Enchanted Rendezvous: A Tangled Hearts Romance (11 page)

“Mind you,” Lady Marcham interrupted, “I have always considered that the young Lochinvar was a nincompoop. To snatch a bride from her wedding festivities and throw her over the saddle for a gal
lop across the border—
well!
This kind of behavior may serve for totty-headed gentlemen who consider themselves Corinthians, but what the bride’s mother said to her assembled guests I cannot begin to guess. Truly intolerable, my dear. And it is also intolerable that your father’s sapskull Riders were racketing around my woods last night.”

Delinda’s eyes widened at this rapid change of subject. “They must have been patrolling the sea road. Papa believes that the smugglers have been landing at Robin’s Cove,” she explained feebly.

“All they will find is night mist and owls. It will serve them right if they catch the grippe.” Lady Marcham broke off and patted Delinda’s cheek apologetically. “I did not mean to rail at you, dear child. Take this thyme mixture and the broom tea, and you will feel less down pin.”

With this she left the stillroom. Delinda stood clutching the two phials to her chest and looked longingly at the book of herbs. “Have you looked all through the book, Miss Vervain?” she asked.

“Please, call me Cecily. And, yes, I have read the book.”

Delinda looked so sorrowful that Cecily’s heart ached for her. “My late father used to quote Hecaton of Rhodes,” she said gently. “I remember him saying, ‘I will reveal to you a love potion—’ ”

Delinda clasped her hands together. “Yes, yes?”

“ ’—without medicine, without herbs, without any witch’s magic. If you want to be loved, then love.’ You do not need a love potion, Delinda, really.”

Delinda drooped even more. “I wish I knew what to do. You are beautiful and sure of yourself and would never be at a loss like me. Cecily, Mr. Montworthy does not even know I exist. But I—oh, look!”

Through the window Cecily could see a familiar figure on a bay gelding galloping up to the house. He was followed by Captain Jermayne.

Delinda had begun to tremble.
“He
is here,” she faltered, adding gloomily, “He has come to see you, of course.”

“But he will not see me,” Cecily promised. “I must go into the village to take the widow Amber some ointment. Go and meet James and help Aunt Emerald entertain the gentlemen, Delinda. I will slip out of the back way.”

Cecily had originally intended to take the trap to Wickart-on-Sea, but once outside, she saw that the day had turned sunny. There was a westerly breeze that made it quite warm and pleasant, and besides, she felt in need of exercise. Setting her grandaunt’s basket of medicines over her arm, Cecily set out to walk briskly along the sea road.

She did not know why she felt so lighthearted until it occurred to her that this was the first time she had gone out alone since arriving at Marcham Place. Always before this she had been in the company of her aunt or attended by a servant, and that morning there had been Lord Brandon. Cecily’s dark brows puckered as she recalled his lordship’s sudden appearance.

What was he doing in those woods? she wondered.

She had seen nothing except a torn-down groundkeeper’s hut and a path that ended in a thicket of trees. That and mud, and hidden roots that had caused her to stumble into Lord Brandon’s arms—

Hastily turning her mind from discomfiting memories, Cecily put thoughts of Lord Brandon aside and concentrated instead on Delinda’s problem. And she did have a problem. There was no way
the sap-skulled Corinthian was going to notice Delinda unless she had some help.

Cecily’s thoughts were interrupted by a gull that swooped down close to her. She stopped walking to admire the snow-white bird and then realized that at this point the sea road almost melted into the sand. It was low tide, and a long sweep of sandbar lay exposed by the retreating water. When she followed the thick line of gold with her eyes, Cecily saw that it stretched past the Widow’s Rock and actually led to Wickart-on-Sea.

The smell of salt was raw and intoxicating. As Cecily watched sunlight dance invitingly on the blue waters and on the distant spire of the village church, another memory surfaced. When she was five or six, she had once accompanied her parents to the seaside. She had taken off her shoes and stockings and gone wading in the cool water, where she had splashed and tried to catch fish. She had collected shells and even found an indignant hermit crab.

The memory of that day—her parents’ happy faces, the sun, and the sound of gulls swooping overhead—all brought an ache of homesickness for times that could never return. Cecily looked about her and saw that no one was nearby. What harm would it do if she walked to the village across the sandbar?

She sat down on a convenient rock and rolled off her stockings. Then she put them and her shoes into her basket, hitched up her skirts, and ventured out onto the sand. The silky sand was cool between her toes, and when she reached the water, the feel of it was wonderfully cool, also.

Barefoot, with her skirts looped high over her ankles, Cecily began to walk over the damp sandbar. Memories of her parents seemed very close, and as
she strolled along, she smiled to recall them as they had been—not sickly or old or poor but young and full of life and joy. How beautiful they had been, she thought, and inconsequentially remembered Lord Brandon’s words. “When a man has seen the sun, neither the moon nor all the stars will satisfy him.”

“Go away,” Cecily told Lord Brandon. “Stop bothering me.”

She took a step forward and sank up to her ankle in water. Surprised, Cecily looked about her. She had been so lost in thoughts of her childhood that she had not fully realized she had walked almost into the shadow of the Widow’s Rock.

“Oh, good heavens!” she exclaimed.

While she was walking, the tide had started to come in, and the sandbar on which she was standing was surrounded by water. Cecily tested the depth of that water and sank up to her knees.

“What a fool I am,” Cecily exclaimed.

As she attempted to retreat, the sand under her feet seemed to be yanked away. There was a riptide there—a very strong one. For the first time, Cecily was worried.

Ahead of her hulked the dark fist of the Widow’s Rock. Behind her stretched miles of sparkling blue sea. There was no one about, no one who could help. Cecily backtracked away from the riptide thinking, I will have to go another way.

But what other way was there? As the thought touched her mind, she heard a halloo across the water and saw a man standing on the shore. Even though the light was at his back, Cecily recognized Lord Brandon. Not bothering to wonder where he had come from, she waved frantically at him.

“You look as if you are in trouble,” Lord Brandon called.

She nodded vigorously. “Can you get someone to come and help me? A fisherman with a boat, perhaps?”

“No time for that. The tide comes in swiftly hereabouts. Stay where you are.”

He didn’t mean to come after her himself? But apparently that was just what he was about to do. As Cecily watched, Lord Brandon removed his tasseled boots, took off his jacket and waistcoat, peeled off his silk stockings, and rolled up his breeches to the knee. Then, to Cecily’s shocked surprise, he also removed his shirt.

“What are you doing?” she asked nervously.

“Only a fool goes swimmin’ fully dressed.” As calmly as though he were going on a stroll around the garden, Lord Brandon waded into the water.

“How did you get all the way out there?” he wanted to know.

“I thought that I could walk to the village across the sandbar. I did not pay any attention to the tide. Oh—be careful,” Cecily cried, as Brandon sank up to his chest in water. “There is a strong riptide here.”

“You forget that I know these waters very well.” But while Brandon was mouthing these words, he was thinking that he had never seen Cecily look so charming. With her hair tousled by the wind, her skirt hem tucked up and wet, her feet bare, she looked irresistible.

“Cully and I used to swim and crab around here,” he reminded her. “Don’t worry. I’m a strong swimmer.”

“So am I,” she said, “but I do not trust that riptide. Besides, these herbs would be lost if I tried to swim for it.”

“Neither you nor the herbs will come to harm,” he said. He had reached the sandbar, and she noted
that he was dripping wet. His breeches clung to his lean hips and horseman’s thighs, and water droplets glinted on his bare chest. The effect was disquieting in the extreme.

“I am sorry,” Cecily said stiffly, “that I have behaved in such an idiotic way. I fear that I have inconvenienced you horribly, sir.”

“Don’t regard it, Miss Verving. It’s not every day that I’m allowed to rescue a maiden in distress.”

He took a step closer to her. Instinctively she retreated. “What are you going to do?”

“To carry you to the shore,” Lord Brandon announced. As he spoke, he lifted Cecily into his arms and held her quite effortlessly. “Watch out for the basket, Celia.”

She knew that she should tell him not to address her so familiarly, but that was not so easy when she was in his arms, with her own arm wrapped around his neck. At such close quarters Cecily was conscious of the fact that Lord Brandon’s hair was deep gold, almost the color of honey, and that it curled at the nape of his neck. She noted the small white scar behind his ear and the curve of his lips. The warmth of his body reached her even through their wet clothing.

Cecily felt dizzy, as though her brain was not getting enough oxygen. In order to say something—anything to break the charged silence between them—she said, “You are right about the tide. It is rising very quickly.”

“In Dorset many things happen quickly.”

Was it her imagination that his arms tightened about her? Cecily did not care for the leap of her pulse. “I am very grateful to you, sir,” she said formally.

To listen to her, she was as cool as an ice maiden. Yet her gray eyes were full of uncertainty, and her
mouth was soft and definitely kissable. Brandon had to fight with himself to concentrate on what she was saying—something about the Widow’s Rock.

“It is fortunate for me that you arrived when you did,” Cecily was saying. “I did not know you came as far as the Widow’s Rock on your morning walk.”

“I do sometimes.”

Something in the ease with which he replied told her that he was lying. “Did you have a pleasant visit with Captain Jermayne?” she wondered.

“Jermayne?” Lord Brandon drawled. “Was he at Marcham Place? I’m sorry I missed him, ’pon my honor.”

Which was another lie. Cecily was sure that Lord Brandon had seen the captain ride up. Rather than face a man who could penetrate his disguise, the duke’s son had slipped away. “Captain Jermayne knows you well, does he not?” she queried. “After all, you were comrades-in-arms.”

“I wish, Miss Verving, that you will stop referrin’ to my military career. It was a lamentable business, ’pon my honor.”

“Then we will talk of something else. We are passing the Widow’s Rock, where the mysterious rider rescued the mail coach. Do you believe that he was a smuggler, Lord Brandon?”

“Not bein’ in the confidence of the brethren of the coast,” he pointed out, “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“What a gallant man he was—and he wore a ring like yours, too. I wonder—”

Cecily’s words broke off in a little shriek as Lord Brandon missed his footing and nearly fell. Cecily clasped him about the neck. Her basket flew one way, and she almost flew the other. She gave an involuntary cry as the water reached out for her.

“It’s all right, I have you.”

Brandon could feel her tremble in his arms. There was a light in her eyes, and her mouth was a rosy flower. A fierce need to kiss that mouth rose in him.

His arms were around her, holding her tightly clasped against the hard wall of his chest. Cecily registered this fact a moment before she saw the look in his eyes. The next moment, his lips had found hers.

His mouth was cool and sure. He tasted of salt and warmth and of some ineffably wonderful ingredient that caught at her heart. The constant mutter of the ocean, the cries of the gull, even the warmth of the sun died into a stillness broken only by the pounding of her own pulse.

He had not meant to do this, had not meant to kiss her,
must
not kiss her—warning voices were shouting in Brandon’s brain advising him of his folly. He ignored them. Nothing seemed to matter to him, nothing would ever matter again except the woman in his arms. He breathed in her subtle flower scent, tasted the trembling sweetness of her lips. He would never, could not ever, let her go.

A sea gull swooped low, screamed almost in their ears. Cecily did not even hear it. There seemed to be a wildness in her blood, and she was as breathless as though she had been whirled about in a dance. She felt dizzy and unbalanced, but at the same time she had never before felt so completely alive.

But though she did not heed the sea gull, Brandon did. Of a sudden the dazzlement in his mind cleared, and he felt the pull of the undertow beneath his feet. Underlying the surge of his emotions, the chill voice of his sanity was reasserting itself. What he was here in Dorset to do was too important to set aside.

Though to do so was unspeakably hard, Brandon forced himself to stop kissing Cecily and asked, “The ground is treacherous hereabouts. Are you all right, Celia?”

His drawl was forced. His voice sounded raw with the effort it took to control it, but she did not hear that note, for she was busy fighting her own battles.

“That is not my name,” she tried to say sternly, but to her annoyance, there was a quiver in her voice. “Please put me down so that I can retrieve my basket.”

The slight tremor in her voice made Brandon want to draw her close to him again. Instead he said, “A few more steps and we’ll be on terra firma. Ah, here we are.”

He set her down on the damp sand, then turned away to catch her basket out of a wave. “Somewhat wet but none the worse for wear,” he commented. “If I know Lady M.’s potations, they’ll be better for a dash of salt water.”

Their hands touched as Cecily took the basket from him. Even this fleeting, accidental contact made her feel as though a lightning bolt had stroked her skin. Hastily she took several steps backward away from him.