Revenge of the Barbary Ghost (6 page)

“Marcus,” Anne admonished, as Pam dawdled behind them at a stall selling candles. “Lolly has suffered much in her life. Her parents died leaving her very poorly off, and the suitor who was supposed to save her from penury proved unworthy and took what was left of the family wealth in the form of silver plate, before disappearing back to Ireland.”

She watched Lolly for a moment. An elderly man with a cane now sat beside her, and the two chatted while she doled out sweets. “She lives on the knife edge of destitution, and makes shift with rooms in Bath, when as a countrywoman, she would much rather live in a seaside village like this. With all that, she still manages to maintain an admirably sunny outlook. I admire her.”

“I beg your pardon, Anne, my dearest. Once again you have shown me,” he declaimed, hand over his chest and hat swept off, his powdered hair exquisitely curled, “with your excellent heart, why I need you as a wife. Will you marry me? I feel sure you would make me over anew if you would just say yes! Come, make me into a man worthy of my last name?”

Anne laughed. “St. James, how droll you are! I cannot stay angry at you.”

“And
another
reason why marriage to me would be a good match,” he murmured into her ear, bending over her. “We will never stay angry.”

“I wish you could find a way to make your sister as hardheaded about finance as you,” she said, obliquely referring to what she believed was his primary motive for proposing, her very good income. “I am trying to offer her some recompense for my drain on your household, and she freezes up.”

“I will handle her, dearest lady,” he said, softly, straightening. “Do what you will, and I will
make
her accept your aid.”

“Thank you,” Anne said, with heartfelt meaning. Sometimes St. James’s pragmatism was helpful.

An attractive older woman, with a bountiful display of bosom, dropped an enormous strawberry on the grass, and St. James stooped to pick it up, brushing it off and presenting it to the woman. Anne, her attention caught, watched; a look was exchanged, and, she thought, a note, with the fruit. She was not surprised when Marcus disappeared a few minutes later, and the lady was absent, too. Men would always have complaisant women as lovers, she thought, single or married. Marcus and his lover had likely met by design, and slipped away to be alone.

She forgot all about him as she strolled on to another stall.

Pamela and Anne spoke desultorily, as they looked over the wares. Pam asked her a question, but Anne had stopped dead and stared; could it be? No, it couldn’t possibly … but, yes! She felt the color flood her face even more as she stared across the market green at the most handsome man in England, Lord Anthony Darkefell.

Pam followed her gaze and exclaimed, “Well, what a dashing fellow!”

Darkefell’s gaze met Anne’s, and she knew in an instant that as amazed as
she
might be,
he
was not surprised to find her there. She turned away, but in another moment, she was not surprised to see a pair of highly polished riding boots before her downcast gaze.

“My Lady Anne, how pleasant to find you here. How are you? You look extraordinarily well.”

The words trickled through her hearing, competing with an odd buzzing. She looked up, blinking rapidly, and stared into his handsome dark eyes, fringed in sooty lashes; the dream streamed through her, the feel of his arms, the sense of his hard chest against her soft bosom, forgotten sensations of suffocating desire thumping in her chest. Her cheeks burned red—she could feel them flame—and a hundred thoughts and sensations rattled through her. Why had he come to Cornwall? Was it for her sake?

And what if it was?

All this time she had thought him safely in Yorkshire, when day by day he had been getting closer and closer to her. Nearer with each step—her dream the night before; had she known he was near, perhaps even in St. Wyllow already?

Pamela was casting her puzzled looks, and waiting for an introduction. Anne stumbled through it, she knew not how—the dawning knowledge on Pam’s pretty face flustered her even worse, coming so close after her revelation to her friend about the kisses shared—and then, gratefully, he explained his presence equally to them both.

He had come south, he said, to see about renting a house for Lydia and John in Bath. While there he
happened
to meet Anne’s mother and grandmother, and they
happened
to mention her whereabouts, and since he
happened
to be traveling to Cornwall to see to some renovations to their house near Launceston, and since an old former worker of theirs
happened
to own the Barbary Ghost Inn, he thought he’d take a couple of days for a riding tour.

“That is a lot of
happen
stance,” Anne commented, acidly, pleased to hear her own voice without a waver or a crack.

He grinned. “Indeed. I delight in happenstance. You will be pleased to learn that a friend of yours, Osei Boatin, accompanies me—he has been held up a day or two—and looks forward to reanimating the acquaintance.”

“I shall be delighted to see Mr. Boatin again,” Anne said.

“But not me? I’m shocked.” He turned to Pam. “Lady Anne is my most severe critic, Miss St. James. She loves to find fault in me.”

“I love any simple pleasure, sir, as you know,” Anne said.

He chuckled and raised his expressive brow at her.

St. James approached just then, and with a broad grin said to his sister, “Look at my new acquisition, Pam, a jeweled snuff box. With my initials! Ain’t it perfection?”

“Marcus, lovely!” Pam said, eyeing the trinket with a frown. But she smoothed her worried scowl, and said, “Do say hello to a conquest of Anne’s, Lord Anthony Darkefell from … Yorkshire, isn’t it, my lord?”

“Pam, do stop fooling,” Anne said, her voice trembling. “He is no conquest of mine. How ridiculous.”

Marcus had gone still and eyed Darkefell with concern, while the other man stared him down.

Uneasy at the sudden crackle of tension in the air, Anne said, “We should collect Lolly before she makes the entire village population of children bilious. And I need a cup of tea.”

“Wonderful idea, Anne, darling!” Pamela said. “Come along! St. James, walk with Anne and darling Lolly while I monopolize the marquess. Lord Darkefell,” she said, taking his arm, “you must come back to Cliff House with us and have luncheon. Anne has told me so little about your adventure in Yorkshire, and I am positively
perishing
for more information. She told me some nonsense about a werewolf she unmasked! Do talk to me.”

***

The back terrace of Cliff House had a pretty view out to sea, but to Darkefell’s practical eye it was crumbling, in awful condition, the masonry undermined by the damp salt air. The whole house had that air of raffish disrepair, like an elderly roué, almost blind and crippled, but still flirting with every woman available. He half listened to Miss Pamela St. James prattle while he watched the fair-haired captain bend his head to Anne, intently listening. She, damned by Darkefell’s brother, his sister-in-law and his mother as worse than plain, was actually much prettier than the marquess remembered, or was that just the effect of her sparkling conversation with that twit, Marcus St. James? The smartly uniformed fellow was courtly toward Anne, dusting off the bench upon which she sat, but he was an army captain; were they not renowned for their chivalrous behavior to the fair sex? Perhaps the captain’s behavior meant nothing. Or perhaps it meant he was wooing Anne with pretty words and promises.

Darkefell decided he must know some things, and would before he left Cliff House that day. First, was Marcus St. James living at Cliff House, under the same roof as Anne? Second, did she blush when he spoke to her, as he remember her doing on occasion with him? And third and fourth and fifth … did she tremble when he touched her? Did she sigh when he kissed her? Was Marcus St. James wooing Anne? He kept a tight control on his jealousy, clamping down on it with gritted teeth and clenched fist.

He set himself to think of anything but his frustrated wooing of Lady Anne. Cliff House was a ramshackle three-floor stone dwelling, with overgrown gardens and an air of reckless charm, much like the mistress, Miss Pamela St. James. The sitting room was too dark on such a lovely day, she had airily proclaimed as they arrived, leading them around the house and down to the terrace by way of a stone path and steps, so they would sit and have a picnic luncheon. Darkefell suspected she was not too sure of the cleanliness and order of the interior.

“Miss St. James,” Darkefell said, strolling to the edge of the uneven flagstone terrace and gazing toward the sea, “you have a charming view here.” Cliff House overlooked the ocean, in a sense, though it was well back from the water. The terrace gave way to the garden, and the garden sloped down to some scrubby shrubs and a wind-warped apple tree hard against a stone fence. Beyond the wooden gate the property sloped upward again, opening onto a long, high bluff of rocky outcroppings and unkempt grass, beyond which the blue ocean sparkled and puffy clouds danced along the horizon.

“I am fortunate that the view is free, my lord, for I could not afford it if the landlord charged what that beauty is worth.”

He looked back at her, surprised by her refreshing honesty. She was beautiful, he admitted. A little older than Anne, perhaps, with dark hair and eyes, an intriguing dimple in her chin, and an excellent figure, if tending a little toward gaunt cheeks. He glanced over at Anne, who was engaged in a lively discussion on some topic with Captain St. James. She was feverish in her intensity, leaning toward the man, her hands working to describe as they did when she was quite unconscious about it.
There
was the difference between the two ladies: fire. Miss St. James was a lovely woman, but there was an absence in her that he could not quite describe to himself. She might well have a heart to rival Anne’s, but he had no desire to find out if it was so.

A slovenly serving woman in a dirty apron and gown, led by Anne’s enormous cat, Irusan, brought out a tray laden with a teapot, cups, and plates of cheese, ham, bread and cakes, and thumped it down on a wrought iron table, then turned and stumped away. The puss made its way immediately toward Anne, but stopped at St. James and rubbed against the officer’s leg. He bent down and picked the cat up as they continued talking.

Damned cat, Darkefell thought. All it ever did to
him
was growl.

“Mrs. Quintrell,” Pamela said, pleadingly, as the woman slumped back toward the door to the kitchen, “could you please bring out the decanter of port in the sitting room for the gentlemen? And some glasses?”

The woman glared at Miss St. James, and Darkefell tamped down an urge to bark an order, instead, mildly saying, “Quintrell? You aren’t any relation to Joseph Quintrell, are you?”

“Aye, me husband is his brother,” she said, grudgingly.

Pamela made a swift introduction, giving Darkefell his entire due, and the change in demeanor was instant. The cook bustled back in the house and soon came back out accompanied by her daughter, carrying a tray of crystal goblets and the decanter of port. Unfortunate, from Darkefell’s aspect, since he despised port, but Mrs. Quintrell’s improved attitude toward Miss St. James was worth drinking a glass of the awful stuff.

Once she was gone, Miss St. James laid one hand on his jacket sleeve and said, “You are quite the knight in shining armor.”

Anne glanced over just then, and so Darkefell put his free hand over hers and caressed her slender fingers. “I hope I was able to be of some small service in rendering Mrs. Quintrell’s attitude more amenable to direction. They are a stubborn family, by and large, and proud.”

But Anne simply returned to her conversation with the red-coated captain. So, jealousy was not to work, though she could not have designed a better way to agitate
him
than her intimate conversation with the blond-haired, slim-figured and elegant Captain St. James. He was a dandyish fellow, the kind beloved by ladies everywhere, and his uniform just added to his air of dash. The damned cat was now, at least, sitting on the stone bench between them, being petted by both Anne and her companion as they talked.

Miss Lolly Broomhall, who had been inside for a time, returned to the terrace to take luncheon with them, and conversation became more general. She managed to talk even while consuming an adequate tea, expounding on the children of St. Wyllow and relating the very interesting conversation she had with an old man who knew the town well. He had kept her entertained, apparently, with all manner of fascinating stories of bygone years.

They ate lunch, and drank tea and port. St. James gracefully attended every whim of Anne’s, supplying her with some of the leaden cake, taking her dirty plate away, refilling her teacup. It was obvious to Darkefell by then that he courted her, and a fiery pit of jealousy burned in his stomach, charring the heavy luncheon he had not really wanted.

Darkefell stood. “My dear Lady Anne,” he said, loudly, talking over some of the captain’s prattle, “would you walk with me toward that interesting cliff beyond the garden? I can bring you up to date with all of those at Ivy Lodge, since I’m sure you have not yet had the opportunity to receive news from Lydia and John.”

He was flattered, if surprised, by the alacrity with which she jumped up from the bench. Irusan followed, but Anne put out one staying hand when it appeared that the captain was about to follow them, too.

“No, St. James; there is nothing more tedious than a conversation about people with whom you are not acquainted. The marquess and I will be back in half an hour, and you may gaze longingly after me from the terrace, if you are so forlorn.”

Her joking tone took the sting out of her refusal of his company, Darkefell thought, but the captain looked put out anyway. Small victories, he thought, small victories. He had come to St. Wyllow solely to find out the state of her affections, and he would not leave until he was sure she returned his regard.