Once in a Blue Moon (16 page)

"And the man who built the steam locomotive," she said in a voice choked with unshed tears. "Who is he?"

The bitter tilt lingered on his mouth, and shadows had consumed all the light in his eyes. "He's a fool. A bloody fool."

He watched the girl skip along the beach, her rusty laughter clashing against the rhythmic rush of the sea. He called her name.

She whirled, her laughter cracking like the squawk of
a
hungry bird. "Clarence!"

Picking up her skirt, she ran toward him, and a warm glow suffused his chest, for she seemed glad to see him. Words tumbled out of her as she stopped, breathing hard, in front of him. "What are you doing here? I've barely seen you all summer."

Clarence slapped his tan kid gloves against his leg. He stared out over a sea that was a pale opal green. The light breeze smelled of seaweed and fish. It flattened her skirt, outlining the slim contours of her legs.

The warmth he'd felt on first seeing her dissipated, and an irritation took its place. It would never occur to her that he had been busy working, making his fortune. She had no conception of the value of money.
She's like all the others of her class,
he thought with an inner sneer.
The impoverished gentry with their long pedigrees and short purses, living on their three percents and a few acres of land.

He turned on her, feeling a sudden flash of anger; he wanted her to be different. But then he looked at her smiling mouth and knew he could not really be angry with her for long. "How have you been, Jessalyn?"

Her smiled widened, and her gray eyes lightened to the color of the sea beneath a hot, glaring sun. "Oh, brave, brave. The pilchards came last night. You should have seen it."

There was a smear of sand on his ginger yellow boots. He flicked it off with his gloves. He spoke to the ground. "Trelawny won't marry you, you know. He's only out for a lark."

She said nothing. Encouraged, he pressed on. He was consumed with the need to make her see, to force her to understand that behind his handsome face and his aristocratic name, McCady Trelawny was only a shell of a man, a man with no principles, no scruples. A man incapable of giving and receiving love.

But of course, she would never see it; she had been gulled by that ravishing smile, that seductive charm. So he must use reason instead.

"A lieutenant in His Majesty's army clears maybe twenty-eight shillings after expenses. That's
all
his income, Jessalyn. His wastrel brother gives him no allowance. He gambles, of course. All the Trelawnys do, and they all have the same abysmal luck at it. They gamble with their heritage, and they gamble with their lives. When his brother, the earl, finally kills himself through overindulgence in all of his notorious vices, the only thing Mack will inherit will be his debts. And his disgrace."

"And the title."

"Is that what you're angling for—to be a countess?"

"Of course not!"

She had said it with such vehemence he believed her. He bent over and picked up a shell, tossing it at a heron that stood brooding at the tide line, its head buried in its feathers, its wings humped. The shell missed its mark, and the bird didn't even stir.

"If
he inherits the title," Clarence said. He watched the heron because he couldn't bear to look at her. "Caerhays is unlikely to marry; no decent woman would have him. But Mack must still manage to outlive him, and they say the West Indies is a deadly place. And these pipe dream inventions of his—these iron horses and horseless carriages—"

"They are not pipe dreams! They are the future, only you are all too blind to see it. And so you persecute him for his vision."

His head jerked around, and his gaze searched her face. He saw what he expected—shining hero worship for a man who deserved nothing but her contempt.

"His
visions
consume what little money he does manage to accumulate, and they could well end up killing him someday. If he does outlive his brother and become the earl, he won't marry you. He will marry for money then because he will be the last of that God-cursed family, and though he might be irresponsible in every other way, he will do his duty by his name. It's another Trelawny tradition, the only thing that has kept their line from dying out years ago. And there is no end of rich cits' daughters who will sell soul and body to be called
my lady."

As he ought to know. His mother's sister had been one of them. And his own mother had sold her soul and body to be called
my lord's mistress.

He felt her eyes on him, those enormous gray eyes that saw so much. And yet so little. "Why do you hate him?" she asked.

Clarence watched a ripple of the sea advance over the dry sand. He had felt so empty lately, filled with this terrible sense of loss. As if he had been the one to give up his innocence.

"I don't want to see you hurt," he said.

"Then don't talk to me about him.
I
don't want to talk about him with you."

He looked at her, at the willful set to her chin. He couldn't understand what there was about her that drew him. She wasn't pretty. She had red hair, and she was too wide in the mouth, too tall, too wild and exuberant, too... much. Yet he remembered the feel of her lips, soft and warm and tasting faintly of Midsummer's Eve ale, and he wanted to feel them again.

But he was afraid that if he tried to kiss her now, she would turn her mouth away from his. And if she did that, he would not be able to bear it.

The cat Peaches had been trying all afternoon to take a nap on the sun-warmed bricks in front of the kitchen door, but her kittens were giving her little peace. They crawled all over her, nipping at her ears, butting their noses into her belly, searching for a nipple. From time to time she would lift a lazy paw and bat one of the pesky creatures away from her.

The smell of soured cream drifted out the door, and the ground began to vibrate with the steady thump-thump of
a
butter churn pump. Peaches got up, arched her back in
a
big stretch, and sauntered inside to investigate, her kittens trailing after like rags on a kite. Except for the littlest one, who couldn't make it over the doorsill.

The runty kitten had thrived under Jessalyn's mothering. She called him Napoleon because though small, he was
a
fierce little tacker, and he liked to bully his other brothers and sisters. The black-backed gull didn't know, of course, that the kitten had been named after a man who had once been the master of Europe. Or that the little ball of orange fluff had become that summer the recipient of
a
young woman's fierce and overflowing love. He saw dinner, and he took it.

At the time Jessalyn was leaning against the paddock fence, watching the Sarn't Major break Letty's Hope to the lead. He did it slowly, introducing the filly to the halter by letting her smell it and rubbing the pliant leather over her neck and around her ears. He was just about to slip the halter over the filly's nose when she skittered back in alarm as a piercing scream shattered the afternoon.

"The gull!" Becka Poole ran across the yard, pointing up into the sky. "He's snatched Napoleon. Oooh, me life an' body."

Jessalyn whirled, her head falling back. The enormous black-backed gull swooped low across the courtyard, wings spread wide, little Napoleon dangling from its powerful beak.

"I'll get the musket," the Sarn't Major said, coming up beside her.

"No!" Jessalyn cried, the word made harsh with her horror. "You'd only end up killing them both." The gull banked in a broad, sweeping turn, making for the cliffs. Picking up her skirts, she ran after it.

Becka and the Sarn't Major watched their young mistress race across the headland on her hopeless chase after the gull. Her hat had fallen off, bouncing against her back, and her cinnamon hair snapped like a flag in the wind. Becka wiped a tear from her eye. "She loved that silly, runty kit."

"Aye," the Sarn't Major said.

"That gull will eat anything," Becka said. "He'll be consummating us next. The ravishing scavenger."

The Sarn't Major's answer was a grunt. But as he walked back to the paddock, his thick lips twitched, almost cracking into a smile. Then he thought of how Miss Jessalyn would mourn the loss of that runty kitten, and he went to get the musket. He was bloody well going to kill that bloody gull.

Jessalyn's steps slowed as she reached the cliffs. She breathed in great, gasping gulps, one hand pressed against the thrusting beat of her heart. The gull had disappeared. The cove was empty except for a fishing boat with copper- colored sails. Clouds, their bellies black like coal dust, lay low and thick on the sea. White-tipped waves stippled the sand, and suds swirled between the rocks.

The wind whipped at the cliffs, making high-pitched, wailing sounds like mourners at a funeral. She almost didn't hear it, the squeaky meow that came from Napoleon in a temper.

She scanned the pinnacles and pillars of rocks, which were tufted here and there with thrift and stunted gorse bushes. A splash of orange sitting on a jutting narrow ledge stood out among the plain grays and browns. The big bird must have lighted on the stony outcrop, released its prey, and flown off. Perhaps she'd made enough noise to frighten it away, but if so, it was bound to return.

She glanced out to sea, looking for the gull. The boat was tacking closer to the shore. She squinted against the glare of the water, trying to see more clearly. A young man stood at the tiller. Tall and lean, he wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, tanned arms, and the wind tossed his dark hair. A black-haired girl sat beside him, and she must have said something at that moment because he half turned and looked down at her, and he laughed. The sound of his laughter, deep and husky, carried to Jessalyn on the wind. She gasped, nearly doubling over as suspicion blossomed into a terrible, stabbing pain in her belly.

Napoleon yowled.

Jessalyn swallowed, found her breath. "I'm coming, m'love." Straightening, she pushed her wind-lashed hair out of her eyes.
I will not cry,
she told herself.
I will not.
She cast one last agonized look at the boat, then started down the cliff path, blinking hard against the tears that kept threatening to come anyway.

The path sliced like a narrow, diagonal scar across the face of the cliff. It didn't pass close to the ledge where Napoleon sat, still yowling his displeasure. Since she couldn't reach him from the path, she would have to climb down the bluff, using the seams and pocks in the rocks like rungs on a ladder.

She removed her gloves for a better grip, then descended backward, feetfirst, feeling for and finding first one niche, then another. This would have been a difficult, though not an impossible, feat for a girl who had spent her childhood climbing all over the crags and steeps of the Cornish coast. But the fog had been heavy that morning, and the shale and granite rocks were wet and slippery.

She had gone about ten feet, out of reach now of the path, when the gull came back.

The great bird screeched and dived at her head. She caught sight of the white flash of his wings out the corner of her eye. Screaming, she flung out her arm to knock the bird away... and lost her balance.

She slithered down the rough rocks, banging her shins and knees. Her scrabbling fingers grasped at a naked furze bush, and she clung to it, swinging like a weather cock in the wind. She looked down at the sea, tumbling and foaming across the stony beach, and felt a rush of dizziness so strong she nearly retched. She shut her eyes, and the darkness seemed to intensify the sounds: her own harsh breathing, the smacking slap of the waves, Napoleon meowing, demanding to know what was taking her so long... and something else. Something distant, but coming closer.

The flap of wings.

As if he were possessed with a malevolent intelligence, the gull dived at her bare hands, pecking and slicing with his sharp, curved beak, then soaring up and away from her. Jessalyn screamed again in pain and terror, but she did not let go.

She waited, blood streaming down her outstretched arm from the gash in her hand, her breath sobbing in her throat, and then she heard it again, beneath the roar of the sea....

Flap... flap... flap...

"Oh, God..." She pressed her face against the slick rock and steeled herself for the bird's attack.

But it was the flap of lowering sails that she'd heard. Then the scrape of a boat's keel across the shingle and McCady Trelawny calling her name.

"Lieutenant!" she cried, her voice cracking in her relief. "Please don't let that plaguey bird come back."

"He's flown off. Miss Letty, how did you... Never mind. Just don't let go."

He seemed to be a long time in coming, and her arms grew tired. "Are you going to rescue me or not?"

"Not." He appeared on the cliff path overhead, looking tall and stark, silhouetted against the sooty sky. He had brought a bowline from the boat, and he dropped it down to her. "I am going to stand here and watch you fall to your death. Not only would it be far more amusing but it's what you deserve for being so bacon-brained as to try to climb down sheer rocks when there's a perfectly good path— ugh!" He grunted as she grasped the rope with both hands and swung outward, trusting that he would bear her weight. Instead of climbing straight up, she went down first, to get Napoleon.

She had no trouble making her way back up the bluff with him pulling on the rope. Grasping her under the arms, he hauled her to her feet. But when she put her weight on her right leg, she drew in a sharp breath, sucking on her lower lip. "I must have sprained my ankle somehow, I—"

She looked up to find his gaze fixed on her mouth. A muscle in his jaw clenched. With no warning, he swung her into his arms and carried her up the path. It felt so wonderful being held, being touched by him. Jessalyn wrapped one arm around his neck and let her cheek fall against his chest. His shirt was wet with sea spray and smelled like him.

He deposited her on top of the stone hedge that ran along the headland. "You are quite safe now, Miss Letty," he said. His fingers grasped the arm she still had fastened around him. "There is no longer any need to cling to my neck like a blowfly."

Her cheeks burning, she pulled away. She always got caught doing such foolish, reckless things whenever he was around. He must wonder if she did them deliberately, to get him to notice her. The possibility that he would think so made her squirm. She filled her lungs and expelled the ache in her chest with a breath.

Jessalyn set little Napoleon down next to her on the hedge, and he immediately wandered off after a beetle, completely oblivious of how close he'd come to being gull food. Lieutenant Trelawny stood between her spread legs, his hands on his hips. Unable to meet his eyes, she stared at his chest instead. The wind plastered his shirt against his body. His flesh showed dark and muscular beneath the thin, wet cloth. Her heart was pounding so hard she was surprised he couldn't hear it over the boom and hiss of the surf.

"Is it too much to ask what the bloody hell you were trying to do—fly to France?" he said. "Did you wake up this morning thinking you were a gull?"

Her head jerked up. His mouth was set in a thin, taut line. "I was rescuing Napoleon," she said, then laughed as his eyes widened and his brows lifted. "My kitten, you silly goose. Not the emperor in exile on St. Helena."

The creases beside his mouth deepened. "Of course," he said. "How stupid of me to think otherwise." He stepped back, bending over, and his shirt pulled across the broad width of his back. "Let me take a look at that ankle."

His hand encircled her ankle, and the touch of his fingers even through the stiff leather of her half boots sent a shiver up her leg. "I'm probably going to have to cut your boot off," he said.

Her breath came out in a great gush. "Oh, do try not to. Gram will flay me with her tongue for going through two pairs of boots in one summer. Is Sheba Stout your lover?"

His fingers tightened, and she sucked in a sharp breath. "Ouch!"

"Whom I take to my bed is none of your concern," he said.

"I was only making conversation."

"That wasn't conversation. That was vulgar curiosity." He jerked at the laces of her boot.

"Ow! Bloody hell, that hurts!"

"Shut it." He worked her bootheel back and forth, trying to pull it off, but his touch had gentled. "And clean up your attle gutter language while you're about it," he said. "It's obvious you've been keeping bad company."

She looked down at his bent head. She wondered how it would feel to press her lips there, where his hair curled over the nape of his neck. She touched it instead. It was surprisingly soft, like a child's, and damp from the sea air. "You've taught me other things besides how to curse like a soldier," she said.

His head went still beneath her hand.

"For instance, I have learned how to tell when a man wants to kiss me. You want to kiss me now, Lieutenant."

He let go of her ankle and straightened, backing a step away from her, as if she were a fire that had suddenly grown too hot. "For God's sake," he said, his voice so taut it cracked, "you are behaving worse than a Covent Garden doxy."

Her heart was thrusting so heavily in her breast she could barely breathe. She knew she played a dangerous game. Pushed too hard, he might not stop with a kiss. He would take her, fiercely and hungrily, the way a man took a woman he wanted. Her throat went dry, and she trembled at the possibility, but whether from fear or excitement even she didn't know.

She eased off the hedge and took a hopping step to put herself right up against him. "Tell me you don't want to kiss me."

His eyes flickered away from her, then settled back on her face. Cold, empty eyes, dark, like mine pits. "I don't want to kiss you,
little girl."

But she knew him now. Knew that he never said what he meant, and his eyes never showed what he was really feeling.

She curled her hands into the front of his shirt, feeling the solid flesh burn underneath the cloth and the way he shuddered. She wanted his arms around her; she wanted to yield to all his frightening strength and power. By yielding to him, she could make him hers. By touching his man's body, she could touch his man's soul.

She slid her hand up his chest, around the strong, tense curve of his neck, her fingers tangling in his damp hair. His hands closed around her upper arms, his fingers gripping hard enough to bruise. Tremors shimmied through him, his whole body vibrating like a wire pulled too tautly.

"I'm stopping this," he said on a harsh gasp as if he were in pain. She swayed, leaning into him, and he tried to shove her away. "Stop it!"

She pulled his head down until their lips were a breath away from touching. Her mouth parted open. "McCady," she said, and that was all.