The Temptation of Your Touch (37 page)

Max’s words would have been less painful if he hadn’t taken such care to gentle his gruff tones.
“What if this treasure never existed? What if it was just some fanciful tale concocted from legend and wishful thinking to amuse his children?”

“I couldn’t afford to believe that. I knew if I could find it, I would be able to hire a solicitor to clear Theo’s name and an investigator to locate him and bring him back from Australia. We could buy a new home somewhere far away from this place and be a family again.”

“Your father looked very comfortable with that pistol in his hand. It wasn’t Theo who pulled the trigger that night, was it?”

Angelica closed her eyes briefly, haunted by images she had spent the last ten years trying to forget. “They both heard me scream, but it was Papa who made it up the stairs first and found me with my dress half torn off and Timberlake on top of me, trying to . . .” She swallowed, surprised by how fresh the memory of that night still was. “I went there believing he was going to offer for me, to ask Papa for my hand. Or perhaps even try to coax me into eloping with him. What a ridiculous little fool I was to fall for that charlatan’s tricks! And my folly cost my family everything.”

“You might have been young and innocent and naïve,” Max said softly, “but you were no fool.”

“Papa shot Timberlake, but the strain was too much for him. He collapsed to the floor, clutching
his head. Theo and I both knew he would never survive prison, especially not in that condition. So we made a pact never to tell anyone what really happened. When the first guests came rushing over from the ballroom and up the stairs, it was to find Theo standing over Timberlake’s body with the gun.” She lifted her chin and met Max’s gaze squarely, no longer forced to hide the bloodthirsty glint in her eye. “I wish it had been me who shot him.”

Max slowly nodded. “And I wish it had been me. Just how long did it take you to make your way back here?”

“Six years. After five years, I managed to collect Papa from the asylum by pretending to be a long-lost cousin. He’d been there so long no one remembered he had once been a powerful lord. His
keepers
thought it was just another delusion. I found him living in squalor in a dirty cell that was little more than a stall.” She lowered her eyes and bit her lip, reluctant to reveal such a private pain. “He didn’t remember me. He talked about Angelica all the time, but never seemed to realize that I was her.”

“Until tonight,” Max said softly, reminding her of the tender adoration in her father’s eyes as he had smoothed her hair away from her face. “What about Pippa and Dickon? Where did you manage to collect them?”

She dragged the chain of her locket over her head
and handed it to him. He snapped the locket open, a puzzled frown furrowing his brow as he studied the two miniatures nestled within. “I recognize you and the boy who must be Theo. But who are the two children on the other side?”

Angelica leaned over, pointing at the little girl with the riotous dark curls holding a scowling baby boy in a long, white gown in her chubby arms. “The girl is Pippa and the boy is Dickon. They’re my half brother and sister.”

Max looked nearly as stunned as he had when he’d discovered she was Angelica.

“Please don’t judge Papa too harshly. To honor my mother’s memory, he chose never to remarry. But he had been a widower for a
very
long time, which resulted in a certain
friendship
with a pretty, young seamstress in Falmouth. When she died during a cholera outbreak, he brought Pippa and Dickon into our household and passed them off as distant cousins. He was determined to provide for them in every way, both emotionally and financially.”

“What happened to them after your father’s collapse?”

Angelica felt her face harden again. “Papa’s oh-so-helpful solicitor managed to find homes for them—at a workhouse in London. It took me almost five years to track them down. Pippa had been adopted by a wealthy tradesman and had grown
accustomed to lolling about in the lap of luxury, and Dickon had run away from the workhouse and was living on the streets, picking pockets to earn his bread.” She couldn’t help laughing at the memory. “Although they both came with me of their own accord, you’ve never met two more surly brats. Pippa still fancies herself quite the little lady of the manor, but Dickon began to blossom after I brought him here and turned him loose to run on the moors.”

Max arched an eyebrow at her. “And just who might the Elizabeths be? Long-lost cousins?”

“Just girls who had lost their way in this world. I found most of them on the streets of London, half-starved and abandoned by the men they had believed would take care of them.”

“And Nana?”

“My former nurse. Since my mother died in childbirth, Nana all but raised me. She was staying with her son and his brood in a nearby village when I came back to Cornwall, but leapt at the chance to return to Cadgwyck and live out her final years. Everyone I brought to this place had one thing in common: they understood the power of secrets and knew how to keep them.”

“Aren’t you forgetting the most important member of your cozy little household?”

“Who?”

“The White Lady.”

Anne lifted her chin to a haughty angle. “Nobody around these parts had ever forgotten Angelica Cadgwyck and her tragic end. We started spreading fresh rumors about the ghost long before we arrived. As you’ve already discovered, the locals are a superstitious lot, only too willing to attribute a will-o’-the-wisp or a banging shutter to some restless spirit. Before long Cadgwyck’s new owners couldn’t find anyone brave enough to spend the night here, much less staff the manor.”

“And that’s when the ever-practical Anne Spencer stepped in to save the day,” Max said, irony lacing his tone.

Anne Spencer’s dutiful smile appeared on Angelica’s lips. “Who could resist a reputable housekeeper with an entire staff of servants at her disposal? Once we were in residence, it became even easier to keep the legend of the White Lady alive. With each new master, the manor became a little less hospitable, a little more haunted.”

“How did you keep the villagers from recognizing you all?”

“Dickon does bear a striking resemblance to Theo, but he and Pippa were only small children when they were taken away. And we never let Hodges—I mean Papa—go into the village.”

“What about you? You go into the village every
week. How on earth could they fail to recognize you?”

“Even without the portrait to confuse them, I bear little resemblance to the pampered child they knew. People see what they expect to see. And most people don’t see servants at all. They’re nearly as invisible to the rest of the world as ghosts.”

Max shook his head. “When I think of your poor father reduced to living as a servant in his own home . . .” He frowned. “Wait a minute. You told me it was a stipulation of his that Angelica’s portrait never leave the house.”

“There was no stipulation.
I
was the one who dragged the portrait down from the attic and hung it on the landing to keep the legend of the White Lady alive. And to remind myself of the girl I had once been . . . and who I never wanted to be again. Then you had to come along and ruin everything! To prove I was still the same romantic fool who would give my heart to a man for the price of a kiss.”

Dangerous storm clouds had began to gather in his eyes. “
You’re
a romantic fool? I just flung myself over a cliff for you.”

She shook her head sadly. “Not for me. For
her
. For Angelica.”

“You
are
Angelica,” he growled. “My head wouldn’t let me admit it, but somewhere deep in my heart, I think I always knew.”

They stood there glaring at each other in the moonlight for a long moment before Angelica said quietly, “If you’re not going to send for the constable and have me hauled off to jail, I suppose I should start looking for another position.”

“Yes. I think that would be best. For the both of us.” He drew himself up, every inch the cold, forbidding master who had come to Cadgwyck Manor all those weeks ago. “I’d be more than happy to write you a letter of recommendation.”

“Considering the circumstances,” she said stiffly, “that would be incredibly gracious of you.”

“It will probably read something like this: ‘Angelica Cadgwyck, also known as Anne Spencer and any other number of unknown aliases, is the very model of everything a gentleman would seek in a housekeeper—sharp-tongued, bossy, deceitful, proud, sneaky, conniving, unscrupulous, utterly ruthless when it comes to achieving her aims—’ ”

Although his words flayed her tender heart like a barbed whip, Angelica held her tongue, knowing she had earned every acerbic syllable of his rebuke.

“ ‘—clever, courageous, honorable, sensible, determined, patient, generous, kind, devoted, an outstanding cook, marvelous with children, the elderly, the mentally infirm, and small, annoying pets, loyal to a fault, and by far the finest kisser I have
ever
had the pleasure of taking to my bed. Any man would
be blessed to welcome her to his household, not as a housekeeper, but as a wife. Which is why I pray she’ll do me the honor of becoming mine.’ ”

Angelica turned her back on him, not wanting him to see the fresh tears welling up in her eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do, Maximillian Burke, and I won’t have it! I’m not some damsel in distress anymore, and I don’t require rescuing by the likes of you!”

His hands closed over her upper arms, warming her chilled flesh with their irresistible heat. He touched his lips to her hair, the smoky rasp of his voice making her shiver with a need deeper than longing. “I’m the one who needs rescuing. Save me, Anne . . . Angelica . . . sweetheart. Save me from going back to being the man I was before I came here. Save me from all the years of loneliness I’ll have to endure without you in my arms. Save me from spending the rest of my life longing for a woman I can never have.”

Angelica turned in his arms. His dear, handsome face blurred before her eyes as she reached up to touch her fingertip to the furrow between his brows, smoothing out the scowl she loved so well. “Beneath that fearsome mask you wear, you’re nothing but a hopeless romantic. It’s what I’ve always adored the most about you.”

He gazed down at her, his gray eyes no longer
cold, but smoldering with a fierce heat. “I don’t want to be hopeless anymore. Will you give me hope?”

“I’ll give you more than hope,” she vowed, smiling up at him through a shimmering veil of tears. “I’ll give you my heart, my body, and my love for as long as we both shall live.”

He shook his head, his expression solemn. “That’s not long enough. If you should die before I do, God forbid, you have to promise to come back and haunt me until we can be reunited again.”

“Have no fear. I promise to wail and clank my chains so loudly you’ll never get another decent night’s rest. Especially if you’re foolish enough to remarry and bring your new bride back to Cadgwyck.”

Max’s lips curled in a wicked grin. “If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never get another decent night’s rest after we’re wed.”

As a joyous peal of laughter burst from her lips, he swept her up into his arms and off her feet, swinging her in a wide circle. He had finally succeeded in catching his ghost, and there on the same beach where Angelica Cadgwyck’s life had ended, it began again.

Epilogue

M
A
XIMILLIAN
B
URKE’S COACH ROLLED
through the imposing wrought-iron gates and up the long, winding drive of crushed shells. He stuck his head out the window of the elegant vehicle, eager for his first glimpse of home. As the steep gables and soaring brick chimneys of the house came into view, his heart leapt with an undeniable mixture of satisfaction and pride.

Cadgwyck Manor was one of the shining gems of the Cornwall coast. No one could say it had seen better days because these were undoubtedly its best. A gleaming cherrywood door had been set in the mouth of the ancient gatehouse that served as both entrance hall and the heart of the house. Graceful Elizabethan wings flanked the gatehouse. The leering gargoyles that doubled as rainspouts had been replaced with chubby stone cherubs.

The manor looked not only well cared for, but well
loved, as if its sturdy walls might well stand guardian on the edge of the cliffs for another five centuries.

A tower right out of a fairy tale crowned the far corner of the west wing, capped by a pretty little red-tiled turret. The autumn sunshine winked off its diamond-paned windows, and just enough ivy had been left creeping up its stone walls to give it an enchanted air. Max felt a roguish smile curve his lips. The tower now served as the master bedchamber of the house, and he had every intention of making some magic there on this very night.

As the coach rolled to a stop in the courtyard, its handsome team of matched grays still prancing restlessly, a footman in blue-and-gold livery came rushing forward to whisk open its lacquered door.

“Welcome home, m’lord,” Derrick Hammett said, his ginger hair and good-natured grin a welcome sight indeed. The lad’s cheeks were no longer sunken. His broad shoulders filled out his livery so nicely that the Elizabeths all blushed and stammered and had to fan themselves with their feather dusters whenever he sauntered by.