the touch of a man’s hard mouth against hers. To shiver under the determined caress of experienced fingers. To know the slide of naked flesh against hers, slick and hot with desire. To know the possession of a man’s urgent body…
Well! Marie-Claude swallowed. Her breathing was shallow, her cheeks flushed as she finally snapped the parasol open. Such wanton thoughts. She should be ashamed—but found it difficult to be so. Why should she not imagine a perfection of male beauty if she wished to? Even if she was a widow with a five-year-old son. With a little laugh at her impossible dreaming, she twirled the lace parasol so that the fringe danced, and as the sea and shingle beckoned, Marie-Claude strode out down the cliff path, well-worn and distinct for a lady who was neat of foot. Something would happen. Surely there was something in fate’s hand waiting for her.
At the brisk pace she set herself, Marie-Claude was soon stepping on to the beach. The scrunch of shingle was loud beneath her feet, and made for heavy going, but she persisted until she was at the water’s edge, where she lifted her face to the kiss of sun and salty air. Her hair would curl outrageously but she did not care, her mood revived. How Raoul, her son, at present with Luke and Harriette at The Venmore, would love this. One day she must bring him here. Picking up one of the flat pebbles, she threw it far out, dusting the sand from her fingers, momentarily wishing for a man at her side to teach her son such skills as stone-skimming—perhaps even her mythical lover, she thought wryly—but she would do it just as well.
Her mind more at ease with the pretty scene, Marie-Claude walked slowly along the water’s edge, stepping back as the waves encroached and retreated, encroached again. The tide had turned, she realised. Not that she knew anything about tides.
‘You don’t know much about anything really,’ Marie-Claude commented waspishly, then laughed as a pair of gulls wheeled and screamed overhead as if in reply. ‘And you are undoubtedly a foolish woman!’
But her optimism had returned.
The sun was descending rapidly now towards the horizon, reminding Marie-Claude of the need to retrace her steps. She turned on her heel.
And froze with a little gasp of surprise. And trepidation. In front of her, between her feet and the cliff with its steep track, a fast-flowing channel of water had appeared. How careless she had been. Why had she not had the sense to take note of the path of the incoming sea? Any woman of wit would have done so! But it was no great matter after all. She spun round towards the village itself. So she would have to make her way up the inlet and into Old Wincomlee, past the old inn, the Silver Boat, then walk around the path on the top of the cliff. A long way, she sighed, but the evening was still fair, the light good.
Her optimism was short-lived. A thread of anxiety encircled her heart, and tightened at what she saw. An expanse of water, little waves chasing one after the other, stretched before her as well as at her side, fast running now, growing deeper by the second. Behind her the first little wave lapped at her boots.
Surrounded!
Mon Dieu! Marie-Claude took a breath and swallowed hard against the first leap of real fear. No point in being afraid. She’d lived through worse dangers than this in her life. She’d just have to brave the water. It wasn’t too deep yet. No point at all in standing here, frozen in indecision.
Closing the parasol with fingers that did not quite tremble and tucking it beneath her arm, Marie-Claude hitched her skirts and stepped into the water, pushing herself forwards as it suddenly grew far deeper than she could have imagined. For a moment she considered retreating to the little island of shingle, but she knew she must not. Summoning all her courage, she forced herself to take another step and then another. Around her the waves were swirling, overlapping each other. Her boots, her skirts and petticoats were soaked and heavy. The stones beneath her feet sucked and slid, making progress slow and difficult. How had the sunny evening suddenly become so menacing, so threatening? Grasping her skirts tighter, Marie-Claude had to fight to stop panic anchoring her in her tracks.
The cottages of Old Wincomlee and the roof of the Silver Boat suddenly seemed an impossibly long way distant.
Ellerdine Manor: a manor house on the cliff top, a mile west of the smuggling village of Old Wincomlee
A cold sensation trickled through his chest. Alexander Ellerdine, at some half-seen, half-heard command, raised his head, pushed himself upright, hands tightening over the carved arms of his chair, then, with an impatient shrug and a flex of his fingers, allowed himself to settle back. The spaniel at his side subsided with a sigh.
‘Just a goose walking over my grave, Bess.’ The gentleman’s voice was heavily sardonic as he stretched to run a light caress over the dog’s ears. ‘Nothing new in that!’
Shadows began to lengthen in the room as afternoon dipped into early evening. There were still long hours of daylight left to be enjoyed, but the corners of the shabby library in Ellerdine Manor where the sun no longer reached on this June evening were dark and sombre with neglect. Alexander Ellerdine sprawled in a well-worn Chippendale Windsor chair, booted feet crossed at the ankle on the desktop. Before him, leaving careless rings of liquid on a mess of scattered papers, stood a half-empty decanter of superior French brandy, courtesy of the Brotherhood of the Free Traders. In his hand was a half-empty glass of the deep amber liquor. Clearly the focus of his mind was far distant. He did not see the unkempt surroundings. The threadbare carpet, the faded curtains at the windows, the worn upholstery on a once-elegant set of spindle-legged chairs, the undusted leatherbound books that looked as if they had not been taken down from the shelves any time in the past decade—he did not notice them. Perhaps he was too used to the deficiencies of his library to note the depredations of time and lack of money. And of lack of interest.
Alexander Ellerdine. Gentleman, landowner, expert smuggler.
Wrecker.
A man with blood on his hands.
A man of ruthless energies and dangerous reputation.
Despite the dust and the worn furnishings, he made a striking impression. His home might be shabby, but he was not. Here was a man who had a care for appearances. His topboots were highly polished, his breeches well cut, his white shirt of good quality linen. If there was any carelessness it was the lack of a cravat, his shirt worn casually open at the neck to show his strong throat and the firm flesh of his chest. His hair, dark as to be almost black, was longer than was fashionable, curling against his collar, and disordered from the attentions of restless fingers. His eyes, set beneath similarly dark brows, were the deep blue of an angry, storm-whipped sea, hawk-like in their intensity. Even slouched as he was, it was clear that he was tall and rangy, not heavily built, but with a wiry athleticism that told of a life of action and strenuous activity. The hand gripped around the stem of the old glass was well moulded, fine-boned with long fingers, nails neatly pared. His face would have been formidably handsome, if it were not set in such sombre lines.
Suddenly, again, he turned his head, sharply, eyes and features arrested, at the echo of footsteps in the entrance hall. It was a breathtaking transformation. There was the dark glamour. The breathtaking allure of wild good looks fired with animation. But then the gleam of anticipation was quenched, hooded beneath heavy lids as the sounds died away. Only his housekeeper, Mrs Shaw…Not the man he was half-expecting, Rackham or one of the other vicious minions of Captain D’Acre, commander of the smuggling gang out of Rottingdean. Not one of the Fly-By-Nights whose hold on the Free Trade along the Sussex coast was becoming more brutal by the month.
Alexander Ellerdine reached for the decanter to refill the glass as the house settled heavily around him, silent except for the creak of old timbers and the rattle of a loose pane of glass in the stiff breeze off the sea. Except that something—that same something—no more than a shiver of awareness, but still impossible to ignore, traced an uneasy path down his spine.
Irritated, Alexander lifted the decanter to pour another glass.
And froze, perfectly still. Hand outstretched. Listening. All senses suddenly stretched. Almost sniffing the air. Or sifting through the vibrations of some…What was it? That same slither of