Whispers of Heaven (12 page)

It was here, at the top of the bluff, that the road they followed divided into three, the main road continuing to the right, to Blackhaven Bay. A smaller track took off to their left, winding down to the cove itself, while another path, little traveled and partially overgrown, continued on to a small, whitewashed, rose-covered cottage just visible at the tip of the rough headland that jutted out before them, separating the cove from the bay.

The black tossed its head impatiently as Jessie drew up at the crossroads, her heart pulling her toward that windswept headland even as her common sense reminded her of the need to turn away, to the cove below. The thought of not visiting the cottage was insupportable, and yet, without Old Tom as her groom, she wondered how she would ever manage it.

"Sure then, but that looks like Shipwreck Cove, down there on our left," said the Irishman, straightening his legs and standing in the stirrups in an almost lazy kind of stretch.

"Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. I am aware of that," she snapped, then regretted it as she felt his gaze upon her, considering and dangerously shrewd.

"I know about your visits to the cottage on the headlands, if that's what's worrying you."

She started so violently her hands tightened on the reins, jerking at the bit in the mare's mouth hard enough to cause the confused horse to begin to back up. "Steady," she said, running a soothing hand over the mare's sweating withers. "Sorry, girl." Lifting her head, Jessie met Gallagher's hard, glittering stare, and somehow—somehow—managed to keep her voice calm and cool. "I beg your pardon, but I can't imagine what you're talking about."

"Genevieve Strzlecki," he said, not the least put off by Jessie's haughty demeanor. "The local Fallen Woman. She lives in splendid isolation in a cottage on that spit of land jutting out there. Every gently reared lad and lass in the area is forbidden to have anything to do with her, yet you've been visiting her regularly for years." He gave her that smile she didn't like, the one that flashed wide and handsome and did nothing to warm the penetrating cold of his eyes. "It's where you were originally plannin' to go this morning, wasn't it?"

CHAPTER NINE

Lucas watched her eyes widen in a stare of disbelief and alarm that gave way, almost at once, to a hot rush of anger. He saw her consider, briefly, an attempt at dissemblance. Knew, too, the instant she rejected it.

"How?" she demanded. "How could you know?" The pretty little white-stockinged mare began to dance sideways, neck arching, tail high. Miss Jesmond Corbett controlled the horse easily, her measured stare still fixed on Lucas's face. "Never say Old Tom told you."

He gave her a tight smile. "We have a saying in Ireland.
Chan sgeul ruin a chluinneas triuir.
Which means—"

"A story that three people hear is no secret," she finished for him.

He let his smile broaden. "Sure then, but you got that right enough."

She regarded him steadily, her magnificent blue eyes hidden by half-lowered lids. And then he decided perhaps he wasn't as good at reading her as he'd supposed, for he couldn't begin to imagine what she was thinking. Abruptly, she wheeled away from him and kneed the mare forward, up the overgrown track to the cottage, leaving him to bring the roan into step behind her.

They rode in silence, the horses' hooves making soft thumps in the deep humus of the little-traveled road, the stands of tall gums undergrown with sweet-smelling clematis and dogwood through which they passed casting deep shadows. He could hear the sea breaking in successive distant booms against the rocky cliffs of the headland before them and the soft cry of gulls drifting on the briny breeze. Tilting back his head, he scanned the sky, its deep blue contrasting vividly with the banks of clouds beginning to build on the horizon. Reluctantly, he brought his gaze back to the woman ahead of him.

She might be haughty and proud and typically, infuriatingly English, but a man would have to be half dead, Gallagher thought, not to admire the picture they made, the high-stepping, dainty black mare and the slim, gilt-haired woman on its back. She had an easy, natural seat in the saddle, her straight, relaxed body moving in effortless rhythm with the animal beneath. She wore a jaunty, low-crowned beaver hat with a black
coque
feather that curled beguilingly against the gleaming gold of her hair, while the jacket of her dark blue riding habit had been finished at the neck with an embroidered white collar that emphasized the translucent purity of her skin. He studied the strong line of her jaw and chin, watched the sweep of her dusky lashes against her pale cheekbones as she looked down, and knew a private coil of desire, unwanted and yet undeniable, deep within his being.

The absurdity of it, the impossible, wild longing of it, almost made him want to laugh. She was as inaccessible to him as the four winds of heaven, as the darkest unknown depths of the ocean. Warrick Corbett had to be some kind of a fool, Lucas thought, to have sent off this beautiful, very desirable young woman accompanied only by a hot-blooded young Irishman who hadn't known the tender touch of a woman's hand for three long years. But then, it was the usual practice. Sometimes Lucas wondered if the big landowners such as Warrick Corbett and Harrison Tate even realized their male servants were
men,
and not some strange species of near- eunuch, created for their convenience and having no life, no existence, no reality beyond their master's needs.

He could see the cottage now, low-roofed and rambling. With its roughly rendered walls, black-painted casement windows, and arching thatched roof, it looked as if it might have been spirited here from the midlands of England itself. Abruptly, Miss Jesmond Corbett reined in and wheeled to face him, the features beneath that cocky, low-crowned hat of hers set in proud, defiant lines. But the superb blue eyes were troubled. "Will you tell?"

He met her gaze squarely. "No."

Her chin came up, and he saw her slender white throat work as she swallowed. "Why not?"

Lucas rested his hand on his thigh, his head lifting as he turned to look out over the surging blue waves and small crescent of golden sand at the curve of the cove. In a high wind, with the tide running swift and unseen, Shipwreck Cove was said to be deadly. But on a calm day, this was the only safe outlet to the sea for a good fifty miles to the north or south of Blackhaven Bay. Lucas might find the idea of serving as groom to this haughty, vibrant, and damnably desirable young Englishwoman both galling and unnerving, but the truth was, he had his own reasons for wanting to get to know this area better.

He had heard about this cove just days after his arrival at the castle, and ever since then he had applied himself to learning as much as he could about the place. Except for this one cottage high on the headland, the cove was said to be uninhabited, the only other house in the area being a burned-out shell tucked into the rolling hills near the beach. It was said the ruin had been the scene of some terrible tragedy so shocking that most people avoided it, if they could. Which suited Gallagher just fine, since he figured the house must have had, once, its own dock. And a deserted dock was of considerable interest to a convict determined to escape his island prison.

But he wasn't about to tell her any of that. So, instead of answering her, he asked another question. "Why didn't Old Tom tell?"

"He's not the type."

He brought his gaze back to her face. And it occurred to him, looking at her, that even if he hadn't had his own reasons for wanting to visit Shipwreck Cove, he still wouldn't have betrayed her. "Neither am I," he said.

She stared at him, her eyes as dark and troubled as a stormy sea, those solemn, uncompromising brows of hers drawn together, in that way she had, by worried thoughts. She didn't trust him, of course. There was no reason she should. But she had little choice. He already knew her secret.

Humming softly to herself, Genevieve Strzlecki snipped a half-opened yellow bud from one of the climbing rose bushes that scrambled over the whitewashed, rendered walls of her cottage. They had to be hardy, those roses, to grow in the salt- laden, windy atmosphere of the Point. Most of their energy went into simple survival, so that when they did somehow manage to produce a rose, she usually left it, as a tribute to their hardiness and perseverance. But this one she would take into the house with her. Sometimes, even an indomitable rose can provide company.

A faint, distant sound from below the garden brought her head up,.one hand lifting to anchor her straw hat against the breeze that always blew up from the sea. She turned her wrist automatically, as most gardeners will do, so that she touched the hat with only the back of her knuckles, for her palms and fingers were often stained with soil or the green, growing things of the earth. Once, years ago, on the Isle of Capri, she had held her bonnet just so, and a handsome, dark-haired man with burning eyes had whispered in her ear how beautiful she looked. How beautiful, and how desirable. She smiled at the memory. He had been French, she thought, or maybe Italian. She was no longer sure.

Once, she had been beautiful, beautiful and young, with a flowing golden mane of hair and skin of the smoothest, most translucent eggshell, sprinkled gently with cinnamon. Now she was old, with snow-white hair and deep laugh lines beside her eyes. But her age was something she remembered only when she looked in the mirror, or on the bad days in the deepest months of winter, when the wind howled up from the

South Pole and her bones ached when she slipped from her bed in the cold, gray hours of morning. Deep inside, in the core of her being, she was still the same Genevieve who had shocked them all, so many years ago.

Once, she had run away from everything she knew to be with the man she loved. Once, she had waltzed with kings and raced before the trade winds in the arms of her forbidden lover. Once, she had dressed in silks and satins and diamonds, and traveled the world. Now her world was reduced to this small whitewashed cottage with its peculiar collection of beloved objects and dozen resident cats, to the wind-tossed eucalyptuses and soaring black rocks of the headland, to the endless sea that stretched out eternal yet ever changing, as elemental and necessary to her continued existence as the air. Not that she minded the change in her circumstances. For as much as Genevieve had delighted in the candlelit dinners graced with silver and crystal, as much as she had luxuriated in the sumptuous feel of silks and fur-trimmed velvets against naked flesh, as much as she had enjoyed the hard- muscled, hard-driving men of her past, she loved this cottage, and the sea, and the life she had made for herself here. She had discovered early that what we want out of life can change; that the important thing is to learn to recognize or even simply just to admit what we really want, and then to have the courage to reach for it.

Now, she heard it again, the unmistakable trample of horses' hooves. Setting the yellow rosebud in the straw basket she held looped by its handle over her arm, she felt her heart begin to thump in anticipation.

She might be cut off from "respectable society," but Genevieve still had friends amongst the small shopkeepers, the fishermen and nongentleman fanners of the area. And so she knew all about the coastal ketch that had brought Jesmond Corbett home to Blackhaven Bay a few days ago. But Genevieve also knew that much can happen to change a young woman in two years, especially when that young woman has traveled far from family and home for the first time.

She held herself quite still, fearing the pain of disappointment. Then she saw them, the slim, golden-haired girl and the dark, unknown groom who followed her. Genevieve watched them rein in, watched the groom swing from his saddle with rare grace and step forward after the barest hint of hesitation to help his mistress dismount. But he was too late, for the girl managed to slip out of the saddle before he quite reached her.

Setting aside her secateurs and flower basket, Genevieve allowed herself a wide smile. A smile that stretched out into a laugh of joy and welcome and gentle contentment as Jessie came running toward her.

Jessie sat curled up in a decidedly unladylike pose on the window seat in Genevieve's kitchen, a long-haired, chocolate- colored cat purring in her lap, her boots and stockings discarded in a careless heap on the uneven brick floor beside her.

She had always loved Genevieve's kitchen, with its big, black stove and bunches of herbs dangling from the rafters and wide casement windows that could be thrown open to the sun and the sea air and the rain. Jessie might not have ever set foot in her own kitchen, but she had spent many happy hours here, in Genevieve's.

"Enough now about caves and cadavers and electrical experiments," Genevieve said, pushing up from her rush-seated rocker as the kettle began to boil. "As fascinating as it all is, what I really want to know is ..." She paused, steaming teakettle in hand, her eyebrows raised in a deliberately exaggerated arch as she glanced back at Jessie. "Did you take a lover while you were in London?"

"Genevieve."
Even after all these years, Genevieve could still shock her, although by now Jessie was wise enough to realize that her friend did it deliberately. She gave a shaky laugh. "You know I am promised to Harrison."

Genevieve looked up from pouring fresh cream into a blue-and-white glazed pitcher. "I know your father promised you to Harrison. But it's not your father who'll be marrying him."

The cat jumped off Jessie's lap, its ears pricking forward at the sight of the cream, and began to mew hopefully. Jessie laughed. "I promised
myself
to Harrison, remember?" She stood up to get the cups and saucers from the old Welsh dresser near the door and carry them back to Genevieve. "Two years ago."

Genevieve reached for the earthenware crock where she always kept a supply of macadamia biscuits. "And how do you feel about that now?"

Swinging back to the dresser for another plate, Jessie let her gaze wander for one, unguarded moment through the open door, toward the barn. Earlier, she had seen the Irishman there, watering and cooling the horses. He was no longer in sight. She toned abruptly away. "I want to marry Harrison," she said firmly, and set the plate beside the teapot on Genevieve's big tin tray.