‘What did you expect? I was only fourteen at the time.’
‘And I was twenty-one and a laughing stock. I only per
mitted you to touch my hair because I did not wish to hurt your feelings.’
‘Handsome of you,’ Rachel said. ‘You would have done better to refuse since it evidently made such an impression on you that you remember it to this day.’
‘Whereas you do not?’
‘Of course not. I have far greater concerns than your sartorial disasters.’ Rachel put her head on one side and studied him. ‘On second thoughts, it is better that you do not attend any of the Midwinter social events. I would not wish the ladies to be disappointed in you.’
‘Do you think that they would be?’ Cory’s tone was mild.
Rachel laughed. ‘The temptation to give you a set-down is strong, Cory, but I cannot do it in all honesty. No, I do not think they would be disappointed. Your reputation precedes you. The combination of rake and adventurer is utterly lethal. They would expect you to look somewhat dishevelled and be dissatisfied if you did not.’
Cory threw back his head and laughed. ‘That is what I like about you, Rachel. Your company is so bracing. You tell it just as it is.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But I do have to dispute the charge of being a rake,’ Cory continued. ‘I cannot lay claim to such a title.’
Rachel opened her eyes wide. ‘Do you expect me to believe that?’
‘On my honour.’ Cory shifted. ‘I simply do not have the time.’
Rachel stifled a snort of laughter. ‘You are claiming that to be a rake requires an investment of
time?
’
‘Of course.’ Cory put the pot of oil aside and wiped his hands on his trousers. Rachel shuddered. ‘Time, energy and strategy,’ Cory said. ‘Those are the prime requirements for life as a libertine and I am simply too busy.’
‘You have evidently studied this in detail,’ Rachel ob
served. ‘Do you not have a cloth on which to wipe your hands? You will get oil on the food.’
‘What? Oh…’ Cory reached behind him for the greasy rag that lay in the grass. He rubbed his hands vigorously. ‘That’s better.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Rachel said. ‘You have merely managed to spread the oil around more.’
Cory shrugged. ‘We are not all of us so orderly as you, Rae.’
‘I had noticed it,’ Rachel said, wrinkling her nose up. She drew her knees up to her chin, making sure that her skirts were neatly deployed about her ankles. ‘So if you did have the time and energy,’ she said, ‘would the life of a rake appeal to you?’
‘No,’ Cory said. ‘It is far too boring. Compared to antiquities…’ He sighed. ‘Well, there is no comparison.’
‘The charms of the female of the species cannot compare with the thrill of digging up ancient artefacts?’ Rachel frowned. ‘You are scarce flattering, Cory.’
‘You cannot have it both ways,’ Cory said, tilting the flask of cider to his lips and leaving dirty fingerprints on it that Rachel could see, even in the firelight. ‘You take me to task for flirting and then criticise me for saying that I prefer antiquity hunting to the pursuit of love.’ He delved into the packet of food. ‘Antiquity hunting is a thrill,’ he said, his mouth full. ‘The thrill of the chase, the pleasure of discovery, the excitement of exploration…’
‘Some people describe love in those terms,’ Rachel pointed out.
‘Would you?’ Cory said.
Their gazes locked, suddenly heated. Rachel could see the flame of the fire reflected in Cory’s eyes. The force of his gaze held her spellbound. It was intense and challenging and it asked questions that Rachel had never confronted in her life and stirred feelings in her that she had never experienced before. Her lips parted and she saw Cory’s eyes
narrow on them, and the jolt of feeling possessed her and made her weak.
‘I cannot tell,’ she whispered. ‘I have no experience on which to judge.’
Cory nodded. He smiled a little. ‘I am glad to hear that.’
The tension between them broke abruptly. Released from the strange power that had held her, Rachel felt shaken and cross. She did not really understand what had happened there other than that it had been akin to the odd compulsion that had captured her that morning when she had seen Cory by the river. She wished wholeheartedly to be free of such disturbing emotions.
She fidgeted with the paper wrapper that had covered the food. ‘Why should it concern you anyway?’ she said crossly. ‘I suppose that as my honorary brother you feel obliged to defend my reputation?’
There was an odd note in Cory’s voice when he answered. ‘Something of the sort,’ he said. He looked out across the darkened fields and then suddenly back at her face. ‘You are too good for all that, Rachel, for the flirtation and the insincerity and the profligate waste of love. You are…’ he hesitated ‘…too honest to play those games.’
Rachel’s heart beat quickly and lightly. ‘Dear me,’ she said, trying to sound untroubled and only succeeding in sounding hard and unnatural, ‘it sounds as though someone has broken your heart, Cory, to turn you so philosophical! Was it Lady Russell, last autumn? I heard that the two of you were inseparable for a while.’
‘You heard wrongly,’ Cory said. He looked moody. ‘I have never had my heart broken, Rae.’
‘Perhaps it would be good for you,’ Rachel said. ‘Sometimes I wish that someone would teach you a lesson.’
Cory looked up and met her eyes. He was unsmiling. ‘That is a little unkind of you,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ Rachel frowned. She had been trying to inject
some lightness into their banter and yet it seemed that Cory did not wish to respond. His expression was still sombre.
‘I suppose it was a little cruel of me,’ she said. ‘I beg your pardon, Cory. I thought that we were only funning.’
There was a small silence. Rachel felt awkward. It seemed as though something had gone wrong between them that evening, and yet she could not see what it was. Cory had displayed that masculine high-handedness that always irritated her, insisting that she should be a pattern card of female virtue whilst he, of course, could do as he pleased. She looked at him under her lashes. He still looked morose, which was so unusual for him that she felt a pang.
‘I did not mean to be unkind,’ she said, anxious to mend the hurt.
Cory glanced up again and smiled at her. Rachel felt her heart ease a little. ‘It is not important,’ he said. ‘It is only that I did not wish you to think that antiquities are the only thing that matter to me and that I cared for no one, Rae.’
Rachel stared, taken aback. ‘Of course not! I never thought that. That is, I know that you care for your family, of course, and for my parents, and…’ she stuttered, breaking off in unexpected confusion.
‘And for you,’ Cory said gently. ‘I care for you, Rae.’
Rachel looked at him and then looked swiftly away. She felt hot and awkward. ‘I…Yes, I know. I mean that I understand that, Cory.’
She heard Cory sigh. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take some of the cider before I drink it all and give away all my most closely guarded secrets!’
He passed her the flask. Rachel took it gingerly between her fingers and drank from it, taking care that the oily smears touched neither her skin nor her clothes. Cory watched her, a faint smile on her lips.
‘You will spill it if you don’t hold it properly,’ he said.
‘I only want a little,’ Rachel said. She felt the liquid trickle down her throat, heady and sweet. ‘It is far too strong
for me. Indeed, I think it carries on brewing in the bottle. Much more, and I shall be seeing apparitions down here amongst the graves!’
‘No ghost would dare set foot out here whilst you are present, Rae,’ Cory said wryly. ‘Your stern common sense would soon scare them away.’
His words made Rachel feel a strange sadness. ‘Is that how you see me?’ she said, a little wistfully. ‘Stern and practical, with a dislike of dirt?’
‘Amongst other things.’
‘What other things?’
Cory’s head was bent and his expression hidden from her. She felt a sudden powerful desire to shake him until he looked at her. She felt a need to demand an honest answer from him. She was not sure why it was suddenly so important to her to know, only that it seemed the most urgent thing in the world.
Cory started to fit the rifle back together. It interlocked smoothly, with a little click each time a piece fitted into place.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘it is better not to persist.’
Rachel thought about that and then persisted. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Do you hold an opinion of me that I would find unflattering?’
Cory sighed. ‘Not in the least,’ he said. He looked up and there was a smile at the back of his eyes and it made Rachel tingle with a most unforeseen pleasure. ‘I do not wish you to get yourself into unexpectedly deep waters.’
They looked at one another. Rachel felt a
frisson
of anticipation.
‘Are you about to pay me a compliment?’ she asked, eyes wide.
‘No,’ Cory said. He locked the barrel of the rifle with a final snap.
‘Oh.’ The warm feeling inside Rachel fizzled out.
‘I think I was about to kiss you.’ Cory looked at her for a heartbeat. ‘What would you have said then, Rae?’
Rachel crushed down the rogue flare of excitement that his words engendered. ‘I would have said that you had taken too much of Mrs Goodfellow’s inflammatory cider,’ she said steadily.
‘I do not think that it is the cider that is inflammatory,’ Cory said, still holding her gaze, ‘but no doubt you are correct, Rae. A kiss between friends is usually a mistake.’
‘You sound very knowledgeable on the subject,’ Rachel said, ‘Do you kiss many of your friends?’
‘No,’ Cory said. He sighed again. ‘When did I kiss you last, Rachel?’
‘About fifteen years ago, I think,’ Rachel said. ‘I had lost my pet rabbit and I think you meant to comfort me. I remember it was a sticky and wet kiss and I wished you had not bothered. And anyway, I found the rabbit the next day.’
Cory laughed. ‘A salutary tale! It is getting late. I will escort you back to the house.’
He put out a hand and pulled Rachel to her feet. His touch was warm and strong and she resisted the urge to hold on tightly and pull him closer. He let her go and bent to drag the charred branches from out of the fire, scattering the embers until they died away. Immediately the night seemed darker and less friendly. The crescent moon cast barely a glow. Rachel shivered.
‘I wish I had thought to bring a lantern. It is strange how different it feels out here when it is full dark.’
‘Take my hand and then if we fall over it will be together.’ Cory’s voice came out of the nearby shadows and sounded reassuring. Rachel gingerly put her hand out and touched the material of his sleeve. She jumped.
‘Oh, I had forgot that I was sitting on your jacket.’ She picked it up and started to brush the earth from it but Cory stopped her.
‘Do not take the trouble. It will not make the slightest
difference. It is beyond saving, I fear.’ He shrugged himself into it and bent down to pick up the rifle, holding his spare hand out to Rachel. ‘Come on, Rae.’
Rachel took his hand. It felt odd to be holding hands like they had done when they were younger. The memories crowded in on her there in the dark. She was running along a white sand beach in Scotland, clasping Cory’s hand and laughing when she was eight to his fourteen; she was grabbing hold of Cory and holding him tightly with grief when her pet lizard had died in Egypt the following year; she was taking his hand in a country dance at her first ball…She interlocked her fingers with his and held him close. It felt familiar—and subtly different.
They managed to reach the stable yard without falling into a barrow and when they were at the back door of the house Cory let go of her and turned to face her, resting the butt of the rifle on the ground.
‘Goodnight, Rae,’ he said. He smiled into her eyes. ‘I enjoyed this evening.’
‘Cleaning your rifle?’ Rachel said lightly.
‘It has its own peculiar charm,’ Cory agreed gravely. He hesitated, then bent forward and kissed her. His cheek brushed hers, hard against her softness. Rachel’s skin shivered.
‘A kiss between friends,’ she said lightly. ‘One might even go so far as to say a brotherly kiss.’
For the second time that night she saw a flash in Cory’s eyes that was wholly masculine but far from brotherly. It was a look that spoke of desire and conjured wanton images of tangled bed sheets and naked skin and all the things that Rachel had read about and never associated with her own life and in particular had never thought of in conjunction with Cory Newlyn, her childhood friend. She opened her mouth to speak, though she had no notion what she was about to say, and in the same instant Cory took a very purposeful step towards her.
The door of the house opened abruptly and Sir Arthur Odell appeared in the doorway, the
Antiquarian Review
trailing from one hand and his reading glasses clasped in the other.
‘What the devil is going on here? Can a man have no peace in his own home? I am
trying
to concentrate on Crabbe’s report on the Lincolnshire excavations!’
Rachel dragged her gaze from Cory’s face, though the action seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort.
‘There is no need to create a fuss, Papa,’ she said. ‘It is only Cory and I. We have been down at the excavation site.’
‘Oh.’ Sir Arthur looked nonplussed. ‘I thought that some knavish creature was out to rob us.’
‘Not at all, Papa,’ Rachel said. ‘And I do not believe that we can have been making a great deal of noise.’ She took his arm. ‘Come along inside now. Goodnight, Cory.’
Cory’s gaze had not wavered from her during the entire exchange; though Rachel had not been looking at him she had felt him watching her. Now he bowed slightly. ‘Goodnight, Rae,’ he said. ‘I will see you in the morning.’
He walked off in the direction of the stable and Rachel shook herself out of the strange, heated lethargy that seemed to possess her. For a second she leaned back against the door, feeling the handle cold against her hot palm. Perhaps she had imagined that flash of desire in Cory’s eyes, but she did not think so. Nor could she dismiss the answering spark it had lit deep within her. From their very first meeting that morning, something had changed between them. She did not understand it and she was not sure that she liked it. She wanted their old friendship back, with all its comforting familiarity. She stood still for a moment, letting the cool breeze touch her face and calm her mind. Cory was her friend and her parents’ colleague. He would never flirt with her or try to seduce her. Very likely he did not even wish to and she had imagined the whole thing. There was nothing to fear at all.