The Dissolute Duke(11)

‘You paid him?’ Suddenly she understood. ‘You bribed him to leave?’

When he nodded, she looked away. Ruined and humiliated. She vowed that there would never be another time when she allowed a man to hurt her.

Tay watched the coast of England receding into only mist. The sea birds called around him as the canvas of the sails caught the wind, turning the ship east, and an excitement he had not felt before quickened his breath and made him lift his face to the heavens.

Free.

For the first time in his life the debt of Alderworth did not weigh him down with its constant demands and a new horizon beckoned.

A place to make a different mark, a land where no one knew him. The mantle of the past slipped away into the gathering breeze and his fingers curled around the guard rail, holding on to the rusted steel as though his very life depended on it.

‘You look as though you could do with a drink.’ A tall red-haired man stood next to him, the collar of his coat raised against the weather. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘Anywhere a fortune is to be made,’ Tay answered, a plan formulating as he spoke. He needed money to come back. He needed good hard cash to retrieve his life and make it work in the way he wanted it to. His glance took in the bare third finger on his left hand as the stranger spoke again.

‘I am bound for North Georgia. They say that the gold there is easy to retrieve and the veins are rich. Two years I have given myself to find it and my wife, Elizabeth, is already counting down the days.’

‘You have experience of mining, then?’ A small worm of an idea began to creep up into possibility.

The other nodded. ‘With farming as it is I have needed to supplement my income from the family estate by other means. I could do with a partner if you are interested. A flat fee for the tools we will need and that will be it, save for lots of hard work and a good dollop of persistence. A sense of humour might help, too.’

The screech of a gull above had them looking up, the big bird wheeling out of the sky towards them, its wings outstretched as it landed on a point at the top of the ship. Hitching a ride or having a rest?

Choices.

They came from the most unexpected places and from the most unexpected people. Putting out his hand, he felt the firm grasp of the other.

‘Tay Ellesmere.’ No title. Nothing to tie him to the England he was leaving. A different man with another life.

‘Lance Montcrieff. From Ridings Hall in Devon.’

Lucinda walked along the cliffs of Foulness Point and watched the ocean waves break across the beaches below, never-ending tides, washing the land clean of all that it had left there the day before. A constantly refreshed canvas, the flotsam of life taken away to another headland in a different place, redefined and transformed.

As she was not. Two years of isolated country living had left her struggling with her identity, Falder and its environs beautiful, but never changing. Her physical strength had returned finally, though her memory had never followed. Oh, granted, she still had headaches sometimes and when she was tired her vision became a little blurred, but the bone-wearying fatigue had dissipated and in its place a haunting curiosity had risen.

She wondered where in the world the Duke of Alderworth might now be. Cristo had given her a letter a good year ago and she had opened it with shaking fingers.

His description of a town in the North Georgia mountains in the Americas had been interesting, but had left her hollow. He had written nothing of his feelings or of his intentions or of any new relationships he might have formed. A half-page long, and wholly factual, the message could have been written for anyone.

He had signed it Tay Ellesmere. No title. Just the diminutive of Taylen. Tay. She had run the word a thousand times off her tongue ever since reading it and hated herself for doing so.

She wanted him back. She did, out here in the wind and with the sound of the ocean all around her. She wanted to feel his skin against her own in that particular way he had of heightening her senses and making her feel alive.

Dead. She had been dead since he had left, on an early morning ship out of St Katherine’s Dock, Asher had said. Sailing for the Americas and a new life without any of the burdensome encumbrances that he had been tied to in England and so unwillingly.

Paid to take ship from London and never return? She had heard that, too, when she had listened in to a conversation between Taris and Asher. All she had picked up in their tones was relief that Alderworth was gone and so she had tried to forget him, banishing all thoughts of a husband from her mind.

And failing.

She hated this limbo she was in, caught between marriage and widowhood, and never a chance of moving on. Sometimes she hated Taylen Ellesmere so much that her skin shook with the loathing.

A voice calling took her thoughts away and she saw Lord Edmund Coleridge, a friend of Cristo’s, walking towards her.

‘Cris told me that you would be here,’ he said as he came close. ‘He also said that I was to ask you for a dance tonight at Graveson.’

‘Florencia’s party?’ The house had been awash with busy hands since it had been decided to throw a birthday party for Cristo and Eleanor’s oldest daughter.

‘Seven is an important number. She has asked her father if she might invite Bram Crowley to help her celebrate.’

‘Young love.’ Lucinda smiled and shook her head. Brampton’s father owned the property bordering Cristo and Asher’s holdings and, although the family were not titled, they were by all accounts very rich. Florencia had liked him from the very first moment she had arrived with her mother, and the boy had done much to bring a frightened and retiring child out of her shell.

‘I hope you might save a waltz for me, Lady Lucinda.’ Edmund took her hand, surprising her. ‘I would dearly like to get to know you better.’

‘I am married, my lord,’ she returned quickly. ‘There can be no gain in aiming your sights at me.’

His laughter floated on the wind around them, a happy, free sound that made her relax.

‘Your brother told me that you were forthright and now I believe him. I will swap you one waltz for the chance to tool my greys around the Falder course on the morrow.’

‘A difficult thing to refuse. Did Cris also tell you of my passion for horses?’

‘He did indeed. He said I was to expound on my expertise in archery as well.’ His eyes lost their humour as he continued. ‘It is just a dance I beseech, Lady Lucinda, and the chance of friendship.’

For the first time in a long while Lucinda allowed a man to hold her fingers for more than a second without pulling away. There was none of the magic there that she had felt with Alderworth, but it was not unpleasant, either. With blond hair blowing in the wind and his dark eyes soulful, Edmund Coleridge had his own sort of appeal. Lord knew she had heard he was popular with all the young ladies of society and she could see how that could be so.

But he did not smell of wood-smoke and lemon and his eyes were not the colour of the wet forests at Falder. Nor were they underlaid with a thrilling lust that made her whole body sing.

Lucinda wore a new gown that evening, a red silk that was edged in gold. Such a combination might have been showy, but the dressmaker had played up the underlights in the silk and matched them exactly with the trim.

‘You look beautiful tonight, Lucy.’ Emerald was the first to see her as she came downstairs, and indeed as she caught a reflection in the large mirror at Graveson she did look … different.

Sorrow had stalked her for so long since the fiasco in London that Lucinda had almost got used to its sombre presence. Tonight, however, her spirit was lifted. Perhaps it was because of something as uncomplicated as the beautiful gown or the fact that Eleanor’s maid had fashioned her hair in a new style. Or perhaps it was just the fact of a family celebration and the excitement of Florencia, Cristo and Eleanor.

Edmund Coleridge was the next one to compliment her and he did so with a raft of words.

‘I could compare your hair to moonbeams or sunlight or to the sparkling fall of water over rocks, my lady.’

Despite the flowery rhetoric, Lucinda laughed. ‘Please do not, my lord.’

She liked the warmth of his hand and the smooth feel of his skin. His hair tonight was Macassared and it suited him; made him look more dangerous. She shook away the thought. Safety was what she was after. The consequences of following reckless paths had ruined everything, after all, and she had promised herself to walk a discreet and scatheless way in future.

‘Your niece has been asking after you. I think she wants to give you something.’

As if on cue Florencia appeared before them, a beautiful gardenia in hand. ‘Everyone has to wear one tonight, Aunty Lucy, because they are my very favourite flower.’

Lucinda noticed the bottom of the stalk had been wrapped in brown paper, a pin secured in the folds.

‘Is this your handiwork, my love?’ she asked as she took the bloom and smelt it.

‘Mine and Mama’s.’ Her dark eyes crossed to Edmund. ‘But you are wearing yours upside down.’ A wide smile lit up her face as Coleridge knelt and fashioned his flower exactly as she wanted it.

‘Is this better?’

‘Much. Now I just have to find Uncle Taris. I think he is hiding from me because he thinks flowers are for girls.’

With a whirl she was gone, with her little basket of gifts and a jaunty lilt to her step. Lucinda remembered back to when she had first met Cristo’s daughter. The change in her demeanour was heartening and it seemed Coleridge was thinking exactly the same thing.