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“I swear I’m not as meddling as you think. I’m new to St. Claire and want to know everything about it. But I promise to leave you alone. Shall we discuss the island?”
That should be safe enough. “Of course. Our main exports are—”
He guffawed. “I do not want the tour lecture, Mrs. Hobbs. Tell me what sights are worth seeing before I’m off again.”
“The waterfall on Mount Colombo. That is my favorite, if your time is limited. Take a picnic lunch, since there are no stops between.”
“Is there a walking path?”
“An easy one. I’ve walked it with my son.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Lockwood turned to her with a puzzled expression. “Oddly enough, I hadn’t suspected you had children. Perhaps because you look so young. How old is your son, or is that prying?”
She’d have to be more careful about volunteering information. She couldn’t blame him for his curiosity. “He is eight years old, and away at school.”
“Ah. And are there more?”
“No. Only William.”
Another long pause, and then he said, “That must be very lonely for you, Mrs. Hobbs.”
She blinked and cleared her throat. She was not going to cry in front of Lord Lockwood. She drew herself back to the subject at hand. “There is a coral reef beyond the settlements where the mountains begin on the northwest side of the island. They are beautiful, and the water is so clear that you can see the most amazing fish. Do you swim, sir?”
He nodded.
“Then I would definitely recommend the trip, although it is not a simple one. There are no boats for hire there, and no towns. The reefs are too treacherous for ships to anchor or even send a tender ashore.”
He stared at her again before he spoke. “I shall put that on my list. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of at the moment. If something should occur to me, I shall send you a note.”
“No need. I’ll be stopping by your shop. You can just tell me.”
How could she be both anxious to see him and dismayed at the prospect? It wasn’t logical in the least, and yet he seemed to create these paradoxes in her.
“What can you tell me about Blackpool, Mrs. Hobbs?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. We keep to our side of the island and they keep to theirs.”
“I’ve been thinking that I’d like to see a town built on cliffs. If I can find a spare day or two, I believe I’ll go.”
“I hear large ships occasionally moor offshore, but the rip currents are treacherous for small boats and skiffs. I wouldn’t recommend it, Lockwood.”
“Thought I might walk overland. Have a peek at the waterfall and volcano on my way. I’m the consummate British traveler, you know.”
She laughed. “Even overland, I wouldn’t recommend it.” The inhabitants of Blackpool were determinedly unfriendly. And there were darker, unsubstantiated rumors that some visitors never returned at all. She would hate to have Lockwood suffer a similar fate.
He was silent for a time, as if he were digesting the information. When he finally spoke, it was not what she expected. “I confess that I suspect a conspiracy here. Every time I mention Blackpool, I’m met with silence or abrupt warnings to stay away. What is over there? Cannibals?”
Heavens! She wished she could laugh at that, but no one really seemed to know what went on over there. “I assure you, I have no idea. The mystery existed before I arrived in San Marco and I’ve never gone there. I have known people who have been there, but they do not speak of it.”
“By the saints! With a temptation like that, I’m amazed that half of San Marco has not gone to see for themselves.”
The comment made her smile. She’d thought the same thing. “I do not know what to tell you, Lockwood. You now have the sum total of my knowledge of Blackpool. But it is your turn. Tell me what has passed in London the last five years.”
“I fear only more of the same. Prinny overdrawing the royal coffers, riots over the price of corn, the Spa Field riots, general social unrest—but you do not want to hear this.”
“Oh, but I do!”
She was so eager that he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Well, at least tell me the on dit. Men are no good at gossip, but I shall take what I can get.”
What a clever little jibe to loosen his tongue. “Ah, the on dit. Well then, you knew, of course, that the Burlington Arcade opened in Piccadilly? Two floors of excellent shopping, or so I’ve been told by my sister. I have been shopping there, myself.”
“No!” She feigned a delightful disbelief. “What did you purchase?”
“Wedding gifts.”
“For whom?”
“Ah, a sad story, that. You knew that Princess Charlotte died after giving birth to a stillborn son?” He waited for her nod. “Yes? Well, it was truly scandalous what happened next.”
“What?”
“Since Prinny has no other heirs, the royal dukes raced to the altar with suitable women in tow. Clarence wed Princess Adelaide, Kent wed Mary Victoria, Cambridge wed Princess Augusta. I vow, ’twas impoverishing me to buy wedding gifts that year. Kent has won the race for England’s future by producing a daughter, Princess Victoria. The entire country is praying for her health. And for a son.”
He had hoped to amuse her, but she turned thoughtful at this news. “Heirs,” she said with a wistful sigh. “They are important, are they not? Do you have an heir, Lockwood?”
“Aye. Three of them. My brothers, Andrew, Charles and James.”
The road veered into the deep canopy of overhanging trees and the night became somehow more intimate without the light of the moon.
“No heirs of your own?” she asked.
“Not yet, Mrs. Hobbs.”
“Do you not want to marry?”
He winced at the surprise in her voice and fought the impulse to tell her the truth—that he couldn’t live a lie. More to the point, that he couldn’t subject an innocent woman to the life he’d led and was still living. That he’d never marry, never risk the revulsion of his wife when she found out who he really was. If he dared to share the truth, she would flee, appalled by his past and the things he’d done. No, he’d have to give her the expected response of half-truths, omissions and lighthearted lies.
“I haven’t reached my ripe old age unattached by avoiding women, Mrs. Hobbs. On the contrary, I’ve been searching high and low for the right one. Ah, the rigors I’ve endured! The disappointments.”
“The rejections?”
“Dozens.”
Now she laughed outright. “I am loath to call you a liar, Lockwood, but that just does not seem possible.”
He shrugged. “I suppose you’d be right. I’ve never actually had the opportunity to propose. I seem to always come up late. My friends snatch up the good ones.”
“Have you ever thought of fighting for the one you love?”
“An interesting concept, that,” he admitted. “Perhaps I have not loved deeply enough to do so. But my sister swears she will choose me a wife if I do not come up with one soon.”
“I shall hope, for your sake, that she has excellent judgment.”
“She does. She is the only one of us married and is the youngest of us all.”
“That must aggravate the matchmaking mamas at Almack’s. Four eligible men, none of them married? You must be the talk of the town.”
Were they? He wouldn’t be surprised. Ah, but he and his brothers had avoided Almack’s for the past five years. The atmosphere was too cloying and the almost unseemly forwardness of mothers desperate to marry off their daughters was too unsettling.
“My dear Mrs. Hobbs, I am more like most men than you’d suspect. Society has become stale and I would like to believe I could find friendship and affection with a woman who would be willing to cast her lot in with mine and, if fortune favors us, have a gaggle of little Hunters. Failing that, my brothers will provide heirs aplenty.”
“Yet I must maintain that the only obstacle to your goal is you. If you wanted a wife, Lockwood, you would have one.” She waved at a gate just off the road. “Here. This is Sea Whisper, my home.”
Ah, this was convenient. Should he tell her that his plantation adjoined her property? He turned the gig down the drive and passed a small gatehouse cottage with a light in one window. Mrs. Hobbs, noting his interest, said, “My housekeeper lives there. This is far enough, my lord. No harm could possibly come to me on my own land.”
He drew up and paused with the reins in his hands. He did not want their ride to end. “Thank you for your company, Mrs. Hobbs.”
She tilted her face up to his and smiled. “Thank you for your escort home, Lord Lockwood.”
In the moonlight filtering through the oaks and cypress, she took his breath away. It had been months—nay, years—since he’d kissed a woman as enticing as this one.
Slowly, allowing her to escape if that were her wish, he bent to her lips. To his profound relief, she did not demur. On some level, she must have been expecting it. The dark fan of her lashes lowered as he hovered, barely touching, unwilling to deepen the contact until he had a response. When her lips parted ever so slightly, he was quick to take the gift she offered. Her mouth tasted of a subtle honey blended with flowers and heat, as delicious as any of her confections.
He met her tongue, shared his fire and hunger with her. A shivering sigh was her only response, as if she were struggling to regain her senses. Dear Lord, he knew he was lost. A single kiss, and he wanted Mrs. Hobbs with an intensity that nearly doubled him over. Wanted to lose himself between her heated thighs, to bury himself inside her and hear her sighs of passion.
Instead, she placed one trembling palm against his chest and pushed him away with a little gasp. “Please, I…that was a mistake, Lockwood. It must never happen again.”
What a sweet little fool she was if she thought they could recork that bottle. Once opened, that particular brew was too intoxicating to leave untasted. But he’d grant her the illusion of control, and he’d wait for the inevitable outcome. Because he had no doubt they would become lovers.
He smoothed a wayward strand of hair back from her cheek and passed her the ribbons. If she was expecting an apology, she was not going to get it, nor would she get a promise it would never happen again. He grinned at her bemusement and stepped down from the gig. Unfastening the reins of his horse, he mounted as she pulled away down the drive.
“Sweet dreams, Mrs. Hobbs,” he called after her.
Gasping, Daphne woke in the middle of the night, sitting up, sweat soaking her thin nightgown and tears dampening her cheeks. She threw her covers back and staggered to her feet, wishing she could cast off the haunting memories as easily.
What had brought them on—the memories of terror and pain she had so carefully buried, suppressed with hard work and denial? Just surviving—keeping William safe from his greedy uncle, preparing him to claim his rightful inheritance and escaping the hangman’s noose—had consumed her days and nights. That had become all she knew of life these last five years.
Then, Lockwood’s kiss! That one small intimacy had awakened the dormant part of her—the woman she had been before Barrett. Before the nightmare marriage and that final bloody night. That she could even think of the sweetness of a kiss again, or the aching of her heart for something she’d never thought to have, was completely unacceptable. She had denied herself for five years. Surely she could deny Lockwood for a few weeks?
Chapter Five
“Y ou’re awfully quiet this morning,” Hannah said. “Did you enjoy the governor’s reception?”
Daphne sighed and continued to roll the pastry dough out until it was paper thin. “It was not as tedious as I feared it would be.”
“About time you got out, I’d say,” Hannah commented as she added wood to the fire beneath the oven. “I wondered how long it would take you to come out of mourning.”
“Oh, that happened long ago. And last night does not mark a change—it was simply the exception to a very strong rule.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss the notion, Daphne. There may yet be someone who can turn your head and carry you away.”
Reginald Hunter’s face flashed before her, and she blinked. No. Never. Not on a cold day in hell. If he remembered her, and if he should see her portrait somewhere, she’d be arrested and taken back to England—and she’d do no more than step off the ship before she’d be hanged. What would become of William then? Barrett’s brother would take custody. She doubted William would survive his Uncle Alfred’s care. He was every bit as brutish as Barrett had been. But once William achieved his majority, Alfred would hold no power over him. Only then would William dare return to England.
The shop bell rang and Hannah hurried to see who it was. A moment later, Captain Gilbert peeked around the kitchen door and grinned at Daphne. “I stopped by to thank you, Mrs. Hobbs. I just left Governor Bascombe. He summoned me this morning and we’ve had a most interesting interview. It seems I’m to have the patent to carry government documents between here and London.”
She wiped her hands on her apron. “I hope that will make your circuits more profitable.”
“By a far sight, Mrs. Hobbs. And I understand I have you to thank for it.”
She was slightly abashed to have been caught in her machinations. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that, sir. I simply mentioned your name.”
“Not the way the governor retells the story.” He grinned. “He told me that you have shunned island society since your arrival, and that you suddenly showed up when least expected. He said you were a woman with a purpose, however, and that you left once you’d accomplished that purpose.”
She grimaced that she’d been so transparent. “I made a suggestion. That is all. Please do not make more of it than it warrants.”
The shop bell interrupted them. Even with Hannah in front, Daphne seized the opportunity to halt the conversation. She left her rolling pin on the worktable and hurried into the shop.
Lord Lockwood stood at the counter, bending over the pastry tray, his hands clasped behind his back. When he saw her, his lips curved in a smile.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hobbs,” he said, his voice soft and warm.
“Good morning, Lord Lockwood,” she murmured. She felt Captain Gilbert come up behind her.
“’Lo, Lord Lockwood,” he said.
The warm smile changed subtly to one of polite formality. “Captain.” He nodded. “How’s the provisioning going?”
“Slowly, I fear. Looks like it will take a fortnight to have the cargo aboard and make ready to sail. Mrs. Hobbs, however, has just seen to it that I keep making the run from London.”
A flicker of something feral passed through Lockwood’s eyes. “Did she? Well, I’d guess she could be persuasive.”
Heavens! Did he think she’d persuaded the captain with favors? She started to deny it and then decided it would be better for Lockwood to believe anything that would make him keep his distance.
Captain Gilbert, however, was quick to sort out the misunderstanding. “Mrs. Hobbs was kind enough to speak to Governor Bascombe on my behalf. I’ve been given a patent on carrying official documents and correspondence between St. Claire and London.”
“I see,” Lockwood said.
But he didn’t. The hardness that settled around his features told her that.
The uncomfortable silence drew out until she remembered herself. “Oh, sorry. Can I get something for you?” She moved behind the counter and fussed with a rack of cooling bread.
“Something smells good, Mrs. Hobbs. What do you have cooking?”
“Cobblers, but they won’t be ready for hours.”
