Six
Over the next days, Gideon saw little of Sarah. With his guest recuperating in her room, avoiding her proved a surprisingly simple matter.
They shared dinner under the curious eyes of his servants. Occasionally, they crossed paths in a corridor, and he’d inquire after her health. All perfectly polite, two strangers passing the time of day. Thankfully, there was no hint of the burgeoning, dangerous intimacy that had hovered on the journey to Penrhyn.
With every encounter, he couldn’t help noticing the remarkable beauty that emerged from beneath the disfiguring bruises. It was yet another of fate’s cruel jokes that the desperate, injured girl turned into a woman of spectacular attractions who stirred his sluggish blood.
It was unlikely her brothers would track her this far, but Gideon wasn’t taking chances. He made sure someone always knew where she was. A pack of brawny villagers boosted the household staff, and shifts of men patrolled the approaches to the house.
Even if he’d wanted to play nursemaid, he wouldn’t have had time. He was frantically busy. Mostly he was absent from the house, fielding endless requests and questions, and making decisions about the estate. After years of neglect, there were a thousand matters, small and large, to address.
What became abundantly clear during his first day as its reluctant master was that Penrhyn was in his blood. He was home to stay.
He could no more abandon the place than he could fly to Constantinople. When he’d seen the old house again, a sullen, unwelcome love had flooded him, a bone-deep sense that Penrhyn was meant to be his. Illogical, inconvenient, but undeniable. He couldn’t relinquish this windswept corner of the kingdom to anyone else’s stewardship. Although God knew who he kept it for. He was the last Trevithick. There would be no sons to inherit.
That sad fact haunted him, a mournful threnody beneath his activity. And if the memory of one delicate woman also haunted him, he was too occupied to brood on the fact. At least during daylight hours. Nights were a different matter. He’d throw himself exhausted on his bed, only to lie awake listening to the endless crash of the waves and thinking about Sarah. Or worse, drifting into restless dreams where he was free to touch her as he never could in the harsh light of reality.
With every hour, that hankering to touch her intensified. With every hour, the pain of knowing that he never would lacerated him.
On the morning of his third day at Penrhyn, Gideon shut himself in his library, determined to tame the chaos his predecessors had left of the accounts.
He’d been at work for about an hour when Sarah wandered into view through the tall windows facing the overgrown parterre. The dusty ledger in front of him immediately lost what small interest it held. He watched for Dorcas or one of the men set to guarding Sarah. But his visitor remained alone in the dewy, sunlit garden.
For a forbidden, secret moment, he stared, drinking in her beauty. The bruises were barely noticeable now, and her face resumed its natural shape. Since yesterday she’d discarded her bandage, and she no longer moved as if every step hurt. To his relief, Akash’s assessment of her injuries as looking worse than they were had proven accurate.
Sarah paused in a patch of light and turned her face to the pale February sun. Her lips curved with a natural sensuality.
Gideon’s heart battered his ribs. His breath jammed in his chest. She was glorious. None of the fabled courtesans of India held a candle to her uniquely English loveliness.
Was he so shallow that her pretty face made him want her?
If only the truth were so uncomplicated. He could resist the lure of beauty if beauty alone attracted him. But the waif he’d rescued in Winchester had become a woman of endless allure. Strong. Brave. Tender. Sweet.
Ah, so sweet.
A long plait fell down the supple line of Sarah’s back. Gideon’s hand, lying idle on the desk, flexed as if it tangled in that silky bronze mane. He locked his teeth and cursed himself for a fool. Such fantasies were futile.
Knowing he tormented himself to no purpose, he hungrily watched the subtle sway of her hips as she started walking again. The way the ill-fitting cotton frock skimmed her lissome waist. He frowned. Why was she still wearing the cheap dress from Portsmouth? He’d asked Mrs. Pollett to find her fresh clothing.
He’d sort it out later. He bent to his work, determined to punish himself no further with impossible yearnings. Then, helplessly, he raised his gaze as Sarah strolled through a morning more like April than February and disappeared behind a hedge of overgrown camellias.
A page of figures his eyes failed to register. Another. Another.
From here, the grounds sloped down to the cliffs. Given the decrepitude of the rest of the estate, Gideon guessed the paths were unstable, falling to pieces. There was danger for someone who didn’t know Penrhyn. Devil take them, where were the people supposed to be watching her?
“Damn it,” he muttered, and shoved the thick ledgers aside. He snatched his gloves from the desk and leaped into a run.
Charis was sitting on a worn stone bench when she heard Gideon’s purposeful footsteps. He was in a tearing hurry. She couldn’t imagine why. Especially as he’d worked so hard to stay out of her way since they’d arrived. She tried to tell herself he was busy, and she had no right to feel slighted, but some instinct insisted the lack of contact wasn’t accidental.
He broke into the cleared space and paused, breathing heavily. He appeared to be searching for something.
Although she’d sworn she’d behave with circumspection in his presence, although she’d preserved a polite façade when encountering him in the house, her heart beat so fast, her greeting stuck in her throat. She hadn’t expected to see him this morning, and his arrival threw her good intentions into disarray.
He looked toward the cliff edge, scanned the clearing, then finally turned in her direction. His face flooded with visible relief. “There you are.”
Every time she saw him, it was like the first time. As she experienced anew the shock of his male beauty, the world seemed to tumble away from her feet, leaving her suspended in space. The sensation was dizzying, scary, overwhelming.
Today, his onyx eyes were clear, and he moved with an easy freedom that fitted his long-limbed body. He’d spent the recent days outdoors, and the exercise suited him.