The Deception (17 page)

She felt John Edgerton’s cool, dry fingers on her wrist. She shuddered, then realized that she’d crumbled the croissant into a ball. She put it on her plate and wiped her hands on her napkin. She was to meet him tonight at the cove for instructions. At the thought the croissant she’d been chewing turned to paste in her mouth. She swallowed with difficulty. She’d forgotten for just a couple of moments, not long, but remembering nearly brought her to her knees. What to do?

She waited at the table until she heard the duke and Edmund leave the house. Then she walked quickly up to her bedchamber. Although Houchard had described the private beach and the hidden cave, she hadn’t seen the cave before, which meant that it wasn’t at all obvious. She’d find it now. She had no choice. There was too much at stake to risk being late for her meeting. How would she manage to make her escape from the duke this evening?

She didn’t know. She’d worry about that later.

She changed quickly into one of her old gowns and an old pair of walking boots. The morning was very warm indeed. It was very strange to have summer in the midst of winter. By noon it would be quite hot. She breathed in the tangy salt air. A light breeze ruffled her hair. By the time she reached the protected cove and walked carefully down the long zigzagging
path, she felt sweat on her forehead and at the small of her back.

When she reached the beach, she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked to the south. The cliff jutted out nearly into the water, its nearly barren, craggy face shadowed from the morning sun. She made her way quickly toward it through the coarse sand. She found the cave only when she nearly stumbled into it, overhung with scraggly bushes. It was immediately on the water’s edge. Not more than a foot of sand between the cave entrance and the lapping waves. No one who wasn’t looking specifically for the cave would ever see it.

The entrance was low, and she crouched down. Then it soared upward. Six more steps into the cave and she shivered. It was damp and the air was chill. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She saw that the cave was long and narrow, extending some twenty-five feet into the cliff. She pulled up short, realizing that the ground was wet beneath her feet. She reached up and ran her fingers along the stone walls, slimy with sea moss, to a level well above her head. At high tide the sea filled the cave. It wouldn’t be a good thing at all to be trapped in here.

She retraced her steps to the mouth of the cave and stood quietly for a moment, lifting her face upward to the hot sun, breathing in the sharp salt air.

She stepped out of the cave, looked over the water, and stopped cold. Her breath whooshed out. She saw the duke, waist high in the water, carrying Edmund upon his shoulders, some thirty feet up the beach. She jerked back into the cave. Oh, goodness, what was he doing here? He was supposed to be riding. Yet he was swimming with Edmund. It was certainly warm enough, but she imagined that the sea water was still
very cold. Yes, he’d spoken of swimming with his son the day before. But here? Now? With her staring at him?

What to do? She considered staying tucked away in the cave until the duke and Edmund had left the beach, but she saw that the tide was rising quickly. She didn’t want to get wet. She didn’t want to drown.

She couldn’t walk south because the cliff jutted out into the water. Very well, north it was. Back from whence she’d come. She walked out of the cave, head up, whistling into the warm breeze. If she just kept whistling, she’d be all right. She didn’t mean to look at him, truly she didn’t. But she did. Evangeline hadn’t ever seen a naked man. He was only twenty yards away. She could see him very clearly, more clearly than she deserved, really. She watched him lift Edmund above his head and toss him forward into the water. She’d never really been all that aware of men, until last night, in the duke’s library, when he’d touched her and kissed her. And now he was here, all naked and unknowing, and she looked at him and nearly swallowed her tongue. She hadn’t imagined that a man could look like him. Surely her father was very beautiful, but he was slight, no muscle to speak of, not like the duke, who was hard and long and hairy, hairy from his thick, wet black hair on his head to the wet black hair on his chest, to the wet black hair on his groin. Goodness, she could see all of him from his knees up. She knew she should look away. She shouldn’t be here, looking her fill at him, wanting desperately to race to him and fling him onto his back on the sand, and flatten herself against him.

She knew that man had a phallus and that it stuck out from his groin. She hadn’t known what to expect, but this wasn’t at all frightening or strange. His sex
was against him, not sticking out or anything else to alarm her. No, he didn’t look at all frightening, just different. She heard Edmund’s shriek of delight and saw a tangle of arms and legs. When the duke stood again, Edmund was clinging to his back, his arms wrapped about his neck. She heard him say, “All right, Edmund, that’s quite enough. Ten minutes, no longer, else we’ll turn into blocks of ice.”

She should leave. He hadn’t seen her. Now, she should leave now. She walked quickly to a thick overhanging bush and stepped beneath it. And she continued to look. She watched the duke, Edmund still shrieking with laughter. Edmund said something, pointing toward a gull, and he laughed. She saw that both of them were shivering. Imagine even ten minutes in that water. She shivered just thinking about it.

She watched the muscles tighten and expand with his laughter, with his striding in the water, with his holding Edmund on his shoulders. She should leave. She still had time.

She had no shame.

“P
apa,” Edmund shouted. “Look, there’s Eve.” He was waving his arms wildly toward her. “She’s here to watch us swim. I’m glad she came. I didn’t think she believed that I was a good swimmer.” The die was cast. She was trapped. She knew he was looking at her, but he didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, just kept walking toward shore through the waves, some of them nearly knocking him down.

There was no hope for it. She ran past the cave to the south, only to draw up short. She’d forgotten that the land lunged out into the water, cutting any escape off in that direction. Slowly she walked back. She heard the duke shout, “I see her, Edmund. Yes, there she is, not more than twenty yards away from us. And just look, I believe she’s now walking this way since she realizes she can’t decamp the other way. Let’s wait for her, Edmund. I’m sure she’s going to tell us how much she’s enjoyed our swimming exhibition. Yes, we’ve provided her quite a show, albeit a short one, since the water was so bloody cold.”

Evangeline stopped in her tracks. How long had he known she was there, watching him, slavering as she watched him? He now stood ankle-deep in the water,
the waves gently lapping around him, and he was changing. He hadn’t looked at all frightening or alien before, but now he was changing, rapidly. He wasn’t moving, just standing there looking at her, and changing and growing and sticking out more and more. If she had been the duke and she was changing like that, surely she would have done something, like run or turn around, but he didn’t. He just stood there, Edmund still on his shoulders, smiling at her, and still changing before her eyes. Oh, goodness.

He laughed. He plucked Edmund off his shoulders and set his feet on the sand. “Fetch us towels, Edmund, and cover yourself well. I don’t want you to catch a chill. Perhaps your cousin Eve would care to join us.”

She didn’t move an inch until he finally took a large towel his son brought to him and began to dry himself. “Eve,” Edmund called, running to her even as he wiped himself down. “Did you see us? Papa threw me in the water, and I swam like a sea bass. Papa said I’d have to be careful because a fisherman might try to catch me because I swam so well. Then he’d fry me in a pan and eat me. Come and say hello to Papa.”

What was a stunned and fascinated woman to do? She walked beside Edmund to where the duke was standing. Finally, he’d knotted the towel around his waist, and draped another over his shoulder. She studied that knot at great length. It looked well tied, but she knew she could have it unknotted in a second, two at the most.

“Papa said that ladies can’t swim,” Edmund said. He dropped to his knees and began scooping up sand, piling it up, patting it down, shaping it into conelike shapes. Castle towers? Then he began digging a trench.

“Your papa is quite wrong. Here, Edmund, put on your clothes, then I’ll know you’re warm enough. What are you building?”

“Papa’s never wrong, cousin Eve. I’m going to build Chesleigh Castle.”

“Perhaps,” the duke said, “I can teach you how to swim even better.”

“I don’t need lessons. I’m a fish, just like Edmund. I’m more a lizard fish than a sea bass.”

“Get dressed, Edmund,” the duke called over his shoulder. “Tell me why you’re here, Evangeline.”

“It’s February and it’s very warm. I was out walking. Nothing more than walking until I happened to come down here and there you were and you didn’t have any clothes on. At least now you have on a towel, and there’s one about your shoulders as well, but that really isn’t the same thing at all as breeches and a shirt and other things that men wear.” “I see. You enjoy seeing the scenery, then?” “Certainly. I was raised in the country. There is always beautiful scenery in the country, particularly down on the beach, coming out of the water.”

He knew he was very well made indeed, like his father before him. He also boxed at Gentleman Jackson’s, as his father had before him. He was fit and lean and hard, as his father had been before him. He grinned at her like a thief with an eye on the silver. “I would certainly have enjoyed the scenery if I’d been the one out walking and come across you coming out of the sea.”

Her tongue stuck in her mouth. Never would she have imagined such a thing, never. She, a young lady, raised properly, she was certain of that, and yet all she could think of since she’d met him was that she wanted to leap on him and kiss him until she expired.
She thought he’d continue to tease her, because he was so good at it, baiting her and reeling her in more times than not, but oddly, after a moment his dark eyes searched her face, his expression thoughtful.

“You must go back to the castle, Evangeline,” he said very gently. “I’ll try to see that Edmund doesn’t shout to the world that his cousin Eve watched both him and his father swimming.”

She looked out over the water, then back at him. “I can’t believe that I’m doing this.” “Doing what?”

“You know very well what. I was standing here just staring at you. You know that. And what I did last night. I’m not like that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I am sorry. I’m just not myself. I guess, truth be told, I don’t know who I am. And then there is what I must be, and that is very bad indeed. It’s all very difficult.” She turned on her heel and began her walk back up the cliff path without a backward glance.

Evangeline overheard Mrs. Raleigh say to Bassick as she came around the corner at the top of the grand staircase on her way to luncheon, “I’ll miss him, Mr. Bassick. He wasn’t here long enough this time. I wonder why he must return to London? And on Friday? Why, that’s only three days from now.”

She heard Bassick say something, but she couldn’t make out his words. Then Mrs. Raleigh said, as clear as the church bell on Sunday morning, “I was rather hoping that since Madame arrived, his grace would be content to remain longer.”

“Well, his grace never does the expected,” Bassick said, and this time she heard him. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the two of them were standing there, smiling at her. There was a bit of assessment
in Mrs. Raleigh’s eyes. Evangeline knew that the duke would be leaving. But Friday was too soon. She didn’t want him to leave so soon. Appalled at herself, she knew he was making it much easier for her by leaving. Why was he going? “Madame, good afternoon,” Bassick said. “No unexpected guests as yet?” she asked. “I wouldn’t have been surprised,” said Mrs. Raleigh. “Lady Pemberly is a good lady, truly; it’s just that she rather likes to tread upon everyone in her vicinity. So unlike Lady Charlotte, Rohan Carrington’s dear mama, a lady who is so charming that everyone is in a rush to assist her or simply stand there staring at her, she’s so beautiful.”

“I understand,” Bassick said, all upright and stately, “that Lady Charlotte is also very much involved in the cat races.”

“That, Mr. Bassick, is surely a great sport. But even there, I fear, there is some scandal and corruption.” “There is corruption in the cat races?” Evangeline said, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, yes,” Bassick said, nodding his head. “Wherever there is an exchange of money, there are those who will be up to no good. There have been investigations, and most of the excesses and abuses have been eliminated.”

“It is a shame that the cats can’t race for the sheer fun of it,” Mrs. Raleigh said as she shook out the skirt of her lovely pink gown. Was it the same pink gown she’d worn just this morning at breakfast? Evangeline wasn’t at all certain that it was.

Evangeline said, “I head you saying that the duke is leaving.”

“Ah, yes, we’re disappointed,” Mrs. Raleigh said. “We’d hoped he’d remain longer on this visit.” She
paused, then smiled. “Of course, when all is said and done, one simply never knows, does one? Ah, the forest green muslin is indeed a treat on you, Madame. I see that Dorrie removed all the flounces that used to drape off the hem. Most disconcerting, those flounces. Her former grace loved this dress, flounces and all. She refused to accept that they were a bit on the overdone side.”

Evangeline nodded, thinking about Houchard, who’d known all about Marissa and her clothing. He’d said, “You won’t have to wear your rags long, Mademoiselle, you will see. Ah, yes, his grace will drape you with lovely clothes from his dead wife’s closet.” He’d given her a very cold smile then. “And, of course, he will want payment from you; men of his class always do. You will do what you must to keep him in ignorance of your activities.” He’d paused again, rubbing his chin with one long, thin finger. “I worry that you will lose your head over him, Mademoiselle. Foolish of me to be worried about that given the fact that I have your dear father, and he is but a heartbeat from death, but still, I understand the duke is a man that women want, wildly. I don’t understand it since he is English and all know that the English are clods and boors. However, if it is true, you will keep your head, Mademoiselle. And if you do part your legs for him, and if you do whisper to him after he’s given you pleasure, you won’t ever forget that I have a gun at your father’s head.”