watched her sisters
poring over the letter once again. Jem looked wretched as,
finishing the missive for what must have been the dozenth
time, both girls looked at each other and began to chatter
excitedly. Gabby's whisper turned urgent. "What I am
asking you is, who else knows of my brother's death?"
Servant and mistress were of much the same height, and
their eyes were nearly on a level. Jem glanced at her, his
brow deeply furrowed.
"No one in England, Miss Gabby, save you and me. I
wouldn't be talking to strangers about family business, on
the ship or anywheres else, now would I? A few know in
Ceylon, I reckon, but mostly natives and such."
"Then I am going to ask you to do me a very big service."
Gabby spoke rapidly, before her nerve could fail her. "I
am going to ask you to pretend that you left my brother's
side immediately after you received these letters, and
never witnessed his death at all. I am going to ask you to
pretend that, as far as you know, the earl is still alive
and in Ceylon and will be home in his own good time."
Jem's eyes widened. As he met her determined gaze, his
lips pursed in a soundless whistle.
"Miss Gabby, I can do that, and for you I will willingly,
as you knows, but the truth of it is bound to come out
sooner or later. Such like that always does, and then
where will we be?" Jem's low voice was both alarmed and
cautionary.
"In no worse case than we are right now, and perhaps a
great deal better off," Gabby said firmly. "All we need is
just a little time, and a little luck."
"Gabby, aren't you excited? We're going to London," Beth
exclaimed rapturously, springing up from the arm of the
chair and dancing forward to envelop her oldest sister in
a suffocating hug. "Claire will have her season, and we'll
get to see the sights. Oh, Gabby, I've never been beyond
Yorkshire in my life."
"None of us have," Claire chimed in. Her eyes were glowing
with anticipation and her step was light as she joined
them, although, conscious of her status as a mature young
lady, she refrained from jumping up and down with the
heedless abandon shown by Beth.
"London will be a treat for all of us." Gabby, returning
Beth's hug, managed a credible smile. A sideways glance
showed her that Jem was looking at her with as much alarm
as if she'd suddenly grown horns and a tail.
"Does this mean we can have some new gowns?" Claire
sounded almost wistful. Claire loved pretty clothes, and
had upon many occasions spent hours poring over the
fashionable sketches in such publications as the Ladies'
Magazine that, banned from the house by their father,
still had chanced to come her way. Without being overly
vain, Claire was very aware of her own beauty, and such
matters as the latest hairstyles, or the design of a gown,
were important to her. She had longed for a season in the
worst way, but given their circumstances had known that
her chances of ever having one were remote. To her credit,
she had been very good about the prospect that it was
never to be. But now -- now she could have one after all.
Despite the risks, Gabby was suddenly fiercely glad to be
able to provide Claire with such a chance.
"Certainly we may," Gabby said, refusing to look at Jem
again as she well and truly threw caution to the wind. "An
entire new wardrobe, in fact, for each of us."
The fire in the hearth popped loudly and flared again just
then, causing Gabby to jump. As her sisters exclaimed more
over their unprecedented good fortune, Gabby could not
forbear casting the hearth a sideways, slightly nervous
glance.
Why could she not escape the feeling that, no matter how
pure her motives, some sort of hellish bargain had just
been made?
Irresistible
Chapter One
January 1813
If they caught her, she would die.
"Damn ye, where are ye?"
The disembodied voice sounded eerily close. That it
reached her ears at all over the roaring of the surf
terrified her. They were near. The knowledge goaded her to
greater speed despite the treacherous nature of the path
underfoot. She had to keep moving....
" 'Twill be the worse for ye, ye little besom, once I get
me hands on ye again."
The voice came from almost directly overhead. Daring a
quick glance upward, Claire saw that the chilly white
saucer of a moon had risen just high enough in the sky to
be visible over the lip of the cliff. By its wintry light,
she could barely make out the speaker's dark shape through
the thick gray fog that had rolled in from the sea
sometime in the long hours after sunset. Her heart
pounding, she shivered and fought to keep her breathing
from degenerating into terrified, and possibly audible,
panting. Dangerous as the trail she crept along was, it
was her only possible escape route. The spit of land her
pursuers searched was narrow, and it ended in a straight
drop of more than ninety feet to the tumultuous Atlantic
just a few hundred yards past where she clung to the
cliff. Had she still been on that marshy outcropping and
been forced by its geography to turn back, she would have
run straight into the arms of those who meant to kill her.
"Ye'll rue the day you tried to make a fool of me, missy,
I promise ye that."
He knew, or at least suspected, that she was near, Claire
realized with a clutch of horror. Otherwise, such threats
would be meaningless. Forcing herself to forgo the dubious
comfort of another glance up for fear that he might see
the pale flash of her face against the blackness of the
rock, she fought to keep panic at bay as she crept onward.
Without warning, her foot slipped. Barely suppressing a
cry, she grabbed at the wall for support. Her outflung
hand scrabbled desperately over the rock and closed around
a jagged jut of stone that saved her. For a moment after
she regained her balance she stood perfectly still, her
heaving chest pressed tightly against the unforgiving
granite, heart pounding, eyes closed, as she willed her
breathing to return to something approximating normal.
If she fell, she thought seconds later with a flash of
bleak humor, glancing down at the whitecaps pounding the
rocky beach as she negotiated the tricky spot, at least
she wouldn't have to worry about being killed by her
pursuers. She would have done the job quite thoroughly
herself.
The thought of falling, of her body hurtling helplessly
down to be broken on the sharp rocks below, was almost
enough to cause her to freeze in place. But then she had a
hideous mental vision of the fate her pursuers intended
for her. Tied to a filthy bedstead in a room off the
kitchen of the farmhouse where her captors had taken her,
she had overheard their plans: In the small hours of the
morning, when all honest folk were asleep and all of the
other sort knew to look the other way, they meant to take
her out to sea and drop her, bound hand and foot, into the
frigid depths. Drown 'er like a mewling kitten, was how
their leader had put it, his voice spine-chilling in its
careless joviality. Claire shivered again, violently, as
the callous words replayed in her head.
This band of brutal strangers meant to kill her. But why?
Why? She had racked her brain but found no answer that
made sense. Ever since she had tricked the man above her
into releasing her from her bonds by claiming she had to
make urgent use of the chamber pot, then clouted him over
the head with said chamber pot when he grudgingly handed
it to her and turned his back, she had quit asking herself
why. She'd been too busy running for her life. She could
figure out the why behind this nightmare later. If she
survived.
"Eh, Briggs, what're you doing? Ye're afrighting the poor
lassie."
This second voice sounded as close as the first. Claire
recognized it as belonging to the group's leader. This
time, despite the best will in the world not to do so, she
was unable to prevent a terrified glance up. There were
two dark forms standing close together near the very edge
of the cliff, which was now some forty feet above her
head. From their stance, they were, presumably, looking
toward where the others still searched for her along the
spit. Another quick, reflexive glance down revealed little
save the frothing breakers and the inky infinity of the
night beyond the fog. But she knew that another fifty feet
or so of treacherous cliff still stretched between her and
the relative safety of the beach.
Did they know of this path? Did they know that she had
taken it and was directly below them even as they spoke?
Were they toying with her, like cruel cats with a
terrified mouse? This possibility, which had just popped
into her mind, terrified her.
Please God, she prayed with a quick glance up into the
ether, she did not want to die. Not tonight, not like
this. She was only twenty-one years old.
To her horror, she felt her knees begin to shake.
This would never do. Take a damper, Claire, she ordered
herself sternly. She was not going to die. She had already
lived through so much: the far too early death of her
mother; a childhood made dark and frightening by the
cruelty of her father; a promising marriage turned bleak
and empty; and the crime that had given her over to her
pursuers. She had survived too much to die now.
Fiercely telling herself that, Claire stiffened her knees
and inched onward. Pebbles underfoot made her slide
precariously a second time, and again she nearly cried
out. But she managed to choke back the sound even as she
recovered her footing, and then, gritting her teeth, she
forced herself to go on. With luck, they would believe her
hidden somewhere in the prickly gorse above. With luck,
they would never even think of looking down.
Once she reached the beach, she reminded herself in
between sliding footsteps and deep, calming breaths, the
safety of Hayleigh Castle, her husband's family seat, was
less than an hour's walk away. Although she had hated the
vast turreted pile from her first sight of it, her heart
yearned for it now. How ironic was it that her husband was
there, all unknowing of the danger that threatened her,
while she fought for her life practically in the castle's
shadow? Strain though she might, she could see nothing of
it through the fog-shrouded darkness. But she knew it was
there, perched like a great stone falcon on the rocky
promontory overlooking the sea that was this one's twin.
The high granite cliff on which the castle was built and
the one she was presently descending, known as Hayleigh's
Point, served as end posts to a half-circle of cliffs
surrounding a bay that looked as if a hungry giant had
taken a bite out of the coastline. From the castle to this
spot was a distance of perhaps six miles. To the east was
desolate marshland dotted with beacon fires ready to be
lit at a moment's notice should Boney, now fortunately
occupied in Russia, at last decide to invade. To the west
the land fell away in a sheer vertiginous drop straight
down to the turbulent waters of the Atlantic. The only way
up, or down, was via perhaps half a dozen narrow paths
winding precariously through the rocks. The locals called
them smugglers' paths because, once the province of goats,
they were now used almost exclusively by the "gentlemen,"
as the smugglers were known in these parts, who over the
course of the war had turned the running of the French
blockade into a fine art.
Tonight this particular path had saved her life, so
whatever quarrel anyone else might have with those who
traded clandestinely with the hated French, she herself
was grateful to them.
"Come, milady, stop your foolishness now and ye'll see
we'll not harm ye." The leader's accent was pure Sussex.
His voice turned wheedling as he raised it to be heard
over the pounding of the surf. Clearly he too knew --
suspected -- that she was near. "We'll carry ye back home,
all right and tight, just like we intended all along, see
if we don't. 'Twas merely the matter of a small ransom,
which has since been paid."
Milady...a ransom...paid? Did they know, then, that she
was Lady Claire Lynes, wife of the heir of the Duke of
Richmond, one of the richest peers in the realm? But
David, her feckless husband, had little money of his own,
and could get his hands on no very substantial sum until
he inherited, if indeed he ever did. As the present Duke,
who had lived abroad for many years, was both unwed and
childless, David cherished some hopes in that direction.
But still, hopes would not pay a ransom. In any case, her
abduction was only hours old. There had been precious
little time....
But no. It was a lie, a trick meant to cozen her into
revealing herself. She was not such a fool as to fall for
that, no matter how much she might wish to believe that it
was true. She had heard their plan with her own ears, and
there was no reason to suppose that it had changed with
her escape.
You'll not catch me that easily, Claire vowed silently to
the men above her. Continuing to move, she willed herself
to think no more about the plot against her until she was
once again on solid ground. Situated as she was, a single
misstep could prove fatal. Instead, she concentrated on
the rhythmic slap of the waves against the rocks below in
an effort to calm herself. Sweaty palms, shaky knees, and
a racing pulse were a recipe for disaster, she knew.
Wetting her lips, she was surprised to taste salt in her
mouth. Only then did she realize that the great plumes of
freezing spray from the sea that had intermittently blown
up to splatter the cliff had left her wet through. She was
beyond cold; her hands were as icy and lacking in feeling
as those of a corpse. Though her high-necked, long-sleeved
traveling dress was made of wool, it was a fine kerseymere
variety that provided little warmth, and certainly it had
not been designed to withstand exposure to the elements.
And her boots, her cunning little half-boots that were so
fashionable this season, had equally not been designed for
a death-defying climb down a near-vertical cliff. Their
smooth leather soles slipped and slid like skates over the
slippery ground. She did not have even a cloak to ward off
the elements. Like everything else she had brought with
her on the journey from her sister's home in Yorkshire to
Hayleigh Castle, it had been left behind in her carriage
when she'd been dragged out.
"If ye put me to the trouble of fetching the dogs to sniff
ye out, milady, it'll be the worse for ye." The leader's
coaxing tone had deteriorated into pure threat. Claire
dared another scared glance up and saw that the men had
not moved. But they held a lantern now; its warm yellow
glow swayed gently in the leader's hand as, back turned to
her and the sea, he held it aloft to illuminate the night.
The light, she realized, her breath catching on what was
almost a sob, was bright enough to allow her to see a
bleeding scratch on her hand where it clung to an
outcropping of rock. If the men turned and looked over the
edge of the cliff, it was also bright enough to give her
away.
She was more than halfway down now, she reckoned, as,
unnerved by the light, she stopped, holding tight to the
rocks with both hands. Closing her eyes and pressing her
forehead against the spray-slick granite, she sent another
prayer winging skyward and took another calming breath. If
she could just reach the beach, she would run as if her
heels had sprouted wings. Somewhere at its far end lay
another path that led to the castle and safety. But first
she had to reach the beach, and to reach the beach she had
to move.
Gritting her teeth, she did.
"Very well, milady, ye've brought it on yourself." The
leader's raised voice was harsh with frustration. Claire
listened with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as
he called out, presumably to the rest of the band who
still searched the spit: "There'll be bloody hell to pay
if she's not found, ye understand? Bloody hell. Briggs, go
fetch Marley's hounds."
"Aye."
A glance up confirmed that only one dark shape was now
visible above her. Briggs had vanished into the night,
presumably gone to fetch dogs to hunt her down as if she
were vermin. Claire's heart leaped and her breathing
quickened as panic threatened once again to overtake her.
Why would anyone want to do this to her? Try though she
might -- and despite her determination to do so, she
hadn't been able to dismiss the question from her mind --
she couldn't make sense of it. Was it some unlucky
happenstance of time and place, as she had first supposed,
or, as was seeming increasingly possible, was it a
carefully executed plan directed specifically at her? She
had spent Christmas in Yorkshire, in the bosom of her own
family, choosing to go to Morningtide, her sister Gabby's
home, over a celebration with her husband and his mother.
Her excuse had been an urgent desire to be with Gabby, who
was all but bedridden by a most difficult first pregnancy.
With both her parents dead -- her abusive, unloving
father, the Earl of Wickham, three years before, and his
third wife, her beautiful but modestly born mother, when
Claire was a mere infant -- her two sisters, and now
Gabby's husband as well, were her family, as well as being
the people she loved most in the world. The holiday had
been the merriest she had known since wedding David, and
she had enjoyed every minute of it. Then, a week after
Boxing Day, she had reluctantly bowed to David's wish that
she join him and a party of guests at the enormous, drafty
anachronism that was Hayleigh Castle, her husband's family
seat since the days of William the Conqueror, and set out.
That had been two days ago.
Shortly before dark her traveling carriage had neared its
destination. She had been aware of a not-unfamiliar
lowering of her spirits as the reunion with her husband
drew ever closer. The day was gray, cheerless, threatening
rain, its bleakness a perfect match for how she was
feeling. Then, in a dense wood not many miles from the
castle, her carriage had been attacked. Without warning a
band of masked riders had appeared out of nowhere,
surrounding them, forcing the vehicle to halt. The
coachman, fumbling for his blunderbuss, had been shot from
his seat forthwith. The horror of that had scarcely sunk
in when the carriage door was wrenched open and two burly
men peered in. With the best will in the world to show
courage, she had screamed as hysterically as her maid,
Alice, a sweet country girl from Gabby's household
recruited to take the place of her own beloved Twindle,
whom she had left behind to care for Gabby. Shrinking back
into the plushly upholstered corner of the seat, she had
tried to fight off the rough hands that reached for her.
Her efforts availed her nothing. In an instant she was
dragged from the carriage. She fuzzily recalled Alice
being pulled out behind her; the maid's screams had
abruptly stopped just seconds before a foul-smelling rag
had been pressed over Claire's nose and mouth. After that,
she remembered no more until she had awakened upon that
bed in the room behind the farmhouse kitchen, quite alone.
" 'Tis your last chance to behave like a sensible lassie,
milady," the leader called, bringing her back to the
present with a jolt. Glancing up, Claire realized that she
could no longer see him. He must have moved away from the
edge of the cliff. Only his voice and the lantern's glow
that limned the cliff edge in gold told her that he was
still near. Obviously he did not know of the path's
existence, or had forgotten it if he did. It was her good
fortune that the crime had occurred in country she knew.
She had spent the first months of her marriage at Hayleigh
Castle, and David himself, in one of his even then
increasingly rare charming moods, had shown her this path
down to the windblown gray shale crescent of a beach.
The sea was roaring in her ears now as, inch by perilous
inch, she crept closer to it. Through the fog she could
see the curvy white lines of foam where the waves broke
against the shore. Beyond that, the black vastness of the
ocean blended with the black vastness of the sky so well
that one was all but indistinguishable from the other.
She had only twenty or so feet to go, she calculated with
a fresh surge of hope. Once on the beach, she would run as
if all the hounds of hell were after her -- which, by
then, they might well be.
A tiny pinprick of light, warm and yellow amid all the
cold blackness, shone briefly on the surface of the sea.
Her eyes widened and her step faltered. The light was
there, and then gone even as she strained to see. So fast
did it appear and disappear that she was not quite sure
her eyes were not playing tricks on her -- until it
flashed again.
Still staring in some perplexity out to sea, she at last
arrived at the uppermost reaches of the beach, stumbling a
little as she made the transition from slippery path to
uneven ground. Frowning, she continued to probe the
blackness for another glimpse of light. Then she gathered
her sodden skirts in one hand to clear her feet and
started to scramble over the rocks toward the beach
proper. Had she imagined it? No, there it was again. There
was no mistake.
Were her pursuers coming after her by boat now? she
wondered, panicking anew. But no. A glance up confirmed
that they were still above her, presumably searching the
cliff. The yellowish glow of the lantern light through the
fog was unmistakable.
But she had seen something. Perhaps it was no more than a
fairy light, she thought, shivering as she clambered over
another rock and at last reached the relative flatness of
the beach itself. The moors thereabouts were legendary for
elusive beacons sighted briefly in the dead of night, and
fairy lights were the name the local folk gave them. Or
perhaps it was a fisherman, late getting in. Or, more
likely, smugglers...
A muffled crunch on the shale behind her was her only
warning. At the sound, Claire's heart lurched. She
whirled, but it was too late: A man loomed behind her, a
tall dark shadow just separating from the legion of
shadows that were rocks and cliff and sea, close enough to
touch. She was caught! She would be killed....
She never had time to let loose the scream that tore into
her throat before something slammed hard into the back of
her head and she crumpled without a sound into blackness.
Copyright © 2001 by Karen Robards