Chapter Ten
January 19
The air chilled Olivia’s cheeks as she walked the hard-packed path beside the Pennhyll road. Her booted feet crunched through the upper layer of snow to land on the ground beneath, a reassuring pattern timed to her breathing. A yawn pried open her jaws because she’d not slept well once again, what with dreams of sword-wielding Scotsmen leaping to murder her in her bed and worse, increasingly vivid and frightening versions of her old nightmares. Shadows that turned into men or men who turned into shadows. Vague shapes chasing her with malignant intent. Her anxiety about why she’d heard nothing about teaching at the school at last resurrected by Tiern-Cope himself did not help matters, not when her future depended on the position.
She reached the last curve of the road before the descent to Far Caister. As always, she paused to look at the castle. Pennhyll never failed to stir her. Mist shrouded the hilltop, and snow lay soft on the vales, smoothing the landscape of its definition. She felt she was the only person left in a world so intensely alive she wondered that any heart could hold the beauty. On her right, a few snow-covered oaks deepened to native wood. To her left the grey towers of Pennhyll pierced the sky. From this point on the path, the castle, she fancied, looked as it must have in the Black Earl’s day. None of the additions showed, only ancient walls and crenellated towers, with snow clinging to ledges, chimneys and roof tiles. Indeed, she half-expected to see the Black Earl pacing the ramparts, a notion no doubt brought on by the approach of the St. Agnes’ Eve ball, and Diana’s foolish plans to summon the Black Earl.
A hundred yards to her right, white mist eddied with a rising breeze. She watched with an uneasy amazement as the flurry thickened and coalesced. She heard the faint sound of metal sliding along metal, a jingling as of spurs or bridles. At first indistinct, the shape moved toward her, a density of snow and wind from which a decidedly human figure took form. His head was bent as might a man distraught or perhaps deep in thought. The shirring sound of metal, of chain mail or a sword drawn from its scabbard continued. The precise sound from her dreams.
Heart in her throat and frozen in disbelief, she watched the form take on substance, a hint of color. A man, without doubt a man. Grey breeches, a charcoal greatcoat and no hat. His boots broke through the snow. A greyhound trotted at his side, metal collar jingling. The snow settled groundward, but the wake of his stride flared out his coat. He continued toward her, so rapidly he’d be upon her in seconds. The realization that he was no figment of her imagination leapt into her head, a whip to movement. Tiern-Cope. The last person she wanted to meet. The very last.
She darted off the path and veered onto a rock-strewn incline that, if she didn’t break her neck, and he kept his present course, which she assumed would be toward one of the newer entrances to the castle, would put her safely away from his notice. She lost her footing on the outcropping of frozen slate and barked her shin. Cold air burned her lungs, but from the top she surveyed the plain of stark white that surrounded Pennhyll. A moment or two to let him come to the crest of the path where he would turn toward the castle and leave her free to continue to Far Caister.
But, no. Never was a man born more contrary to her wishes. Of course, he didn’t stay his course. He headed away from Pennhyll, toward Far Caister. How could he have moved so quickly? Unnerving, to say the least. The dog gave a low bark, and she abandoned the idea of a mad sprint back to the path in the hope of staying ahead of him. She had just time to scramble back to the path before he rounded the corner.
Pulling her cloak closed, she feigned surprise. She thought he meant to sweep past her, which would have been at once mortifying and welcome, but at the last he stopped, and with an eerie silence. He nodded, an arrogant nod, full of itself and reeking of pomp and importance. Despite the distance separating them, she saw purple smudges beneath his eyes and above, a blueness that froze.
“I wondered what the devil sort of beast could be that color and prowling so early in the morning. I ought to have known it was you. Bareheaded, which makes you a brazen chit. And if not brazen, then unwise, for the morning sun has yet to melt the ice from the road.”
Occasionally, ignoring rudeness cured it. “Good morning, my lord,” she said. All perfectly pleasant. He had but to step aside, and she could show him her back. He stared. Without moving. “I did not mean to intrude.”
“On Pennhyll?” He did not make room for her, which left her standing on the very edge of the road, uncertain footing, indeed.
“Your solitude.”
“Walk wherever you like.”
“Thank you.” The dog stretched its muzzle to her. Without thinking, she crouched to scratch behind its ears.
“Ask permission before you touch my hound.”
She tilted her head toward him. Temper, she counseled. Temper. “I beg your pardon. May I?”
“What else can I say but yes, when the hound, who snarls at every man and beast but me, lays its muzzle on your knee?”
“Try not to blame the dog,” she said. “She’s lovely. Has she a name?”
“Pandelion.”
She could see his boots, muddy and wet from his walk. She crooked her fingers around the back of Pandelion’s ears and crooned, “Pandy. My love.” In the same breath, she said, “Are you walking to Far Caister, too?”
“Do you address me or the dog?”
“Since Pandy does not answer me, you, my lord.”
“I dislike people who pretend they’re something they aren’t.”
“Pray you never meet one here in Cumbria.” Perfectly pleasant. If it killed her, she’d be perfectly pleasant.
“And I despise those who believe I won’t notice the deception.”
With a sigh, she stood. Pandelion kept her head by Olivia’s knee, and she let her fingers dangle to stroke between the grey ears. “I imagine you would.”
His eyes met hers, cold as midwinter. “I have been to Carlisle.”
“Oh.”
“The pawnbroker confirmed what you told me.” He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at her with an expression she absolutely could not fathom. “I absolve you, for the moment, of any wrongdoing in respect of your belongings.”
“How did they come to be at Pennhyll?” She edged toward the path, but Tiern-Cope refused to yield. “Do excuse me.”
“I have discharged your debt to Mr. Simon Melchior.” His eyes flicked over her.
“That was presumptuous.” And none of his affair, either.
“Nevertheless, it is done.”
“I paid Mr. Melchior six shillings a month on account.” She did not like being beholden to him, not in the least. “I trust you will accept the same from me.”
“Pride is an abiding sin, Miss Willow. It does not flatter you. I did not buy up your vowels to Mr. Melchior in order to dun you for the amount. I told you I have discharged your obligation to him, and so I have done.”
“So you can arrest me for the debt?”
His face registered exactly nothing. “Because it suited me to do so.”
“Why?”
“Don’t be impertinent.” Satisfied with Olivia’s attentions, the dog retreated to lean its head against Tiern-Cope’s thigh. With an absent motion that bespoke fond habit, he stroked the sleek head. “It’s early to be walking out.”
“I’m making away with your silver.”
He moved nearer, the dog coming along. She stood her ground, though the distance between them felt uncomfortably close. “James said you liked morning walks.”
“That’s true.”
“Indeed.” He stared at her, but she refused to let him intimidate her. She was sure he made it a habit to intimidate people whenever possible. But she did back off the path to even less certain footing.
“If you opened up my heart,” she said, “if you looked inside, you would find Cumbria.” She spread her arms, gathering the snow-covered meadow to her in one expansive gesture. “Right now, I am writing this view on my heart.” She could not help a grin. “I am stealing it from you, my lord, and you shall never have it back.” His reaction was impossible to gauge, he might as easily be amused as angry for all she could tell. “In Land’s End I lived near the sea, which I never did before. On my half days, I used to watch the water for hours.”
“Did you write the sea on your heart?”
She shook her head. “I never felt anything but lonely when I looked at the sea. So cold and bitter, never a moment’s ease or forgiveness.”
“Precisely why I like it.”
“Here the colors are so intense it hurts my heart. In winter, pure white, and come spring, a green so deep it takes your breath. There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world.”
“Land’s End and Cumbria. Is that the extent of your experience of the world?”
“Not much compared to your adventures, I admit.” Nothing in his face changed. Quite likely he didn’t find his life interesting. “But it’s Cumbria that’s inside me, somehow. Not Land’s End. I think if I knew I would never see the mountains of Cumbria I would die inside.”
“God save me from women of overwrought emotion.”
“Overwrought?” She kicked the slush covering the rocks. Her toes were going numb. What did he mean by standing here chatting as if they sat to tea?
“I prefer sensible women.”
“Such as Miss Royce. Yes, I understand.”
“A woman who feels nothing in excess of what is proper.”
“No one really lives without strong emotion, my lord.”
“Twaddle.”
“You’re wrong.”
One dark eyebrow soared toward the sky.
“There’s no sweetness in life without sorrow behind. Such beauty as this—the hills and sharp, clean air in your lungs, the earth beneath your feet—mustn’t be squandered. To see and feel and embrace life you must save moments like these.”
“In the end, your savings avail you nothing. Rich or poor, life is a battle we are all fated to lose, Miss Willow.”
She settled her weight on one hip. “After my father died, I learned that one minute might be happy and the next full of grief.” She took a deep breath. “Right now, for instance. This very moment. All is well and right. I am in good health. I have shoes on my feet and clothes to wear. My meals of late have been certain and regular, and so I am not hungry. There are even a few coins in my pocket. This moment, this very moment and none other, is perfect, and I adore it utterly. To complete excess.”
“The tide will turn, Miss Willow.” A smile lurked around his mouth, but no, that was not possible, that the earl of Tiern-Cope should smile, and at her.
“It hasn’t yet.”
“You may find the sea casts you onto the shores of paradise.” His voice was low and soft, and Olivia felt her heart stir at the sound. “Or through the very gates of hell.”
“So it might.” She gave herself a mental shake. Lord Tiern-Cope could not possibly be flirting with her. Impossible. “But that won’t stop me from embracing this moment in all its beautiful perfection.”
“With but one flaw, Miss Willow.”
“Whatever could that be?”
“Don’t even try to tell me I don’t spoil the present perfection of your moment.” The corner of his lip twitched and then gave up. He smiled, and she, perverse creature that she was, felt like she’d been tossed off a cliff with him standing at the bottom to catch her. “Pennhyll is beautiful, I’ll give you that.”
“A miracle.”
“I am not without sensibility, Miss Willow.”
“I meant a miracle that we agree.”
He made a small movement of his head. “Do you love Pennhyll as well as you do the mountain upon which it sits?”
“I find it much like you.”
His mouth quirked, and then, curved in another smile. She stared, transfixed by the sight. “Unpleasant and forlorn?”
She tipped her head to one side, considering him. She felt an odd sensation of understanding this harsh man who was, in fact, a stranger to her. “Not entirely unpleasant, that I will admit. Nor forlorn, either.”
“Do not tell me you find me amiable.”
“Certainly not. Like Pennhyll, you are strong and fierce.” She felt, ridiculous as it was, that she knew him better than she knew herself. “To make a life here is to have courage and heart, and those you surely have.”
Their eyes met and locked. If Cumbria were to take the form of a man, here he stood. Half-tamed, and that half much in doubt, forbiddingly beautiful and dangerous to the unwary. A voice in the back of her head warned that she ought to keep her silence, but she plowed on.
“You belong here.” Without thought, she stepped toward him and touched his cheek, following the line back to his temple. His skin felt warm, the heat of him filled her. Inside her, in her heart and in her soul, she knew him. She knew—everything about him that mattered. All of him was inside her right now, complete and right and heartbreaking because he was lost. He turned his head and for a moment, she felt the warmth of his breath against her gloved palm.
“My poor, dear Captain Alexander. You are too young to feel such desolation. You think you’ve lost your heart, but you haven’t. It’s here at Pennhyll. It’s in the ground and the air, the trees and the stone, everywhere you look. You have only to take it. Take what is yours.”
He closed his eyes, and she felt or heard or imagined that something snapped. Without warning, he grabbed both her arms and pulled her toward him. His eyes burned into hers and for a deathless moment her head swam with the heat and nearness of him. She stared at his mouth, the fullness of his lower lip. His greatcoat caught another gust of wind and flared out enough for her to see his narrow hips, plain breeches and battered but sturdy leather boots supple with age rather than fineness of material. “I am so sorry,” he said.
A tide of emotion pulled her inexorably to sea. Worse, whatever his intention, she wanted him to act, would willing give up all modesty in return for feeling this way even a moment longer. If he tried to kiss her, she’d let him. Ruin came of moments such as this. Disgrace and whispers and babies out of wedlock. And for the first time in her life, she understood why such things happened.
“I am sorry.” Abruptly, he released her. The air seemed lighter, the world larger. She reeled back, disoriented from the loss of contact. Her heel landed on a loose rock, and she stumbled. He grabbed her a split second before she would have pitched onto her backside.
Her hands landed on his shoulders, and her cheek hit smack against his chest. He smelled of morning-damp wool. Soap and linen warm from his body and something else she didn’t recognize but that felt close and intimate. Her lower parts were immediately in a knot of heat and everything, everything in the world, felt right. His arms tightened around her. She looked up, into eyes bluer than blue. The pull began again. Her heart tripped.
“Take care,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He said, “Why are you walking so early in the morning, Miss Willow?” Pandelion whined, then stood at attention, facing the direction of the castle.
“Why are you?” Suddenly, it struck her that his arms remained around her waist. He realized it, too, and let her go.
His eyes flared with chill light. “By reason of a stubborn refusal to any longer accept my weakened state.”
“You’re not weak.” She wasn’t at all sure what had just happened, she only knew the mood had changed. Everything changed.
“I will conquer this.”
“That, I believe.”
“Even a dull and pulsing pain in my ribs is a damn sight better than being flat on my back and drugged to the gills to keep me from howling at the pain of breathing.”
“I well recall that.”
“You, however, should not be walking out at this hour.” He looked at the hand in which she clutched her parcel. “Without any hat a’tall.”
“You’re walking out,” she said, holding her breath in case he demanded to know what she had.
“I am a man, Miss Willow, who may do as he pleases while you are a young lady who may not.”
“I am hardly young, my lord.” She used the no-nonsense voice she’d discovered worked well on misbehaving children. With him, the tone failed utterly.
“Not even my first Luff dares speak to me with such insolence.”
“I am not one of your lieutenants.”
“But you most certainly are a lady. And should comport yourself as one.”
“You’re the only one ever to question my character.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I had good reason.”
“You were wrong.”
“It seems I was. But my brother is dead, Miss Willow. Will you blame me for caution in so serious a cause as finding his killer?”
“No.” Her anger collapsed because he was right. “I cannot. If it were my brother, and I had the power to do so, I’d do the same.”
“I am relieved.”
She put one ankle behind her and curtseyed. “I won’t detain you any longer. Good morning to you. My lord.” She slid past him, but felt immediate resistance, if someone were tugging on her cloak. She looked behind her, but Tiern-Cope was two steps away and her cloak free of restraint. He fell in with her, and the air settled. “Are you following me?” she said.
“No.”
He kept pace. After a bit, she said, “You are following me.”
“That I must accompany you in order to escort you on your errand is glaringly apparent.” His mouth curved in a smile that made his eyes flicker with warmth. “Even to a woman as brainless as you pretend to be.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I am escorting you. Not following you.”
“Don’t make it sound so dreadful. Besides, I assure you, it’s not necessary.”
He reached for her parcel, brushing her hand in the process of hooking his fingers in the ribbon that bound the package. “And I assure you it is.”