Capturing Sir Dunnicliffe (The Star Elite Series) (2 page)

She had been two years old the last time he had held her, and his arms ached to be able to hug h
is daughter at least once more before he died. He didn’t think it would happen and it left him yearning for something he knew he would never have. Although he loved his visits to see his daughter, however much she suffered through them, he always left feeling as though he had lost something precious he would never get back.

“You don’t need to do this, you know,” Harriett’s soft
voice broke the silence that settled over them as they drank their tea.

Simon’s eyes met Harriett’s. “I know, and I know that I have been the worst possible father to you, but I want to make amends.”
Silently, he cursed when Harriett pushed away from the table, her soft features now closed and stern.

At the fireplace she
turned to stare at him. “I am tired. It has been a very long day, and I want to go to bed.” She hoped he would take the hint and leave. The last thing she wanted tonight was to go over old, and painful ground with him. “It’s too late to try to go back,” she added, watching with relief as he slowly pushed away from the table.

“I know that,” Simon persisted, pleased that they were at least talking
as he had hoped they would. “But we can forge a new future. Together. If you would just give me a chance.”

“
There is nothing to make up for, Simon. What is done, is done. There is nothing you can do to change it.”

“We all make mistakes, Harriett, and find ourselves in circumstances that we wish we could change, but aren’t able to. Now that I am older and wiser, I realise I should have been stronger
– I should have made a life with the woman I loved, but we are all more knowledgeable with age. It is what matures us. The best we can do is learn from our mistakes, and make sure they don’t happen again. I know we cannot go back, my dear.” His voice trembled with emotion as he struggled to find the best words to convey everything he had wanted to say so badly over the past few years. “But I cannot just let us continue the way we were. I want us to become friends.”

He
noted Harriett’s sudden paleness and watched as she sat down on a chair with a thump. Walking around the table, he dropped to his haunches before her. He knew she hated him touching her, or even getting too close, but he couldn’t hold back his driving need to connect with her – just once.

Placing his hands over her cold, trembling ones, he looked up, directly into her eyes.

“I am going to be here for you, whether you like it or not. This–” he glanced around the sparse kitchen, making no attempt to keep the doubt from his face, “-house is fine for the time being, but it isn’t where you belong. You are my daughter, and–” he pressed on when she took a breath to interrupt him, “-whether you like it or not, you are a very large part of the de Mattingley family and estates. At some point in your life, whether you like it or not, you are going to have to become one of us.”

Harriett felt her stomach drop as she stared into his eyes
. She could see nothing but honesty staring back at her.

“Why now?” s
he asked. “In all the time you have been occasionally dropping by here, you have never said anything about this. Why tonight?”

“Because I am getting old
, Harriett.” He ignored Harriett’s snort of disbelief. The man was most probably only about four and fifty. “My wife died last year, and I can see no reason now why we should not forge a future together. She held me over a barrel financially and until recently I was unable to escape. Now she has gone, I see no reason why we should not have the future we both deserve.”

“You have forgotten one thing,” Harriett whispered, fighting uncharacteristic tears. She could hear the raw emotion in his voice and was shaken by it. Waiting until he raised questioning eyes to hers
, she continued, “I am a witch. My mother was a witch. You wouldn’t acknowledge your – association – with her, or me, publicly, for the last five and twenty years.” She ignored his wince but could feel little sympathy for him. Easing away from him, she pushed her chair back and stood, suddenly impatient to close the door on the memories.

“
You know what? It doesn’t matter right now. As I said before, I am tired and I would like to go to bed now.” She couldn’t keep the weariness from her voice. She had absolutely no intention of getting involved with the de Mattingley family – ever, but couldn’t seem to summon the energy to argue any more.

“Then I shall bid you good night,” Simon declared, still
disbelieving that he had managed to broach such a raw subject and have any kind of conversation with Harriett about it. It was the first time he had ever dared raise the matter so blatantly, and couldn’t explain why he had felt the need to approach it now. But he was very glad he had.

He hadn’t missed the rumbling of Harriett’s stomach, or been ignorant of the fine trembling of her cold fingers beneath his
, and decided to leave her to eat and warm up in peace. There was so much more he wanted from her, but at least tonight, for the first time in nearly five and twenty years, she had let him touch her - and that was more than he had ever dared dream possible.

“Good night
, Harriett,” he murmured softly, offering her a small smile.

His heart flipped when her lips quirked briefly in response.
All wasn’t lost after all. Convinced that tiredness must be driving her uncharacteristic behaviour, he closed the door carefully behind him, his face wreathed in a broad smile.

As he walked away
, he realised that it was the first time he had seen Harriett smile at him. She was usually so solemn and reserved. Immediately his thoughts turned to the day of Jemima and Eliza’s wedding, and the delighted smile that had suffused her face as she had looked up at Sir Hugo Dunnicliffe, and he began to wonder if that was the reason for her abrupt return.

Whatever the future held in store for
all of them, after tonight he was filled with even more determination that nothing, and nobody, would ever come between him and his daughter again.

Harriett boiled some more water and, unable to ignore the insistent rumbling of her stomach any longer, opened the lid of the box. She gasped aloud at the sight that greeted her stunned
eyes.

Inside, nestled on two brightly coloured cloths, were two apple pies, one
large meat pie, two jars of pickle, two jars of jam, one jar of stewed tomatoes and a bottle of blackberry cordial. Cook had excelled herself because, as far as Harriett was aware, blackberries were not even in season.

She should have sent the entire box back to the Manor, but was aware of how empty
and hollow her stomach felt. Quickly cutting herself pieces from two of the pies, she made herself a cup of tea before she began to eat. Several satisfying minutes later, she put the remainder of the pies carefully away and picked up her cup.

Savouring the warm steam, Harriett walked through the kitchen to the front of the cottage,
and sat down on the window seat. It was her favourite place in the house, and afforded her an undisturbed view over the harbour. She tucked the skirts of her muslin dress around her bare toes, savouring the meagre warmth.

Over the past year she had spent many days sitting in
that same spot, making copious notes of the comings and goings of the ships, and the smugglers, at the request of Eliza and Jemima’s father before his murder. Although at the time she hadn’t been sure that anyone would be able to make use of them, she had ignored the considerable risk to her own safety and carried out the promise she had made, spending many hours making lists of dates, times, ships and people.

It had been those notes that
Sir Hugo Dunnicliffe, the Redcoats, and the men from the War Office, had used to arrest and sentence Rogan Scraggan and his son - two of Cornwall’s most ruthless smugglers, who had ruled over the area with brutal fists for far too long. Although the villagers didn’t know it, it was purely because of Harriett’s tireless work that they had finally been freed from Scraggans’ rule by the veritable army of Redcoats who had descended on the fishing port two months ago.

“Hugo,” she whispered, staring
pensively out of the window toward the small harbour. Although she tried not to think about him, her thoughts turned inevitably toward the tall, dark and somewhat officious man who had briefly invaded her life and left it in turmoil.

S
he wondered where he was, and what he was doing, but quickly closed off the thought. She had no business thinking about him, much less wondering anything about anyone like him. Although he was clearly married to his job, he stirred up feelings in her she didn’t want to think about. To acknowledge those feelings would make her think too closely about what she was missing in life, and she couldn’t afford to become too discontent with her existence. There was no alternative lifestyle; not for her. She wasn’t meant for a life of matrimony and children, especially with someone as naturally masculine, and stunningly handsome as Sir Hugo Dunnicliffe. He was charming and debonair, living a dangerous and secretive life of a Government agent. She was a witch - an outcast who lived a solitary life on the fringes of society.

She
glanced out at the weather with a sigh. The storm clouds had rolled inland over the course of the evening, changing the drizzle to a steady deluge. In the Camel estuary, white horses could be seen on the sea, whipped up by the increasing winds that howled around her cottage. The low, haunting noise made her feel more isolated than ever, and Harriett felt a strange unease settle over her once more.

Throughout the day, the feeling that something wasn’t right had slowly increased until she couldn’t ignore it any longer. Settling back against the cushions, she sipped at her tea and
used the last of the waning light to study the area. Down in the harbour, fishing boats bobbed in the water. Once or twice, someone left one of the fishermen’s cottages lining the harbour and scurried toward the tavern but, other than that, there was nobody out and about.

It was almost too quiet.

An air of expectancy hung over her small cottage, driving her to wonder at the source of the discomfort. She briefly wondered if it was Simon’s arrival, but then promptly dismissed the idea. He had left, and the feeling still remained; but she had never had these feelings of foreboding when he had visited before. There was no reason she should begin to feel this way when he visited now.

Although
the conversation earlier had been rather odd, and touched on subjects they had not dared discuss before, Harriett felt no anger toward the man who had sired her. There were regrets, on both sides if she was honest, but nothing had changed recently that should encourage either of them to want to alter their current arrangement, and there was certainly nothing he had mentioned that could cause her feelings of foreboding to increase.

Harrold seemed to be his usual grumpy self, and now sat in the doorway glaring balefully at her. She knew he was waiting for his fish heads, but couldn’t bring herself to get up and feed him just yet.
The annoyed hiss he spat her way assured her of his contempt for his hungry state, and she knew she didn’t have long before he started to growl. Instead of getting up though, she turned her gaze toward the window.

If she was
susceptible to flights of fancy, she could almost believe that the village was waiting for something – or someone.

With a shudder, she turned her thoughts away from the awful
possibility that Scraggan would return to haunt them all. It was impossible for Scraggan, his son, or any of their men to return to the village. They had all been put to death weeks ago, and were now buried at Bodmin gaol. There was nobody left who wanted to admit they had even been part of the group, let alone show any interest in continuing their activities.

Still, Harriett knew enough about her instincts not to ignore them. Although she didn’t se
nse any imminent danger, she knew that something was about to happen, and she most probably wouldn’t like the outcome.

She felt on edge; unsettled.

As though something was missing and she wasn’t sure what.

S
he immediately dismissed her discomfiture as restlessness brought about by her friends getting married, and witnessing their newfound happiness first-hand. Although Harriett had been supposed to remain with them for several days after the wedding, she had been unable to stand living in the close-knit family, aware of the increasing feeling that she didn’t belong.

Everyone had been wonderfully welcoming, and had accepted her
, and Harrold, with open arms. But Harriett had felt so out of place in the Peter’s luxurious mansion at Willowbrook, that she felt overwhelmed by the opulence the Cavendish family seemed to take for granted, and hemmed in by the closeness of everyone. It was astounding to Harriett that, in a huge place like Willowbrook, it was seemingly impossible to be alone; something Jemima and Eliza had mentioned experiencing during their time at the Cavendish family mansion, Havistock Hall. Harriett hadn’t been able to understand what they had meant until she had spent time at Willowbrook and experienced it for herself. It was almost claustrophobic.

Still, s
he felt a pang of envy for her friends, and wondered what it would be like living in the bosom of a warm and loving family.