Rake Beyond Redemption (7 page)

‘As you say, Mr Ellerdine.’ George was in no way put out by the threat. ‘But Mistress Marie-Claude…I just think she deserves—’

‘I know what you think. Don’t say it.’

George sniffed. ‘Not my place, sir. It’ll all end badly if you keep it secret. Mark my words.’

‘I will. But I’ve set out my path and I’ll tread it to the bitter end.’

‘And pray God we all comes out of it in one piece, sir!’

They beached the
Spectre
in sullen silence. Zan felt the weight of George’s warning, but he would not think of it. He would hold to the false promise of the future for just a little while. And at least pretend that Marie-Claude had a place in it.

The cutter firmly beached at last, Zan made his way over the shingle to where Marie-Claude sat on the seawall. Seeing her smile as he approached, he thrust all doubts aside. Although he bowed formally, a deliberately elegant and courteous little gesture entirely out of place between two windswept figures on a seawall,
his eyes spoke his feelings. His mouth on her proffered fingers sent a thrill through her veins.

‘George Gadie has just warned me off,’ he announced.

‘Mr Gadie disapproves of me spending time with you,’ she agreed.

‘I can imagine.’ Zan pushed himself up on to the wall beside her.

‘Will you tell me why?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You might run away from me. How would I live, how would I breathe and my heart continue to beat when I have only just found you?’ Keeping a charade of light flirtation, he set himself to preserve the pleasure of the afternoon.

‘I think you would live very well. I dare say you have a score of pretty women laying their hearts at your feet.’

‘Only a score? I think you underestimate my attractions.’

‘No. I do not. Do I not see them before me?’

His eyes lifted to hers, their focus suddenly sharp.

‘There’s only one heart I’m interested in owning,’ he replied slowly.

‘I think you might already have it.’ With a quick intake of breath she covered her mouth with her fingers, in shock that she should have spoken such a sentiment.

Zan simply caught her hand and pressed his mouth to her fingertips.

‘If you’ve lost your heart to me, I willingly give you mine in recompense.’

Marie-Claude blinked, startled. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this, listening to this, should I?’

‘Why not? Is it the truth, Marie-Claude, that you have given your heart to me?’

She did not even hesitate. ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ Her fingers curled around his.

A man rode up along the quay on a raw-boned horse, pulling it to a standstill beside them. His shadow fell across them. Zan raised his head as he became aware of a shiver running across Marie-Claude’s skin.

He looked round.

‘Ellerdine. A word…’

‘Rackham.’ Zan squinted up into the dazzle of the sun, lifting his hand so that he was able to make out the man’s narrow features and emotionless stare. Damnation! This confrontation was not what he wanted, not here in this company. But needs must when the devil drives—and Rackham definitely represented the devil. Zan turned back to Marie-Claude, assembling an easy smile despite the tightened clasp on her hands. He deliberately released them and pushed himself from the wall. ‘Forgive me, madam. If you would allow me a minute?’

‘Haven’t got all day, Ellerdine,’ Rackham sneered as he dismounted, letting his eye slide over Marie-Claude in a manner crude and obvious enough to instantly heat Zan’s blood.

‘Nor will you need it, Rackham,’ Zan snapped back. ‘Wait here for me, madam.’

Marie-Claude watched as Zan leapt down to the shingle, deliberately leading the man some distance away. The conversation was short, without warmth or humour. Hardly more than the basic good manners expected between men with business dealings. Try as she might, she could catch no more than the odd word, but she thought they had no liking for each other. Then with no
more than a raised hand Rackham strode off, remounted and rode away, leaving Zan to return to her side.

His good mood, she decided, had been decidedly compromised, his features settled into an austere severity.

‘I should see you to the cliff path,’ he remarked coolly.

So he had no intention of telling her what that had been about.

‘Who was that?’ she asked.

‘Rackham? An acquaintance.’

‘From the village? I don’t know him.’

‘No. From Rottingdean.’ He helped her down from the wall, brushing the sand from her skirts, his voice clipped.

‘What did he want? You didn’t seem pleased to see him.’

‘Did I not? Merely a matter of business.’ His eyes were flat with rejection.

‘Smuggling?’

‘Yes.’ A sharp glance as if he wished she had not asked. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘No. Not really. I know that my sister-in-law, Harriette, was part of a smuggling gang before she married. It sounded exciting.’

‘It is not. It’s a foul trade.’

‘I thought you were involved in it.’

‘I am.’

He said no more as he escorted her to the start of the cliff path, leaving Marie-Claude bewildered. Whatever the man Rackham had said had stirred some strong emotion within him. She didn’t like the look of the smuggler from Rottingdean. She would not trust a man with so hard a face or such cold eyes. Nor had she liked the manner in which he had looked at her. She would not like to be alone with Rackham.

It was as if Zan sensed her disquiet. ‘Mr Rackham need not concern you, Marie-Claude.’ With a wry smile, he tucked a flighty curl behind the ribbon of her bonnet. ‘Don’t allow him to spoil a remarkable day. It was too good to allow such a man to mar your memory of it.’

‘No. I will not. I doubt I’ll ever see him again.’

‘I doubt you will.’ The lightest touch of his fingers on the back of her hand had the power to make her heart flutter. ‘Farewell, Madame Mermaid.’

She chuckled at the foolishness of the name he had given her. But there was nothing foolish in the glint in his eye. It was quite predatory, she thought. He was hunting in earnest. She must have a care. Yet still she asked, ‘Will I see you again?’

‘Yes.’ His lips on her brow soft as a blessing. ‘Yes, Marie-Claude, you will.’

But as she climbed the steep path her anxiety did not quite go away. She could not quite forget the man Rackham’s cold eyes. Nor Zan’s equivocal response.

Marie-Claude curled on the window seat of her bedchamber and stared unseeingly at the magnificence of moonlight on silvered waves. Sleep had evaded her, so what point lying in bed reading the cracks in the ceiling? She would not look towards Ellerdine Manor. How fortunate that her room faced towards the sea.

A welter of emotions swamped her. What manner of man was he to stir such feelings within her? When he kissed her, she was lost. What use in promising to keep him at a distance? Easier to attempt to keep the waves at bay like King Canute. He had singularly failed too.

She wanted him. Just the thought of his mouth trailing along her throat curled fingers of desire between
her thighs. Every inch of skin was suddenly sensitive to the air. Marie-Claude opened the window to let in the still-warm night air to dissipate the heat of the room. Alexander Ellerdine was probably engaged in doing something entirely reprehensible to do with smuggling. Something to do with Rackham. Leaning on her arms, she wished he was here with her now. But he would not come. He would not come to the Pride. She would not invite him again.

She must dream alone.

At Ellerdine Manor, Zan strode through the library, across the hallway, not even staying to find a coat or a hat. Suddenly every minute seemed precious to him. He would go to the Pride, but not sully its floors with his booted feet. If he would seduce her, it would be on neutral territory…

Seduce? It almost brought him to a halt as he flung back the main door. Was that what he intended? She had asked if he were a libertine in all seriousness.

But he wanted to see her again. He must see her.

In the stables he put a bridle on his mare, hoisted himself up with an effortless flex of muscle in thigh and arm and rode the cliffs without a saddle, holding firm with his thighs. It was many a day since he had done that, riding bareback in his wild youth. He pressed the willing mare on into a gallop, intoxicated, relying on the sure footing of his mount in the moonlight.

And there was the Pride, gleaming white, the home of some enchantress who had put a spell on him. By God, he was bewitched. And so be it. He would accept the spell and walk with her in the moonlight. His lips curved. He would entice her out, to touch her hand, to
know the slide of her skin against his. To take her mouth with his, to experience the perfume of her hair wrapped around him. It was no longer enough to know how she felt in his arms. He wanted more.

First to lure her out. Not beyond the wit of a clever man and he knew exactly how to appeal to her. He rode his mare across the lawns. If he knew her, she would have chosen a room with that wild aspect over the sea rather then the gentle order of flowerbeds and ornamental trees. And there was a window open. Was fate once more guiding his steps? He pulled the mare to a standstill and whistled softly. Waited.

Nothing.

Not deterred, Zan dismounted. Picked up a handful of gravel and tossed it lightly at the open window. A soft shriek made him smile. Stepping back, looking up, there she was. Leaning out in indignation, light kissing her shoulders, silvering her fair hair.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘Trying to attract your attention,’ he replied, bowing low, a courtly gesture.

‘You’ve succeeded. What do you want? It’s after midnight.’

‘And you are awake. Come down, Madame Mermaid.’

‘Now? I’m in my night robes.’

‘What better garments for strolling in the moonlight.’

‘You must be mad!’

‘Perhaps I must. Mad with desire, forsooth!’ He struck a pose worthy of Edmund Kean treading the boards at Covent Garden. ‘Come down, lady.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Never that. How cruel you are.’

‘Go home.’

‘Never. I shall stay here and pine until you come down.’ He sank dramatically to one knee, hands flattened over his heart. ‘Or until you let your hair down, sweet Rapunzel, and allow me to climb up. Now there’s an idea. That might be the best course of action…’ He sprang to his feet and made to grasp the rampant creeper. If she was half the woman he thought her, that should do the trick.

Another soft shriek. Zan stepped back, hiding a triumphant smile.

‘Have you decided, Marie-Claude? Do I come up or do you come down?’

‘
Mon Dieu
, Zan! What are you asking of me?’

‘To come and walk at my side so that I can tell you how beautiful you are.’ He hesitated, but only for a second. This was a night demanding honesty. ‘So that I can tell you how much I love you.’

Silence.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ she whispered, once again leaning out.

‘No, fair lady. But I shall if you don’t take pity on me and put me out of my misery of loneliness. On second thought, perhaps I’ll come up after all.’

‘No, you don’t. Wait there!’

Don’t. Don’t leave the safety of your room. He’s uncontrolled, unbridled like a mettlesome stallion. Dangerous. You don’t know him. You’ll spend the rest of your life in regret if you go to him now.

Still Marie-Claude hesitated.

No! Never regret. I know that, even from a distance, he calls to me, touches me, demands that I respond. This was meant to be.

The thrill of anticipation danced through her blood.
She thrust the sly inner voice of warning from her mind and answered the insistent demands of her heart as she tugged on a chamber robe over her night attire and flew down the stairs. She had accused him of madness, yet the same frenzy had entered her brain. Did the poets not say that the moon drove men and women to wild, irrational longings? This was irrational. To leave her bed to walk with a man alone in the moonlight after midnight was outrageous. But, oh, she wanted to be with him. She wanted to be in his arms, to feel his strength, his lifeforce, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

Without stopping to think, she drew the bolts on the main door and ran, her soft slippers making no sound on the flags of the terrace. And there he was, waiting for her. Leaning against the balustrade as if it were the most common occurrence in the world. He was laughing, his hair ruffled by the breeze to curl against his throat, his shirt glowing white in the strange luminescence.

For the length of a breath she stopped, still hesitating, still uncertain. How dominant he was, how confident as if he were only to lift his hand to command her obedience. As if he knew that she was his. Surely he would hear her heart thudding so hard against her ribs she was breathless from it.

Go back. This is your last chance. If you go to him now, you are lost. His wildness will infect you and you will be bound to him for ever. This is not how Marie-Claude de la Roche should conduct herself! You are no tavern slut to leap into the embrace of a man as easily as she serves him a tankard of ale. What will he think of you?

She smoothed her damp palms down the sides of her lace robe.

But desire, hot and sweet, curled like a fist in her
belly when the moon glimmered on the flat planes of his face and silvered the swell of muscle in thigh and shoulder as he pushed himself upright and walked softly towards her. His face was solemn now, watchful, his dark gaze possessive, holding hers. She held her breath.

‘Marie-Claude.’

His voice was gentle. Yet she recognised in it a command. He lifted his hand, palm upwards. Supplication or demand? She knew exactly which and shivered at his power.

‘Yes.’

‘You have come to me.’

‘Yes.’ She walked towards him, close enough that she could see herself reflected in his eyes. And saw them shine with triumph.

‘Your courage shines as bright as the moon.’

‘I think I should not. I think I must be mad.’

‘Then so am I. Let us be mad and foolish together. How could we resist this magnificence granted to us by the gods?’ He flung out one arm to encompass the soft grass, the fall of the cliff, the soft hush of the waves on the shingle far below.