Beauty and the Duke (16 page)

Maybe she didn’t need a map. Surely, someone other than Becca would know the place where she had found the first fossils.

Carrying an old canvas knapsack filled with tools, Christine made her way down the hill to the stables.

Two hours later, with a reluctant groom in tow, she reined in at the bottom of an old washed-out road that ended in the river. A cool breeze tugged at her hair. Behind her, the groom’s horse shifted. At least today wasn’t bone-chilling wet, she thought, as she adjusted the strap of her hard pith hat around her chin and patted her shaggy beast on the withers. She’d wanted a horse that looked experienced enough not to fall off a cliff. Miss Pippen had proven game thus far. Certainly more cooperative than the groom who had reluctantly agreed to bring her to the river. Thirty feet of swollen raging water might prevent her from crossing, but it did not end this outing.

“We best not be going farther, mum,” the groomsman shouted over the noise.

“Nonsense, Hampton. We’ve already been out here most of the morning.”

She pulled out her compass and got her bearings, then removed the glasses from the canvas pack slung over her saddle and scanned the valley behind her. This entire area had been formed by a massive volcanic eruption an eon ago. Over the last millennium the elements had rounded the hills, and glaciers had carved a valley into the floor. Away from the domestic confines of Sedgwick Castle, the crags and windswept vales were a forbidding and lonely place. She eyed the escarpment a mile ahead. “That is where I want to go. We need to find a way to cross.”

Hampton scrubbed a hand across his bristles. “He
won’t like me taking you up there, mum. The riverbank where the fossils were found be
this
way.”

“I have every intention of viewing that part of the river.” She pointed to the distant cliffs. “From up there.”

Despite his reluctance, Hampton did as she bade. He took her another mile east, to a bridge that had not been washed out this past year—the only one left that crossed the river for miles. Until last summer, the river had been low enough in some places not to need a crossing. Now it was too dangerous, he’d told her. Leading the way, Hampton took her on the old drover’s trail that led into the foothills and then slowly snaked up the cliffs.

The river’s roar funneled up the rock walls like thunder. They stopped and ate lunch from a basket that Cook had given Hampton. After meandering along the trail another hour, Christine found the place where she wanted to stop and she dismounted. She handed Miss Pippen’s reins to Hampton and walked a goodly distance down the incline to the cliff’s edge, stirring rocks and sending some rolling over the side. Mounds of loose scree had washed down from the upper hills, and she knelt to study the talus. The ledge was as uneven as broken teeth and looked to have been slowly peeling away for decades.

She knelt on one knee to study the rocks, then leaning slightly, she looked down at the white water churning in a large rock hollow below. She’d never possessed a fear of heights but she felt a shiver. By the look of the scattered tree limbs and bits and pieces of flotsam, some of which looked like the bleached wall of an old cottage, a great violence occurred here every time it rained. Nature’s fury at its most brutal.

Sedgwick Castle sat in the distance like a moody mistress framed by the clouds. Looking at the stark and beautiful landscape, Christine contemplated all its untold secrets.

Truly, she could fall in love with such a place, and found easy admiration for the man who had clearly preserved every stone of his heritage as if it had come to him encased in amber.

She picked up a handful of talus and let it slide through her fingers. Somewhere out here her destiny awaited.

Without turning, she asked the groom, “In which section of this ravine were the original fossils recovered?”

“Fifty meters upstream,” a familiar voice replied, and it did not belong to the groomsman.

Christine turned and rose abruptly. Erik stood above her on the hill. His cloak swirled about his ankles. The sun was behind him and so she could not make out his expression, though his tone was unmistakable. “Do you bloody mind coming away from the edge?” he said. “The entire face of this cliff is unstable.”

Having made that assessment herself, Christine did not argue his point. Or the fact that Erik would risk his own life a thousand times over before he’d ever allow her to risk hers. Even if the cause was for them both. He had brought her to Scotland to help him find Elizabeth.

She dusted off her hands and began picking her way up the incline. “Yes, it is dangerous. More so if I tripped and actually
fell
off the cliff.”

He grabbed her arm as she walked past—not cruelly, but neither was his grip gentle as he turned her to face him. “This entire area is unsafe.” He aimed his fierce scowl over her shoulder at the groomsman standing
where he’d tied her horse to the limb of a dead tree. “Or had you forgotten?”

“Thank you, Hamilton,” she rushed to the groom’s defense. “I have appreciated your expertise in helping me locate everything I needed to see this afternoon. My husband will see that I get home all apiece.”

The man crushed his hat in his hands. “Yes, mum.” He peered nervously at Erik before slapping his ruined hat back on his head. “Your grace.”

Watching the poor man mount and then rein his horse around, Christine eased her arm from Erik’s grip. “Hamilton brought me here because I ordered it.”

“Do you see the old watchtower three meters beyond that ridge?”

Christine turned her head. “What ridge?”

“My point exactly. This entire area crumbled into the river last winter.”

“And do you see the old drover trail behind you? The one that comes up from the valley. I believe you followed it to find me.”

Erik merely narrowed his eyes. Unabashed, Christine continued. “According to Annie it is still a through trail to the coast. People may not be allowed up here, but that does not mean no one has been here. Including some of those missing.” She swept her arm about her. “This is old volcanic terrain. There are lava chutes running throughout these hills. Such geological formations make for excellent conditions in the creation of caverns. If I were a wagering man, I would bet that is where both of us will find the answers we seek.”

Looking suitably impressed, he tipped back his hat with his quirt and peered down at her in amusement. “You’ve learned all of that in the ten minutes you were on that ledge?”

She thumped his chest. “I learned all that the instant I looked
over
the ledge and saw the hollow below.” She smiled. “Water isn’t overflowing from the river
into
the hollow. It is flowing
out
of the hollow into the river. That is why we are seeing a huge torrent of white water below us.”

His brows rose. “I thought white water was caused by water rushing over protruding rocks.”

“The protruding rocks are covered in moss. The water is coming from beneath the surface and not over it. And if you look closer, you will see black dirt and rocks on the bank.
That
, my dearest husband and partner, tells me your river has found a lava tube in which to frolic.”

Satisfied that she had at last left him suitably astonished, she rocked back on her heels. “When the river shifted its course, it must have found its way into a lava tube and further weakened the walls. The breach could be showing up now because this cliff is unstable or this cliff has become unstable because of the rushing water. The fact that it has collapsed in places demonstrates that much.”

“I haven’t had my engineer walk these banks recently but—”

“I am no engineer, but I know dirt,” she said with no amount of humility. “I know the difference between volcanic dirt and plain old river wash. If you want to peer over the edge of the cliff and have a look…?”

He glanced over his shoulder but did not appear inclined to look further. Smiling to herself, she lifted her skirts and picked her way over the rocks back to her horse. She’d worn stout footwear and pants beneath her woolen skirt, a feminine article of clothing that she intended to remove when the time came for her to climb down this cliff.

“When the river level has dropped, I intend to go down there for a closer look.” Then, looking up at the gloomy sky, she turned on her heel as another thought struck her, and nearly collided with him. “There are days in a row where the sun
does
shine?”

His fingers encircled her wrist like a chain of velvet, and he pulled her against him. She felt the burning touch of his body against hers. “Go back to the part where you said you intend to go down there.”

She didn’t try to escape him, nor did she wish to. “I need to get closer to the hollow. Maybe there is a way inside from the cliff. Otherwise, we will have to find another way inside. It is too dangerous to try by boat.”

“Dangerous?” The word was a mockery of her assessment.

She brought his gloved fingers to her lips. “Don’t be difficult, Erik.”

His fingers unfurled beneath her chin. Like the legendary black lotus, a fruit touted to induce a dreamy languor and forgetfulness. That was the way he made her feel now as she gazed into his face. Dreamy.

“When I gave you permission to look for bones, I did not mean for you to be risking your life,” he said.

“I am not a novice climber.” If truth be told, she was an excellent climber and only her modesty prevented her from bragging. Climbing cliffs was not unheard of and had become something of a sport begun a half century ago by daring-do Englishmen who scaled the Alpines. “Mr. Darlington and I have climbed far worse than this,” she said.

Erik released her hand but nothing in his stance told her he had relented. In fact, his expression hardened. “Besides,” she added with a hint of nonchalance, deciding it time to clarify certain issues between them, “we signed an agreement stating that in exchange for—”

“I know what I signed.”

“I am to have access to your estate.”

“I know what I signed. It is
my
contract.”

“It
is
your contract, and you clarified the details of this partnership down to each period and colon.” He’d practically done everything but offer to open the door and invite her to leave once she had fulfilled her side of the bargain.

For a week, he’d been too occupied to visit or inquire as to her welfare.
Now
he was concerned? “You paid a great deal of money to make this a partnership between us. I am merely reminding you of the rules specific—”

“I understand that we signed a contract. A contract that, to put it bluntly, we both know would not stand up in a court.”

“It isn’t the law or the action of a tribunal that matters to me. I know I am your property. Your
word
binds you,” she said, then on a softer note: “This is my beast we are talking about, Erik.” And Erin’s mother, she started to say, a woman whose fate Erik had charged Christine to discover.

For a long time, he said nothing, and she started to feel a weight settle in her chest. “Trust my judgment, Erik.”

His eyes were steady. “I do trust your judgment.”

Her lips curved up at the corners, a concession to his surrender, the movement of her mouth drawing the full measurement of his sherry eyes. “You are bloody stubborn, Christine.”

“I prefer to think of myself as independent.”

“Independence does have its charm,” he said.

“Truly? You are not just trying to flatter me?”

“Truly. I cannot take my eyes off you. I am”—he peered down the length of her and lifted her skirts—“in awe of a woman in trousers.”

“Awed, indeed.” She slapped at his hand. “You are laughing at me.”

He did laugh then, the rich sound filling her senses with a sort of bleakness. Christine narrowed her eyes, noting that she was too often the source of his endless amusement.
“Charming, indeed.”

She mounted her shaggy nag, the robust mare nothing like the sleek chestnut Erik rode, and suddenly, she felt very much like that mare. Shaggy and hearty. Slightly worn around the corners. Bedraggled and yearning to be more beautiful. An absurd notion, since she considered herself suitable enough.

Reining Miss Pippen around, she peered down at the horse’s owner from her lofty height and waited for him to recover his wits.

His eyes warmed her. “You must allow that a woman in breeches has its
rustic
charm.”

“Most men are only interested in what I have inside these trousers,” she said. “I am glad to see that you are not cut from the same cloth. Considering how close you are standing to the edge of yonder cliff.”

Having effectively wiped the humor from his face, she decided it was her turn to laugh. “Your grace,” she added as an afterthought.

“And how many men
have
been in those trousers?”

Since she’d stolen these pants from a stable hand years ago, she could not rightly say. But the fact was that no other man but Erik had ever touched her intimately or done the things he had to her. No other man had made her burn with his hands and his mouth and the mere touch of his eyes.

Or made her as vulnerable to her own feelings as he did now. And while he could claim beautiful women in his life since he had known her, she could not claim other men in her life. Not even a bald, toothless one.
The mere thought of such a lopsided existence gnawed at her sense of fairness and dissolved some of the goodwill toward him she’d been inclined to feel the last five minutes since he’d been avoiding her all week. Her hands tightened on the reins.

Rather than answering with the truth that he had been the only man in her life, she said instead, “I own that at least one man has made it into these trousers. Though it was dark that night in the stable and I could not see his face.”

“Is that a fact,
leannanan?
”

Before she could decide if he was mocking her or himself, she laughed. “Dinnae get yersel’ in a fankle, your grace”—she affected her own Scottish brogue—“ ’Twas long after ye married another.”

There was heat in his eyes as they held hers. After a moment he said, “I am gratified to know that you are still honest.”