Whispers of Heaven (31 page)

She gazed up at him, her fingers caught in his shirtfront, holding him to her, her eyes wide, her head jerking. "No. Don't stop. I didn't mean for you to stop."

He shook his head, his breath coming so hard and fast in his throat he was shuddering with it. "You know where it will end if we don't stop. You do know, don't you?" he asked, and saw by the quick flaring of her eyes that she did. Oh, she knew.

He stared at her forever, his body trembling with want and the effort to control it. He wanted ... Dear God, what he wanted.

He wanted to ease her down into the soft sand of the cave floor and lay bare all the hidden secrets of her soft woman's body. He wanted to cover her with his hard man's body, to feel her legs wrapping around his hips and her hands clutching at his bare shoulders. He wanted to hear her cry out in pleasure and fulfillment as he drove into her and made her his.
His.

Except that he could never make her his, not in the way she deserved. He could only destroy her.

He brought up his hand to touch her cheek, a sad smile tugging at his heart as he rubbed his thumb across her swollen lips. Then he tipped his head to brush her mouth with his, once, gently, and pushed off from the wall to swing away from her.

He went to stand at the entrance of the cave, his body hard and shaking with want. The mist from the falls felt cool against his hot face, the roaring rush loud in his ears. A taut silence stretched out between them, a silence filled with the sounds of water and their own strained breathing.

Then she said, "And if that is what I want?"

He looked at her over his shoulder. She stood slim and straight, one hand clutching together the cloth at her breast, her eyes huge in a pale, strained face. He trembled with the need to go to her, to gather her up in his arms and comfort her. Only, how could he, when he was the problem?

"You know what I am," he said, the words tearing his throat. "You know what I am, and you know what it means."

"I know." She stared at him, her brow furrowed. "I've known from the moment I first saw you. It should have mattered, but it didn't." A queer smile trembled her lips. "You can't expect it to matter now."

He drew a breath deep into his lungs, then let it out again in a ragged sigh. "There can be no future for us. Ever."

"I know." She turned away from him, one hand splayed against the side of her face, her head bowing, the fine bones at the base of her neck standing out against her skin in a way that made her look fragile and delicate. "You think I haven't told myself that, over and over? But it doesn't change the way I feel about you. Doesn't stop me from wanting you."

"Miss Corbett—"

"Don't call me that."
She spun to face him, her head coming up, her nostrils flaring with a swift intake of air. "What do you think? That I'm only using you as some sort of diversion? A thrilling pastime
I
'll eventually tire of and then toss aside—or worse, make you pay in some hideous fashion for what we've done together?"

"No. I know you better than that." He reached out to brush his hand across the wetness that gleamed silver on her cheek. "But we will be made to pay, lass. Make no mistake about it."

She stared up at him, her beautiful eyes filled with such pain and yearning and confusion that it was terrible to see. "And if I don't care?"

His hand dropped back to hang limply at his side. "I care."

She looked away, her throat working as she swallowed, the silence between them filled with the roar of the waterfall and the surge of the restless sea. "I'm sorry. I didn't think—"

"No." He crossed the short distance between them with one hasty stride, his hands falling on her shoulders to jerk her around to face him. "That's not what I meant. You have your whole life ahead of you. What kind of man would I be if I let you ruin it by doing something, now, that you'll only live to regret?"

"And if it's not a life I want?"

He looked into her eyes, to find them dark and filled with an emotion so deep and rare and pure, it stole his breath. For one, shining moment, he lost himself in her eyes, in the warmth and goodness and gentle acceptance he saw there. But she didn't know ... She didn't know what he was really like, didn't know the things that had been done to him, the things that he had done.

The things he planned to do.

"I'm a dead man," he told her, deliberately making his voice cold, his hands on her shoulders hard enough to hurt. "My life ended four years ago. You get too close to me, lass, you're only going to destroy yourself."

"It's too late," she said, her head tilting as she gazed up into his face. "Don't you understand? It's too late."

"No. No, it's not." Yet even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. It was too late. For both of them.

They left Cascade Cove soon after that, talking little as they climbed back up to the horses and turned to follow the track south along the coast. He didn't realize exactly where they were headed until they splashed across the estuary and he looked up to see the blackened walls of the Grimes House rising stark and broken before him.

"Why are we here?" he asked, reining in sharply.

She urged her mare across the overgrown garden. "I lost that round gold locket I was wearing the day of the funeral. It wasn't particularly valuable, but I've had it since I was a child, and I want to look for it."

He wheeled, the gelding cavorting beneath him, his gaze flashing, once, to where he had hidden the ketch's boat amongst the reeds and brush. Swearing, he kneed his horse forward in a rush. "You'll never find it."

"I can look," she said, and slid out of the saddle without waiting for his arm.

He hesitated a moment longer, then went to help her.

"It's not here," he said after some fifteen nerve-racking minutes of combing through high grass and tangled shrubbery. Even with the sun shining warm out of a clear blue sky, the atmosphere around the tragedy-haunted homestead remained heavy, oppressive.

She raised her head, her gaze turning, as he knew it inevitably would, toward the estuary. "We went for a walk by those reeds. Perhaps I dropped it there."

He straightened with a jerk. "You could have lost it anywhere."

But she was already striding down the path, her laughter floating back to him with the breeze. "What's the matter? Are the ghosts bothering you today?"

He went after her. "The devil take the ghosts. You'll catch your death of cold, lass, wet as you are from that waterfall."

"Huh. You obviously underestimate the layers of wool, cotton, and whalebone protecting a gentlewoman from the dangers of the outside world. Although given—"

She broke off, her step faltering, one hand coming up to grasp the low branch of the stunted stringybark beside her. If she hadn't been looking so sharply, she probably wouldn't have seen it, for he'd hidden it as best he could. He hadn't had time to finish repairing all the damage to the stern left by the rocks, but the work he'd done for Beatrice's garden party had given him access to both the tools and materials he needed, and he'd made a good start, the new wood showing smooth and unpainted and damnably incriminating.

She stood quite still, half turned away from him, her hand gripping the branch until her fingers turned white. "This is why you didn't want me here, looking around," she said after a moment, her voice coming out low and breathy. "You're planning to escape." She swung her head to stare at him over her shoulder. "You are, aren't you?"

He looked into solemn, hurting blue eyes, and felt her pain slam into him, felt his own pain, hot and deep and undeniable. "Aye," he said. "That I am."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"When?" Jessie asked, not looking at him. They sat together in the sun at the end of the old dock. She had her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs, her chin on her knees. "When will you be leaving?"

"The night of the next full moon."

She swung her head to stare at him. He had his back propped against one of the weathered gray pilings, one arm resting on his bent knee. "You're not the only one going, are you? It'll take at least six men to row that boat."

He thrust his legs out straight in front of him, his head tipping back as he returned her gaze steadily. "Aye. And will you be telling on us, then, Miss Jesmond Corbett of Castle Corbett?"

The tide was coming in, sending the water to lap against the sides of the dock. In the distant cove, seagulls cried wheeling above the rumbling surf. She watched as the breeze stirred the ragged ends of his dark hair, where it hung over the collar of his convict coat, and felt a terrible fear seize her, so that it was all she could do not to reach out and hold him to her. Hold him safe. "If they catch you, you'll be killed. Or worse."

"I told you. I died four years ago."

She swallowed hard, wanting to say so much, unable to say any of it, the pain in her chest deepening until it was an agony. She sucked in a quick breath that was almost a sob, and looked away again.

"It's for the best I'm going," he said softly. "After what almost happened today, you can't deny that."

Oh, it was for the best, she knew that. But what was best, and what she wanted, were two very different things.

She'd known he could never be hers, known this day was coming, this day when she would have to say good-bye to him. She'd known it, but now that it was here, she wondered how she was going to bear it. How she was going to bear living a life that didn't include him. There was no going back to the life she'd lived before, she knew that; no going back to the woman she'd been before she looked up at that rocky hillside and saw him standing there.

"I could help you," she said, her gaze fixed on the gentle swell of the sea, the sea that would take him away from this life he hated, away from her. "I could get you clothes, food."

"No. If we're caught, anything you gave us would be traced back to you."

"I'm willing to take the risk."

"Well, I'm not."

She kept trying not to look at him, for fear of what he'd read in her face. Only, how could she not look at him, when she loved him so much, and soon she would never see him again?

Turning her head she let her heart drink in the sight of him, the straight uncompromising line of his dark brows, the tanned, hard angle of cheek and jaw, the sparkling fire of his Irish green eyes. She felt her love for him flare up, hot and bright and eternal, knew that her love, and the pain of losing him, would both be there forever. Knew, too, that he'd seen it all—that he'd looked into her eyes and guessed the terrible secret of her soul.

"Lass," he whispered, and reached out his hand to her.

She took his hand in hers, their fingers entwining tightly. They sat there for a long time, hand in hand. Then they arose and rode back to their separate lives.

This time, she did stay away from him. Far, far away. She read some more of
The Pickwick Papers
to Beatrice, and went for long, solitary walks in the park. And early in the following week, Jessie went on her picnic with Harrison, Philippa, and Warrick.

It was Harrison who drove them to a high bluff overlooking the rocky coastline. There they spread a rug upon the grass and drank champagne from crystal glasses and ate pate de foie gras and cucumber sandwiches from white china plates with gold trim. Afterward, Harrison took Jessie's hand and they went for a walk along the flower-strewn hillside. A balmy, spring-scented breeze fluttered the blue ribbons of her hat and flattened the white jaconet muslin of her dress against her legs. They might have been two old friends, out for a stroll, she thought. They
were
two old friends; only now they were also more, and that was the problem.

She felt wretchedly deceitful, to be walking demurely arm in arm with the man she had promised to wed, while every call of a seagull, every crash of the waves against the distant rocks, the very softness of the breeze against her cheek, reminded her of another man. She could find no cause for shame in loving Lucas Gallagher. Yet she felt weighted down by guilt. And she realized that her guilt came, not from what she felt for Gallagher, nor for what she had done with him, but from the lack of honesty, the duplicity in what she was doing now.

Tilting her head, she looked up at the man beside her. The sun and the sea breeze had brought a healthy glow to his cheeks, a sparkle to his eyes that made him look younger, less serious, more like the boy he had been. There were times, times like this, when her affection for him welled up within her, warm and good, and she believed that even though her heart would always belong to someone else, she could make Harrison happy. He expected so little of her, only that she behave with the decorum that their society demanded and furnish him with a comfortable home and well-reared children. He did not expect—perhaps he did not even want her to love him with the kind of wild excess of which she now knew she was capable. And the man she could love like that—the man she did love, with all her heart, would be gone soon.

It was a thought that brought with it such a terrible ache, such a soul-gripping fear, that she wondered again how she would bear it. She knew only that she would bear it, because she had no real choice. By the next full moon, Lucas Gallagher would be gone, or dead, and then her love for him would become just one more secret she kept hugged to her heart.

"Do you remember," Harrison was saying, his mustache lifting with a smile that brought a gleam of amusement to his eyes, "the time we came here for a picnic on Boxing Day? I was fourteen and you were ten, and some benighted person had given you an enormous kite for Christmas."

She laughed at the memory and looped her arm through his in a way that brought them closer together. "I remember. I thought it was so big, that if I ran very fast down the hill, the kite would lift me up and I would fly. You tried to stop me."

"I tried. You pushed me away and ran anyway." He put his hand over hers, holding her close, and she saw the amusement in his eyes fade to be replaced by something else, something darker. "That was the day I knew I was in love with you, and that I was the luckiest man in the world to be marrying you."