A gust of wind caught the scoop of her bonnet and pulled, knocking it back from her head. Damaris reached up to adjust it, but as she did so, the wind jerked it away completely, sending it spinning out over the water, where it dropped and floated on the current.
“Botheration.” Damaris reached up to push back the tendrils of hair that were already coming loose from their pins.
“Don’t.” Alec reached out to still her hands. “I like to look at you this way.”
“A complete mess?” Damaris asked skeptically.
“With the sun on your hair. Strands breaking free to drift on the breeze.”
Damaris sent him a look, but she lowered her hands to the railing and let her hair do as it would. “It is too much trouble, anyway.” She peered into the distance. “I wonder when we shall be able to see the ocean.”
“Soon, I would think. I have never gone this way. We always come by road.”
“I would guess that it is a grand procession.”
“Indeed.” Again his grin flashed. “Especially when Grandmother is with us. Fortunately she winters in Bath these days. But in years past, my grandmother required a caravan. Genevieve and I took our favorite mounts. There was at least one wagon—and usually two—to carry the servants who must accompany us—Grandmother’s and Genevieve’s abigails, the grooms, whatever valet she was currently trying to foist off on me—as well as the trunks of clothes and hats and the various household items that my grandmother cannot live without. Then there was our coach, of course, and it had to be the one her husband bought, not one of the newer ones. They were not ‘grand’ enough—which means that I have left the family crest off the ones I purchased. She believes the world should know that the Staffords are on the march.”
“Your grandmother sounds faintly terrifying.”
“More than faintly. She believes one is not a true Stafford unless ice water runs in your veins, and it is her duty to put it there.”
“But surely she is a Stafford only by marriage, isn’t she?”
Alec cast her a shocked glance. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She may have become a Stafford by marrying one, but that was only a formality. She has been a true Stafford in her heart from the moment she was born.”
Something she would never be, of course, Damaris thought, then wondered why she had let such an idea even enter her mind. “What is it like?” she asked, to break from the path of her thoughts. “This castle of yours that is so impregnable?”
His face changed subtly, and she could see both pride and affection in his eyes as he said, “It is a fortress. You shall see when we get there. It was built in a bend of the river, where the water is narrow, and it stands on a knoll, so that you can see it from afar—and from inside, you can see anyone approaching.”
“And your tenants? You sounded fond of them.”
“They are good and bad, I suppose, like anyone else. I like some, and others I’d as soon never see again. But they are all…” He paused, frowning, as if searching for the right words. “They are
connected
to me. The people of Cleyre are more than tenants. They are family. You may not like them very much, but they are still yours.” He looked at her.
Damaris shrugged. “I fear family is something I know little about. There was only my mother and me. You can imagine that I never met any of my cousins.”
“What about your mother’s family? Were you not close to them, either?”
“I never met them. Mother didn’t like to talk about them. I
gather that it caused a rift between her and her parents when she went on the stage.”
“Ah.” He took her hand in his again. “Not having a family may not be a terrible thing. You probably grew up happier for it.”
Damaris raised an eyebrow. “I thought family was all to you Staffords.”
“Oh, it is what has made us who we are,” he replied, his voice dry. “That does not necessarily mean it is a good thing. I think I could have spent all my days quite happily without my father.”
“He was a strict man?”
“He was a tyrant,” Alec replied flatly. “The lord of the castle, and none of us ever forgot that. It was, I think, generally the way of the Staffords. He believed in absolute rule and in toughening up his son. There are those who found Eton harsh. I thought it was much more pleasant than home.”
“I’m sorry,” Damaris said softly.
He tightened his hand around hers for an instant, then released it. “’Tis somewhat absurd to whine about the rigors of one’s life when one is an earl. Don’t you think?”
“I think it is possible to have both arrogance and misfortune.”
He looked at her and grinned. “At least you do not mince your words with me.”
She smiled back. “Would you rather I did?”
“No. It is one of the things I like most about you. You are neither scared of me nor plying your wiles.”
“Plying my wiles?” Damaris laughed. “Is that what women usually do with you?”
“The prospect of a title will have that effect on some ladies.”
Damaris turned to look up at him, her expressive eyes brimming with laughter. “And, pray tell, exactly how do they ply their wiles on you?”
“Careful, you will make me blush.”
“That is something I should like to see.” She tilted her head and crossed her arms in the manner of a tutor awaiting an answer. “Go on. Tell me about these devious ladies. What do they do?”
“You should know that better than I,” he retorted. “They flutter their eyelashes, just so.” He held an imaginary fan to face and batted his eyelashes at her above it.
Damaris broke into giggles. “You are terrible at it!”
“And they carelessly drop a kerchief.” He mimed tossing a handkerchief onto the deck beside him, then cast her a meaningful glance over his shoulder. “They put a hand on your arm, thus”—he reached over and took her hand, placing it on his arm—“so that they can lean in a bit and whisper to you.” He leaned closer to her, his face only inches from hers.
Suddenly the playfulness dropped from his face, and she saw the desire spark in his eyes. A breathless excitement swelled in her in response, and for a moment the very air between them seemed to shimmer with possibility. Then he broke from her, stepping back, and turned to gaze out across the water.
“There it is,” he said. “The sea.”
Damaris followed his gaze. The river had been growing ever wider as they sailed, and now it spread out in front of them, emptying into the limitless blue sea. The sun was sinking, and the sky in front of them was growing darker, dipping down to mingle with the deep-blue water stretching in front of them. A shiver ran through Damaris, in part from the cool breeze of the approaching evening at sea and in part from anticipation. Alec put his arm around her, pulling her close to his side, and they stood together, watching, as the ship carried them forward.
Dinner was plain sailor’s fare
, a distinct decline from their supper the evening before at the inn. But they ate it as they had then, alone together in their cabin, the tray on the bed between them, and that made up for any lack in quantity or taste. After supper, Alec was restless, as if he could not find comfort whether he stood or sat. The cabin seemed to shrink around them, and the bed loomed larger as the minutes passed. Damaris ran out of topics of conversation; every time she thought of something to say, she realized that it contained some innuendo that rendered it unsuitable or would lead inevitably to a subject that was better left unsaid.
Being alone like this in a tiny cabin with a virile male like Alec made any situation fraught with a seductive undertone.
“Perhaps we should take a turn around the deck,” she said finally as she watched Alec prowl the room.
He practically leapt to open the door, and they went up onto the deck. It was dark, with only a half-moon and the
stars for light, and there was a hush over the ship, broken only by an occasional flap of a sail. They might have been alone in the world. They walked along the boards, talking in the hushed tones that the setting seemed to call for, and stopped at the prow of the ship to look out over the sea. Moonlight revealed the ripples of the waves before them, and the boat rocked soothingly as it sliced through the calm waters. The rush of air was cool against Damaris’s face and sent the strands of her hair flying once again. Alec stood so close that she could feel the brush of his arm against hers, and the touch sent a shiver through her.
“Cold?” he asked, and shrugged out of his jacket to hang it about her shoulders.
The warmth of the jacket enveloped her. It smelled like him, a scent that was somehow both reassuring and exciting. She liked the feel of it around her so much that she felt obliged to protest, “No, you must not give it to me. Now you will be cold.”
“Don’t worry about that.” His voice was smooth and deep, with an undercurrent of amusement and something else, something darker and dangerously alluring.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, settling her back against his chest, his chin resting lightly on her head. She felt cocooned by him, warm and safe and yet vulnerable in a way that made her knees weak and her nerves dance with anticipation. They stood that way for a long time, lost in the beauty of the night, unwilling to break the moment of unspoken connection.
“I was married,” Damaris said and stopped, surprised at herself. Her marriage was a story she never told anyone. Not even her best friend in Chesley, Thea, knew the particulars of that part of her life. Indeed, it was a time that Damaris herself would just as soon forget. Yet for some reason, here in the dark, surrounded by Alec’s strength, the words had just popped out.
Alec made no movement. She could feel his solidity against her back, the steady rhythm of his heart. His lips brushed her hair. He did not speak or urge her on, but she could feel him waiting, his silence, his presence somehow encouraging her. The need to tell him swelled in her, and she began to talk, the story flowing out of her.
I
was young—seventeen—and barely out of
school,” Damaris began. “I was thrilled to be attending parties and plays and the opera. My mother and I were in Italy then, in Venice. My friends were Italian, but there were other Englishmen around. One of them was Barrett Howard. He was… oh, the sort of man young girls dream about: handsome and sensitive, with a very poetical lock of hair that fell engagingly across his forehead when he grew emotional.”
Alec let out a derisive snort, and Damaris sighed. “Yes, I was very young and terribly foolish. He loved me, he said, and I was certain I loved him, too. My mother was charmed by him, but she said we must wait. I was too young. When I pressed her, she wrote to my guardian. My father was dead by then, but he had left us well provided for. There was a trust for us, and one of the trustees was a friend of my father whom he had named as my guardian. This guardian wrote back that he would not allow it. He would travel to Italy the next summer, when I was eighteen, and if we were still of a mind to marry, he would meet Barrett then.”
She hesitated, and Alec’s arms hugged her a little closer. “I take it this chap did not want to wait.”
“No. No doubt you have already guessed the rest of the story. Barrett could not bear to be without me so long. We were too much in love; my guardian was a dry, cold, aged man who did not understand the strength of young love. I was flattered by the thought that Barrett could not live with out me, and I, too, thought my guardian, who was not even a man who knew me well, was stuffy and unreasonable. I did not like being thwarted, especially by one of those aristocrats who belonged to the world that had taken my father from me. Even though he was my father’s friend, I felt certain he hated me and wanted only to hurt me. So when Barrett suggested that we elope and marry without their permission, I was happy to agree. When my gaurdian saw how much we loved each other and how we could not be kept apart, then of course he would give his permission.”
“Which he did.”
“Yes. After I had run off with Barrett, my reputation would have been in tatters if I had not married him. As it was, of course, it was a scandal. And it brought one of the other trustees to Italy—not my father’s friend, but his solicitor.”
“Ah…” Alec said in a knowing voice.
“Yes. Ah…” Damaris kept a firm rein on her voice as she went on, “Mr. Carstairs proceeded to explain the terms of the trust to Barrett. Neither my mother nor I had any control over the trust. Even after I turned twenty-one, the money would not yet be mine. It would continue for my mother’s
benefit and then for mine, and would not come to me until I was thirty.”
“In other words, Mr. Howard would not get his hands on the full amount.”
“Precisely. He could not have the principle or, indeed, any money that the trustees did not want to give us.”
“I see.”
“So did he. He was infuriated. He railed at Carstairs, to no avail, and then he came home and railed at me. He told me that he did not love me; indeed, he had no interest in me except for my money.” Damaris’s voice caught and she waited a moment, swallowing as though to force down the old emotion that threatened to rise in her.