Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection (Stark World 2.50)

Something cried out from the direction of the stairs. It was a gull, perhaps, eagerly swooping on a crab. Or a small animal, fighting against the stiff wind.

Or a small girl, sitting on a step and sobbing.

Katharine rushed to the top of the stairway and called down as she started to descend. The girl looked up at her, surprised and still tearful. She was a lovely little thing, clutching a knitted shawl, her dark, curling hair blowing around her face. She had the complexion of Caribbean sailors who sometimes came to shore in Cloverhill and large eyes as dark as chocolate.

"Are you lost?" Katharine asked. "Are you a visitor in our neighborhood?"

She was much closer now and sat several steps above the girl. The child's clothes were very fine, and there was elegant embroidery on the shawl. Perhaps the child's father was not a sailor, but a pirate.

"I live here, and

I am not lost. Not really, my lady." She knew her manners, though seemed a little shy. "I climbed up to pick some of the flowers and am scared to go down."

Indeed, she sat on a bunch of wilted flowers, mostly the clover from which the town derived its name. The stairs below her were as they always had been, steep and treacherous. Katharine remembered when she first came here as a young girl, and the prospect of looking down to the strand was terrifying.

"Do you wish to go up or down? I will help you. But is there no one waiting for you or watching where you have gone?"

"I think my father may be looking for me." The girl motioned below. "He is on the beach."

Katharine nodded grimly. "Then he must be going mad calling your name and looking out to the waves. He might not think to look up here. Come, let us find him together."

She caught the child's hand, and warmed it in her own. She pulled her up gently, until she was steady on her feet, and stepped around her. "I will go first, so if you stumble, you will only land on me and not the beach. I am Miss Wharton, by the by."

"My name is Pearl, my lady."

Katharine stopped abruptly and, startled, Pearl smiled reassuringly. And that expression was not only bright, but illuminating.

Delphina Rutherford had once been a pretty girl, who sought to trade on her looks for a chance to escape from Cloverhill. And now, it appeared she had returned.

Pearl looked like her mother in her fine features and wide eyes and nothing like the man who called her his daughter.

She continued to smile, looking over Katharine's shoulder, and waved gleefully.

With her thoughts coming thick and fast, Katharine followed the girl's gaze to see Edward on the strand, gazing anxiously up at them.

"She is mine, in every way that matters," Edward said, as they continued along the sandy beach, while Pearl dodged approaching waves. Mostly unsuccessfully.

"As she is yours, you ought to warn her to have a care for her dress, as the salt water will surely ruin it."

"I would buy her all the new dresses in the world to make her happy. And now I suspect nothing is more delightful to her than to play tag with the sea," he explained. "She reminds me of another girl I knew who did very much the same."

"I do not recall Delphina having the slightest interest in the water. Her pleasures were all on land," Katharine said, and blushed. It was indelicate of her even to suggest what Delphina did during the days and nights of her youth.

"I know all too well what amused my late wife, but I was not thinking of her. I was thinking of you."

"But I am not at all connected to your little girl, my lord. We have only just met."

"That is true, but it is a situation I should like to rectify. I hope that you might learn to care for her and teach her many things. She will not be easily accepted into our society and needs someone to give her confidence to hold her own among those who would have something to say about the color of her skin or the circumstances of her birth."

Katharine knew he was right, but was still not certain what he asked of her.

"Do you wish for her to join the ladies of the Octagon Salon? She is a bit young."

Edward rubbed his forehead, in a gesture of exasperation Katharine remembered well. He then said a word he would never have used in her presence then. But she was a woman now.

He stopped in his tracks, and water lapped up against his boots.

"Damn it. I want for you to be my wife."