“Caroline,” he said very quietly. “It’s damnable and I’m sorry. Just hold still. Try to keep upright. Can you manage it?”
She nodde
d, mute as a fig leaf.
North turned to Coombe. “You will leave immediately and close the door behind you. What guests?”
“It’s Sir Rafael and Lady Victoria Carstairs, my lord.”
North cursed very quietly and very fluently. “Tell them I will be with them shortly. Invite them to luncheon and take them to the dining room.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Get out, Coombe, now.”
“Yes, my lord.”
North waited until the door closed, then he strode over to it and locked it. He turned to look at her, this young girl who made him feel things he’d never imagined to be possible, at least within himself. She was standing there, her arms at her sides, her breasts still heaving just a bit, her lips still slightly parted, and he wanted desperately to go back to her, to hold her against him, to kiss her and perhaps kiss her even more than another good dozen times, on her mouth, her throat, her breasts. She was wearing a jaunty green riding hat with a feather that curled about her face, a dark green that nearly matched her eyes. It was lurching to the right side. Tendrils of rich chestnut hair curled in tangles down her neck. She looked drunk. He wondered if he looked the same way. God, he had to get her away from him. He shook himself. “Caroline, I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that, North. It’s quite unnecessary. You shouldn’t be sorry, for I’m assuredly not, and since I’m the virgin here, the one whose experience amounts to what you choose to dole out, doesn’t it seem that my wishes should count the most?”
“No, you haven’t a whit of sense. A virgin is supposed to shriek with outrage and cross her hands over her bosom. A virgin is supposed to slap a man if he does what I just did to you… not moan and hold me like you’ll die if I quit kissing you and caressing you and pressing your belly against me… . Oh, damn it all, Caroline, you’re mad. Will you remain for lunch and meet our neighbors?”
“Certainly,” she said, and tried to straighten her clothes. She walked to the mantel and tucked and patted her hair into place as she looked into the mirror. “How delightful of you to extend me an invitation.”
“I don’t want to,” he said as he took her arm. “But I see no other choice. If you were to leave without introduction, they would believe you my mistress, a female of no importance at all. You’re their neighbor as well. You must meet them.”
“Yes,” she said, giving him a grin that made him want to kiss her again and smack her at the same time. “I see that now, though I can’t say that I would have understood anything so complicated a few minutes ago.”
“Be quiet, Caroline.”
Caroline left Mount Hawke in the middle afternoon. It had been drizzling lightly, but now it had stopped and a bit of sun was peeping through the still-lingering dark clouds. She rode Regina to St. Agnes Head. She dismounted and walked to the edge of the cliff. She stood there, just looking out over the choppy water, watching it crash against the black rocks below, spewing spray halfway up the cliff.
“Who did this to you, Aunt Eleanor?”
Regina nickered softly behind her.
She sighed and began to walk along the edge, careful to stay back from the earth that looked loose from the rainfall. She found a path some fifty yards up from where Aunt Eleanor had been shoved over the cliff. It was the huge beach North had showed her, shaped like a big quarter moon, the cliffs towering high behind it, stark and barren. Slowly, very carefully, she made her way down the narrow path. It was strewn with small rocks and some not so small, and some she had to lift out of the way. No one had walked this path in quite some time, probably not since summer, when local children came here to swim. It took her ten minutes to reach the beach below. The sand was wet with the incoming tide. It was dark and dirty-looking, particularly with no bright sun overhead to soften the colors. Driftwood and rocks strewed the beach, which was very long, really, and deep, curving into darkness beneath the cliff. She wondered how far back the beach extended under the cliff. Next time she should bring a candle and explore. The rock looked to be shale and sandstone, and that’s why it had eroded so severely over time. She turned about and stared out at the sea. She imagined that at high tide most of the beach was covered in water, perhaps it went all the way to the cliff.
She sat down on a large black rock and hugged her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. It was chilly, but not that chilly. It felt good. She looked at the waves rolling in, never the same, but always ending the same with the waves tossing themselves as far as they could reach on the beach, fanning out white and wispy into the sand, then withdrawing, again and again.
She didn’t want to dither, she didn’t want to just let life happen to her. She didn’t want to be like Mr. Trebaw, who’d evidently not done very much. She wanted to be responsible for her life, to make decisions for herself. She didn’t want life to get away from her and leave her wallowing in something she didn’t want. But there was North, the man she wanted, and all he seemed to feel for her was his damnable lust and his wretched indifference, and even though she was fighting with all her might, it just didn’t look hopeful. She sighed and hugged her knees closer to her chest. She watched a sand crab scuttle to and fro for a good long time before it sank under the sand. What was she to do? How to make North agree to make her the happiest woman on earth?
“I won’t stand for this, Caroline. You scared the devil out of me, damn you.”
17
SHE JUMPED, FELT her heart slam against her chest in fear, but for only a moment. Surely he couldn’t be all that indifferent, since he was here. She turned, smiling, and said, “Hello, North. I’m sorry I frightened you. I wanted to think and I came upon this path and came down to the beach. Remember, you showed it to me? Why are you here?”
He looked uncertain for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I was out riding. I was going to visit Wheal David, then I just came here. When I saw Regina and didn’t see you I thought you’d gone over the cliff. Don’t ever scare me like that again, Caroline.”
She smiled more widely. “I won’t.”
“See that you don’t or I’ll throttle you.”
“All right,” she said, still smiling, for she knew as well as he did that if he allowed himself to lace his fingers about her neck, he’d soon be kissing her.
“Stop it, Caroline.”