Cottage by the Sea (14 page)

   "Nonsense, lad!" Trevelyan said gruffly. "I've always known you've had tender feelings for the chit, though she's bound to be a handful," he added, with a look of asperity cast in Rosamund's direction. "You must woo her, that's all… show her you're not the rascal your brother is… convince her she's got the best of the bargain in the long run. 'Twas what I did with your mother when she thought she wanted to marry Edward Grieve over at Mevagissey." Kit's father chuckled slyly. "My acres bordering the coast were far more valuable than landlocked Grieve Manor, and my dexterity in the feathers was far more to her liking—or so she says…"

   "Must you?" Rosamund interrupted disdainfully.

   Collis shrugged.

   "A jest, Rosamund…"

   "Ah… I see." Blythe's mother smiled faintly, her eyes narrowing. "A bit of levity in the face of Kit's concern he won't be able to entice his virginal bride into the marriage bed?"

   "From what I saw around here today, 'twill be fortunate for Kit if she is a virgin, my dear," Collis retorted icily. Ignoring Rosamund's indignant gasp, he turned to his son and added, "If you must beat her into obedience, so be it. A thump on the backside can prove a great persuader, my boy."

   By this time Blythe was palpitating with fury. She leaned her forehead against the cool metal doorknob and inhaled long, even breaths to calm herself. It was all she could do to keep from bursting into the chamber to tell those damned scoundrels she absolutely refused to be treated as so much chattel. Yet at seventeen years old, and female, she was forced to admit she
was
chattel… worse than chattel, except for her value as a brood mare.

   The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway prompted Blythe to pull her eye away from the keyhole.

   "Had your fill of commerce?" Ennis called softly from the opposite end of the dim corridor. "Surely your fate has been decided by now. Come have your tea. It grows cold in the sitting room."

   "Much you care," Blythe hissed. Still, she thought, walking toward him, at least Ennis was attempting to raise her spirits.

   "Ah… Blythie," he crooned, reaching out and placing his hand behind her neck with a gentle touch. "You wound me, my darling." He smiled down at her while gently rubbing her nape with his thumb. "You've always been my favorite, my pretty one, and well you know it! No one but you fires me with such a desire to create… to paint."

   She felt his glance sweep her frame from head to toe. In the last year her slender figure had filled out admirably, and lately Ennis had been showering her with compliments, even asking her to do him the honor of allowing him to paint her portrait. He had pictured the perfect setting, he'd told her, and his description sent delicious tremors down her spine: he would place her in dappled light amid the emerald woods that led down to the sea near Hemmick Cove.

   "When will you sit for me?" he urged her once again, gently shoving her against the paneled wall and pressing his thighs provocatively against her. "Would you permit me to draw you without your—"

   "Lud, Ennis!" Blythe protested in a low voice. "Don't you understand? I'm to marry Kit! And soon! Probably before my father's proper mourning has ended—"

   "Then there's so little time," he murmured, pulling her closer. "I've nearly persuaded my father to allow me to travel to Italy to study art with the masters when Kit is settled. If I do go, he's agreed to allow cousin Garrett to accompany me in the role of valet and traveling companion."

   "Ah… I see," Blythe said cuttingly, pushing hard against his chest. "So once Kit and your father get their hands on my wedding portion and can afford to send you away, off you'll go!"

   She stared accusingly into his pale-blue eyes, which, as always, remained unreadable. She wondered if any stab of guilt rankled his conscience. Garrett was right, she thought bleakly. If the Barton-Trevelyan match was finalized, there would be the funds, at last, to finance Ennis's sojourn abroad.

   "Ah, Blythie, dear heart," Ennis soothed. "Fond of you as I am, 'tis always been the plan—"

   "But don't you care if I'm taken to bed and owned, body and soul, by your brother?" Blythe demanded. "Doesn't the thought of our lying together in that wretched Barton Bed upstairs bother you at all?"

   Despite her youth, Blythe had learned that, when it came to men, there was often a way to turn a proper key in the lock. She had observed her mother, often enough, beguile her father, either with flattery or with stony looks. As Blythe stared at Ennis, her chin raised in defiance, she sensed she had stirred some spark in him. Was it because of his competition with his brother—or was it mere lust? Either way, perhaps his response could be employed to rescue her from her current predicament.

   "Ennis, I can't bear the thought of Kit touching me… not as you have," she whispered softly, and though she was deliberately coaxing tears into her eyes, she knew the sentiment to be true.

   "He'll not have you first!" Ennis growled.

   "He will, unless you do," Blythe retorted. "But if you get me with child, then they'd have to let us marry, wouldn't they?"

   "Ah… so you know something practical concerning the wages of sin."

   "Is it sin to love someone?" she exclaimed. "To want—"

   But Ennis wasn't really listening. He fastened his mouth on

hers, and instead of nibbling around the corner of her lips in his usual, teasing fashion, coaxing her awkward ardor to respond to his fervid lust, he took care this time to kiss her properly. Like a man. Like the rake he had become, thanks to the doxies in Gorran Haven and Mevagissey who were only too happy to satisfy the sexual appetites of the younger son of one of the region's most prominent landowners. She'd heard the tittletattle whispered in the castle hallways and on the servants' stairs.

   As she sank into Ennis's embrace, she acknowledged silently that the younger Trevelyan brother had always held a fascination for her. The two of them had evaded their elders many times over the years, sharing the same restless desire to escape the prison of village life in the prescribed worlds of Gorran Haven and Mevagissey. On clear days, when they sat side by side on Dodman Point and talked of France across the Channel, they told each other stories of the exotic places they might find there.

   She felt a delicious warmth radiate toward her throat as Ennis slipped the palm of his left hand between the two of them to gain free access to her breasts. The fingers of his right hand continued to cradle her neck as he deliberately deepened their kiss. Blythe gave a little moan and pressed herself with abandon against the length of his body.

   Giving herself up to the astonishing array of sensations provoked by Ennis's knowing touch, she realized that it had always been the two of them, joined in a conspiracy to outwit their kin. This had been especially true when it came to Kit. Instinctively she and Ennis had combined forces to tease him and play him for the fool, even though he was the eldest and should have commanded their respect.

   Yet, in the end, she feared that Ennis had been made to understand and accept the inevitable: that the eldest son always won the prize. By the time he was fourteen, she could see that Collis Trevelyan's younger son had determined he must seek something that was within his grasp, and that something had become his passion for art.

   "I'll pose for you…" she murmured, deliberately pressing her midsection firmly into his pelvis, signaling in this unmistakable fashion that she was acutely aware of his being aroused.

   "Blythe," Ennis groaned, and buried his lips at the hollow of her throat.

   "We can run away," she whispered, cupping his head between her hands and frantically kissing his hair. To her amazement, shrewd calculation on her part had given way to physical feelings so powerful, her legs felt as rubbery as seaweed. Ennis clutched at the back of her skirt, his fingers bunching up the fabric of her gown. Cool air kissed the tops of her silk stockings.

   "Come," he mumbled. "Let us find a place where—"

   "I'll sail with you to Italy," she cried softly, tightening her arms around his waist. "Please, Ennis, don't leave me! Just promise me—"

   A door rattled at the end of the hallway. The couple jolted apart.

   "Blythe? Now, where's that baggage got to now?" Collis Trevelyan said with exasperation. "Ah, there you are!" he exclaimed, squinting nearsightedly down the dim hallway. Blythe whirled around to face her guardian, and the hem of her skirt fell discreetly to the floor. Collis had poked his head farther out the library door. "At least you weren't spying through the keyhole. Come, everyone," he called over his shoulder to his companions inside the book-lined chamber. "The widow Barton has insisted we all stay for tea."

   "As I think I made clear earlier, Collis," Blythe's mother was

saying testily, "a wedding as early as September would cause a scandal of speculation about poor Blythe having to rush to the altar. As it is, October is appalling enough, though I suppose we could manage." The mistress of Barton Hall glanced around the room. "You do realize, however, that such unseemly haste will have the gossips in Gorran Haven saying Blythe's
enceinte
and—"

   "All the better if she is, as long as it's by Kit here," Collis said gruffly, behaving as if his ward were absent from the chamber. "I'll wager 'twon't be the first time some reckless lass stood at the altar full-in-the-belly."

   Trevelyan's two sons exchanged embarrassed glances, while Blythe set her cup down with a clatter.

   "Mama," she said, biting her lip to bolster her courage. She realized, now, that if she was ever to carry Ennis's child, she would need to play for time. "Father's not been in his grave a year. Surely you wouldn't wish us to show his memory such little regard—"

   "'Tis not a matter of regard," Rosamund interrupted curtly. "'Tis a matter of survival, my dear. We shall all be quite unhappy if the king's men ever garner proof of what we do along these shores in the dead of night. Unhappy—and impoverished, I'm sorry to say."

   Blythe was stunned into silence. Her mother had practically promised that she would put Collis Trevelyan off for another year. But that was before the recent visit by the Revenue Men. Apparently the encounter had badly frightened Rosamund Barton.

   Blythe glanced quickly over at Ennis, whose slender fingers drummed lightly against the arm of his chair. Either he was bored or he was eager to escape from the sitting room with sketchbook and charcoal in hand.

   
But what about me?

   As if he had heard her silent cry, Ennis turned his patrician head and smiled faintly, as if to say that he, too, was defeated by the machinations of their elders. Then Blythe looked over at Kit Trevelyan, and her spirits sank even further. His visage was like a low tide on Dodman Point that laid bare treacherous shoals and dead fish best not seen in the cold light of day.

   Before his illness Kit had seemed merely an earnest lad without much wit or charm, in contrast to his brother, Ennis. The older Trevelyan son could talk halfway intelligently about farming and inclement weather, but as far as Blythe had ever witnessed, if the skies turned fair, Collis's son and heir became utterly tongue-tied. Since the smallpox had ravaged his complexion, Kit had become even more withdrawn. In fact, Blythe thought morosely, her proposed betrothed was behaving like a bloody mute!

   I couldn't kiss him, she assured herself glumly.

   And if she couldn't kiss him, how could she possibly—

   "I
will not
marry Kit Trevelyan," Blythe blurted suddenly to his father. "I'll marry Ennis, if you wish, so you can join your precious lands with ours."

   "Hold your tongue, wench!" Collis barked.

   "Let Kit give over his inheritance to his brother," she boldly proposed, "and I will consent—"

   "How dare you utter such outrages in front of my eldest son!" thundered Trevelyan. "They are not interchangeable, you stupid cow! Kit is my heir, and as such, he takes his duties seriously. As for his brother here, he'd like to flit around the Continent, painting naked women—"

   "Father!" Ennis protested heatedly. "Italy is where all the great artists have studied! 'Tis not some frivolous scheme!"

   Collis ignored the protests of his younger son and heaved his corpulent frame from the settee. He turned to address Blythe's mother.

   "Rest assured, madam, that the Reverend Mr. Kent will marry this trollop to my son before the month is out. I charge you with making it plain that she'll pay a high price if she doesn't act the proper wife to him!"

   "Collis, calm yourself," Rosamund admonished in her husky voice. "Let us handle this sensibly—"

   "I will not marry Kit!" Blythe shouted, jumping to her feet. The elder Trevelyan brother sank deeper into his chair while Ennis suppressed a smile. "I'd rather
die!"
she cried, and bolted for the door.

   Rosamund rose to try to prevent her daughter's departure.

   "Let her go," Collis intoned. "The saucebox will be back beside your hearth soon enough," he added, casting a look of contempt at his deceased neighbor's wife. As much as anything, he blamed the mother's indulgent behavior for the daughter's revolting deportment.

As Blythe sped along the path that led to Dodman Point, she realized her pink kid shoes would have to be discarded. They were entirely covered with mud. And now that her left heel had sheared off, she was forced to hobble along like a wounded sand crab.