This Perfect Kiss (16 page)

Dog's tail wagged as Christel slid her palm delicately over his wet fur. He whimpered when she touched his back leg, but it did not feel broken. She gently scratched between his ears and accepted two licks to her cheek. “You were on the beach?”

Anna's pudgy cheeks firmed a little. “I was hiding in the caves below the rocks. The tide started coming in and I could not get out. I was scared, Miss Christel. Dog heard me shouting and barked and barked until Uncle Leighton came. I was so dreadfully cold, Miss Christel.”

Christel shoved away the wet folds of Anna's skirt and ruffled petticoats to examine the child's injuries.

Anna's ankle was swollen. The cut on the left side of her knee was an inch across and deep enough that she might need sutures.
Please, no
. Someone had already cleaned it up and wrapped a bandage around it. They would need a doctor. Anna's exposure to the cold had left her pale white. “We need to get you out of these clothes.”

Heather entered the room carrying blankets. “I am heating water for the lass, mum. I warmed these on the hearth.” She laid one over the dog. “He was on the ridge barking for most of the afternoon. He would no' come down. And a storm be coming. I did no' know what to do. When Lord Leighton rode into the yard, I told him about the dog. Lord Leighton found them both trapped near a tidal pool with the tide coming in around them. The dog's barking took him to her.”

Christel's dog had been gone from the yard when she had left earlier that day. At the time, she'd thought he'd been off foraging for food, and she had been in too much of a hurry to think anything of it.

Christel cupped Anna's pale wet cheek and found it ice cold against her palm. “The least you could have done if you were going to run away is to dress for the weather. How long have you been outside?”

Anna gulped. “Most of the day. Yesterday, I waited until Mrs. Gables thought I was napping. Then I escaped through the servant's door and hid 'til this morning. I know all the places to hide, and I am
not
afraid of the dark. I am not, no matter what Papa says.”

“He is very worried about you.”

“I will never go back. Ever! I hate him. I do! He made Uncle Leighton go away! I never want to see him again.”

“You do not mean that.”

“I do!”

The child fell across the pillow crying. Christel bundled her in her arms. She knew nothing about children and didn't know how to console a distraught little girl, so she let Anna weep hot tears against her bodice.

“If you take me back to Blackthorn Castle, I shall only run away again.” She looked down at the dog crushed in her arms. “He is my only friend in the world.”

Lady Anna might have been Lord Carrick's daughter, but she did not possess his usual knack for hiding emotions, and she displayed them with a melodramatic flair. Everything in her thoughts showed on her face. Confusion. Love. Fear. Anger. All of it flickered in her wet eyes as she wrapped her arms tighter around the dog.

“Where do you think to live, Anna? Your home is Blackthorn Castle. Your papa loves you.”

“I want to live here with you and Dog and Uncle Leighton.”

Christel sensed a presence and turned toward the doorway. The object of the little girl's affection stood in the opening. He held up his hands. “Do not look at me,” he said. “I never told her I lived here.”

Chapter 9

C
hristel rose from the chair she had pushed flush to the bed where Anna lay sleeping. “She has a fever,” she said to Leighton, who stood at the end of the bed, his hair and shirt rumpled. Until a few moments ago, he had been sleeping downstairs on a pallet in front of the hearth.

She had sent Blue to Blackthorn Castle four hours earlier to inform Lord Carrick that his daughter had been found safe. Blue should have already returned, bringing Doctor White.
Four hours!

Somewhere a shutter banged. The wind moaned through the cracks around the window. A cold draft touched Christel's slippered feet. “Where is Blue?” she muttered, more to herself than to Leighton.

“The beach is closed off due to the tide. It could be dawn before anyone gets here coming from the road,” Leighton replied.

A fire burned in the stove next to the wall where he stood. Christel stared at the light that flickered on the floor and ceiling. In her exhaustion, the somber dance of shadows began to haunt her. Doubt plagued her, and she hated it. “Maybe I should have waited until daylight to send Blue to Blackthorn. His horse could have fallen in a hole.”

“ 'Twould be an ignoble end to a fine steed,” Leighton said lightly. “Let us hope for better than that.”

She stopped and looked at him squarely. Everything Grams had told her yesterday returned to her with the force of a slap. Christel wrapped her arms around her midriff. “What are you doing here?”

“I gave Blue my horse, remember?” He leaned a shoulder into the door. “I cannot very well ride the cart pony, as my feet would drag on the ground.”

Christel cast a worried glance at Anna, then settled her gaze on Dog, at her feet. His head lifted in interest. After scratching him between his ears, Christel stepped around Leighton, forcing him into the hallway, and pulled the door shut behind him.

“I am asking again,” she said in a low rushed whisper, “why are you here? At this cottage? I am grateful that you
were,
since you probably saved Anna's—”

“But you would prefer that I not be here.”

“I would prefer to know the truth.”

“I am homeless,” he said, obviously avoiding the question.

She brushed hair off her cheek. “Then you intend to be here when your brother arrives?”

“I intend to be here until I can retrieve my horse. Unless you know of someplace else I should wait.” His mouth crooked, but no amusement touched his blue eyes. “Little momma bear,” he said softly, “big brother does not need your protection from me. When he returns to his castle on the hill overlooking his kingdom, you and I will still be here. Still alone. Maybe not at this cottage . . . but
some
place.”

Christel picked disapprovingly at a patch on her plain woolen gown. She had changed out of the other dress after returning, as it had been soaked. She hated feeling as if she was wandering in a mist, running from whatever it was hiding inside her. Angry at Saundra and Leighton, yet knowing this was not the time or place to say anything.

After a pause, she said, “You were close to my uncle. Did you know he mortgaged this cottage?”

“What is it you want me to tell you?”

Heather appeared at the top of the stairs with a tray in her hand. “My lord,” Christel heard her murmur.

Leighton turned on his heel. “Get some sleep, Christel,” he said.

Heather dipped slightly as he passed her. Heather then turned her attention to Christel, her eyes shyly downcast. “I heard ye up and talkin'. I thought the tyke might need a bit of warm liquid and biscuits. She did no' eat much at supper.”

“Thank you, Heather. I will take the tray,” Christel said, and two cups chinked together as she accepted it.

“Mum.” Heather stopped her as she helped Christel open the door. “After your uncle passed, it be Lord Leighton what has kept Seastone Cottage from the excise men. He has helped many people.”

“How?”

“I . . . I really cannot say, mum. But I just did no' want you to think poorly of him, as some do.”

“Thank you, Heather.”

Once inside the room, Christel leaned her head back against the door, closing her eyes. The cottage creaked against the wind gusts that continued to race off the sea like a hungry banshee clawing at the cracks and crevices in the walls. She walked to the nightstand, moved aside the candle and set down the tray. She moved the candle until the circle of light touched Anna's flushed face. Her lashes slowly lifted. Christel dropped in the chair beside the bed and took the child's hand.

“I do not feel so well,” Anna whispered. “My leg hurts.”

“I know.” Christel wiped the hair from the girl's smooth brow. “You are running a fever.”

Anna pulled fretfully at the quilts. “But I am so cold.”

Christel gave the child warm tea and helped her drink. When they were done, Anna's hand again found hers. “Miss Christel? I want to see Uncle Leighton. . . . Will you tell Papa not to send him away? Uncle Leighton tells me stories. He bought me a pony for my birthday. You do not think Papa will take her away from me. Do you? Because I was bad?”

“Your papa loves you. He will not take away your pony.”

“Promise you will not leave me.”

“I will not leave you.”

Christel's throat tightened and a great anger that any child should suffer swelled inside her. But it should have been the girl's mother holding her hand, not a stranger to her life.

How could Saundra, who'd had everything in the world, have foolishly thrown it all away?

Anna's fingers touched Christel's hair every so often, as if the gesture could reassure her that Christel remained. But after awhile she slept again.

Christel had just started to drift on a dream when she awakened to the sound of a door slamming and muffled voices downstairs. Heavy-soled boots marked someone's approach. The door opened, spilling in candlelight from the hallway. She brought a hand to her forehead to rid her temples of the piercing intrusion to her senses.

Lord Carrick's cloaked figure stood in the doorway.

Anna opened her eyes. “Papa,” she gulped, holding out her arms.

Christel rose from the chair and stood aside to let him take his place beside his daughter. His shoulder brushed hers. He'd brought in the scent of the sea and the wind.

“Shh, little one,” he said in a low, tender voice, gathering his daughter into the protective folds of his cloak as he sat with her in his lap. “I am here now.”

“I am sorry, Papa,” she wept against his cloak. “Truly, I am.”

“Hush now.” Scraping his palm gently over her forehead, he pressed his lips to her temple. “You are safe. Nothing will happen to you.”

Christel watched the hushed exchange, aware that others were gathering in the narrow hallway behind her. A tightness squeezed her chest, squeezing and squeezing. She backed out to go. He turned slightly, his daughter in his arms, and looked at her from over the top of Anna's head. The shade of his dark woolen coat blended with his hair and his eyes, which were so deep as almost to be black in the dull light. His gaze touched hers. And held in the taut silence. Then Anna made a sound and pulled his attention back.

Christel quietly withdrew from the room and shut the door, pausing to draw a deep breath. The doctor stood uncertainly in the corridor, wearing a wooly cloak. His wild red hair stuck up in uncombed dishevelment, and he was attempting to clean his fogged spectacles with the tail end of his loose shirt. He bore the indignity of one who had been dragged from his bed.

“Miss Douglas.” His brown eyes peered with uncertainty from behind spectacles too large for his red nose. “Ye might no' remember—”

She recognized him the moment he spoke. His mother had been the housekeeper at Rosecliffe. Stephen used to work odd jobs about the house and stable. Christel had taught him to read and write.

She took his hand. “Stephen White.”

He adjusted the leather bag in his other hand. “Thanks to your grandmother's patronage, I am now a physician.”

“Please tell me you are a good one.” She patted his arm and told him to go inside. “There is a father in there who needs to be reassured that his daughter will be all right. 'Tis good to see you.”

He walked past Heather and Blue. “Boil water,” he said to Christel.

In the kitchen, she found Leighton, leaning with his back against the wall on the other side of the door. He wore his cloak and held his hat and gloves.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“Anna is still feverish,” she told him. “Your brother needs to know what you did for her.”

“I am here because I want to know that she will be all right. I did nothing for Camden's sake.”

“What about for my sake? I know you have kept Seastone afloat.”

“Your uncle made me profits. I owed it to him to keep this cottage in his family for as long as I could. Call it a debt paid.”

He bent his head until his lips touched her temple. “Now I shall leave your life and your problems in your own capable hands. Guard your heart well, Christel.”

Too late,
she thought.

L
ater, wiping his hands with a rag, Doctor White went to his bag, clicked the lid open and pulled out a brown bottle the size of his palm.

“This is for pain,” Christel heard him tell Lord Carrick, setting it on the stand beside the lamp. He unrolled first one sleeve, then the other, then pulled his coat off a hook on the wall and shrugged into it. “She will be asleep soon, my lord.”

Lord Carrick sat on the chair beside the bed with his elbows resting on his knees. He pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead, as if he'd been kicked in the head. Christel could still hear Anna's cries in her mind, and her father must have felt like a heartless bastard for holding her, nay cradling her small body, while Doctor White had sutured her leg.

Ignoring the tightness in her throat, she continued to sit at the head of the bed, Anna's head in her lap. Anna's sobs had turned into small hiccoughs as Christel had gently stroked the girl's hair and hummed a lullaby.

Doctor White showed Christel how to mix the herbs he had given her for the tea that would help Anna rest. Christel nodded as he spoke. The light framed the child's tear-streaked face, and Christel gently dabbed the sheet against her pale cheeks.

“Thank you for everything, Stephen. If you need a place to sleep, Heather can fix up a pallet near the hearth downstairs,” she told him.

He told her he had rounds to make at the orphanage and couldn't stay. He would be back in the evening to check on Anna. Christel looked out the window. She had not realized it was already dawn. After Doctor White left, she returned to the lullaby, gently stroking Anna's face. Christel's mother used to sing to her. She remembered many of the songs that she thought she had forgotten.

When she finished, she looked up to find Lord Carrick watching her. A lock of dark hair had fallen across his brow.

For an instant, something showed in his eyes that touched her bone deep and reminded her of all the reasons why she did not allow herself to need anyone or to be needed. The responsibility was too much. It always led to trouble. She had learned not to let people get close. It would be so easy to let him inside her. But with him, no reserve would be possible, no concealment for the sake of self-preservation.

He must have read her thoughts. His mouth crooked slightly as if to tell her he understood the feeling well enough. Then his gaze dropped to the hand gently stroking Anna's hair.

Christel looked away. He knew it was Leighton who had found Anna on the beach, that Leighton had come to the cottage first before he had followed Dog's barking to Anna.

Whatever the reason, Leighton had most likely saved Anna's life—and certainly complicated hers. She also knew one decent, unselfish act would not erase Leighton's reservoir of sins in Lord Carrick's eyes. He must have questioned why his brother had been twice to the cottage. But he said nothing, and somehow she didn't think he would. Everything had suddenly become complicated. She had not asked to be put in the middle.

But as the wind continued to gust off the sea, whipping the eaves of the cottage, Christel pushed aside her concerns.

She remained with Anna all that day as the child slipped restlessly in and out of slumber to settle finally into peaceful repose near nightfall.

After supper, Lord Carrick went below to retrieve a bag sent over by Mrs. Gables. Sir Jacob and the sheriff arrived to talk. Christel finally fell asleep in the chair Lord Carrick had vacated. She awakened briefly when he lifted her and carried her to her room.

No man had ever carried her so intimately against him, her legs dangling over his arms like some damsel in distress.

She didn't like the feeling. “Put me down,” she murmured sleepily.

Surprisingly, he did as she asked. They stood alone in her bedroom. He was in his shirtsleeves. He'd removed his neckcloth.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“ 'Tis past midnight. Blue and Heather retired an hour ago. Your dog is lying asleep at the bottom of the stairs. Anna is resting peacefully. I checked the horses in the stable and banked the fire.”

Scraping the hair from her eyes, she held his gaze. “You did a brave thing with Anna last night,” she said, “holding her in your arms while Stephen sutured her leg. You may think she will hate you for it, but she will only remember that you comforted her when she was afraid.”

“I am not good with comforting little girls.” He walked to the bedroom window and, pulling aside the curtain, peered outside. He kept his voice low as he spoke. “I know you and Leighton were . . . are . . . friends,” he said. “But I need to know if 'tis more than that, Christel.”

They had edged into fragile territory, a place she had not wanted to go. But she'd had enough of the past. Tonight, she wanted the ghost that was standing between Camden St. Giles and his brother to stay away.