A Night to Surrender (13 page)

“Well, I am growing dangerously out of practice,” Colin answered. “But they look like ladies to me.”

His cousin was right. The ladies—and Bram was certain he recognized Susanna Finch’s tall, slender form among them—were picking their way along the shore. They paused as a group, removing their bonnets and wraps and draping them on the branches of a twisted, scrubby tree. As their headwear came off, Bram caught a glimpse of golden-red flame, and desire kindled to life inside him. He’d know that hair anywhere. It had played a rather vivid role in his dreams last night.

As they reached the shingle beach, the ladies disappeared from view. The curve of the inlet guarded them.

“What do you suppose they’re doing?” Colin asked.

“It’s Tuesday,” Bram said. “They’re sea bathing.”
Mondays are country walks. Tuesday, sea bathing. Wednesday, we’re in the garden . . .
That promise of gardening gave him hope. God, perhaps tomorrow he’d finally have a chance of escaping Susanna Finch and her maddening sensual distractions. As if it weren’t bad enough watching her climb the hillside yesterday, now he had to suffer the knowledge that somewhere not too far below, she’d soon be wet to the skin.

The Bright twins set aside the drum and fife and joined them at the edge of the cliff.

“It’s no use craning your necks from here,” Rufus said. “They’re well hidden when they change into their bathing costumes.”

“Bathing costumes?” Bram snorted. “Leave it to Englishwomen to civilize the ocean.”

“If you want a better view, the best place to peek is down the ridge a bit,” Finn said, gesturing toward the tapering point of land. When Bram raised an eyebrow, the boy’s cheeks flushed red. “Or so I hear. From Rufus.”

His twin gave him an elbow to the side.

By now the rest of the men had gathered, clustering around the edge of the bluff.

“Tell me about this path,” Bram said.

“Just there.” Finn pointed. “Steps, cut into the sandstone by pirates in our grandfather’s day. Once was, at low tide you could climb all the way from sea to bluff. The path’s eroded now. Breaks off halfway. But follow it down a bit, and you have the best view into the cove.”

Bram frowned. “You’re certain no one could climb up this way? If spies or smugglers learned of it, this path could present a true risk.” He turned to the fishermen volunteers. “Are your boats available? I’d like to have a look at these bluffs from the water.”

The vicar rushed to his side. “Oh, but my lord—”

“But what, Mr. Keane? It’s a fine enough day. High tide.”

“The ladies have their sea bathing, my lord.” Keane wiped his reddened face with his sleeve. “Miss Finch wouldn’t like the intrusion.”

Bram huffed an impatient sigh. “Mr. Keane. The purpose of this militia is to protect Miss Finch—and all denizens of Spindle Cove—from unwanted intrusions. What if a French frigate sailed into view this moment, setting course for this cove? Or an American privateer? Do you think they’ll hold off on invading merely because it’s Tuesday? Are you going to postpone fighting them, simply because the ladies have their sea bathing?”

The blacksmith scratched his neck. “If any ship’s stupid enough to set course for this cove, we’ll all sit back and watch the rocks chew her up.”

“There aren’t so many rocks right here.” Bram looked over the edge. In the patch of aquamarine water directly below them, very few boulders littered the surface. A decent-sized rowboat could make its way right up to the bluff’s edge.

“Anyway,” Fosbury said, “there’s no French frigate on the horizon today. Nor any American privateers. We’ll leave the ladies to their privacy.”

“Privacy?” Bram echoed. “What privacy? You’re all standing up here leering at them while they flip and float like mermaids.”

Of course, he was no better than the rest. They all stood in silence for a long minute, as one by one the ladies took to the water, rapidly submerging themselves up to their chins in the sea. He counted them. One, two, three little spinsters . . . All the way up to eleven, and Miss Finch—with her unmistakable head of hair—made twelve.

By God, Bram would welcome a swim right now. He could all but feel the water surrounding him, cool and sensuous. He could all but see Susanna in his mind’s eye, swimming alongside him. Stripped to a wet, translucent shift and wreathed with that glorious, unbound hair. She lay in the shallows, tracing lazy circles with her arms while foamy waves lapped at her breasts.

Focus, Bramwell.

Milk-white breasts, just the perfect size for his hands. Tipped with pert, rosy nipples.

Focus on something
else
, you addled fool.

Lowering his weight to a nearby boulder, he began working loose his boots. Once he had them both off, he rolled his sleeves to the elbow. Clad only in breeches and shirt, Bram walked to the extreme end of the rocky ridge where it jutted out over the sea, gripping the sandstone surface with his bare toes.

“Wait,” Colin said. “Just what are you doing? I know this militia isn’t going how you’d planned, and the only thing this set of pathetic souls have in common is shriveled, pathetic sets of their own. But surely matters aren’t that dire.”

Bram rolled his eyes at his cousin. “I’m just having a look at this path for myself. Since the thought of a rowboat survey has everyone in such a tizzy.”

“I’m not in a tizzy,” Colin said. “But I’m not stupid enough to go walking that cliff’s edge, either.”

“Good. I think we could use some time apart.” Bram walked out as far as he could and investigated. As Finn and Rufus had told him, the cut-stone steps descended a ways down the bluff before crumbling into nothingness. No one could ascend this cliff face without the help of ropes and pulleys. Maybe wings.

Having satisfied his curiosity, he turned on his boulder perch and faced the men. He wasn’t wearing his officer’s insignia, but he mustered the mien of authority and voice to match.

“Listen sharp, all of you. When I give an order, it will be followed. Today is the absolute last instance in which I will tolerate a moment’s hesitation, on any man’s part. Hemming, hawing, hedging, and fidgeting—and most especially ‘ask-Miss-Finch-ing’—will heretofore be grounds for immediate discharge, without pay. Am I understood?”

A mumbled chorus of agreement rose up.

He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “I’m your lord and commander now. When I say march, you march. When I say shoot, you shoot. And no matter what Miss Finch would think about it . . . if I tell you to take a flying leap off this cliff, you will damned well leap with a smile.”

Before he alighted, he allowed himself one last glance down at the cove. All the ladies bobbing and floating in that cool, enticing, blue-crystal sea. One, two, three little spinsters . . .

He stopped. Frowned. Concentrated and looked again. And then his heart left his chest and tumbled straight off the cliff.

He counted only eleven.

Twelve

“W
hat’s Lord Rycliff doing up there?” Charlotte asked, pointing up at the bluff. “Peeping at us? Where are his clothes?”

“I don’t know.” Squinting as she continued to tread water, Susanna watched the barefooted Bram inching closer to the edge of the bluff.

“He looks very dire and serious.”

“He always looks that way.”

From high above, she heard Lord Payne call out. “Don’t do it, Bram! You have so much to live for!”

The ladies shrieked as Rycliff, apparently ignoring his cousin, flexed his legs—and jumped.

“Oh God.” Horrified, Susanna watched his long, perilous dive into the sea. “He’s done it. He’s seen how hopeless the men are, and it’s driven him to suicide.”

A mighty splash announced his impact with the water. She could only pray it wasn’t the prelude to an impact with something else. That area was rocky. The entire cove was rocky. More likely than not, he’d struck his head on a boulder and would never surface.

“Go for help,” she told Charlotte, hitching up the skirts of her bathing costume. “Call to the men up there and tell them to follow the path around to the beach.”

“But . . . but I’m not dressed. Whatever would Mama say?”

“Charlotte, this is no time to be missish. This is life and death. Just do as I say.”

Susanna propelled herself into the water, swimming toward the place he ought to have landed. She sliced through the waves with fast, confident strokes, but her progress was hampered by the dratted bathing costume they all wore for modesty’s sake. The fabric dragged around her ankles, heavy and tangled.

“Lord Rycliff!” she called, nearing the bottom of the cliff. She pulled up and began to tread water, looking this way and that in vain. She saw a great number of rocks, but none of them resembled his stony lump of a head. “Lord Rycliff, are you well?”

No answer. Her skirt snagged on an obstacle, and the sudden tug pulled her under. She took a swallow of seawater. As she surfaced, she sputtered and coughed.

“Bram!” she shouted, growing desperate now. “Bram, where are you? Are you hurt?”

He broke through the surface of the water, not two feet in front of her. Soaked to his skin and wearing a dark, dangerous look.

He was alive. The burst of relief was so visceral, so swift, she was nearly overwhelmed by it. “Bram, what on earth are you—”

He ignored her entirely, looking around the cove instead. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Number twelve.” With a gulp of breath, he disappeared beneath the water’s surface, leaving her treading water, utterly bewildered.

Number twelve?
He wasn’t making any sense. Heavens, this was like that ridiculous sheep-bombing all over again.

He broke the surface, pushing water off his face. “Have to find her. Dark-haired girl.”

Minerva
. Now it made sense. He was looking for Minerva Highwood. He’d dived off a cliff to save her. The brave, heroic, reckless, misguided idiot.

“I’ll look over there.” He took off swimming, stroking his way around a cluster of boulders.

“Wait,” she called, swimming after him. “Bram, I can explain. She’s not drowned, I promise.”

“She was here. Now she’s not.”

“I know it looks that way. But if you’ll—”

He gulped a deep breath and submerged himself again. It seemed an eternity before he surfaced. The man had the lung capacity of a whale.

When he finally came up for air, Susanna launched herself at him to keep him from going under again.

“Wait!”

She caught him from behind, like a child riding piggyback, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, and her legs—such as the bathing costume permitted—around his waist.

“She’s fine!” she shouted in his ear, shaking him back and forth. “Listen to me. Number twelve. Minerva Highwood. She’s alive and well.”

“Where?” he managed, breathless. He shook himself, and seawater sprayed her in the eye.

“There’s a cave.” She sandwiched his head between her two hands and turned it. “That way. The entrance is under water at high tide, but I showed her how to swim into it. She’s alive and well and looking for rocks. Geology. Remember?”

“Geology.”

They were quiet for a time. She rose and fell in the water as he worked to catch his breath.

“It was good of you,” she said, pressing her cheek to the back of his neck. “It was good of you to try to help her.”

“But she’s fine.”

“Yes.”
And so are you, thank the Lord.

Several panting breaths later, he said, “I believe you’re safe to release me. It’s shallow enough to stand.”

That was when she realized he hadn’t moved once, for all her furious thrashing. She peered over his shoulder. The water hit him midtorso, matting his open shirt to his body. In the notch of his open collar, little droplets of spray clung to the dark hair on his chest, sparkling in the sunlight. Small waves licked at his dark male nipples, perfectly delineated by wet linen.

And she was plastered to his back, limbs clinging in every direction. Like a deranged octopus.

“Oh.” Mortified, she slid off his back. She stretched her feet under her and found solid footing. “Well, that’s rather embarrassing.”

When she finally dragged her gaze up to his face, she realized he was staring at
her
nipples now. How predictable. Just like a man. Here she’d been worried he was dead, and he had the nerve to be alive. Outrageously, manifestly virile and strong and alive. How dare he. How
dare
he?

What with the excitement of that water rescue exercise, atop several days’ worth of unspoken tension, a revealing haircut, and not least of all, that explosive kiss . . . There was too much emotion building inside her, and it had only two possible outlets. Irrational anger, or . . .

She wasn’t going to contemplate “or.” Irrational anger it would be.

“You reckless fool,” she cried. “You mollusk-brained addlepate. What were you thinking, making a dive like that? Don’t you see these rocks? You could have been killed!”

His chin jerked. “I might as well ask what
you’re
doing, swimming out in that horrid getup. You could be dragged underwater like Ophelia and drown.”

“I swam out here to rescue you, you beastly man. I’m a very strong swimmer.”

“So am I. I don’t need rescuing.”

She turned her head and spat another mouthful of seawater. “Oh, you will when I’m through with you.”

Beneath the water’s surface, something brushed her waist. A fish? An eel? She batted at it, whirling.

“Easy. It’s just me.” His arm slid around her waist, and he pulled her close. They sank into the water, up to their necks. With a one-armed stroke, he tugged her between two boulders.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He glanced up at the bluff. “Giving us some privacy. We need to talk.”

“Here? Now? We couldn’t converse in some normal time and place?”

“That’s the problem.” He pushed a hand through his dark, wet hair. “I can’t stop thinking about you. All the time. Everyplace. I have work to do up there. Men to drill. A watch to organize. A castle to defend. But I can’t even concentrate, for thinking of you.”

She stared at him. This?
This
was the conversation he wished to have. Well, she could see why he wouldn’t come calling at the house to bring it up over tea.

“You tell me why that is, Susanna. Keep in mind, you’re talking to a man who’ll march a hundred miles out of his way, just to avoid a romantic attachment.”

“Attachment?” She forced a casual laugh. An unconvincing string of ha-ha-has. “A barrel of warm pitch couldn’t attach me to you.”

He shook his head, looking perplexed. “I even like it when you snipe at me.”

“You’ve seen me with a gun. If I were to snipe at you, I promise you’d feel it. And you wouldn’t like it one bit.” She had to extricate herself from this situation, and his big, brawny arms. She wrestled in his grip, but he only embraced her more tightly.

“You’re not getting away. Not yet.” His deep voice sent ripples through the water. “We’re going to have this out, you and me. Right here. Right now. I’m going to tell you every wild, erotic, depraved thought you’ve inspired, and then you’re going to run home scared. Lock your bedchamber door and stay there for the next month so I can concentrate and do my damned duty.”

“That sounds like a very poorly thought-out plan.”

“Thinking’s not my strong point, of late.”

This rush of sensual awareness . . . oh, it was dangerous. She could grow to enjoy it. To be honest, she already enjoyed it. But she could grow to
crave
it, and that would make for difficult, lonely times ahead. She knew he needed a bit of human closeness. Perhaps because of the war he’d gone without it for too long. But at most, he had in mind a frantic tangle of body parts, not a meshing of hearts and souls.

“I want you,” he said simply. Starkly. Composure-destroyingly.

See?
she told herself.
He couldn’t be any more plain than that.

“I want you. I dream about you. I am desperate to be near you,” he said, sending a fresh shiver down her spine. “To touch you. All over.” His hands roamed over her arms and back. “What is this hideous thing you’re wearing?”

“It’s a bathing costume.”

“It feels like a shroud. And it’s too damned opaque.”

“Yes, well. That’s rather the point. Opacity.” Her breathing was quick; her words, stupid.

One of his hands slid down to capture her fingers. He raised them above the water’s surface, shaking them as though they were some kind of damning evidence. “Who wears gloves in the ocean?”

She swallowed hard. “I do.”

“These gloves of yours, they drive me mad. I want to strip them from your hands. Kiss those slender wrists, suck on each of those long, delicate fingers. And that would only be the beginning. I want to see the rest of you, too. Yours is a body made for a man’s pleasure. It’s a crime against nature to hide it.”

This could not be happening. Not to
her
. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Lord Rycliff. You’ve forgotten yourself.”

“No, I haven’t.” His green eyes held her captive. “I recall precisely who I am. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Victor St. George Bramwell, the Earl of Rycliff since a few days back. You’re Susanna Jane Finch, and I want to see you bare. Bare, and pale, and soaked to the roots of your hair, glistening with moonlight and drops of seawater. I’d lick the salt from you.”

His tongue swiped over her cheek, and she gasped. Her nipples peaked, straining against the rough, wet fabric.

“You’re mad,” she breathed.

His lips grazed her ear. “I’m perfectly clear of mind. Want to test my recollection? On Mondays, you have country walks. On Tuesdays, sea bathing. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll come find you in the garden and pull you into the shrubbery.”

The suggestion made her weak. She imagined his body, atop hers. The heat of him, contrasting with the cool, damp ground. Her mind conjured the scents of grass and earth.

“And on Thursday . . .” He pulled back and gave her a wicked look. “That’s interesting. We never did get to Thursday. Please tell me on Thursdays you oil yourselves up and wrestle Grecian-style.”

She gasped. “You are horrid.”

“And you love it. That’s the worst of the matter. You want me every bit as badly as I want you. Because I’m exactly what you need. There’s no one else in this village strong enough to take you on. You need a real man, to show you what to do with all that passion seething beneath your surface. You need to be challenged, mastered.”

Mastered?
“You need to be caged, you beast.”

“A beast is just what you want. A big, dark medieval brute to throw you to the ground, tear the clothes from your body, and have his wicked way with you. I know I’m right. I haven’t forgotten how
excited
you were in the aftermath of that blast.”

The nerve of him!

How could he tell?

She lifted her chin. “Well, I haven’t forgotten the sound you made when I first touched your brow. It wasn’t even a moan, it was more like . . . like a whimper.”

He made a dismissive sound.

“Oh yes. A plaintive, yearning whimper. Because you want an angel. A sweet, tender virgin to hold you and stroke you and whisper precious promises and make you feel human again.”

“That’s absurd,” he scoffed. “You’re just begging to be taught a hard, fast lesson in what it means to please a man.”

“You’re just longing to put your head in my lap and feel my fingers in your hair.”

He backed her up against a rock. “You need a good ravaging.”

“You,” she breathed, “need a hug.”

They stared at each other for long, tense moments. At first, looking each other in the eye. Then looking each other in the lips.