Her eyes had widened slightly at the caress; now they widened even more. With undisguised interest.
“Hmm.” On that sultry murmur she shifted, turning to him as he turned to her. “Perhaps…maybe…I deserve a second helping?”
He bent his head and set his lips to hers, and set about confirming, reaffirming, his hold on her, on her body, and at least for those moments, on her mind.
But as for her heart, let alone her soul…when it came to those, he had no assurances. When it came to those, he was operating blind.
Some hours later under the cloak of the same night, Helen Hardesty again made her way to the gardener’s cottage on the banks of the Helford to meet with her sometime lover.
She found him pacing in the dark like a caged tiger. “I take it you’ve had no good news?”
“No, damn it! The cargo seems to have disappeared into thin air, which is nonsensical. It can’t have. It must be here somewhere—and someone must know where.”
She’d never seen him so intensely aggravated. Her impulse was to go to him, to spread her hands over his chest and distract him, but she knew well enough to wait until he calmed. “Nothing from the peddlers at the festival?”
“No. I asked at the stalls and booths selling curios and antiques—no one had, or had seen or heard of, even the most minor piece of the cargo.” He glanced sharply at her through the gloom. “I have men in the area, scouring the peninsula, and in Falmouth. There’s been no word of a wreck, and nothing—neither information nor the goods themselves—has reached London.”
“You would know?” She was surprised.
“Oh, yes.” His tone sounded vicious. “Believe me, I’d know.”
He paced some more; she watched him, waited.
“I want you to start nosing around—quietly. I want to know if anyone has heard of anything that might in any way relate to the missing cargo. Whether anyone’s been approached by someone wishing to sell items of that nature—museum-quality jewelry, timepieces, snuffboxes, lamps, silverware.” He shot her another hard glance. “Concentrate on the gentry. I already have men covering the rest.”
She studied him, then, judging him settled enough to approach, she closed the distance, laid a hand on his chest, looked into his face. “Why are you so obsessed with this cargo? I know it’s a fee—a payment due to you—but it’s not as if you need the money. Your family’s one of the wealthiest in the land.”
For a moment, looking into his still, contained face, she wondered if she’d gone too far.
But when he spoke, his voice was even, his tone flat. “You don’t need to understand why I want it, only that I do.”
She grimaced. Lifting her arms, she wound them about his neck. “Very well. I’ll do as you ask and with all due caution see what I can learn.”
“Do.” He looked down at her, then accepted her blatant invitation and kissed her.
When he lifted his head, she murmured, “For my usual payment, of course.”
He laughed briefly. “Of course.”
Raising his hands, he closed them about her breasts; bending his head, he recaptured her lips, then steered her back until her spine met the closed shed door.
“Come on.” The next morning, Harry led Edmond and Ben down from the cliff path north of Lowland Point. “We can walk along the sands and look into each cave we pass.”
Leaping down to the beach, Harry waited until the other two joined him, then walked down to the strip of hard-packed sand above the retreating waves and started to trudge north along the shore.
He didn’t expect to find anything in the caves, but the exercise kept Edmond and Ben happy; both were certain that if they just looked hard enough—if they searched every cave honeycombing the peninsula’s cliffs—they’d be sure to find hidden treasure.
Whose hidden treasure was a moot point.
But for Harry the time spent tramping along the beaches, watching the ever-changing sea, gave him time to think, to wonder, to imagine. To examine his options and what he wanted of life. And how to achieve that.
He’d started by looking in on Madeline in the office; he’d half expected her to smile and wave him away—tell him he didn’t need to bother his head with the accounts and ledgers, with the various questions she, in his name, dealt with every day. Instead, she’d taken his offer to learn and help seriously. He now spent part of every day with her, learning of his patrimony and how to manage it.
He’d made the offer to help because he’d felt he should; he’d never imagined he would find fields and crops and yields so intriguing. But he had; now his biggest worry was to keep his enthusiasm for “work” within bounds—and contrarily pretend to some interest in his brothers’ hunt.
“Watch out!” Edmond yelled.
Harry glanced back to see Ben, who had chased after a retreating wave, come scampering, laughing and whooping, back up the sand—only to trip, stumble and fall, and have the wave catch him, and froth and surge around him.