Chapter 9
Nicholas set aside the drilled calabash and washed his hands in the water bucket. His stomach rumbled as he inhaled the savory scent of roasted meat.
“What would I do without you?” she said, waiting in the doorway.
She had that way about her, like she expected lightning to play upon the waves when he did something. Hell, he’d hurl back the Thames to its source if she wanted it.
He scratched a wooden chair across the plank floor as he first seated her, and then himself, maintaining an unstated degree of civilization. Thick wild pork roast slices smothered in gravy with wild sugar yams were heaped on his plate. He helped himself to pink guava slices reminiscent of strawberries and pears combined.
Nicholas ate his fill and massaged his stomach. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such a great meal.”
“Would you like some salt beef from the cask aboard the Santanas?” she teased him.
Nick eyed her ruefully. “You have a cruel streak. One sight of that muck they gave us would render me stiff as a lifeless rat.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I am sure your family had the finest of meals, prepared by the best of chefs, Nicholas.”
The way she said his name tugged at his heart. He liked everything about her—the way she drew her bottom lip between her teeth when she concentrated, the care she took with everything, including the way she had sewn his torn shirt with confident stitches.
She rose from the table and moved toward a shelf. He drank in the sight of her. He didn’t know why she opened a place inside of him, a deep and vulnerable room he had not known was there.
She picked up a bowl and placed it on the table before him. Her long golden braid entwined with jasmine flowers lay over her breast, and she emanated a breathtakingly beautiful image of breeding and serenity.
“This is a surprise I made just for you since you have had to do without all the luxuries of home in England. Let’s see if this competes with one of your cooks. I used vanilla bean and goat milk to make a pudding.”
Nicholas dipped his spoon into the creamy mixture layered with honeyed bananas. He groaned, savoring the sweet concoction. “This side of heaven.” He scraped his bowl clean and when she bent to take his plates, he stayed her hand. “Let’s pretend we are not in a hurry and enjoy some leisure. Get the chess set out and I’ll teach you how to play.”
He helped her clear the dishes away, and then set-up the board. “I’ll go easy on you for the first couple of times until you get the gist of the rules. I was champion at Oxford. I am ruthless.”
She bit her lip. “Sounds complicated and formidable. I don’t know if I’ll make much of a sparring partner. I’ll have to pay close attention. And never defeated?”
“Except for my brother, Anthony. No one in England has bested him.” For the next several minutes, he described the moves and the importance of each piece. Noting Alexandra’s furrowed brow, he wondered if he was explaining the rules too quickly, but let it go because he had plenty of time to teach her. “Tell me about yourself, Alexandra.”
She gave a dainty little shrug. “There’s nothing remarkable to tell.”
Dappled light from the setting sun clung to her, crowning her in an aura of gold. “Enlighten me.” He wanted to know everything about her.
“Nothing extraordinary. A normal life where everyone scratched out a living by working hard and making ends meet.”
He moved his chess piece forward. He had decided a long time ago wealth did not equate to the goodness inside a person. Having money and privilege did not make someone better than those without. Alexandra’s strange history added to her charm and humility.
“You haven’t told me what we are playing for. If I win, I want to go to the shore tomorrow…and cement our agreement that we call this place, Alexandra Island.”
He contained a snort. “Fair enough. If I win, you’ll serve me breakfast in my hammock.”
She countered by moving her rook. “When I get rescued, I’ll return to my village on the south shores of England.”
His throat constricted making it hard to breathe. To think she’d be far from London and even further from Belvoir…from him. He tucked that raw notion in the back of his mind. No ships had been seen and rescue was questionable. “Tell me about your village.”
She warmed to the topic. “To the south, fierce winds sweep across a moorland that stretches across barren granite. Wild ponies forage upon the heather that turns from a deep golden in winter to an endless variety of crimson, pinks and purple in the summer. To the north, a river flows into a deep blue harbor where my father kept his ship, and behind are hills of infinite green where sheep and cattle graze. I often walk the crags overlooking the sea. There the earth rises to heaven, life lingers like a last caress, and holds a breath of melody. The cliffs are my favorite place to go when I’m upset and want to think things through.”
Her hand fluttered over her heart.
“Go travel ‘mid the hills! The summer’s hand
Hath shaken pleasant freshness o’er them all.
Go, travel ‘mid the hills! There, tuneful streams—”
Nicolas finished for her.
“‘Are touching myriad stops, invisible;
And winds, and leaves, and birds, and your own thoughts,
Not the least glad in wordless chorus crowd.’”
“You are a fan of Milton.” She smiled.
“A Sea-Side Meditation. I had to memorize the poem in my youth.”
She gave a heavy sigh. “Molly was a healer. She gardened and grew medicinal herbs. People relied more on her healing skills than the local physician. Samuel retired from the sea, happy to live on his profits from the merchantman and pension due him from his earlier years, serving in His Majesty’s Navy.”
When Nicholas drew back surprised with that fact, she added, “Aboard the HMS Victory.
“Samuel and Molly loved each other very much. Often, I’d see knowing looks between them when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. Samuel told wonderful yarns. In our house, there was always love and laughter.”
He saw how Alexandra suffered tremendous guilt from Molly’s death, struggled underneath her smiling veneer. A tendril of her hair lifted as she looked off in the distance, remembering. How he wished he could wipe that sadness from her.
Best to keep the moment light-hearted. “What else can you share with me?”
“The people in my village were shopkeepers, farmers or fishermen, there was a miller, and blacksmith, much like many other villages in coastal areas of England. “Of course. Growing up in a small community there wasn’t much for entertainment.”
“There must have been some going’s on. My tenant’s homes were always a din of activity,” Nicholas said.
She fiddled with a vase, focusing on a bouquet of bright yellow hibiscus. He was swimming in a sea of awe. Men drowned in seas like that.
“Well…there was the butcher who cheated people by selling inferior meat and keeping his thumb on the scales.”
“Why do I have the impression there was retribution?”
She moved her castle. “I painted red dots on the butcher’s chickens and told him they had the pox.”
Nicholas laughed and moved his bishop, taking her pawn, thoroughly enjoying himself. In retaliation, she took his knight.
“Excellent,” he said.
“Are you complimenting my move or my retribution?”
“So, you believe in mischiefs?”
“You mean as a…concept?”
“No. Entirely in practice.”
“You want the short answer or the long one?”
She made another move and he frowned. “You may not want to make that move. It will free me to take your king.”
She shrugged. “You said this was a learning venture, did you not? Let’s see where it goes.”
“Suit yourself. The game will end early and I’ll require a plate of bananas, papaya and bread on my hammock as soon as the sun rises.”
“The subject is mischief, is it not?” She continued her story, keeping a little pantomime with her hands. “To dazzle the village children, I drilled a hole in an apple and put a beetle in it. I would wave my hands over the apple, divining my great power. The beetle moved the apple, lending credence to my potent magic.” She kept a straight face and then broke out in sheer merriment.
“Then there were the cantankerous sisters.”
There was nothing more contagious than her laughter. It didn’t even have to matter what they were laughing about. “Cantankerous?”
“Well, that wasn’t their name. There real name was Cornett like a horn blower and both none too bright. I mentioned them before.”
“When you compared my behavior to a nine-year old,” he said drily.
She giggled at his offense. “Miss Hortense, had hairs in her ears, curling wondrously out like a bush. She never had a nice word to say about anyone. And then there was her sister, Miss Gertrude, her face, like a drought-ridden earth, laced with a million yawning cracks and equally unpleasant. Both sisters were blessed with an active career as gossipmongers.”
The pleasant fragrance of wood smoke drifted in the cottage from the beehive oven. Nicholas leaned back in his chair, watching her, enjoying his domestic surroundings. He caught her staring at his lips. She colored and looked away. His whole being was filled with wanting. It would be so easy.
“Samuel called them the village dragons. Molly warned me away, saying a ‘a goat’s business is not the sheep’s concern.’”
Alexandra clapped her hands on the table and leaned toward him, her face alive and animated. “Miss Gertrude tried to take you into her confidence, but beware, she had a tongue like a rapier. In truth, both ladies were such grand practitioners of their craft that you could furnish them with some solid tales, and in no time, the gossip spread like fire through a haymow, reaching everyone in the community.”
He liked how she made funny voices, mimicking the village shrews, a natural storyteller. “I’m sure you provided them with plenty of fodder.”
She rose while he made his move, groped for the tinderbox on the upper shelf. “I told the Cornett sisters’ the grocer had a special on pigeon’s milk and to drink it would restore their youth and vigor. Can you imagine the look on the grocer’s face when they asked him for pigeon’s milk?”
Alexandra scraped flint against steel. Click. Click. Click. The spark took hold on the candle wick, producing a solid flame. The shadows retreated to the corners of the room, lapping there like a diminishing tide. She dropped the tinderbox and made another move that was against his earlier instruction. She’d never learn the game at this rate. She was so enthused talking about the villagers that she didn’t realize how distracted she had become. He didn’t have the heart to tell her she would lose. “So, the Cornett sisters were the recipients of your deeds?”
“One time I told them a prince from a foreign country was coming to the village. He was going to marry one of the village girls, but I couldn’t say who.”
He moved his rook. “Of course. The who being you.”
She frowned in concentration and moved her castle, taking one of his pawns. “Well…it lent to my fantasies that a prince would come and sweep me off my feet. I embellished the story, how they met when she had fallen off her horse and broken her ankle…which had happened to me months before in a neighboring village. How the prince had come at that precise moment with his coach and how they immediately fell in love.”
“In no time the whole village was preened and outfitted waiting for the illustrious guest to arrive…who never came. Molly asked if I knew anything about the rumors. I couldn’t lie.”
“After my admission, Molly was in a terrible temper. What kind of daughter was she raising to be part of this deceit and befalling a trap of the devil? She marched me over to the Cornett sisters and made me apologize.” Alexandra studied her hands in her lap.
“And?” Nicolas prompted.
He saw her glance drift over his open shirt and caress him there.
She swallowed hard and said, wistfully, “Well, there are some roads I do not need to travel. Molly regretted it the minute we left. The Cornett sisters do not forget an offense and made my life miserable.”
He didn’t need to ask what trouble two spiteful old harridans would cause. Despite the difficulties thrown her way, Alexandra rose above her hardships, showing no bitterness or acrimony.
Her turquoise eyes, her smile, her sweetness snared him. He didn’t want to feel this way. He had so many responsibilities facing him in England. He had a lot to learn about the ducal properties and a lot to prove to his father, if his father were still alive, and if they ever got off this island. And responsibility? He shouldered a huge burden, preserving the Rutland legacy. No. He couldn’t be sidetracked with an attraction to Alexandra.
But they could be there forever, and what then? What harm would there be, especially if they were never rescued. They could be fated to live out their lives together.
He reviewed her story, divulging she was a baron’s daughter. Was she a con artist in addition to a thief? The simplest truth was more powerful than an elaborate lie and had easily trapped Nicholas’s friend in a scam that lost him thousands of pounds. Could Alexandra weave such a web? Perhaps she was a seasoned seductress.
On the chance he did get off the island and returned to England he could make inquiries. He’d ask Lady Ursula. Yet if what Alexandra said about her history was true, Lady Ursula would lie.
Nicholas drummed his fingers on the table. But Alexandra seemed without guile, and the soul of honesty and sincerity. He remembered the words of his brother, Joshua who was wise beyond his years.
Men would rather deny a hard truth than accept it.
Nicholas fiddled with his chess piece. If she was telling the truth, she was the sort who deserved a forever kind of man, but with her unproven background, her insertion into society would be difficult. To introduce her to a lesser kind of lord bore possibilities. Alexandra in the arms of someone else? Some stuffy aristocrat, caressing the line down her back and beyond…her slim legs wrapped… A demon of jealousy rose and twisted inside him. He’d lock her up before he’d allow that.
She moved her queen into final position and her eyes met his with a force that licked through his body. Why did he have the sense he had been waltzed backward?
Alexandra had his king surrounded. “Lord Nicolas, am I playing the game correctly?” She pasted a benign expression on her face while she twirled his king.
Oh, how she loved the dawning realization on his face. With a flick of her finger, she knocked his king over. “Checkmate.”
He stared her down. “I have been outflanked.”
“To think I defeated the Oxford Chess Champion on my first try. I must be terribly lucky.” She laughed.
“You have the presence of a hummingbird with shark’s teeth. I’ll never underestimate you again.” Nicolas jammed the chess pieces away. “You could have let me win.”
Alexandra scoffed. “You wouldn’t want victory that cheaply. It would be an insult. Looks like a trip to the shore tomorrow to confirm we reside on Alexandra Island,” she reminded him.
“I promise I will repay you.”
“Is that so? With coconuts and mangos?”
“You do not think I will get even?”
“Does an ape flinch when a monkey throws a banana at him?” She laughed, and then the candle sputtered out, concealing them in darkness, the last red speck of the taper light glowing like a firefly. She walked outside, an unexpected ache in her heart growing from the evening concluding. She stumbled. Before she could react, Nicholas’s hand closed around her upper arm to steady her. She started at his touch, his breath grazing her cheek.
He murmured an apology and released her arm.
She had not realized he was walking almost at her heels or that he had been observing her.
Alexandra glanced over her shoulder, but he was staring ahead.
His lonely hammock clung to the gloom. Behind her the cottage surrendered to a sphere of twilight.
His dark head lifted to the heavens. “There is a faint circle around the moon taking up half the sky, portending bad weather.”
“Rain?” she said.
“A storm is brewing.”
Beneath the glimmering of moonlight, waves moved like a contemplation attempting to arise on the fringe of consciousness, their spumes rose and tips fell away, mountains of them, already speeding forward into deep swells. She swallowed. Took a deep breath. “You must come in for the night.”
She pivoted and pointed. “You can sling your hammock on the hooks anchored in the coral block. They are rusted from being exposed to salt air, yet sturdy.”
The wind picked up, flapping loosened shutters, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Storms. She hated them especially after the hurricane at sea in which they had almost perished. Nick tossed his hammock in the cottage, went back outside, closing shutters, and nailing them with spare boards.
The roar of the wind grew into a cacophony. He staggered into the house, shoved his shoulder against the door and slammed the bar in place.
“I’ll need to work on the shutters. They aren’t sound enough but will be better than nothing.”
An enormous clap of thunder made her jump, and then another. Wind tore open one of the hinged panels. Palms were bent sideways. The sky was a crying fire—massive cobwebbed nets of jagged lightning ran horizon to horizon. Rain slashed inside, soaking everything. Nicholas yanked on the shutter and Alexandra tied it closed.
He tore off his damp shirt, drying himself with a towel, and then tossed it on a chair. He stretched a knot of his hammock to one hook and strung it across the room—right next to her bed. Heat pulsed in her cheeks. Out of the question.
She had slept next to him on the beach. Except he was asleep then. She lit a candle.
Nicholas’s dark blue eyes smoldered. While his gaze searched hers, she felt as if she were the only woman on earth.
She glanced away, then back again. She cleared her throat.
His slow smile spread lazily across his mouth with her discomfort.
She crossed to the shelf for a quilt and placed it on his hammock. Rain pounded the roof. A lightning bolt split a tree near the house. Alexandra trembled. The candlelight flickered, went out with the wind that hissed through the shutters. Shivering, she crawled into her bed, pulling the quilt up to her chin. “As a child, I was afraid of the fierce storms that hailed across the southern peninsula. Molly and Samuel would tell me stories to make my fears go away.”
She heard him climb into his hammock, his breathing next to hers. She could smell him, an earthy scent she had grown to associate with—him.
“I’m quite comfortable during this storm. But the storms tearing across this island are not the storms of home. At Belvior, I was sheltered under a solid roof with a thick pane of glass to keep away the rains and snow. A fireplace stoked by servants to keep away the chill and a bevy of kitchen staff to fill my belly with every whim,” Nicholas said.
Her heart squeezed. He was distracting her from the storm.
“We saw the worst when the Santanas was torn apart, Alexandra. We’re safe. The shutters are up. The cottage is sound and…I’m here to watch over you.”
I’m here to watch over you. The snap of connection roared through her like the crackling of a fire and a release of tension flowed from her body. To know he’d keep her safe.
“What was life like for you growing up? At Belvoir Castle.” The air was moist, heavy, as if filled with secrets. He rested, cast in stygian darkness. Did he think the arrangement strange? He did not indicate his thoughts.
“My siblings and I had an ancient Jesuit tutor and despite his age, he was extremely astute. Not many days could we get by him. We learned a variety of subjects. Mathematics, a good smattering of Calculus, different languages, including French, Latin, Greek and Italian, and philosophy and the sciences. The priest, a strict taskmaster, sharpened our debate skills on all matters of learning, nourishing an advantageous competition between us. And we did not disappoint.”
“How many siblings do you have?” Flashes of light, showed the outline of his form. He was more filled out with the better diet and hard work—large and overwhelming. She could reach out and touch his shoulder, let her fingertips move down the hard planes of his chest.
“Three. There was my brother, Joshua. He’s disappeared in the American wilderness, haven’t heard from him in a long time and I worry what has happened to him.”
“Do you think he is working with the Colonists in their Revolution? I’ve heard people who have gone there are influenced by their cause.”
Nicholas exhaled. She could almost hear him thinking about the possibility. “Not likely. Enamored with stories of the American wilderness, Joshua travelled there on a lark to get away from home.”
“And there’s Anthony who’s next in line from me. He’s a genius. Rarely comes out of his laboratory to see the light of day.”
“He is a scientist?”
“He has always tinkered with the physical world, since he was a child.” Nicholas laughed. “He once formulated a sleeping potion for our tutor so we could have the day off and go to the village fair.”
“What happened?”
“The tutor did not wake for a day and a night. The outraged Jesuit reported to my father at the exact time, Anthony’s lab exploded. Anthony had been mixing chemicals, perfecting a new experiment and left seconds before. Both he and Abby might have been killed. We were disciplined for our misdeeds to the tune of no weekend activities for six weeks. Pure purgatory, reciting Latin phrases over and over. Amo. Amas. Amat. Amamas.”
She listened as he conjugated the Latin verb, to love. His voice had a pleasant sound that could command in such a way as to compel obedience. Oh, he would make a fine duke with that voice, his baritone possessing a quality that could woo seductively and caressingly, most of all her.
“Abby is the youngest. We were very close and I always protected her, often taking the blame for her schemes. When she was eight summers, Abby maneuvered me on a prank to fool her best friend, Lord Humphrey. Humphrey loved noodles. Abby convinced the cook to make noodles, loads of them. With the footman, we hung them all over a tree. When Humphrey came up the drive, his eyes popped wide as saucers watching us go up and down ladders, harvesting baskets of noodles. Every time he visited, he stared at the tree, waiting for noodles to sprout.”
“You sound like a charming horde of imps.” Her heart panged. “You are so lucky, to have brothers and sisters to share joys and camaraderie—to take away any loneliness.”
His voice deepened and there was a touch of sympathy. “Were you lonely, Alexandra?”
If he knew the poverty of loneliness that inhabited her soul, would he think differently about her? Could she be honest with him? Bare her soul?
“Deconshire was so isolated and we lived so far from town. I didn’t fit there. Do you know how that feels? To be caught in a world where you don’t belong, feeling like a foreigner and not understanding the language.”
“Molly and Samuel were wonderful and did everything they could to make me happy. But all my life, I was haunted by dreams, had visions of a handsome man bouncing me on his knee…a secret…a latch…a desk…a trap door…papers. The man would hold my face in his hands, telling me it was important.
“None of it made sense until the night I broke into my father’s library. Polished wainscoting, a large desk…even the smell of leather from the many volumes collected on the shelves. Everything flooded back. This was my home. But before I could tinker with the desk, Lady Ursula discovered me.
“Samuel had said, my stepmother passed rumors my mother had cuckolded my father and I was ill-legitimate. Samuel was convinced Ursula had papers forged, showing my father had established her son as the heir and inheritor of the Sutherland Baronetcy.”
“Back-up, Alexandra. Why would your stepmother go to all the trouble, spreading rumors of your illegitimacy? Why bother blackballing you, if the papers were forged to secure her son’s standing? Estates will go to the closest male heir…unless—and by some rare occurrence when there is no male heir, a title would pass automatically to the female heir. I can assume Lady Ursula is hiding something and that is why she is afraid of you, and that is why she had Molly killed.”
Alexandra grew silent mulling Nicholas’s conclusion, the same calculations that had churned in her mind. Life was full of mysteries she’d never solve, the least of which was proving her ancestry. Oh, to rightfully claim what was hers by birthright.
She clenched her hands. “I want justice, Nicholas. I want justice for my father and Molly. Bringing Ursula and Willean before a magistrate for their crimes burns in me like a fever.”
“I can help you by petitioning the Crown.”
Alexandra leaned over and snorted. “The chance of wild pigs on this island, sprouting wings and flying us to England has a higher likelihood than the King bothering to hear my case. I suppose you are going to next tell me you are related to the King.”
“He is my father’s cousin.”
Alexandra fell back on her pillow. “Never in a million years would I have guessed that possibility. But I cannot prove who I am. Molly is dead and the only witness to Ursula’s crime.”
“What about the night you broke in? Did a servant see you? What about on the docks? Were there any eyewitnesses?”
“None that I saw.”
Nicholas said nothing. His silence spoke volumes. Tears of frustration burned the back of her throat. There was no answer to her dilemma. Even if they were rescued, her future was bleak. Never could she take her rightful place in society. Lady Ursula had made sure of that.
And then too, her life would be in danger if her stepmother discovered her whereabouts. Samuel too. Always looking over her shoulder…living in fear.
“Alexandra, I will find a way, I promised you before and I promise you now that you will get back what belongs to you, and your stepmother and brother will pay for their crimes. However, there is a condition—”
“A condition?”
“You must promise the first dance to me at the Summer’s Eve Ball.”
To dance with Lord Nicholas? To pretend what he said was true, even for a little while was a wonderful dream. At least she’d fantasize a little. “The Summer’s Eve Ball?”
“It is the grandest display of balls that my family puts on at Belvoir on the eve of the summer solstice. No expense is spared. Indeed, the surroundings are beautiful. Lanterns hang in the gardens; a riot of roses bloom and the scent drifts everywhere. The music is soft and lilting and the smiles and chatter of all the celebrators mark the evening to be every triumph London society imagines. All eyes would be focused on you.”
Her breath hitched. Her hands were stained and calloused from working in the gardens. Not a lady’s hands. She fingered her linen shift, no more than a rag. Never could she afford a ball gown let alone slippers. Oh, Nicholas, you paint such a pretty picture. To step into your world for just a second. A white ball gown that shimmered as she descended a stairway. Moving into Nicolas’s arms, and swaying to a waltz. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the miraculous scope of human generosity. Nicolas had given her a gift of flowers and sunshine, a castle in the sky.
The cold reality was that when they returned to England, she’d resume her life, hiding in Deconshire, always fearing Lady Ursula would attempt to get rid of her again, and Nicholas would go back to claim his responsibilities.
She clutched her chest. Her chequered past reared its vile head again. Ursula’s damning defamation created negative moral judgment. Even coming from a small town, she knew how vicious the wagging tongues were. Multiply that a hundredfold by an aristocracy who sought gossip as recreation. To be associated with a woman who was considered illegitimate would put a stain on Lord Nicholas. No. She would not jeopardize him with any censorship driven by his association with her.
The terrible and absurd sting of emotions would not let her rest. The longing of the impossible lay heavy in her heart. The same longing of another soul to cling to, to watch the evolving tides, and the laughter of the rain, a body to keep her warm, to pour herself into. Just as the man lying next to her.
How long could she keep up the charade? Day by day her attraction to Nicholas grew. To pretend she did not have feelings for him was torture. How many times had she cautioned herself to stop staring at him like a lovesick fool? Would he dismiss her affection? Someone with her hazy lineage might never be elevated to his status.
Yet the intimacy of sleeping side by side had her thinking the impossible and a curl of desire grew inside her. They had brushed shoulders from time to time when working or when he held her hand to assist her up on a ledge. Other than that, they had kept their relationship familial. But it did not keep her from wishing things were different.
She stared at the ceiling, anywhere but at him, laying exhausted and doubting if she’d get a wink of sleep. Was it wrong to imagine laying her head on his chest, and feeling his heart beat beneath her fingers?