Ravished by the Rake (20 page)

She stared at him. ‘But you thought I had slept with Stephen. Why would this make any difference?’

‘Because it makes you my responsibility. Don’t you see that?’

‘No, I do not. It was eight years ago, Alistair. And you were drunk.’

‘That makes it worse. Why didn’t you tell me straight away?’ He paced the small hut, ignoring his nakedness.

‘In Calcutta? What would you suggest I should have said? Good evening, Lord Lyndon. Don’t you recall the last time we met? You were kicking me out of your bedchamber after taking my virginity?’

‘No! I mean before we made love.’

‘I did not want to talk about it. I wanted, not to forget it exactly, but to put it behind me. And then it got rather out of hand,’ she admitted. ‘I was not expecting to feel like that: so overwhelmed. I hadn’t got much experience, even now, remember?’

‘Don’t rub it in,’ he said with a bitter laugh, as he turned away to pick up his breeches. ‘Thanks to me, you have now.’ He hauled the damp, clinging fabric over his hips, picked up the remnants of his shirt and tossed it away again. ‘Get dressed, you are shivering.’

She was, Dita realised, and not just from cold. Why was he so angry with her? Was this her fault, too?

‘Pass me my clothes, then,’ she said, suddenly shy of her nudity. He gave them to her and she wriggled into the camisole and then the petticoats. They had fared better
than Alistair’s breeches; their thin cotton had dried in the warmth from the fire, although the salt made them feel unpleasant against her skin. The corset was still damp and she tossed it aside with a grimace of distaste.

‘We must get married as soon as possible. It is fortunate your parents are down in Devon and not in London; we can organise something quietly.’

‘Marry you?’ She sat there in her damp undergarments and shivered at the tone of his voice. ‘Why?’

He did not love her, for if he did, surely he would have said so. And when he had made love to her not one word of love or tenderness had passed his lips, only desire.

‘I told you. I as good as raped you and that makes you my responsibility.’ This was not what she needed to hear in his voice.

‘So I must be yours because of one drunken incident eight years ago?’

‘Exactly.’ Alistair turned and began to rummage around the shelves and dark corners of the hut while she dressed. ‘There’s nothing to drink, but I’ve found a knife.’ He took a blanket and cut a slit in the middle, then dropped it over her head. ‘That’s better than trying to walk with it wrapped round you,’ he said, doing the same for himself. He opened the door. ‘Come on.’

In the full daylight she could see his face clearly. Unshaven, bruised, grim. And, no doubt, he could see her very clearly, too, as she stood up. Did he realise that she was not shivering, but shaking with anger?

‘I will not marry you,’ she stated flatly. ‘I cannot believe you would insult me by offering it.’

‘Insult?’ He stopped in the doorway, every muscle tense.

‘Yes. I would not marry you, Alistair Lyndon, if you went down on your knees and begged me.’

‘You will have no choice. I will tell your father what happened.’

‘And I will say that you got a blow on the head in the shipwreck and are having delusions. They know the truth about Stephen, but they also know that no one else believes I did not sleep with him. I will tell them you are being gallant as an old friend, but that I do not want to marry you. They are going to believe me—what woman in her right mind would turn down Lord Lyndon, after all?’

‘So when you made love with me on the ship, when you returned my kisses—what was that?’

‘Desire and a curiosity to see if there was any difference in the way you make love sober and with some experience.’ That was not the truth, of course. She must have been in love with him for weeks. But it was not
her
feelings that were at issue here. ‘You don’t think I was in love with you, do you? No, of course not—you’d have avoided me like the plague.’

He could have had no idea how she felt about him, she supposed, seeing his mouth tighten into a hard line and his head come up. But then, neither had she, until a short while ago.

‘And do I make love better sober?’ Alistair made himself drawl, made himself sound cynical and blasé when all he wanted was to shout and rage and shake her until her teeth rattled. How could she have kept that from him? Everything he believed about himself seemed to
crumble. He had been capable of behaving like that and had not even remembered it.

By any objective standards Dita looked ghastly—pale, bruised, serious, her hair hanging in tangled, sticky clumps—but her dignity and her anger shone through. He would have been happier, he realised, if she had been weeping. That did not make him feel any better about himself either.

‘Oh, considerably. It was very nice the first time, but this was better,’ she said. ‘I haven’t any grounds for comparison, you understand, but the sobriety would have helped. And, of course, no doubt your technique has improved with age and experience.’

‘You little cat.’

‘Meow,’ she said bitterly as she got to her feet with none of her usual grace. For a moment he glimpsed the ungainly child as she adjusted the grey blanket.

He hardened his heart. Dita, who valued love and emotion in marriage, had rejected him. Foolish, headstrong, romantic idiot of a woman. Did she think he
wanted
to be leg-shackled to a passionate, troublesome, headstrong female?
A narrow escape,
he told himself, feeling sick. But it wasn’t. She had thrown his honour back in his face.

‘Ready?’ He made his voice as brisk as he could with his throat rasped raw by salt water and emotion. ‘We will discuss this later.’ She shot him a mutinous look. ‘Now the sun is up I can at least tell which direction we’re facing. Last night I couldn’t make head nor tail of the stars—I have been away from northern Europe too long, I suppose.’

‘Or possibly you were a trifle weary for some reason,’
Dita suggested with some of the old spirit back in her voice as she came out of the hut to join him.

‘Could be that,’ he conceded. Now was no time to pursue this shattering argument; he needed to get her safe. ‘Now, that’s a good-sized island over there and that’s east, so, if I recall the map correctly, it must be St Mary’s, which is the biggest. Which makes this one Tresco, and if I’m right it has a fishing village at the northern end.’ He glanced down at her, but her face was averted. ‘It won’t take me long; you should rest here.’

‘I am coming,’ Dita said with an edge to her voice that warned him that she was close to the end of her tether.

‘All right,’ he said and began to walk. It was hard now he was actually moving. Everything seemed to hurt, he was desperately thirsty and shaken to the core over what Dita had told him. But she kept up with the slow pace he set, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other, and he wondered whether any of the other women on the ship would have shown the same stoical courage. Averil Heydon, perhaps, but none of the other young women had the sheer guts. Probably they wouldn’t need them; thanks to Averil and Dita, they had gone off in the first boats.

‘I should have insisted you went off in an earlier boat,’ he said, following his thoughts.

‘How? By picking me up and throwing me into it?’ she asked in a valiant imitation of her best provocative voice. ‘You must learn you cannot order me about, Alistair.’

‘So you say,’ he snapped. It was bite back or take her in his arms and kiss her until her voice lost that little quaver that cut straight through his anger and shame and
frustration. And he knew where that would lead. ‘Damn it, Dita, you must marry me.’

Her silence was almost more loaded with anger than a retort would have been. Then after a few more steps she said, ‘I doubt I will ever marry. If a man asks me to marry him, despite the scandal, and I love him, then I will marry him. Otherwise, I will just have to stay a spinster. I am not going to marry you in order to ease your guilty conscience, Alistair.’

They plodded on for a few more painful steps along the turf above the high-water mark. The sea was grey and choppy after the storm and he kept his body between it and her as much as he could. ‘So you propose a test if someone proposes—does he love you enough to marry you despite Doyle?’

‘I suppose so. I had not given it much thought; I just know that is what I would do.’

Would he have passed her test? he had wondered. If, before this shattering revelation, he found he loved Dita Brooke and wanted to marry her, would the thought of one lover in her past make a difference? He thought of his one love, his past love. She’d had another lover, and that had broken his heart. But then, look who the man was—

Love was a fantasy and a trap. Dita must agree to marry him whether she liked it or not.

‘I hear voices!’ Dita looked up, alert. ‘Over there, past those rocks.’

They stumbled forwards, his arm around her shoulders, and, as they reached the low tumbled headland three men in blue came over it. Sailors. ‘They’ve set the navy to search,’ he said as the men broke into a run. ‘It
is all right now, Dita, you’re safe.’

‘I was always safe with you,’ she said, her voice thready, then, as he held her, she went limp and fainted dead away.

‘… S
everal ships at anchor in St Mary’s Pool, so the Governor ordered off crews to all the islands to check along the shorelines.’ The confident West Country voice soothed Dita with the longed-for cadences of home.

‘How many survivors?’ Alistair’s voice rumbled against her ear. He must be holding her, she realised, coming out of the hazy dream-state she had been in.
Hiding,
she reproved herself.
Coward.
But she did not move. He was warm now, and it was not blanket she was snuggled against, but good woollen cloth.
I love you, I hate you, I need you … Why couldn’t you have told me you loved me and made it all right?

‘Can’t say for sure, my lord. All the longboats that went off before yours got in to harbour—some to St Mary’s, some to Old Grimsby on Tresco. But an elderly man on one of those had a heart seizure and a lady perished of the cold, so I hear. There are injuries as well—I don’t know how serious. The crew all got off safe after your boat was swamped.’

‘There was a passenger left with the crew—any news of him?’

‘No, my lord, I’m sorry, I don’t know. But they’ll be picking people up all along the beaches, I’ll be bound. You’ll hear the news when we get you back to the Governor’s house. Not long now, this is a good strong crew.’

The strange rocking motion made sense now, and the breeze on her face: she was in a boat. Dita opened her eyes and moved and Alistair’s hand pressed her cheek tighter against his chest. ‘Don’t be afraid. We’re nearly there.’

‘I’m all right.’ She shifted again and he relaxed his arms so that she could sit up straight on his knees. She wanted to move away from him, but there was nowhere to go. They were in a navy jolly boat with smartly dressed sailors at the oars, making good progress towards a rugged little jetty dead ahead. Opposite her a lieutenant with red hair and a crop of freckles looked at her with concern on his plain face. ‘I am sorry to have been so feeble,’ she apologised. ‘I think it was relief.’

‘It will be that, my lady,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant Marlow, ma’am. You probably don’t recall, but we took you to Mrs Welling’s cottage and she found you some clothes—not that they’ll be what you are used to. You’ll be wanting a nice hot cup of tea, I expect.’

‘A nice cup of tea.’ She quelled the urge to laugh; if she started she might not stop. Of course, a nice cup of tea would make everything all right. ‘Yes, that will be very welcome.’ It was an effort to speak sensibly—her frantic, circling thoughts kept pulling her away from the present. She wondered if she was going to faint again.
Why did I tell him about that night? But I have to be honest with him. I love him.

‘Have this now.’ Alistair pressed a flask into her hands and she made herself turn to look at him. Someone had lent him clothes, too, and he had shaved and washed and combed his hair. If it wasn’t for a black eye and the scrapes and bruises, he might be any gentleman out for a pleasure trip. ‘It is cold tea and you need the liquid,’ he said prosaically, steadying her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, as politely as a duchess at a tea party, and took the flask. It was cold, without milk or sugar, and it slid down her throat like the finest champagne.

When the boat bumped against the fenders at the quayside Dita made herself stand up and picked her way over the rowing benches to the side, determined to put on a brave face and not make an exhibition of herself in front of all these strangers. But curiously her fear of being in a small boat had gone and she stepped on to the stone steps without a qualm or an anxious look at the water slopping against the jetty. Perhaps after that great wave anything else was trivial, or else it was the emotional impact of that confrontation in the hut.

There was a crowd at the harbour side: onlookers; small groups of sailors with their officers, apparently being briefed for the next part of the search; some harassed clerks with lists and men holding half-a-dozen donkeys.

‘It’s very steep up to the Garrison,’ Lieutenant Marlow said. ‘Best ride a donkey, my lady.’

‘Very well.’ She let Alistair take her arm as they
walked to the animals. She knew she should be strong and not lean on him, not encourage him in his delusion that he was responsible for her, but his strong body so close was too comforting just now to resist. He boosted her up to sit sideways on the broad saddle. ‘Alistair! Look—there’s another boat coming in with people in it. Who is it?’

‘Stay here.’ He walked to the edge of the jetty and stared down, then came back. ‘Mrs Edwards, a merchant’s wife whose name I don’t recall, and one of the Chattertons. He looks in bad shape.’ He hesitated. ‘They all do. Best you go on up to the house; the Governor’s people will look after you.’

‘See whether it is Daniel or Callum,’ Dita urged. ‘Find out how he is.’ It must look bad if Alistair was trying to get her away.