Buried Secrets (13 page)

“Now, then,” said Cord. “Look at the first symbol— the one that looks like a reverse J. I believe the drawing may be simply a straight line, which represents a certain letter, with the curl added to represent a specific sound—or possibly another letter, added to create a word. See? There’s also a little apostrophe sort of thing at the top of the symbol, possibly indicative of yet another letter—or sound.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Gillian, bending over the page. Cord’s hand brushed her cheek. “Look,” she continued rather shakily, “there are hundreds of symbols here, using that same vertical line. How could one possibly-? But the symbols do not group together, as letters do to form words. If, as you suggest, each symbol represents one or more sounds, then each could be a word in itself! Oh, Cord! I think you’re on to something.”

He chuckled. “Well, the theory is not new, of course.” He stared intently at the mysterious scratchings and frowned. “The thing is, every time I look at the marks, I am more and more sure I have seen their like somewhere before.”

“The only other such journal I know of, arising in the same period, is John Evelyn’s Diary. It, however, was written in plain English.”

“Yes. I wonder why Mr. Pepys chose to be so obscure.”

Gillian laughed. “Perhaps he was revealing state secrets of the time. He reached quite a high position in the Admiralty, I believe.”

“Or maybe he was merely keeping secrets from his wife.”

Gillian’s brows rose again, and Cord noted what he thought was a hint of disapproval in her misty eyes. She smiled, however, as she said, “Trust the confirmed rake to come up with such a theory. Of course,” she continued, “I can just see the old rapscallion scribbling a calendar of assignations with his
cher amées.”

Cord rose from his chair, his features expressing bewildered innocence. “You wound me with such calumnies, madam,” he protested dramatically, a hand to his breast.

At least, he can laugh at himself, thought Gillian, and does not make any serious denials. Was this really a point in his favor? she reflected the next moment. Does one applaud the predator who makes no secret of his bent? Does such an attitude not represent a challenge?
I am about to gobble you up, pretty little lamb. Stop me if you can.

She shook herself. She was being absurd. She had pondered before on Cord’s apparent abandonment of any plans for her seduction. She stepped aside as Cord came around the desk.

“It is late,” he murmured, “I must go before Aunt Louisa descends on me, wondering why I have not long since taken my leave.”

Gillian made no response, but followed him from the study. In the corridor, she turned toward the front hall, but was stayed by Cord’s hand on her arm.

“There is no need to summon a groom to bring Zeus around to the front of the house. I shall leave by the rear door and walk directly to the stable.”

The house seemed extraordinarily dark and silent as they proceeded to the back of the house. Their only light was a single candle, brought by Cord from the study, and it sent distorted, alien shadows scampering along the walls.

The kitchen was empty, Mr. and Mrs. Widdings apparently having gone to seek their rest. Gillian became almost urgently aware of the isolation thus imposed on her and Cord. When they reached the kitchen door, Cord handed her the candle. Their fingers brushed, and Gillian drew back, startled. Cord was very close, and he moved his other hand to cover the fingers still so close to his.

Here Gillian committed a serious strategic error. She looked up, straight into Cord’s face. His jeweled eyes reflected the candlelight in a primal glitter that grew and leapt forward to consume her. One part of her mind was distantly aware when he set the candle on the scrubbed oaken table that stood close by. When he grasped her shoulders gently, she knew she should move away, but she was held in that mesmerizing glint of green fire.

He bent his head to her, and even then she did not move. Her whole being seemed concentrated on the feel of his hands on her shoulders, the fire coming ever closer until his mouth covered hers with a tender urgency.

She was astonished at the response that shuddered through her. Or at least she would have been if her mind had been functioning at all. Instead, she had become a creature of sensation, reveling in the feel of his lips on hers and wholly engulfed in a desire to press herself closer. She savored the warmth of his fingers as he cupped her head, and she lifted her own hands to grasp the soft, dark curls at the nape of his neck. Now his lips left hers to press kisses down the line of her jaw and along her throat. Appalled, she listened to the whimper that came from that throat. At the sound, Cord stepped back abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered huskily. “That is, I am not, but ... but I should be.”

A wave of humiliation washed over Gillian. Dear God, the man had attempted an assault on her virtue in her own home, and she had done nothing to discourage him. Indeed, she had all but thrown herself on the floor so that he might take her right there. She had comported herself like a wanton, writhing against him and moaning like a banshee in her need. What must he think of her?

What mattered more, of course, is what she thought of herself. She drew away from Cord, ineffectually patting her hair and her disarrayed gown.

“I must—” began Cord again, his voice ragged.

“No!” cried Gillian, her own throat tight with gathering tears. “Please . . . just go.”

She could say no more. Instead, she whirled and ran from the kitchen, back into the house.

Cord stared after her for a moment before moving unsteadily past the door and out into the cool night air. Damn! What had possessed him to kiss her? Had he not decided that his relationship with Gillian Tate was to be platonic? He had known that maintaining such a facade would be difficult, but he had not foreseen that it would take only the slightest temptation to make his good intentions crumble like last week’s stale bread.

No—the temptation had not been slight. What man, he asked himself, could resist Gillian by firelight? The flame of hearth and candles had bathed her in a seductive warmth, illuminating her smile and her cloud-colored eyes, and limning her lush curves in loving detail.

And what about Gillian’s supposed primness? The picture of propriety she presented to the world? Had she made the slightest rebuff to his advances, he would have halted. But when he had drawn her to him, she’d not so much as lifted a finger to stop him. Indeed, she seemed a-most willing participant in the kiss. She had responded with a passion that nearly stripped him of what little self-control he possessed. She had melted into him like quicksilver seeking a magnet, and the sweetness of her mouth pressing against his with a seeking warmth had nearly driven him wild.

So, what of her story of a heart buried at Waterloo? Was it all a lie, crafted to form a barrier between Gillian and the rest of the world?
But why?
Had she some other reason for avoiding the attentions of men? Again—why? Had she been hurt in a previous relationship, so that now she abhorred the thought of love? The concept seemed straight out of a gothic novel, but what other explanation could there be?

Don’t be absurd, he told himself sharply. There could be a hundred reasons for choosing to hide away from the world. Perhaps she had committed an indiscretion in her youth, a sin so unforgivable in the eyes of society that she now felt herself an object of scorn. In which case, her guise of virtuous niece might simply be a smokescreen.

He rather liked that theory. It allowed for the hope that the beautiful Miss Tate might not be averse to a spot of dalliance, after all. The hunter in him awakened, as though from a long, dull nap. The next time he visited Rose Cottage, he must make sure the evening ended with yet another tête-à-tête before the fire. Then, he thought to himself with a chuckle, we shall see what develops.

There was only one thing wrong with this scenario. His thoughts returned to the moment when he had released her so suddenly from his embrace. Her expression had not been one of a spinster drawn abruptly from a pleasant experience. Her eyes had been wide and anguished, her gaze haunted. It was as though she felt she had somehow been betrayed. Or perhaps she felt she had betrayed herself—or the sacred memory of her grand passion.

In which case, he had no right to intrude. No matter how great the waste, one could not argue with a love so deep that neither death nor time could erase it. Even if he should entice her into a brief fling, she would be devastated afterward, and she would never forgive him. Somehow that thought left him oddly discomfited. He had known Gillian for only a short time, and his relationship with her had been, he thought, much the same as with any other woman—cordial, usually with the expectation of a satisfying liaison. Unless, of course, the liaison was over and done with, leaving both parties on amicable terms. With none of his previous connections, however, had he felt the sense of ... rapport he experienced with Gillian. He simply enjoyed being with her. He savored her wit, her warmth, her intelligence and that indefinable grace of spirit that shone in her remarkable, translucent eyes.

He sighed. It looked as though he had talked himself back to the platonic relationship. He would enjoy her company while it lasted, and afterward . . . Cord frowned. It was becoming increasingly difficult to think of afterward— a time when Gillian would not be in his life.

Having saddled Zeus, he lifted himself onto the horse’s back. This was ridiculous, he chastened himself. Gillian was merely a female. A superior specimen of her sex, to be sure, but certainly no cause for this absurd maundering.

Slapping the reins against Zeus’s neck, he clattered out of the stable yard.

Chapter Ten

From the upstairs window, where she had rushed after leaving Cord, Gillian stared into the night. She observed him as he moved to the stables, and he seemed to move awkwardly, as though he were walking under water. The stable door closed behind him, the windows flickered with lantern light and then grew dark, and still she watched. At last. Cord reappeared, astride Zeus, and rode away from the precincts of Rose Cottage. It was not until he had been swallowed by blackness that she stepped away from the window and walked blindly through the corridor until she reached her own chamber.

The serving girl had left a candle burning for her on the dressing table, and Gillian sat gingerly before the mirror. She stared at the figure before her, her fingers brushing her lips. She looked the same, she thought with some surprise. No different from the hundreds of other times she had subjected herself to examination in the glass. The upheaval she had just experienced had left no outward mark.

How strange. How very peculiar that a man’s touch— his kiss—could bring about such a profound change to her innermost self and not be reflected in the facade she presented to the world.

She had been kissed before. Kenneth had kissed her on many occasions, and even since his death, she had allowed one or two men that liberty—more as an experiment than a sign of her affection, to be sure. None of them, even Kenneth at his most passionate, had awaked the firestorm of emotion brought forth by that single kiss from the Earl of Cordray.

What was happening to her? She was certainly not forming one of those hopeless passions that one read about in ladies’ periodicals. She knew herself to be incapable of love, after all. So, why had her pulse begun its absurd humming when his hand had brushed against hers? Why, when he drew her into his embrace, had her blood become liquid fire in her veins? And most of all, why had she responded to his kiss like a cat in heat, writhing under the attentions of her mate? Was she a wanton, then? One of those repressed spinsters who were the butt of so many cruel jokes, with fires lying banked beneath their frigid exteriors, just waiting for the touch of a man to spark a conflagration? Dear God, she thought, if Cord had attempted a full-blown seduction at that moment, she doubted very much if she would have resisted.

Her thoughts went again to Kenneth—dear, gentle Kenneth. Even in their most heated embraces, his kisses had been warm and tender, his mouth soft on hers. She had enjoyed kissing Kenneth, even if she was always left wanting . . . something. But never had she been stirred to press against him as though she might join with his very soul. Never had she welcomed his hands on her body as an ice-imprisoned flower craves the sun’s heat.

She tried to gather her wildly scattered thoughts into some semblance of their usual order. It might be said, of course, that one of the features of a successful rake must be his ability to arouse wicked passions in virgin breasts. He had seemed stirred, but to him, the situation must have been merely a repetition of a hundred other such scenes in which he figured as the successful marauder—the thief of a maiden’s ultimate treasure.

She stood and began to undress. She must be realistic about this. To the Earl of Cordray, a woman like her, of common birth and with no man to protect her, was simply a convenience. She’d observed ample evidence of his determination to place his pursuit of pleasure above all else. In his pursuit of herself, he no doubt sought an enjoyable interlude to while away his forced sojourn in the country. What better sport than to lay siege to the fortress that was the virtue of the neighborhood spinster? She had been warned by his demeanor on their first meeting. She had actually been amused by his presumption on that occasion.

Well, she had learned her lesson. There would be no repetition of tonight’s encounter with the spellbinding earl. She knew she stood in no danger of losing her heart, for she had known for many years that she had none to lose. She refused to consider the pleasure she might derive from a purely physical relationship, for she had no wish to court ruination. It was not only she who would suffer from such a liaison, but her aunt and her uncle, and, indirectly, her parents and brothers and sisters.

No, she would steer clear of Cord’s machinations. If he wished a diversion from the boredom of ruralization, he would have to seek some other female driven to mindless submission by his admittedly superior technique.