The Temptation of Your Touch Page 7

  Although he stalked from one end of the grounds surrounding the house to the other, Max encountered no gamekeeper, no gardeners, no stable boys. Of course, why would stable boys be required to tend a stable populated only by rustling mice and the swallows that had darted in through the gaping holes in the roof to build their nests in its sagging rafters? For the first time, it occurred to him he was practically a prisoner in this place.

  His restless ramblings finally led him to the edge of the cliffs. Savage gusts of wind tore open his coat and whipped his hair away from his face. Propping one booted foot on a rock, he leaned into its battering force, grateful to finally find a worthy opponent with whom he could do battle. Someone besides himself.

  At the foot of the cliffs far below, the wind churned the peaks of the waves into foaming whitecaps before driving them to their death against the jagged rocks. The ceaseless roar of the sea was much louder here. A towering wall of clouds brooded on the horizon, their ever-present threat sharpening the very air with the scent of danger.

  Despite his growing misgivings about coming to Cornwall, Max had to admit the landscape had a raw, seductive beauty, a wildness that was as stirring to the blood as a swallow of fine whiskey or a beautiful woman. It was as if he were standing on the edge of a storm that could break at any minute, sweeping away everything in its path and making all things new.

  Off to the left, he could see a shallow cove cut into the cliffs, where the rocks grudgingly gave way to a half circle of sandy beach. When he was a boy, such a sight would have sent his imagination soaring with dreams of smugglers and the shuttered glow of lanterns dancing along the beach beneath a moonless sky, of secret passageways winding their way deep into the stony recesses of the cliffs, and heaps of shimmering treasure buried in long-forgotten caves. But those dreams had long ago been replaced with ledgers full of endless columns of figures and long, dull board meetings where he presided over a bunch of gouty old men more interested in fattening their own coffers than in steering their company—and their country—toward the future.

  The back of Max’s neck prickled. Even with his gaze fixed on the sea, he could feel the inescapable shadow of the manor behind him, its windows gazing down upon him like watchful eyes. He wondered if other eyes were watching him as well—mercurial eyes with a maddening tendency to shift when a man least expected it from the glossy green of leaves in deep summer to the rich brown of burled walnut.

  He hadn’t lingered long enough to see if his curt rebuke had made those eyes darken with hurt.

  Seized by a fresh restlessness, Max turned away from the sea and began to stalk along the edge of the cliffs. As he studiously banished his housekeeper from his thoughts, another woman intruded. And not the woman he had expected—the woman who was now happily wed to his brother.

  No, this was a mocking little minx, her lustrous brown hair piled carelessly atop her head, her lightly blushed cheek poised on the verge of dimpling. Max slowed his steps as he picked his way over the rocks, wondering just how many times Angelica Cadgwyck’s dainty feet might have trod this very path.

  And at precisely which spot she had chosen to end her life.

  As he reached the very tip of the rugged promontory that jutted out over the sea, his question was answered as surely as if he’d spoken it aloud. Here, the wind was even more relentless. Nearly staggering against its force, Max drew close enough to the edge of the cliff to watch the roiling sea break over the jagged, glistening blades of the rocks below.

  Had moonlight glinted off those same rocks on the night Angelica died? Or had clouds shrouded the moon and tricked her into believing that if she took flight off the bluff, she would drift gently down into the arms of the sea?

  Max lifted his eyes to the distant horizon. He could almost see her standing there—a young woman blinded by tears, about to be cast out of the only home she had ever known. The ruthless wind would have stripped the pins from her hair like the fingers of a jealous lover until it danced in a cloud around her beautiful, tearstained face.

  Her lover was dead, her brother carted off to prison, then banished from these shores, never to return, and her father driven mad by grief. Which one of them had she mourned the most in that moment? Had she given the brash young artist both her body and her heart or held one in reserve for some future love? A love she would never live long enough to meet.

  In the fraction of time before she had stepped off the edge of that promontory, had she been fleeing her destiny or rushing forward to embrace it with open arms?

  Without warning, the thin shelf of rock beneath Max’s feet began to crumble. He jumped backward just in time to watch what was left of the shelf tumble toward the sea in a dizzying spiral before shattering against the rocks below like so many grains of sand.

  Chapter Nine

  AS MAX WATCHED THE swirling sea swallow the pulverized rocks just as it must have swallowed Angelica Cadgwyck’s broken body all those years ago, his chest heaved with delayed reaction. Despite the violent pounding of his heart—or perhaps because of it—he hadn’t felt this alive for a long time.

  When he had arrived at Cadgwyck last night, he had foolishly assumed the chief dangers a man might encounter in such a place were a loose chimney pot or a rotted banister. He had never dreamed the cliffs themselves might try to lure him to his doom. Had he been possessed of a more suspicious—and less practical—nature, he might even have suspected foul play. But common sense told him the shelf of rock at the tip of the promontory had simply been weakened by time and the elements. He had no one to blame for his near fatal plunge into the sea but himself. He should never have wandered so close to the cliff’s edge.

  Shaking his head, Max turned to give the windows of the house a rueful look, wondering if anyone else had witnessed his folly.

  He half-expected to see Angelica herself laughing merrily down at him from some shadowy attic dormer, but there was nothing ghostly about the flicker of movement he glimpsed in a second-story window.

  AS LORD DRAVENWOOD’S SHARP-EYED gaze swept the back of the manor, then returned with eerie precision to the exact window where she was standing, Anne ducked behind the velvet draperies. Her mouth was dry, her heart still racing madly beneath the palm that had flown to her chest when he had stumbled back from the edge of the cliff, only inches away from a plunge into nothingness.

  She fought to steady her breathing before peeping around the edge of the curtain again. To her keen relief, Dravenwood had already turned away from the house and was beginning to make his way farther along the cliffs, this time remaining a safe distance from their treacherous edge.

  “This one’s going to be trouble, isn’t he?” Pippa observed, setting down her ash bucket to join Anne at the window of the cozy second-floor study.

  Pippa had made a more concerted effort to embrace her role of maidservant on this day, taming her flyaway dark curls into two proper braids coiled neatly above her ears and donning an apron with only a few faded chocolate stains marring its snowy-white surface.

  Anne watched their new master pick his way over the rocks, unaccountably angry at him for frightening her so badly. “They’re all trouble, dearest,” she said darkly. “It’s just a matter of degree.”

  Despite her reassurances, Anne knew Pippa was right. Trouble was written in every line of Lord Dravenwood’s bearing—in the stiffness of his broad shoulders, the way he carried himself as if he were nursing some mortal wound no one else could see. It was etched in the shadows that brooded beneath his eyes and in the way his coat hung loosely on his tall, rangy frame, as if it had been tailored for a different man.

  A man who hadn’t forgotten how to smile.

  But those were just warning signs. Even without them, he was the sort of man who could cause trouble for a woman with little more than a smoldering glance from beneath the thick, sooty lashes veiling his quicksilver eyes or the casual brush of his hand against the small of her back. And if such a man should choose to employ the full range of his seductive s
kills, he could easily go from being trouble to being a full-fledged disaster. At least for the woman foolish enough to grant him access to her vulnerable heart—or her body.

  Anne could feel Pippa’s worried gaze lingering on her face. “Whatever is the matter with you, Annie? Why, you’re as white as a ghost yourself!”

  “And why wouldn’t I be?” Anne replied with a lightness she was far from feeling. “I was afraid the careless fool was going to tumble headlong over the cliff, leaving us to explain yet another unfortunate accident to the constable.”

  “What do you suppose ails the man?” Pippa’s smooth brow puckered in a quizzical frown as she watched Lord Dravenwood stalk along the edge of the cliffs, the tails of his coat blowing out behind him. “Do you think he’s recovering from some terrible illness? A brain fever or some exotic malady he picked up on one of his journeys perhaps?”

  Anne would have wagered Lord Dravenwood was suffering from a sickness of the heart, not the body. She knew its signs only too well, having nearly died from it herself once.

  “Whatever ails him, it’s none of our concern.” As the earl turned and began to make his way back toward the manor, she yanked the drapes shut. “If I have anything to say about it, he’ll be gone soon enough, just like all the others.”

  Pippa hauled her bucket over to the hearth and dumped its contents on the pristine iron grate. A dark cloud of ash shot up into the air, forcing her to wave it away from her watering eyes. “If we succeed in driving him away, won’t they just send another pompous nobleman in his place?”

  “Perhaps,” Anne said firmly, hoping to hide her own doubts. “But thanks to our diligent efforts, the infamy of the White Lady of Cadgwyck is beginning to spread beyond the borders of Cornwall. If her legend continues to flourish, it’s going to grow ever more difficult for them to find a buyer or overseer for the property. With any luck, they’ll leave us to our own devices just long enough for us to find what we’ve been looking for.”

  “What if they should decide to close down the house altogether? Before we can find the treasure?”

  “I don’t believe they’ll do that as long as they have a household of loyal servants willing to remain in this cursed place. After all, we’re the only ones standing between the manor and utter ruin.” Anne wagged her eyebrows at Pippa. “At least that’s what we’re allowing them to believe.”

  Pippa set aside the bucket. “Just what manner of mischief are you proposing this time?”

  “Nothing too extreme. I suspect all his lordship really needs is a little nudge toward the door.”

  “A nudge or a shove?”

  Anne lifted her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “Whatever will serve us best.”

  “Promise me you’ll take care, won’t you?” Pippa urged, her dark eyes absent their usual teasing spark. “I fear he might be more dangerous than the others.”

  Anne wanted to dismiss the warning. But she knew far more about the dangers a man such as Dravenwood could present to a woman than Pippa did. Dangers lurking behind longing looks and stolen caresses and pretty promises never intended to be kept.

  Mustering up a reassuring smile, she marched past Pippa and to the fireplace. Kneeling on the hearth, she reached up into the chimney and fumbled blindly about until she located the grimy iron key that controlled the flue.

  She gave it a sharp twist, then rose, briskly dusting ash from her hands. “Try not to fret so much, my dear. Lord Dravenwood might be a threat to me, but I can assure you Angelica is more than his match.”

  “MRS. SPENCER!”

  To Anne’s credit, she didn’t even flinch when that thunderous shout came echoing through the halls of Cadgwyck Manor later that night. The convivial conversation she and her staff had been enjoying around the long pine table in the kitchen ceased abruptly. Lisbeth seized Betsy’s hand in a white-knuckled grip while the other maids exchanged wide-eyed glances of alarm over their steaming bowls of bisque prepared with lobsters Dickon had trapped for them just that morning.

  Hodges lurched halfway to his feet, snatching up the wicked-looking knife they’d used to cut the bread. Dickon clapped a hand on the old man’s shoulder, easing Hodges back into his chair before gently removing the knife from his clenched fist and sliding it out of harm’s reach. Pippa buried her pert nose even deeper in the dog-eared copy of The Castle of Otranto she had filched from the manor’s library.

  In an ominous silence broken only by the cheery click of Nana’s knitting needles and Piddles’s snoring, Anne took one more sip of the succulent soup before laying down her spoon. She dabbed delicately at her lips with her napkin, then rose from her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, it seems the master is in need of my services.”

  As she started for the door, the rest of them eyed her as if she were marching off to the gallows. She forced herself to maintain her even pace as she climbed the stairs and crossed the second-story gallery, keenly aware of Angelica Cadgwyck’s mocking gaze following her every step. Her composure wasn’t tested until she passed the third-floor staircase at the far end of the gallery and saw the man barreling down the long corridor. Heading straight for her.

  Lord Dravenwood looked as if he’d just marched out of the gates of hell. Soot blackened his face, making the whites of his eyes gleam that much more vividly. His hair was wild and his coat missing entirely. Each of his furious strides left a blackened footprint on the shabby carpet runner. A billowing cloud of smoke trailed behind him.

  Another man in his predicament might have looked comical. But perhaps one had to have a sense of humor to look comical. He just looked murderous.

  Ignoring her instinctive urge to snatch up the hem of her skirts and flee in the opposite direction, Anne donned her most unflappable expression as he halted in front of her. His broad chest was still heaving, although whether with rage or from exertion she could not tell.

  Given the sparks of unholy wrath shooting from his eyes, it seemed only fitting that he smelled of fire and brimstone as well. His ash-smudged shirtsleeves had been shoved up to reveal muscular forearms generously dusted with curling, dark hair.

  “You bellowed, my lord?” she inquired, jerking her gaze away from that rather riveting sight and its unanticipated effects on her composure and back up to his face.

  His sharp eyes missed nothing. “I do hope you’ll forgive my shocking state of undress, Mrs. Spencer,” he said with scathing courtesy. “I had to use my coat to fan the smoke out of the study before it choked me to death.” His eyes narrowed in an accusing gaze. “When you informed me the study would be a pleasant place to enjoy an after-dinner brandy, you neglected to mention it would turn into a death trap the minute I lit the fire that had been laid upon the hearth.”

  “Oh, dear.” Anne touched a hand to her throat in what she hoped was a convincing display of dismay. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Fortunately, I was able to smother the flames and wrestle the windows open before being overcome by the smoke. When was the last time that chimney was cleaned? Seventeen ninety-eight?”

  Anne shook her head, heaving a bewildered sigh. “I don’t understand what could have happened. Why, I checked the damper myself only this morning when Pippa and I were airing out the room! I would have sworn the flue was—” She stopped abruptly, lowering her eyes before casting him an uneasy glance from beneath her lashes.

  Dravenwood folded his arms over his chest, an expression far too cynical to be called a smile quirking one corner of his lips. “Let me guess. You think the ghost was the one who tampered with the flue.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, my lord! You said yourself there was no such thing as ghosts.”

  His jaw tightened. “What I said was that men are perfectly capable of creating things to haunt them without the aid of the supernatural.”

  “And quite right you are about that, I’m sure. Perhaps it was simply a malfunction of some sort. I’ll send the maids to clean up the study and have Dickon check the flue right away.”

  “Very w
ell. Then you can send Hodges to my chambers. As you can see, I’ll be requiring some assistance with my bath.”

  A flutter of panic stirred in Anne’s throat. She had not anticipated this complication. “Perhaps Dickon can check the flue in the morning. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to assist you in the bath if you’ll just give me a moment to—”

  “Send Hodges,” Dravenwood commanded. “Unless, of course”—he leaned toward her in an unmistakably menacing manner, his stern voice betraying not so much as a hint of humor—“you’d rather assist me.”

  Unfortunately, the earl’s raw masculinity was made even more potent by his savage appearance. With his gray eyes smoldering with a fire of their own, his hair tousled as if by a lover’s fingers, and his bared teeth dazzling white against the soot-darkened planes of his face, he looked like a man capable of anything. Anything at all.

  A dangerous little flame uncurled low in Anne’s belly, bringing a kindred rush of heat to her cheeks. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke rising from her own flesh.

  She took an awkward half step backward before saying stiffly, “I’ll have Lisbeth and Betsy draw a bath and send Hodges up to assist you.”

  “Thank you,” he replied with exaggerated formality.

  Through narrowed eyes Anne watched him stride away from her, almost wishing she had armed herself with Pippa’s poker.

  MAX SANK DEEPER INTO the copper hip bath, resting the back of his head against its rim. He had to cock his knees up at an awkward angle just to partially submerge his long legs, but the warm water lapping at the muscled planes of his chest almost made up for the inconvenience. He made a mental note to have Mrs. Spencer order a tub more suited to a man his size.

  A reluctant half smile curved his lips at the memory of his housekeeper’s outraged expression when he had suggested she attend him in his bath. He didn’t know why he took such delight in taunting the stiff-necked woman, but there was no denying it gave him a naughty little thrill of satisfaction. One he hadn’t felt for a long time.