Chapter 3
“You have grown even more beautiful than you were six years ago.” Maxim was now standing so close behind her that Heather could feel the heat of his breath against her exposed nape.
Which was making it difficult for her to breathe, let alone form a coherent reply to Maxim’s totally inappropriate flattery to his father’s widow. Not only inappropriate, but also unwelcome.
As a very young girl, she had believed herself in love with Maxim. When she reached the age of nineteen, he had led her to believe he returned that love. Not in actual words, but in deeds.
Six years ago, as a captain in Wellington’s army, Maxim had come to Cornwall for several weeks’ leave. From the moment he’d arrived, their desire for each other had burned as out of control as a forest fire. Unquenchable. Always leaving them wanting, craving more.
Until Maxim had returned to his regiment and did not come back to Cornwall again for almost a year. During this time, Heather did not receive so much as a word of affection or reassurance from him, by letter or in any other form.
By the time Maxim did finally deign to return to Cornwall, Heather was married to his father, and they had a newborn son, Ralph.
That had been a tense and unhappy visit Heather would prefer to forget.
She would prefer Maxim not be here in Cornwall again now either, stirring up long-forgotten memories that had had no place in her life five years ago and could not do so now either. She had allowed herself to love this man once, and almost been destroyed by that love. Now she felt nothing but contempt for him.
Maxim had taken advantage of her girlhood feelings for him all those years ago, amused himself with her for the summer, and then left again. His long, silent absence afterward showed he had only used her and had never intended to return to her or their relationship.
She gave a dismissive snort. “My beauty, or otherwise, is none of your concern. Now I advise you to stand away from me, before I am forced to make you do so.”
“Try,” Maxim invited softly.
Arrogant bastard!
Whatever Maxim might think to the contrary, Heather was no longer that young, headstrong girl who had once given him her heart, only to have him trample all over it with his cruel indifference. She was now the Dowager Countess of Carlton, a mother and a widow, and as such, she would not allow Maxim to treat her with a lack of the respect that was her due.
She turned so quickly, he had no time to avoid the knee she raised to strike him in the groin. She smiled her satisfaction as Maxim gasped his surprise at the attack, his eyes wide with shock as he staggered back before doubling over from the pain.
“I hope that was trying hard enough for you,” she said with feigned sweetness. “And whatever your real reason for being here, I can only hope you conclude that business quickly and return to London. There is no place for you here in Cornwall.” She flung open the door and swept from the dining room before Maxim had time to recover from the blow.
Not that she expected the injury to keep him occupied for long, but hopefully long enough for her to go to her private sitting room, write her letter, and instruct Coombe to have one of the footmen deliver it to her brothers. Hopefully in time to stop the ship carrying their illegal goods from entering Treganon Cove later tonight.
Maxim winced slightly as he lowered his body into the chair he had placed in front of the window of the newly occupied blue bedchamber. The twinge of discomfort he still felt was a reminder of the injury Heather had earlier delivered without mercy.
As if he had needed the wince as a reminder.
It was equally impossible for Maxim not to admire the ruthless deliberation with which she had delivered the debilitating blow.
It was evidence, as he had suspected, the headstrong and passionate Heather he remembered still existed behind that shield of matronly and frosty politeness with which she had treated him since his arrival.
He gave a snort. As Heather Turner, she had not possessed a matronly or polite bone in her body, and her physical set-down tonight had shown him that wildness still existed behind the façade of the widowed dowager countess.
His father’s widowed countess.
How that knowledge still smarted!
Maxim and Heather had been inseparable that summer six years ago, and unable to keep their hands off each other whenever they were alone together. Which, through their own machinations, was often. Admittedly, no declarations of love had been made by either of them, or promises made. Maxim had not considered it fair to Heather do so when, as an agent for the Crown, he remained so active in the private war against Napoleon and spent much of his time away from England.
But Maxim had been deeply shocked when he returned to Cornwall after almost a year’s absence to find Heather married to his father. Not only were the two married, but they also had a newborn son, Maxim’s half brother, Ralph.
It had been a visit fraught with tension. Maxim speechless at his father’s marriage and choice of bride, and Heather had avoided any opportunity Maxim might have found to talk with her alone regarding the marriage. His father had seemed quieter than normal, but had obviously been proud of his young and beautiful wife and newborn son.
Maxim had excused himself as soon as it was polite to do so and returned to London, after which he had accepted mission after mission as a way to be absent from England as often as possible. As a result, Maxim had rarely seen or spoken to his father and stepmother in the years that followed.
Now his father was dead, Heather a widow, and Maxim had been forced to return to Treganon House, and for quite another reason entirely.
Heather’s initial choice of bedchamber for him was as questionable as her manner had seemed to him after dinner this evening. He had not believed for a minute her excuse of a headache for retiring early to her bedchamber.
Had he arrived on the exact day the Turners were expecting a delivery of illegal goods by sea?
Or was it because Heather was expecting to make contact with her French counterpart to deliver information regarding Napoleon’s ongoing voyage to St. Helena?
Either way, Maxim suspected that at some time during the darkness of night, Heather intended to leave Treganon House and go down to the sandy cove below the rocky tor and wait for the arrival of a ship. And when she did, Maxim had every intention of following her.
Heather received word back from her brothers that they had been able to contact the ship in time to advise the captain to drop anchor in a different cove. It was far from as convenient for them to do so, the new cove having no caves in which to store the illegal goods as Treganon Cove did. Instead, her brothers, Daveth and Jory, had arranged for several men from the village to come with carts, oxen, and horses. This way, they could haul the cargo up the hill and store it in the old and long-abandoned Wheal Anne, so named for Maxim’s great-grandmother, until it was safe for them to move those goods on to the buyers.
Heather waited for silence to fall over the house, as indication the household had retired for the night, before dressing appropriately and extinguishing the candle in her bedchamber to move stealthily out into the hallway. She was at great pains not to alert Maxim to her nocturnal activities as she crept down the hallway and stairs, relieved when she reached the candlelit and cavernous entrance hallway without mishap.
Adjusting her cap, she headed toward the back of the house, letting herself out through the kitchen before moving around the garden to the well-trodden pathway along the headland and to the cove beyond this one. There she would meet up with her brothers in good time for when the ship arrived, probably within the next hour or so.
“He’s back, then,” Daveth, her eldest brother, greeted her gruffly.
Heather had no need to ask who “he” was, when the whole purpose of her letter had been to inform her brothers of Maxim’s unexpected arrival. “Yes.”
“Why?” Jory prompted gruffly.
“He did not say.” She winced at the memory of why she had not given Maxim the opportunity to explain himself. At the time she had been more interested in distancing herself from him than in learning the real reason for his visit.
“Does he know—”
“No.” She sharply forestalled Jory’s question. “Nor will he. I suspect his reason for being here is to act as an agent for the Crown and investigate smuggling in the area. Papa has obviously not transported enough men in the area, nor ceased enough contraband these past eighteen months, to satisfy the Prince Regent’s greed for gold,” she added contemptuously.
Everyone knew, even those living in Cornwall, that the Regent’s extravagant lifestyle required the royal coffers be kept constantly filled. Especially as he was currently adding wings to Buckingham House and having the architect Nash transform it inside into the opulent palace it had not been during the prince’s childhood, when his more austere parents and their children had all lived there.
“Fucking traitor,” Daveth muttered.
Heather laughed softly. “Hardly that when Maxim fought for England for so many years.”
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t a traitor to the Cornish way of life,” her brother insisted.
Which, as the locals accepted, involved the right to smuggle into the country whatever they damn well pleased. And which, with the closing of so many mines, for some was their only means of income.
“Here she comes,” Jory announced with satisfaction as he stared out to sea.
Heather turned to watch as the huge sailing ship made its way into the entrance to the cove before dropping anchor. It was too low in the water to enter any farther without fear of damaging the vessel, and the cargo would now be brought ashore by the dozen or so men waiting to go out to the ship in their small rowboats.
It was a long and arduous task, and it took several hours to transport all the goods ashore. Even longer to then have them taken up to Wheal Anne by the carts.
The latter Heather held Maxim totally responsible for. If he had not come to Cornwall, their contraband would have been quickly stored away in the caves of Treganon Cove, and all of them would have been safely back in their beds hours ago.
Dawn was starting to break, the ship long gone on its way, by the time the goods were safely stored and Heather was able to make her way wearily back to Treganon House.
A morning asleep in her bed beckoned as she quietly closed her bedchamber door behind her to gaze longingly at her bed, the covers turned back invitingly on one side.
“Is there any need for me to ask where you have been?”
Heather’s head snapped up as she turned quickly toward the window, easily recognizing the silhouette—and voice—of the man standing there with the first of the morning’s light behind him, throwing his face into shadow and so hiding his expression.
“What the hell are you wearing?” Maxim demanded incredulously as he took in Heather’s appearance in men’s thin leather, figure-hugging riding breeches and boots, with a loose white shirt and short jerkin worn over it. Her glorious red-brown hair was hidden beneath a flat fisherman’s cap. “Good God, Heather, you are now a dowager countess and no longer that nineteen-year-old hoyden who went about the countryside dressed in her brothers’ old clothing!”
Her chin rose. “I do not recall your ever having complained about my wearing this attire before now.”
Maxim was not complaining about it now either, per se. It was only…
Six years ago, Heather had been boyishly slender, and the men’s clothing she had chosen to wear then whenever she roamed around the countryside had been acceptable, in as much as she was, for the most part, unrecognizable as being female. Those six years, and the birth of her son, had given her voluptuous curves where before there had been none.
The dark leather pantaloons clung to her so tightly, they looked positively indecent, indicating she wore little or nothing beneath them. They showed the length of her slender legs, outlined the delectable shape of her ass when she stood with her back toward him, and the feminine cleft between her thighs when she turned to face him.
Maxim’s cock stirred and thickened in response to the latter. “You have been out in public in that attire.” It was a statement, not a question, a tide of anger washing over him at the thought of other men ogling Heather in the unsuitable clothing. Rough and basic men, if his guess as to where she had been and what she had been doing proved to be a correct one.
“That is none of your concern,” she answered him icily.
“Everything to do with the Carlton name is my concern,” he stated harshly, hands clenched at his sides as he stepped away from the window. “Of which you are a family member.”
“Something you would rather forget,” she taunted.
Maxim’s eyes narrowed. “I assure you that has proven impossible these past five years. And I doubt there is a single man alive who could ever forget seeing you clothed in that scandalous fashion.” He scowled.
Her chin rose even higher. “Is that the reason you are so obviously aroused?” Her gaze focused contemptuously on the bulge in his own pantaloons.
Maxim felt the angry color rise in his cheeks. “I defy any man, of any age, not to become aroused when your ass and pussy are so clearly outlined for his enjoyment.”
A flush of temper darkened Heather’s cheeks at his crudeness. “Any other man may enjoy it, if they so choose!”
“But not me?”
“No.”
A nerve pulsed in his jaw. “Where have you been?” he demanded again.
“I told you, that is none of your business.”
“I am making it so.”
“Do I have the same right to ask as to your own nocturnal movements?”
“That is not necessary when I have been right here all night.”
She eyed him scathingly. “I was referring to nights other than this one. I am sure there are many women in the area who would be happy to resume your acquaintance.”
Maxim’s mouth thinned. “There are no acquaintances to resume.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Have you never heard the saying ‘one does not fuck where one lives’?”
Her brows rose as he continued to use that crude language, no doubt meaning to shock her. “I do not believe that is the true saying. Nor do I remember that being the case six years ago.”
“And look where that got me,” he snapped. “I returned to Cornwall to find my lover married to my own father!”
Heather smiled contemptuously. “Then perhaps you should not have dallied so long in London enjoying yourself before returning.”
Dallied? Maxim had not dallied anywhere six years ago, nor had he been enjoying himself. Instead, he had been incarcerated in a French prison, consumed with fever, his wounds festering from continuous ill treatment and torture.
His mission at the time had been to infiltrate a French fort and learn the extent of their firepower before the English army attacked. Unfortunately, he had been discovered by two of the sentries before he could do that and been forced to fight for his life. He had kept his life but been severely wounded by a sword in the process.
As a valued agent of the English Crown, he had quickly been transported out of the fort to a prison on the French coast where he had suffered long days and nights of interrogation by men not only conversant in the art of torture, but ones who also enjoyed their work a little too much.
Weeks, and then months went by before Maxim was rescued, not by the English army, but by the rest of The Sinners. Those seven gentlemen had been searching for him all the months he had been missing. Finally learning of his whereabouts, they had immediately set out to free him, and killed his torturers before transporting him back to England.
Even so, Maxim still occasionally woke in the night, his body covered in sweat, heart palpitating as he relived in his dreams those months of tortuous captivity.
None of which he was able to share with anyone but the other Sinners.
Not even with the young woman he had hoped would be waiting in Cornwall for his return.
Which her marriage to his father only months after he had left her meant she clearly had not.
“Why did you marry my father?” he prompted harshly. “Were you so set on becoming a countess that you married a man old enough to be your own father to achieve your goal?”
The color had drained from Heather’s cheeks. “James was exceedingly kind to me.”
“Kindness is not a basis for marriage!”
Her chin rose. “In this case, it was.”
“And how did you enjoy fucking a man thirty years your senior?” Maxim scorned. “Did he have the stamina to arouse and pleasure you as fully as I always did?” The bitter words were now tumbling from his lips unchecked and unfiltered.
The pupils of Heather’s eyes had grown so large, there was only a faint ring of green about the black. “It is your own father you are talking about in this disgusting manner.” Her voice shook with emotion.
“I am well aware of whom I am speaking, madam.”
Heather shook her head. “I refuse to talk of James or my marriage with you, of all people.”
Me of all people.
Maxim drew in a deep and controlling breath, knowing there was nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation. “I will ask only once more,” he bit out tautly. “Where have you been tonight?” Even learning Heather had been aiding in the smuggling so rife in the area would be preferable to knowing she had been out to meet with a French spy to pass along treasonous information.
“Perhaps you should consider that I could have been visiting my lover,” she came back challengingly.
This third possibility sent an icy chill down the length of Maxim’s spine. “Who is he?”
Her mouth thinned. “None of your concern.”
Maxim’s control had already taken enough of a beating for one night. First by the realization Heather had slipped from the house unnoticed by him, after he had waited for hours by his window. He’d finally given up the vigil to come to her bedchamber to see if Heather had left the house unseen by him. The empty bedchamber confirmed she had. The hours that followed the discovery had dragged by as Maxim waited in the bedchamber for her return. Now she dared challenge him with a lover she refused to name.
Not that there were many men to choose from in the area. The local vicar was a man of sixty or more and married with half a dozen children. The local squire was of a similar age, but had a preference for the company of young men. Maxim did not know the local doctor, that gentleman being new to the area. Although he believed he was also married with children. Any other landowner of worth in the area was either exceedingly young or exceedingly old.
Unless Heather had returned to her hoydenish ways and preferred the rougher company of either the blacksmith or one of Maxim’s own estate workers?
The thought of it being the latter, of him actually paying the other man’s wage so he could service the dowager duchess, filled Maxim with rage.
“What are you doing?” Heather took a step back as Maxim strode determinedly toward her, her spine now pressed against the door behind her. “Maxim…?”
A humorless smile curved his lips as he came to a halt in front of her. He reached out and removed the cap from her head, releasing her hair in a loose tumble of red-brown curls down her spine before throwing the cap aside and tightly grasping the tops of her arms. “If there really is a lover, then you will dispense with his attentions forthwith,” he rasped.
Her eyes flashed her anger. “Why should I?”
“Because if you have need of a lover, I am more than willing to offer my own services.”
She glared her outrage, aware of every word and nuance of Maxim’s insult. “I am already serviced well enough, thank you.”
“Indeed?” he taunted. “Let’s put that to the test, shall we?”
“What—” Heather’s words were cut off as Maxim’s head swooped and his mouth claimed hers.