Whispers of Heaven (25 page)

She put up a hand to catch a stray lock of hair that drifted across her face. He was looking out to sea again, although now, she suspected, his thoughts were not of the tragedy of this cove, but of home. "Why won't the governor grant your pardon?" she asked abruptly.

He went very still, although she could see his chest jerk as he sucked in a quick, painful breath. She wasn't expecting an answer now, but he gave her one. "Because I killed a man," he said, his voice coming out so cold and flat it frightened her. "A man named Nathan Fitzherbert. He was a major in the British army, and first cousin to your young Queen, even if his father's marriage was never recognized by old King George."

All the warmth went out of the day, leaving her cold and shaken.
Because I killed a man,
he'd said; he hadn't said,
Because I was convicted of killing a man....
"You were transported for murder?" she asked in a broken voice.

"Och,
no." He shook his head, that sardonic smile curling his lips. She wondered if the smile mocked himself or the British legal system, and decided it was probably both. "I was transported for being a member of an illegal society, like I said before. They couldn't make the murder charge stick, you see, so they had to find something else to convict me on."

"Why did you kill him?"

That brief, humorless smile faded. "I had reasons," he said, his face as hard and emotionless as his voice. "I don't regret what I did." The breeze rose off the cove, cool and salty, catching his coat so that it billowed open as he came at her, his boots crunching the hard sand. She rose, troubled and tense, to meet him. "I don't regret it, and I'd do it again, if I had to." He planted himself in front of her and leaned into her, a strange, frightening glitter lighting his eyes. "So you see, Miss Jesmond Corbett of Corbett Castle, you'd do well to keep your distance from me. For more than one reason."

Her breath left her body in a painful rush. "I don't believe you'd harm me."

He opened his eyes wide at her, something that was not a smile curling his lips. "Sure then, and what would you be basing that comfortable assumption on?"

She lifted her chin until she was meeting his hard, challenging gaze. "Empirical observation."

He laughed, the sudden flash of amusement chasing the shifting shadows from his eyes and deepening the crease in his left cheek. They turned, together, and began to walk along the beach. After a moment, he said, not looking at her, "And have you given much thought, then, to what we talked about the other day, about having your brother find you a new groom?"

She shook her head. "I keep telling myself I'm twenty years old now, that I should simply tell my mother about my friendship with Genevieve. But every time I think about how she'll react, I ..." She swallowed hard, not able to look at him. "I am such a despicable coward."

They had reached the edge of the estuary now and swung away from the beach to follow the sluggish water through the grassy dunes, toward where they had left the shay. "Not so despicable," he said, his hat brim lifting as he squinted at the blackened walls of the house before them. "You love your mother and you want her to love you, to be proud of you. Honesty can be expensive. You're the only one who can decide if it's worth it."

They had reached the edge of what had once been a garden, the now stark, blackened branches of its trees choked by ivy and other creepers running rank and rampant in the damp air. It felt oddly colder here, by the house. But then, it always did. It was as if the place were permanently impregnated with an unnatural chill that brought with it a profound sense of uneasiness and despair.

"Who's the ghost, then, that haunts this place?" he asked, pausing at the edge of the ruined garden, his gaze fixed on the broken stone walls of the house that rose, three stories tall, to a blackened, collapsed roofline.

"Do you feel it?" she asked, looking not at the house but at the man beside her. "The chill?"

He nodded, his face oddly tight. She still wasn't convinced, herself, of the existence of such things as ghosts. But this place had always disturbed her, and she thought, studying the way his eyes narrowed, that it affected him, too. "So what happened here?" he asked.

There was an elm, near a broken fountain at the edge of the garden, that had escaped the fire. She went to stand with one gloved hand resting on the cool bark, her gaze on the blackened stones before them. Sometimes, when she breathed deeply, she thought she could still smell the smoke, still hear the crackle of the flames. "The house was built by a man named Grimes. Mathew Grimes. He was a widower who came here from Sydney with his only daughter, Claire." At the mention of the name, Jessie felt the chill in the air deepen, so that she shivered. "She was sixteen, and very lovely. Her father was supposedly devoted to her."

"You say that as if you don't believe it."

She shrugged. "He was... a very hard and ambitious man. He wanted this house to be known as the grandest on the whole island. That's why he built it here, so it could be seen from the sea. He even imported a massive staircase made of ancient oak, taken from some Elizabethan manor in England. It was quite spectacular. I remember seeing it when I was younger and my father brought me here on a visit."

She thought he might say something, but he didn't, so she went on. "One morning, the household servants awoke to discover Claire lying at the foot of the stairs. Her neck was broken. Her father claimed she must have arisen during the night, and fallen."

He came to stand beside her, close enough that she could have touched him, although she didn't. "Was there a reason to doubt him?"

She nodded. "The servants heard them having a terrible argument the night before. It seems Grimes had discovered Claire was in love with one of the convict servants, and he was threatening to send the convict away." She couldn't look at the man beside her, although she was powerfully aware of him, of the energy that seemed to emanate from him, like a conflagration in the air between them, searing her flesh. She sucked in a quick breath that fluttered the black satin ribbons of her hat. "That's when Claire told her father she was carrying the convict's child."

She could feel his gaze on her, hard. "So her father killed her?"

She shifted until her back was against the tree, and looked at him. "No one knows. Perhaps he struck her and knocked her down the stairs accidentally. Or perhaps he pushed her. It would have been a terrible disgrace, if the truth had become known."

He tilted his head. "Yet it did become known."

"There were whispers. But Grimes was a brutal, ruthless man, and his servants were too afraid to speak out openly."

He went to stand with one booted foot braced against the broken foundation of the old fountain, his elbow resting on his bent knee as he stared again at the house before them, his face intent. "And the girl's lover?"

"A few days later, Grimes accused the convict of stealing some of the silver."

He swung his head to look at her over his shoulder, his gaze sharp. "And?"

"He was hanged."

A strained silence settled over the clearing. She could hear the cry of the gulls above the cove, the rush of the nearby sea sweeping in and out over the sand. Then he said, "So how did the house burn?"

She swallowed, a useless attempt to ease the ache in her throat. "A year later, exactly, to the date of the convict's death, the house caught fire. No one knows why. The household servants were locked in the basement, but someone opened the door for them, so they were able to escape. It wasn't until they were outside that they heard Grimes pounding on his bedroom door upstairs. He was locked in."

"No one let him out?"

She stared at the blackened, empty windows, then looked away, shaking her head. "That grand old oaken staircase went up like a torch. There was nothing anyone could do." Overhead, a lorikeet flitted from branch to branch, chattering noisily. She watched it in silence for a moment, her fingers curling against the trunk's bark. "The servants said that at the end, they could hear him screaming his daughter's name over and over again, begging her not to let her lover kill him."

Gallagher let out a huff that wasn't anything like a laugh. "I can't say I feel sorry for him. Who haunts the house, then? Claire?"

Jessie felt the breath leave her chest in a painful sigh. "Some say it's all three. The sadness that seems to hang over the place comes from Claire, while the unnatural coldness is Mathew Grimes. But the anger..."

"The anger is the convict," he finished for her, his foot slipping off the foundation stones as he turned to face her.

"Yes," she said, meeting his gaze.

They stared at each other forever. The sun filtered down through the leaves of the elm overhead, stirring fitfully in the afternoon breeze. He stood silhouetted against the golden brightness of the clearing behind him, a lean, dark man, beautiful and frightening. She stared at his face, at the dramatic line of cheek and jaw, held defiantly high and proud. Too proud, she thought, for one in his position, and she felt a great fear for him, a fear that caught at her chest with an unexpected pain. She drew in a deep breath, trying to ease it, and smelled again that elusive hint of smoke and charred wood. Startled, she sucked her lower lip between her teeth ...

And saw his gaze fasten on her mouth.

Something shifted, deep in his eyes, something that seemed to echo the turmoil of emotions that welled up inside her, hot and wild and needy. The sea breeze caught at her skirts, fluttering them out before her as she took a step toward him, then another. He thrust out one hand as if to stop her, but she simply put her hand in his, and after a moment his fingers closed around hers, hard, and pulled her to him, his hips resting against the fountain behind him so that she settled naturally into the widespread vee of his thighs.

"This is a mistake," he said, his hands riding low on her hips as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I know," she said, or started to say, except that his palms were already sliding up her back, drawing her closer to him, her head tilting as his mouth sought hers, found it.

It was like coming home, to be kissing him. She knew it again, that warm liquid glow that spread through her body, that stole her breath and her will and her conscious awareness of anything beyond the wonder of him, of his kiss and his touch. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, holding him to her. She heard a moan vibrate deep in his throat, felt his grip on her hips tighten, felt the hardness of him, the heat of him, pressing against her. And still, it wasn't enough. She wanted to feel his hands, his lips, all over her. She trembled, ached, burned for him. And she knew with awful clarity that touching him, or even kissing him, would never be enough. She wanted him to take her, to take her the way a man takes a woman he is hungry for, fierce for—with no thought of the consequences or tomorrow.

"God, how I want you," he murmured against her open mouth. "I want to touch you all over... kiss you all over..." He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back, knocking her bonnet off so that it dangled from its ribbons as he kissed her neck, the sinews of her throat, his breath warm against her flesh. His hands swept her body with a fierce desperation, then suddenly stilled.

He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes dark with desire and what might have been a hint of anger. "This was a mistake," he said, his breathing harsh, rapid.

She stared into his face. "Don't keep saying that."

She bit back a gasp as his hand closed over her breast, the sensation so sharp it might have been pain, only it wasn't. "Don't you understand?" he said, his jaw hardening, his voice coming out tight, almost cruel. "Do you have any idea what it means, when a man says he wants a woman? Do you know what I want to do to you?"

"I know."

His hand moved over her breast in a rough, agonizing caress, tanned, scarred fingers against black satin that they watched together. "Do you?" he said, his hand still roving her breast, his face taut. "Do you understand that when I say I want to touch you, I mean I want to touch
all
of you—all those secret places where you've never been touched before, where you've probably never even dreamed of being touched. It means I want to lay you down in this grass with your skirts rucked up about your waist and your flesh bare beneath my hands." His fingers found her nipple through the cloth of her dress, and the pleasure was so piercing, she almost cried out with it. He saw, and his lips curled into a fierce smile. "And when I say I want you, Miss Jesmond Corbett of Castle Corbett, it means that I want to bury myself inside of you, I want to
take
you, hard and rough and hungry. Here. Now. Because I am a hard man, and my life is rough, and you have no idea of the hunger that burns inside me."

He was being deliberately raw, deliberately trying to push her away from him with his words. He didn't understand this was a part of what attracted her to him, this dark side of him, this side that was lawless and dangerous.

"You think to frighten me, with what you're saying," she said, holding herself very still. "But I'm not afraid."

"You should be. Believe me, Miss Corbett, you should be."

She shook her head, her hand coming up to close over his and press his palm against her aching, wanting breast. "I am, but not of you. I'm afraid of a life half lived, of losing myself in other people's expectations of me. The only time 1 feel like myself anymore is when I'm with you."

The crease beside his mouth deepened. "That's not you, is it, sitting there at your mahogany dinner table every night, drinking champagne and watching the candlelight sparkle on all your fine crystal and silver?"

The edge of acridity in his voice surprised her.
"I
'm there, but
I
'm hidden. And I'm afraid that someday, I won't be there at all."

His face gentled. "You don't have to be marrying your Mr. Harrison Tate."

She swung abruptly away from him, a wave of consternation sweeping her as she realized that she herself had not given one thought to Harrison, to her
betrothed,
God help her. She knew she should be feeling guilty for finding such pleasure in another man's kiss, another man's touch, for
loving
another man. But when she thought of Harrison, all she felt was helpless despair.