There was no one in sight, no reason not to give in to temptation, take off her shoes, roll down her stockings and paddle in the frothy edge of the water. Under her bare feet the sand was cool and grainy; the water when she ventured in a few inches made her gasp—despite the sunshine the sea was icy. Once she had learned to swim in still, fresh water, the deep calm of the millpond with the sun on her back. A long time ago.
But this was curiously both soothing and stimulating at the same time. She lifted her skirts to her knees and ran a little, splashing, then retreated up the beach
as a bigger wave came in.
How Bella and Lina would love this! The three of them, free, happy, running over the sand and laughing in the sunlight. I’ll find you soon, she promised silently. We will be together.
Toes numb, she walked back to her rock and sat with her feet on a smooth boulder to dry so she could brush off the sand. Seabirds swooped and shrieked, a fishing boat sailed past, the sun shone and Meg sank into the puzzle of Ross’s smile.
It was not that she did not wish him to smile, it was wonderful that he had, but she felt uneasily that it was to do with her and that, in some mysterious, masculine way, he had not been discouraged by her refusal to be his mistress.
Which was worrying, because she so much wanted to say yes that she was shocking herself. The old, romantic, yearning, loving Meg, whom she thought had been buried in disappointment and the need for sheer common sense in order to survive, was still there.
Was the only thing that was stopping her yielding to him the fact that he was offering her money, the position of a mistress? That he wanted to buy her, which would ensure for him that all the inconvenience of emotion and feeling could be set aside? Did that freeze the spontaneous impulse to follow her instincts and go to him? If he had set out simply to seduce her for one night of passion, she might have succumbed. Because, however much Ross looked like the Grim Reaper most of the time, there were those moments when every nerve in her body seemed quiveringly aware of him and the inevitable unhappy ending of all this no longer seemed to matter.
‘You be that new housekeeper up at the Court?’ The strong Cornish burr was right by her ear.
It was Ross’s old poacher. He must be able to move like a ghost. How long had he been there? And her with bare feet, bare head and a bunch of cherry blossom behind her ear. ‘Yes. I am Mrs Halgate. I’ve never been at the seaside before,’ she added, as though to excuse her eccentric behaviour. ‘It is beautiful.’
He watched her with unusual amber eyes that seemed startlingly youthful in his wrinkled face. She should get up and walk away, she knew, but something about him fascinated her. ‘You be as pretty as he told I.’
‘Who? Ross? I mean, Lord Brandon?’
‘Aah,’ he said, a complicated noise with more vowels in it than she could count. He sat down on a rock facing her. ‘You looking after that boy properly?’ A black-and-white dog, long haired with a plumy tail, crept up, belly to the sand, and curled round at his feet.
‘Boy? He is hardly that. You are Billy, are you not? I’m afraid I don’t know your last name.’ Dreadful old reprobate he might be, but this was the man Ross seemed to regard almost as a grandfather. If she wanted to understand Ross, perhaps he could help her.
‘Billy’ll do. He talk about me, then?’
‘Lord Brandon spoke fondly of you. He told me that you taught him how to shoot and how to treat girls.’
The old man gave a crack of laughter that had the dog looking up. ‘Well, he shoots damn fine, I just hope he listened about girls.’ He got at least one u into the word, but Meg was beginning to understand the accent now.
‘I really would not know.’
‘Aah.’
‘I am his housekeeper,’ Meg said repressively. ‘Lord Brandon—’
‘Don’t be calling him that, that’s his father, God rot him. Ross ain’t his father.’
‘Well, it is his title now, and he has to manage this estate and find himself a wife and settle down. And be happy.’
‘Why not marry him yourself then, maid?’ Infuriating old man. Meg glared at him. He had hardly any teeth and the few she could see were brown with tobacco. She suspected he hadn’t washed in a year and probably, if the sea breezes were not blowing from her to him, smelt like a ferret, and he had no business whatsoever talking to her like this. But Ross loved him. And he obviously loved Ross. Ross needed love. She couldn’t bring herself to snub Billy.
‘That would be impossible. He is a baron. I—’ I am forbidden from marrying any decent man because of what I have done.
‘You’re a widow, and an officer’s widow too, he says. A lady. Respectable.’
‘Not respectable enough.’ Impossible that she ever could be. She should be sinking with shame at such a frank conversation, but talking to this old man was more like confiding in a wild animal or an ancient tree than confessing to a person.
‘Boy’s a fool,’ the poacher said. At least, that was what Meg guessed he said. ‘I’ll sort him out for you.’
‘No!’
The dog sat up and barked. Old Billy blinked at her, slowly, like a very thoughtful lizard. ‘Don’t you want him then, maid?’
‘I…Certainly not.’