He gave her a twisted smile. “What if I go off and brood on the moors with my hounds?”
“I’ll have Polgrain pack you a hearty lunch and wave good-bye to you. And when you come home, I’ll smile at you and kiss you and caress you until you forgot why ever you wanted to go to the moors in the first place.”
“I’m used to being alone, Caroline, just as you were alone. The big difference was that I wanted to be alone. It’s not the same thing—being alone and lonely. I knew people, knew all about them, and I decided I preferred keeping to myself. I left Mount Hawke when I was sixteen, I told you that. I had no one when I left here, and even now the number of men who are my close friends are very few. I’m not good being with people, Caroline, particularly women, at least women who are ladies.”
“That isn’t true at all.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed his mouth. “Why do you say you’re not good with women?” She kissed him again and again, light nipping kisses, kisses he’d taught her. “You’ve always been wonderful with me. You make me laugh, you make me want to touch you and hold you and kiss you until I dwindle away into an old woman.”
“I don’t understand that either,” he said, and began to return her kisses.
“You see,” she said, then lightly slipped her tongue between his lips. “You see,” she said again, her breath warm in his mouth, “I am the obvious woman for you. You should stop worrying about it, North. I am your fate. Take me because I most certainly want to be taken by you.”
18
“DAMNATION,” HE SAID, and fell to his knees in front of her. She stood stock-still, not understanding, just staring down at him.
“See if you can accept this, Caroline. If this shocks you to your little virgin toes, I’m sorry, but it’s what I have wanted.” Without another word, he pulled up her gown, her petticoats, her chemise. “Hold them up.” She did, still staring down at him, still not understanding. She was naked in front of him and he just looked at her for a long moment, at the white thighs, strong and supple, and upward to the tight swirl of curls as richly chestnut as the hair on her head, and he reached out his fingers to touch her. “Spread your legs.”
She gasped and spread her legs, balancing herself better. “Are you certain you want to do this, North? Look at me like this? It’s very embarrassing, you know. No one has ever looked at my waist before.”
“I’m not looking at your damned waist. I’m looking at where I’m going to caress you with my fingers and with my mouth. God, you’re beautiful.”
“North, but surely—”
His mouth touched her then as his fingers held her apart for him. Caroline froze, then, to her utter astonishment, she felt a tremor that shook her from her toes to her neck. Her knees buckled and she collapsed, her riding skirt and petticoats billowing out over him. She felt North’s hands on her bottom as she landed on her back. He was over her then, on top of her, balanced above her on his elbows, looking down into her very dazed eyes.
“You’re lovely,” he said, and kissed her. Before she could clasp him around his back to keep him close, he was off her, standing there, staring down at her. Her skirts were up about her waist, her legs sprawled, and he smiled at her and held out his hand.
“I pictured you like this, your skirts all up about your chest and your belly naked. Yes, I pictured you very clearly. But let me tell you, Caroline, you’re more beautiful here, now, in your white flesh, than you were even in my very imaginative mind. I like the white stockings and the black riding boots. It adds mystery. It’s exotic. Come now, we’re going home.”
He pulled her up, then stood back, watching her straighten her clothes. Her hands were trembling and she was very, very silent.
“My God,” he said, and laughed. “You’re embarrassed. I’ve finally succeeded in getting you to close your mouth.”
He grunted then, doubling over slightly when she rammed her fist into his belly.
He just grinned, rubbed his stomach, and said, “We’ll wed next week, on Friday, all right? Will that give you sufficient time?”
She looked at him, saw the deviltry in his dark eyes, saw the amusement tugging at the corners of his beautiful mouth, and shook her head. “No, I would prefer Wednesday.”
“You’re a mouthy girl, Caroline, but it pleases me. We will compromise on Thursday. I have to find us a bishop, you know, and procure a license, since I don’t think you want to post any banns.”
“No, that takes a long time, doesn’t it?”
“Four weeks, three of them where the vicar reads out the intent to marry in church. Too long, much too long. I want you in front of me naked so I can caress you again. Will you hold up your clothes for me again?”
“North!”
“It’s nice to outdo you verbally, Caroline. I used to be quite content to sit in brooding silence, listening to others go on and on and laugh and tell jests, but now, with you, I find I quite enjoy reducing you to blushes and groans and little squeaks when I manage to shock you.”
He grinned down at her, patted her face, and gave her his hand. “Come along, we have a lot to do. Careful now, this path isn’t all that easy a climb.”
It wasn’t until late that same night that Caroline, tossing in her own bed, quite alone and hating it, realized that Mr. Ffalkes could quite easily kill North, widow her, and force her to marry him. But no, that was absurd. He would be hanged if he murdered anybody. She was becoming hysterical. Her mind had obviously been shoved off its proper track, what with those utterly delightful and very unexpected things North had done to her on the beach. She knew she was embarrassed, shocked to her toes, really, but it didn’t prevent the warmth building low in her belly right now, just remembering how his mouth actually touched her, how his tongue licked her. Oh goodness. She wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped doing all those things with his hands and his mouth.
At Mount Hawke, North wasn’t in his bed. He was standing in the library, his three minions facing him, all their faces mirroring the same emotion—disbelief, utter consternation, and denial.
“What the hell is going on here, damn you! I’m marrying Caroline Derwent-Jones. She will be Lady Chilton. She will be your mistress. You know her. You know she isn’t rapacious, isn’t looking to wed me for anything other than very warm feelings she nourishes for me. Do you want to know what she said about the three of you? Well, I’ll tell you. She thought you were all immensely creative. She said she admired creativity and inventiveness.”
“It’s not exactly that, my lord,” Tregeagle said, stepping forward. “Her rapaciousness, I mean.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“Here,” Tregeagle said, and handed North a thin book bound in crimson leather. “Please, my lord, read this. You must. This decision you’re making—”
“I’ve already made it,” North said, but took the small volume. “What the devil is this?”
“We thought perhaps this is why you called all of us to see you,” Tregeagle said. “Thus we deemed it best to be prepared. It’s writings from your great-grandfather, your grandfather, and finally, your father.”
“I see,” North said with disgust. “Didn’t they write enough about King Mark? Wasn’t his damned betrayal enough for them? This is supposed to convince me to become as woman-hating as the rest of you lunatics? I can’t help what my ancestors did, but listen to me, I have nothing to do with them, nothing at all. Now, get out of here, all of you. Caroline and I will be married next week, and if there’s any hint of a dead pilchard in any dish you serve her, I’ll gullet all of you. I’ll send my bayonet through your bellies. I’ll see that none of you ever breathe again.”
“That is rather comprehensive, my lord,” Coombe said. “No woman has lived here at Mount Hawke since your great-grandfather’s time. Please, my lord, listen to us. It just isn’t done.”
“That’s absurd.”
“It’s true what Mr. Coombe says,” Tregeagle said. “Women aren’t allowed here.”
“Th
ey are now,” North said. “Go on, now, get out, all of you.”
Polgrain, Coombe, and Tregeagle slowly nodded and left the library. North stared after them, then just shook his head. He heard Tregeagle stop and looked up. “Please, my lord, read what the Nightingale men have written. It’s all true. Truth casts a long shadow, particularly for Nightingale men.”
“Damnation, all right, I’ll read it, but it won’t change anything.”
“You never should have left when you were sixteen. You didn’t learn the truth of things. You would have come to understand why—”
“You would have left too, Tregeagle, had my father been your father. That miserable bastard, he—” North shut up, and drew upon his control. “Go away, Tregeagle, just go away.”
“Yes, my lord, but I really don’t want to. All of us just seek to protect you, to nurture you in your privacy, here with us, alone and happy.”
“Get out of here, you idiot.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Flash Savory faced Lord Chilton across his desk and said without preamble, “Bennett Penrose was here, skulking about in Goonbell some three weeks before Eleanor Penrose was murdered. He used his own name and added the name York. I imagine that’s why you didn’t learn much of anything when you initially looked into her death, my lord. Yes, old Bennett York was trying to be clever, but I found him out.”
“Excellent, Flash. If he did kill her then it would be in hopes that she’d left him money, lots of it.”
“That’s right. I doubt he knew a thing about Miss Caroline, and if he did, I imagine that old Bennett—being such a man’s man—thought no one could possibly leave any groats at all to a mere female.”
“That could put Caroline in danger, but not for long. Once we’re wedded, then all her money belongs to me. Then there’d be no motive for the little sod.” North sat back in the high-backed leather chair and closed his eyes. “That still leaves Mr. Ffalkes. I can’t say I want him living here at Mount Hawke for much longer, Flash.”
“I say let him go, my lord. Once you and Miss Caroline are wed, just let him go. And you will ensure he knows that he would get his neck stretched on the gibbet if he killed you or if anything at all happened to you.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought, Flash.”
“Aye, I venture to say nearly as much as you. Also I spoke to the captain. He said he’d be quite pleased to tell Mr. Ffalkes the facts of his new life.”
North smiled at that. “It seems all goes forward, then. We still don’t have any evidence, however. That bloody knife—what did the killer do with it? Dr. Treath, once the poor man could speak about it, said he believed it to be just a regular knife, the sort one would find in any kitchen. Not a fishing or hunting knife, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“I plan to visit Mr. Bennett Penrose’s chamber this evening at Scrilady Hall. Our boyo will be in Goonbell drinking with his cohorts again. I’ll see what I can unearth. Also, my lord, I found out from Mrs. Freely, quite a talker she is, and—” Flash paused a moment and preened. “Aye, it’s true, the ladies find me quite appetizing. Well, in any case, she told me that Mrs. Penrose wasn’t the first lady to die under mysterious circumstances. There was another lady who was skewered with a knife some three years ago, by the name of Elizabeth Godolphin, the widow of a merchant who lived down near Perranporth. The lady had a goodly competence, but she wasn’t rich, as Mrs. Eleanor was.”
“Any other similarities?”
“Mrs. Freely said something about her seeing some gentleman, but she couldn’t remember any more. She said she’d be seeing some of her friends who live there and she’d ask them about it.”
“Good, we’re gaining ground, then.”
“Congratulations on your marrying Miss Caroline, my lord. She’s a fine girl, all full of spit and fire and mischief, and that mouth of hers, well, the captain told me she’d give you as many fits as Lady Victoria gives him.”
North grunted. The thought of walking his hounds on the moors, however, didn’t play such a large part in his scenario of daily life anymore.
“I’ll also find out if our Bennett Penrose was here when the other lady was killed. It’s my understanding he’s been hereabouts throughout the years. The little bugger would have been about your age then, my lord. Maybe he was living off her, maybe… ah, well, we’ll see.”
At one o’clock that morning, North was propped up in his bed reading the slim volume Tregeagle had given him. Quite simply, he couldn’t believe it. It was a house of men only, and certainly he’d wondered about that, but any questions when he’d been a boy had been dealt with harshly by his father. When he’d been a boy and asked about his mother, he’d been told she was a slut, a trollop, and she was dead, just as she deserved. He hadn’t understood the words, but he’d well understood the rage, the bitterness. He’d not asked about his mother all that much past the age of five when he’d come to Mount Hawke with his father to live after his mother had died. He shook his head, leaned back, and closed his eyes. His father’s written words were burned sharply in his mind: “Nightingale men don’t suffer like other men, once they understand that they are different. I didn’t believe my father’s and his father’s words, but now I do. By all the gods, they were right. At least I have the next generation Nightingale, the next Viscount Chilton, and that miserable slut is gone. All will be well. I will teach North, and pray God he will listen and believe me. There’s no need for him to go through what I went through. He will beget his heir and quickly rid himself of the slut necessary to be the Nightingale vessel. He will be free. He won’t suffer even a moment’s anguish, like the rest of us. He will believe me.”
Those words were written when North had been five years old. He tried desperately to remember that time, but all he could remember was screaming and shouting and crying, a woman crying. His mother? He didn’t know. Then he’d come here. Then he’d been told that his mother was dead. And then there’d been the year upon year of misery and hatefulness and spite and utter gloom. What had happened?
He thumbed through his grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s writings, but didn’t read them, just his father’s, and the good lord knew, it was enough.
He was appalled.
“My lord.”
“Yes, Tregeagle, what is it?”
“Er, my lord, did you read the tome we presented to you yesterday?”
North tossed down the quill and leaned back in his desk chair. He’d been writing an announcement to the Gazette and to the Times about his upcoming marriage to Miss Derwent-Jones. “Yes, I read part of it, the part my father wrote.”
“I see,” Tregeagle said, and waited hopefully, keeping quiet because he wasn’t stupid.
“It sounded just like my father—all ranting and shrieking at the dishonor of the female species, pitying himself in a bottle of brandy, all rage and bitterness. Nothing new. However, even that worsened under the influence of my grandfather. I remember both of them as relentlessly cruel, sadistic men who hated everyone, and obviously lost what few wits were left to them.”
“My lord, he was your father!”
“He was a filthy old bedlamite, Tregeagle! God, how I despised him. Now, that’s quite enough. There will be a Countess of Chilton living at Mount Hawke beginning in four days’ time. The first one in how long a time? You can’t even answer that, can you?
“I realize I didn’t live at Mount Hawke until I was five years old. My mother died and I was brought here. Why didn’t she live here during her marriage to my father? Ah, not a word. No matter. What would I expect from you, my father’s minion? Well, my wife won’t be kept hidden away in London like a damned mistress, or ensconced on one of my moldering estates. This will be her home just as it is mine. If you can’t accept that, Tregeagle, if any of you can’t accept that, why then, you will all leave.”
“My lord, we will remain to protect you, to see to your needs and your wishes.”
North sighed. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like th
at. However, I will hear no more about it. Go away, I must finish with this task.”
North watched his housekeeper slowly leave the small estate room. It was all nonsense, but the male minions believed every word, every assertion. It was amazing that they were so tied into the bitterness of the past.
Then he pictured Caroline’s shocked yet quite interested expression when he’d had her hold up her own skirts and petticoats on the beach and he was touching her. He smiled and noticed that his hand shook a bit. He would protect her. All would be well. He would be a husband, something that simply hadn’t occurred to him as being devoutly wished for, but he would have Caroline in his bed whenever he wanted her, and that was surely a fine thing. She was lovely, she seemed eager, and he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life. No more going without a woman or having to install a mistress or having an affair with a local lady, something he’d avoided like the plague in the past.
He realized then, at that moment, that part of his desire for solitude, an attitude so longstanding this was the first time he’d truly questioned it, came from the continuous bitterness and barely tamped-down rage spouted by his father, his distrust of people in general and women in particular. North had obviously taken the words to heart throughout his youth and simply turned himself away from the possibility of betrayal by believing he didn’t need people. Unlike Caroline, he hadn’t realized he was missing what life was all about. Unlike Caroline, he’d had to be pulled into joy and into the possibility of sadness and disappointment.
He would be Caroline’s husband.
He would laugh for the rest of his life.
19
CAROLINE CAME BOLT upright in her bed at the sound of a piercing scream. She threw back the covers, grabbed her dressing gown, and was into the corridor in the next moment.