Page 16

Ever,

B

Nothing new, then. Bernice’s expressions of grievance were as reliable as the London post. Gray would not put it past her to hire someone to spy on him. The print of Gray’s villainy made a convenient excuse for whatever Lionel was not doing at the moment to secure his future. Gray’s younger brother had no interest in the church, the army, or the navy. Lionel had briefly considered, but soon abandoned, a pursuit of the law. His current plan for making his way in the world apparently involved winning the hand of an heiress.

Gray put aside the letter. Beyond his window, the silver sea glimmered. He was guilty as charged. He had lost all sympathy for his younger brother years ago. His one act of family loyalty was to keep his reasons to himself. Much better to let others think that the rift between the brothers was due to a flaw in Gray himself rather than a younger son’s dissatisfaction with his portion. A younger son had to find a patron, someone to employ him. Gray’s friend Finch had the Duke of Wenlocke. Gray himself was a patron to Winter, whose father, a vicar, could not supply his third son with half the portion that Lionel enjoyed.

Gray did not remember a time when he and Lionel were friends. From a young age Lionel had had a habit of taking things from Gray, things Gray had collected on his adventures—birds’ nests, fossils, Roman coins. At first, Gray had not recognized the cause of those losses. Later, when he discovered that Lionel was behind the thefts, he did not understand why. Once, he tried to pound an answer out of his brother with his fists over Lionel’s destruction of a sketchbook full of drawings their father had admired. Father had taken a strap to Gray. Within days Gray had been sent off to school. Much later, he realized that school was not a punishment and was never intended as one. But his parents did not see Lionel’s thefts, and once Gray left home, none of his treasures were safe. Only as he grew older did he learn how to protect them from Lionel.

He picked up the satirist’s print. Gray might not be the unfeeling villain of the piece, but he did hold the deed to the castle, and he had sent the four sisters away. In the morning, he would give Miss Staveley the good news about the auction of her possessions.

Chapter Six

Halfway down the cliff, at the place where the path widened briefly, Cordelia shrugged off the coverlet, stepped out of her boots, and folded the coverlet on top of them. She took a deep breath. The air was salty and the sea calm. Little wavelets lapped the pebbles, making the familiar rattle of stones tumbling. She found her favorite mark along the south curve of the shore. She would swim to meet it, and the incoming tide would carry her back. For the next quarter hour, she would forget the Staveley family difficulties. She needed a clear head for day two of the wager.

She glanced up at the castle. Only the birds were awake. Keeping her wager with Graymont secret was mere discretion. It was necessary if her sisters were to have their ball, as she had had hers. Not that anything had come of Cordelia’s London Season. At the time, they had not realized that Mother was ill. Her collapse at Lady Huntington’s ball had ended that time.

Cordelia left the path, her feet sinking into cold sand at the bottom of the cliff. The beach was at its widest with the tide out and about to turn. Everything was the same as the day before, but she wasn’t. After her conversation with Lord Graymont, there was no danger that he would intrude on her. Nevertheless, he was maddeningly present, if only in her head. The problem with their arrangement was that it made her conscious of him and their secret wager. Viola would call him the enemy, and while Cordelia knew that the idea was absurd, sharing a secret with him somehow separated her from her sisters and made Cordelia and Graymont conspirators.

Her plan to keep Viola occupied for the day did not seem particularly brilliant. Henry had relinquished the gig, which Viola and Miranda were to take to Lady Frome’s garden to collect flowers for the church. The plan pleased no one but Miranda, who anticipated seeing her curate. Henry was annoyed that his rounds among the farms would be delayed. Viola did not like being cast in the role of helper. Roz did not want her sisters to be seen in the humble gig, especially after Viola had described how Graymont had taken them up in his beautiful cabriolet. They all looked at Cordelia as if she were a tyrant imposing her will. It couldn’t be helped. She would do what she needed to do. She shoved her hair into the dark-blue wool cap, stretched, and strode down the beach.

*

Gray had to laugh at himself as his Siren emerged from the sea. She clearly had no plans to lure him or any other hapless male to their doom. On this second occasion of meeting her at the shore, he had a full view of her bathing costume. It appeared to be a yellow nankeen cotton skeleton suit made for a tall, lanky boy. It clung wetly to her figure, the long swimmer’s legs, the curve of her waist, and the swell of her breasts obscured by the suit’s double row of buttons.

He stood and caught her gaze, a glare really. She came up the beach, wearing a cap over her hair, her rosy cheekbones sharp against the dark wool. No woman he knew was quite as indifferent to her appearance.

“Lord Graymont, I thought we had agreed on our times.”

“Country hours have thrown me off, I fear.”

She pulled the cap from her head. “I’ll leave you to it, then. The tide is turning, and there’s a drift to the west.”

He looked past that hair, dark tendrils escaping from a knot at her nape. The sea was smooth and calm. She, on the other hand, was bristling with energy, her bosom rising and falling from her swim. “Before you go, I have a message for you.”

“A knock on the lodge door would suffice.”

“I was more certain of finding you here.”

“Your message is?” She snatched up a coverlet from on top of her boots.

“It may relieve your mind to know that the first lot of your goods will be auctioned by end of week. Dalton and Danville expect a good result.” If his news gratified her, she did not show it.

“Surely it will be Father’s creditors who feel relieved. His children’s circumstances will hardly alter.”

“What will you do, then, if the auction gives you no relief?”

She leaned down and gathered up her boots. “Are you serious about tearing Delamere down?”

“You must acknowledge that a five-hundred-year-old castle is a most inconvenient dwelling. The pantries are far from the kitchen. Wind whistles through the towers. Beer is stored by the coal bins.”

“One learns to manage, and we were managing quite well.”

He doubted that. “Do you not have friends or relations to whom you can turn?”

“I have no relation who is eager to take in four single women. Only one of us is suitable for any sort of employment, and what employment for a woman sustains a household? A working woman would be lucky to maintain herself.”

It was a revealing little speech. She had thought of desperate measures, but not of marriage. “Desperate times, then?”