The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2(126)

She tugged at the riotous waves almost furiously. Damn the man! How could he have done this to her? He had awakened her desire, swept her away on a wave of passion, then beached her on a deserted island, alone and bereft.



He had said he would find her again, but how was she to know who he was? Even now he could be lurking in the shadows, watching her. He had not known her name, though. So either he had not been able to see her face either, or he had seen her on the beach, but genuinely not known who she was.



As Elizabeth finished twisting her hair up on top of her head to secure it with some pins and combs, she went over in her mind the few neighbors she had met thus far. They had only been at Ellesmere Manor three days, saving it for last on their list of properties as she and her family party had worked their way anti-clockwise around Ireland.



They were supposed to stay at this last house for a few more weeks. Then her brother and his wife would head back to Brimley in time for the harvest and the birth of their first child.



She began to list each of the men she had met since their arrival, but discounted each of them in turn. The vicar Mr. Locke was too old, the verger Mr. Nolan too short and barrel-like in stature. The estate steward Mr. Phelps was married and not likely to be lurking in caves, especially not when she had seen him in the office with her brother just before she had set out on her long walk.



Certainly not Clifford Stone, for though the man had been just as tall and broad, he too was a most devoted spouse and would not have been in the cave. He and Vanessa had been heading off to Cork to shop after morning tea. She doubted it was possible for them to be back yet, let alone separated and lurking on the beach.



No, even if they had been playing some sort of romantic game of hide and seek amongst the dunes, the man had known she was a stranger, asked her name. It had not been Clifford or Mr. Phelps.



At a dead end, she sighed, but was not put off. It would be easy enough to discover how the other members of the household had spent their day.



But most of her clues pointed to the man having been a stranger. In which case, what manner of stranger?



She thought about the voice. Cultured, not much hint of any accent. Deep voice, baritone. Clothes? Heavy linen but good quality, coat more coarse. Locally made? She thought not. The clothes were a bit rough, but suited to the lifestyle of a country gentleman hereabouts.



Shirt open at the neck, no stock or cravat. Surely not a common laborer. Gentleman farmer? Dark clothes, pale hair? Or a glimpse of a snowy white shirt? She could not be sure she had seen him-the movement had been so fleeting. She thought it had been a blond man...



She had definitely seen the cave door. He had said he was sheltering from the storm too. The man's movement into it was what had alerted her to the shelter, and saved her from the tempest.



So, assuming her sense had not been deceiving her, he was possibly fair-haired, and definitely tall. Not much to go on, but better than nothing. How could she ever meet any man's eye again though, just knowing that he might be watching her, remembering how her body had begged him to take her….



Elizabeth let out a steadying whoosh of breath and shook her hands to loosen the tension in her slender frame body. She had to think logically about this. There had been no real harm done, after all, except to her peace of mind and amour propre. For she certainly did not think much of herself after what she had done.



Almost done, she amended. Her only saving grace was that she had never been tempted to do anything like that before, even when she had had ample opportunity during her last trip to Bath in the spring.



But the Earl of Ferncliffe and Captain Breedon had turned out to be fiends as well. Breedon had nearly killed Sarah and her new husband Alexander, if all that her brother had told her was to be believed.



Hare and hounds! Was every man she was fated to come across no more than a rabid fortune hunter and traitor? For those two men, along with Paxton, had allied themselves with the French, nearly killed her brother and his friends. They would have succeeded were it not for the quick thinking and, some would say, divine intervention by the Deverils, Jonathan and his sister Sarah. Not to mention Jonathan's wife Pamela, who had bravely tried to save her sister Jane and niece Sophie from the evil Ferncliffe, and nearly been killed herself.



She shuddered at the recollection, and determined to write a letter to the Wrights, the kind family looking after her young niece, as soon as dinner was finished. Jane had been killed in a terrible fall, but her daughter Sophie was safe and would stay that way. She, and her brother too, she knew, would protect the little girl with the last breath in their bodies. Hopefully it would never come to that. But with the war so recently over, it was hard to get used to the notion that they might actually all be safe at last.