Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (9 page)

Quickly, I donned one of my old dresses—sparing a moment to be glad that it buttoned up the front, so that I had no need of assistance—and twined my hair into a hasty braid. On the stairs I encountered a maid and asked directions of her. Once she had told me the way, I ran down the great stair and through the front door, opened for me by a footman too well trained to betray surprise.

The morning was cold but fair, the path up to the cliffs easily found: it was rough but wide and well trod (by Herron?) and not steep enough to daunt someone accustomed to running up and down the stairs in a London row house. Not for the first time in my life I was glad that I wore no stays to hamper me; I was scarcely breathing hard when I crested the hill and stood looking down on the sea.

The cliffs stretched to my right in a bleak, jagged line, the uneven rocky faces sometimes falling sheer to the sea below, which seethed as if in anger around great boulders on the shore. To my left the cliffs gentled and smoothed, becoming a ribbon of soft green slopes. The morning sun was dazzling on the sea, which flung up sheets of froth as it ceaselessly beat itself against the shore far below. With a thrill of excitement I found that an opening between two crags led to a narrow footpath down to the strand. I began to pick my way down, going slowly because of the incline and the multitude of pebbles that might cause a more precipitous descent than I wished.

The breeze freshened as I descended, until my hair had fought loose from its clumsy braid and was slapping gaily around my face. As I came nearer to the surf, its noise also increased until the sound was overwhelming. The roar rose and ebbed, but was never allowed to quiet before another great wave hurled itself onto the rocky shore.

Uncertain, I stood where the footpath ended at the rock-strewn beach, not eager to climb over the crags that met me. The volume of sound and the fierce energy and motion of the surf were formidable, almost overpowering, and abruptly I felt small and feeble in the face of this element. This was far from the comforting, lulling ocean I had imagined, the place of solace and refuge I had sought. Instead it was a battering force, unruly and violent. I hesitated only a moment, then turned swiftly back to the path, almost colliding with someone who stood behind me.

“Watch where you’re going,” he said rudely. “You will have to pick your way with a great deal more care if you plan to stroll around the cliffs.”

I looked up at a dark man. His eyes were in shadow, untouched by the still tentative light, but the rising sun picked out the angle of his face in a sharp gold sliver. Unaccountably, he was in shirt sleeves, even though I was shivering in my woolen dress. He must have followed me closely, unheard, all the way down the path.

Nettled at the intrusion, I pushed my vagrant hair out of my eyes and glared at him. “Perhaps I would fare better without meddlesome bystanders dogging my footsteps.”

This received a thin, humorless smile. “Believe me, I had no intention of courting your company. Nothing would give me more pleasure at this moment than your absence.”

“Are you always so gracious to the duchess’s guests?”

“A guest of my mother?” He surveyed me, lifting an eyebrow at my windblown skirts—or their undistinguished cut. “I took you for a maid.”

My shock at discovering his identity was almost conquered by indignation. “I am your cousin,” I snapped. “I have come for a visit, Your Grace.”

“In that case, I retract my advice, and encourage you to put yourself out of your misery as swiftly as you can. Tumbling off a cliff would be a pleasant alternative to living at Ellsmere.” He seemed to look beyond me, but his eyes were still pools of darkness and I could not read them. “You may be sure that I’ve considered the idea myself, and have not yet discarded it.” With that, he pushed roughly past me and vaulted the rocky barrier to the beach.

Startled, I stared after him. He seemed to know his way, for he strode down the shore with a sure foot, never glancing at his path. I watched him for several minutes as he moved farther and farther away, until a renewed gust reminded me that I, too, had come out without a cloak. It must be nearing time for breakfast, in any case, and I would need to make considerable repairs in my appearance before joining the others.

I turned and unceremoniously clambered back up to the cliff top, the roar of the tide pushing me all the way, and then I actually picked up my skirts and ran back to the warm, sheltering rooms of Ellsmere.

This, then, was Herron.

The impression I had formed of him from that abrupt encounter was to serve me for several days, since it became clear that his preference for solitude extended not only to dinner but to all other hours of the day. He might as well have been invisible. Occasionally one of us would see him vanish around a doorway on entering a room, but he was as impossible to pin down as a ghost, and far more scanty of his presence than most haunts are purported to be. His mother despaired of him. It was painful to see her look around the table hopefully at every meal, as if believing he would surprise her with his presence, and to see her inevitable dismay at his absence. If his morbid tendencies were characteristic of his behavior lately, I could well understand her anxiety about him. Detaining her after breakfast that morning, I told her of my meeting with him and his startling explanation for his walks on the cliffs. I had feared to alarm her, but her response was calm: “Oh, my dear, I know it. He has spoken of such things ever since the death of his father.”

“But can you be sure he won’t do an injury to himself?” I ventured. “Should not someone stay with him?”

“No, he chafes so at company.” Then, reading my expression, she patted my shoulder. “You are good to think of him, but truly, there is no danger. Those who talk of doing themselves harm never actually execute their threats. It is nothing but words, a way to win our notice. Probably he feels I have been neglecting him for Claude, and this is his revenge on me.”

“I hope that is all it is, ma’am.” I was far from convinced that the duke was safe from himself, but as I was unable to set eyes on him most of the time, let alone stand guard over his wanderings, there seemed to be little point in continuing to worry. After all, the duchess was his mother, I told myself; she should know her own son’s heart.

“Now, that is enough of that,” she said briskly, pulling on her gloves. “Such a glorious day is not meant for so serious a subject. We must find something diverting for you. Will you come riding with Claude and me? It is impossible to sit still on a morning like this, and there is the sweetest mare in the stables who would be just right for you. Do join us.”

I declined, and she did not press me; I knew that, however sincerely meant was her offer, she would enjoy herself much more in the company of her husband, without an accompanying third. It had been clear since the first time I saw them together that the duchess and her new husband were deeply in love. Even in company they tended to lose themselves in gazing at each other, and it was touching to see the pleasure they took from each other’s presence. In spite of the fact that they had grown children, they might have been eighteen again. When Lord Claude himself handed his wife into the saddle and she smiled her thanks down at him, I felt a flicker of something like envy, followed by the sort of tolerant superiority that I suppose lovers have always inspired in the rest of the world: their condition was endearing, but I could congratulate myself that I was not victim to it.

I could also admit to myself that I was making a virtue of necessity, but I chose to ignore that thought.

“They make a fine couple, don’t you think?” came a voice, and I saw that Miss Yates was standing behind me on the steps. She crossed the terrace to join me at the balustrade, her checked taffeta skirts bobbing cheerfully.

“They seem well suited to each other, and very happy.”

“Oh, indeed they are. I know Felicity and her brother could not be more pleased that they have found their way to marry.”

I noticed that she did not include the duke. “And you?” She hesitated, and I remembered that it would be indiscreet of a governess to discuss the matter with a member of the family. “You may trust me not to repeat anything you say,” I said quickly. “I would like to hear your opinion, as a valued friend of the family.”

“It is not my place to comment, of course, but truly I think this marriage is the best thing that could have happened. Her Grace looks as if she has dropped ten years from her age, and Lord Claude—well, between us, he needs a strong wife to give him direction. He is a good man, but a trifle weak. The duchess has enough will for the both of them.”

“The late duke did not allow her such freedom?”

She gave me a considering look, as if debating how much more to tell me, and said only “No.”

“You must have been with the family a long time,” I said.

“Since Felicity was five. I have grown very attached to the Reginalds in that time; they have come to feel like my own family.” With a sudden twinkle she added, “And as you have gathered, I criticize them as freely as if they were my own flesh and blood.”

“How is it that you have no family of your own—that you have not married?”

She chuckled comfortably, not in the least offended. Perhaps long exposure to Felicity had inured her to impertinent questions. “Oh, I am much too particular—or so Her Grace tells me.” She glanced at me and smiled. “But I imagine that is what you answer when asked the same question.”

I looked out across the drive and the level expanse of lawn. The two figures on horseback were growing smaller and farther away every moment. “Yes,” I said. “I am too particular.”

* * *

In spite of the duchess’s dismissal of my fears, I could not rid myself of a nagging worry, as if I were carrying the anxiety that should have been hers. I was provided more cause for concern a few days later.

We had guests for dinner, and the duchess made some excuse to them for her son’s absence. We started dinner without him, as had become usual, but halfway through the soup the duchess put down her spoon abruptly with an exclamation of pleasure.

“Why, my dear, how nice—”

Her words stopped as if they had been pinched off. Her face registered the strangest series of emotions: joyful surprise succeeded by shock, pain, and what might have been the beginnings of anger. Like everyone else, I turned to look.

Herron stood in the doorway, lounging against the jamb, making no move to come further into the room. Now that he no longer had a shadow over him I could get a true idea of his appearance, and I could not keep myself from staring. He was almost inhumanly beautiful.

His face tapered sharply from wide cheekbones, lending his features a faunlike appearance. The fierce angularity of his bones was balanced by his mouth, sweetly curved and generous. Black hair swept in unruly waves, slightly longer than fashion, from a high, clear brow, and eyes whose color shifted brown and gold like sunlight off the drowned leaves in a forest pool were fringed with long, soft lashes; his eyebrows were uncompromising slashes of black. He was surveying the company, those remarkable eyes moving restlessly. The combination of softness and strength in his face was arresting, and I knew I was not the only woman at the table to stare.

But although many were staring, not all felt my admiration. I heard the chiming clatter of a wine glass tipped, and Claude’s words, hoarse with anger: “What do you think you’re about, Herron? Don’t you realize we have guests here?”

Herron arched his eyebrows and bowed with mocking obsequiousness. “My apologies. I had no idea my presence would be so repugnant to anyone but my own family.”

“Herron, why?” It was the duchess, her voice almost a moan. Confused, I looked again at her son, seeking the cause of her disturbance.

I saw first that he was not in evening clothes. It had been easy to overlook this, since his suit was black, as were the other gentlemen’s. Certainly that was inappropriate, even rude, but no cause for such pain and fury on the part of his mother and stepfather. Then, as Herron drew a chair from the wall and dropped into it, smiling tightly at his mother, I noticed what else he wore: a black cloth band, almost invisible against his black frock coat, on his right arm.

He was wearing mourning for his dead father.

“Go and change at once,” ordered Lord Claude. His face was pale, and I saw that it was his wine that had spilled, a weak gold stain oozing over the snowy tablecloth. His hand shook as he righted the glass. “I will not have you appear in such a fashion before our friends.”

Herron glanced at him and then deliberately, with a rudeness that made my eyes widen, plucked a black-bordered mourning handkerchief from his breast pocket and tossed it at his stepfather’s place. “You’ve spilled your wine.”

He might as well have thrown a gauntlet. Lord Claude rose so quickly that his chair tottered. I saw Charles reach out to right it. But it was the duchess who spoke.

“Herron, I know that you still miss your father. You aren’t alone in that, believe me.” Her voice was almost steady. “But you must realize this is neither the time nor the occasion for such a display.”

“A display, you call it?” His voice was thin and sharp as a blade, and I shivered, glad it was not directed at me. “My dear lady mother, I will pay my father and myself the tribute of letting myself feel the pain of his loss. I refuse to disown that with a veneer of pretense.” His mother’s eyes flared at the emphasis, but he went on before she could speak. “If I felt less, I might be able to simper and profess pleasure at the inane conversation of society. But my grief, at least, is genuine, even if you find it objectionable.”

She was truly angry now; her hands strangled the napkin in her lap, although her voice was controlled now when she said, “Herron, we will discuss this later. Alone.”

“I see no reason to postpone what I, at least, consider an interesting discussion.”

Everyone was still, embarrassed to be watching yet unable to look away. When Charles cleared his throat, it was a startling sound in the silence, and we all looked toward him.