Rake Beyond Redemption

‘I don’t need your thanks.’

More abrupt than he had intended, disturbed by his reaction to her, Alexander pushed himself upright, picking up the jug to pour brandy with a heavy hand into the smeared glass. ‘Here. Drink this.’

‘I don’t like brandy.’

‘I don’t care whether you like it or not. It will steady your nerves.’

The girl sighed, accepted the glass, sipped once, twice, wincing at the burn of the liquor, then placed the glass on the table at her elbow whilst she untied the satin strings of her bonnet. Alexander tossed back a glass of brandy himself before he turned foursquare to look down at the girl—the lady, for certainly from her clothes and bearing she was of good family. To his amazement temper heated, rapid and out of control. A surge of anger that she should have endangered her life so wantonly. That she might have been swept to her death before he had even known her. For some inexplicable reason the thought balled into fury that he could not contain.

‘What were you thinking, madam, getting yourself trapped by an incoming tide? You could have been swept out to sea if you’d fallen into one of the channels. The undertow of the tide is strong enough to drag you under. It’s happened before to an unwary visitor. Did you not see what was happening?’

The soft summer-blue of her gaze sharpened, glints of fire, as did her voice. ‘No, I did not see. Or I would not have been trapped, would I?’

‘If I hadn’t ridden into the village by chance, George Gadie would have been fishing your dead body out of the bay to deliver it to your grieving family.’ The heat in his words shook him. How could he have been drying her feet one minute and berating her with unreasonable fury the next? She did not deserve it.

‘But thanks to you I’m not dead,’ she snapped, matching temper with temper. ‘Thank you for your help. I’m sorry to have been an inconvenience to you. I’ll make sure it never happens again.’

‘Then it will be a good lesson learned if you’re to stay in this part of the world for long!’

‘I’ll heed your advice, sir.’

She had spirit, he’d give her that. Intrigued by her sharp defence, by the definite accent when under stress, Alexander raised his brows as his irritation began to ebb. The lady did not appear grateful at all. He felt the need to suppress a smile at the heat that had replaced the frozen terror.

‘So we are in agreement, it seems. Now what do I do with you?’

‘You do nothing with me.’ Her eyes actually seemed to flash in the dim room. ‘I am very grateful that you rescued me, of course, but I am perfectly capable of returning home on my own. You are at liberty to ride on your way about your own concerns. Now if you will give me back my shoes, which appear to have vanished in the direction of the kitchen…’

Alexander Ellerdine simply stood and looked at her, torn between amusement and frustration.

She sat and looked back at him, mutiny in her face.

And there it was. The sword of Damocles fell.

Chapter Two

Alexander looked, really looked at the girl—no, the woman, he realised—for the first time.

And he could not look away. His heart stopped for a breathless moment, before resuming with the heavy thump of a military drum.

Not as young as he had first thought, certainly older than her twentieth year, even if not by too many years; her slender figure and compact stature gave her a youthful air. She was extraordinarily pretty with fair hair now in a riot of curls from the wind and the damp, and those astonishing blue eyes. The blur of panic had definitely gone from them. They sparkled like sunlight on waves in a morning sea. Not classically beautiful, he noted dispassionately—her brows were too dark, her nose formidably straight and her chin had a hint of the masterful. Perhaps her lips were a little wide for her heart-shaped face—but that was not to her detriment. Now parted in what could only be a moment of baffled consternation to mirror his own, Alexander felt a precise urge to kiss those lips, to press his mouth against that exact spot where a charming indentation might hover in her cheek if she smiled.

At this moment, to his regret, she looked as if she had no intention of ever smiling at him.

He blinked, mentally ordering his thoughts back into line. To no avail. She was quite lovely and Alexander felt the pull of some intense, deep-seated connection between them. A bond that linked him to her whether he wished it or not. Fancifully he considered its existence, ephemeral but solid in his awareness. Like an arc of light that had managed to seep through the grime-caked windows. Or a tightening of a fist to take up the tension in a rope. Perhaps it was an invisible skein woven from the dusty air in the drab little room. He did not know. What he did know was that it was there between them. An entity that he could not shake off.

It was, the thought crept into his mind to overwhelm it with its novelty, as if he had been waiting for this moment, for this particular woman, all his life.

Again it took his breath and his heart stumbled on a beat.

Whilst Marie-Claude simply sat with her bonnet in her lap, her stockings at her feet, and surveyed the man who stood before her. An even greater shock to her than the threat of the incoming tide had been was that he seemed to be in the same grip of the same blinding discovery as she. It whispered over her skin. This man touched her heart, her mind. Her soul. How could this be? How could she feel this link to a complete stranger?

She took a difficult breath. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room so that she must struggle to fill her lungs. And yet there was a strange stillness, as in the eye of a storm. Still, silent, as if waiting for some momentous revelation.

Marie-Claude touched her tongue to her dry lips and raised her eyes to his, amazed at her boldness, only to see that he was looking at her as if she were a prize he would snatch up and carry off for his own possession. She would be his possession. It unnerved her, but did not distress her. Not at all.

She could not bear the silence that had fallen between them. ‘Sir?’

‘Tell me your name,’ Alexander demanded softly.

‘Marie-Claude.’

‘Marie-Claude,’ he repeated as if he had no choice but to do so. It was a sigh, a soft caress even to his own ears.

Nor did the lady show any sign of objecting to his crass lack of formality.

‘Are you French?’ he asked, searching for something to say. Unnecessary, you fool, he admonished. Of course she was, with her attractive accent.

‘Yes, I am. But I have lived here in England for more than five years now.’

Her eyes were direct, forthright. She had recovered from her ordeal and delicate colour returned to her cheeks and lips. Those lips now curved beautifully, revealing the little hollow in her cheek. Alexander swallowed against the sudden power of heat in his blood, a treacherous warmth in his groin.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘My name is Alexander. People who know me call me Zan. You can do so if you wish.’

‘Zan.’ Could she believe this? Here she was, sitting without her shoes or her stockings in an inn parlour, alone with a man she had known but an hour, and she had agreed to call him by his given name? Ridiculous! Indiscreet! She had actually allowed him to remove her stockings! Marie-Claude felt her cheeks flush—but was compelled to use his name again.

‘Zan—Mr Ellerdine, I think the girl called you.’

‘Yes.’

With no timidity and considerable pleasure, she allowed her eyes to travel over his face and figure. Far taller than she, he had a rangy, graceful stance that masked a degree of strength. She recalled how he had lifted her with ease, carried her. How he had controlled the mare when the animal had fought for her head in the waves. Encircled by his arms she had, even in her fear, been aware of the sleek muscles beneath the sleeve of his coat, the powerful thighs that had held her firm and safe.

Whilst his face…An arresting face. Strong features, all flat planes and stark edges, lean cheeks. As for age—some years over thirty, she considered. A handsome man even if he was intimidating. Patience would not come easily to a man with that proud nose, that firm jaw. His mouth was uncompromisingly stern. His eyes fierce under well-marked brows. And his hair—dark, longer than she was used to seeing in the fashionable haunts of Bond Street, falling into disordered waves. Her fingers itched to touch it. He was nothing like the smooth, fashionable, London gentlemen with nothing in his thoughts but the cut of his coat and the polished shine of his boots. There was an energy about him—a spiritedness—that lit the room. And also a distinct law-lessness in him…His speculative appraisal of her face and figure, a caress in itself, made her shiver.

Marie-Claude forced another breath into her lungs. ‘Do you live here? In Old Wincomlee?’

‘Nearby.’

‘Then it is my good fortune that you had by chance ridden down to the bay. If you had not—’

‘No…’ Zan broke in. ‘I think it is my good fortune.’

Zan stretched out his hand, palm up, not at all surprised when Marie-Claude instantly placed hers there. He lifted her slender fingers to his lips. Was this it? Was this the premonition, driving him with an urgency that he had not been able to cast aside, to be at the harbour at the exact time that she was in danger? He had been meant to save her. It had been meant that their paths should cross. Even when he had brought her to shore, the strange link had held fast, even when she was perfectly safe, so that he felt the need to carry her into the inn rather than leave her to her own devices. Was this desire to put her beyond all danger, to cherish her—was this driving force how it felt to fall in love?

No! It was a dousing of cold water, as if a wave had just broken over his head. Love was an emotion to be avoided at all costs.

But this woman spoke to him. Called to him. He could not deny it.