The Notorious Lord

Chapter Twenty

When Rachel awoke it was full dark outside and she was alone. The sound of rain drummed on the roof and the curtains were not drawn, leaving the window a pale grey square of dark. The wind shrieked and thunder echoed away on the horizon.

She put out a hand. The bed was still warm and there was an indentation where Cory’s body had lain. She rolled over and pressed her face to the pillow. It smelled of him and her heart filled with love and a curious kind of pride. Her body ached faintly but felt replete and her mind drowsy. She knew that soon she would have to start thinking again, but for now she was content to drift.

She wondered where Cory had gone. The answer came almost immediately. There was a sound from below and Rachel tensed, reality flooding back. Had the servants returned? Or her parents? She squinted at the clock. Eight o’clock! They should all have returned long since.

Then she heard whistling and realised that Cory was down in the kitchen. She relaxed back against the covers. He was fetching food. He really was a hero.

Rachel got up and went across the window. She paused for a moment, staring out into the dark in amazement. The landscape was awash, the whole of Midwinter Royal land cut off like an island. The river had flooded the burial ground and only the tops of the barrows were visible. It would take a boat to reach them now.

There was a step in the doorway behind her.

‘Very nice,’ Cory said, and Rachel realised with a sudden surprise that she was still naked. She did not appear to have been paying a great deal of attention to her clothes recently, for they were scattered across the floor. She whisked into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.

‘Please do not do that on my account,’ Cory said pleasantly. ‘You looked quite delightful as you were.’

He was wearing Rachel’s dressing robe and was carrying a tray laden with food, which he placed on the end of the bed. He took the candle from it and put it on the night stand. Suddenly the room seemed smaller and more intimate, a haven against the outside world once again.

‘I see that we are cut off,’ Rachel said.

Cory nodded. ‘The river has burst its banks and surrounded the house.’

‘So no one can get in?’

Cory’s silver gaze was quizzical on her. ‘No.’

‘And you cannot get out?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Good,’ Rachel said.

Cory’s gaze turned thoughtful. ‘Rachel…’ he began.

Rachel’s heart gave a lurch. She held up a hand.

‘Cory, please do not say anything. Not yet. I do not want to spoil anything.’

Cory sighed. ‘Rachel, we shall have to talk soon…’

‘Soon, yes,’ Rachel said. ‘But not now. This is too soon.’ She hesitated. ‘This is so special. It is time out of time. And just at the moment I do not want to have to think too much.’

She reached for the food and sank her teeth into the bread. It tasted good. Cory sighed again. ‘I do not like the sound of that,’ he said.

Rachel reached for the cheese. The sheet slipped a little. She watched Cory’s gaze go to her breasts and felt a little shiver go through her. Her mouth dried and suddenly she did not feel so hungry any more. Cory was visibly holding himself in check and the sight of his struggle for control was immensely exciting. She brushed the crumbs off the sheet, aware that he was watching her every move.

‘Perhaps I should put some clothes on,’ she said.

‘That would be pointless,’ Cory said, ‘since I would only have to remove them again.’

He lifted the heavy fall of her hair off her shoulder and started to kiss the back of her neck. Rachel almost choked on the bread as shivers of delightful pleasure ran along her skin. His hands came round to cup her breasts and the sheet fell to her waist. Rachel sighed, a long, wavering sigh of surrender. There was no escaping the feeling that this was where she belonged, here in the circle of his arms, safe, protected and true. She watched as Cory carefully moved the tray off the bed before discarding his robe and coming back to settle his naked body against hers. In the candlelight he was as glorious as she remembered from the time by the river. His skin was a lucent gold, firm, hard and well muscled. She rubbed her lips exploratively against the paler soft skin by his collarbone and felt the ripple of his stomach muscles against her spread fingers. He turned his head and claimed her lips in a deep and demanding kiss.

‘Don’t move,’ he ordered.

Rachel lay with her eyes wide open and her nerves tightened to fever pitch as he slid down her trembling body and began kissing her all over, the arch of her foot, the soft fold behind her knee, the outer curve of her thigh. Her breathing came more rapidly still as he shifted his body to trail kisses along the soft skin of her inner thigh. She arched in frustration as he pressed his mouth in sweet, hot kisses against her belly, moving up to caress her swelling breasts.

Rachel turned her head languorously on the pillow. A huge flash of lightning illuminated the room, dimming the candles. By its fierce light she could see Cory poised over her, his face dark with emotion. He cupped her breast and flicked the nipple lightly with his tongue. The thunder made the house shudder. Rachel’s senses reeled. She was coming quite undone. All her inhibitions and reserve and restraints were being swept away, destroyed, shattered under the onslaught of Cory’s love for her.

Cory smiled down into her eyes and bent to kiss her passionately, sliding inside her with exquisite gentleness. Rachel reached blindly for him, squirming restlessly and begging for release from the delicious friction of his body against hers. As the sensations grew she felt herself arch like a bow and fall quickly, violently into utter bliss, her eyes opening wide in ecstasy and disbelief, her fingers clutching at his shoulders. The white lightning burned behind her eyes and the thunder crashed in her ears and the pleasure consumed them both, sweeping them up and binding them one to the other, merging past and present, the shadow of their childhood selves and the people they had become.

Later, much later, they lay in each other’s arms in the dark and Rachel raised a subject that had been at the back of her mind.

‘Did you see them?’ she asked.

‘The casks of brandy?’ Cory said with a smile. ‘Yes, I saw.’ He turned her slightly so that her body fitted even more snugly into the curve of his shoulder.

‘That was what Maskelyne was trying to tell us with his maps and his plans,’ Rachel said with a muffled laugh. ‘It was nothing to do with the treasure or even to do with the spy. It was about a lost cache of smuggled brandy!’

‘Jeffrey always did like a drink,’ Cory said, smoothing the hair away from her face so that he could trace the line of her cheek. ‘And some people would consider a lost cache of brandy treasure indeed.’

Rachel burrowed closer to Cory’s warmth.

‘So now that you know that it is there,’ she said, ‘will you go to dig for it?’

She felt Cory move slightly and settle more comfortably, his body wrapped around hers.

‘I doubt it. The entire burial site is flooded and when the waters subside the damage will be tremendous.’

‘And what about the real treasure?’ Rachel asked.

In the dark she felt Cory’s cheek rub against hers as he smiled. ‘You know I am superstitious. The Midwinter Treasure does not wish to be found. If-and when-it comes to light, it will find its own way.’

Rachel turned her head and kissed his bare shoulder. ‘I admire you for that,’ she said softly. ‘So many are blinded by greed and will take all they can.’

‘I have all that I want here in my arms,’ Cory said. He kissed her. ‘Go to sleep, Rachel, for in the morning we must talk.’

In the morning, everything was different. This time Rachel woke to grey skies and rain that had lost its fierceness but still fell in miserable lines from the dark sky. Cory had gone to find some of Sir Arthur’s clothes for there was no possible way that his own could ever be made respectable again. Rachel felt in much the same case. She dressed and tidied her room with mechanical movements, part of her shocked at what had happened the night before, part of her accepting. What had happened with Cory had been the most exquisite, the most deep and blissful experience of her life and she would never forget it. She loved him so much. Yet fundamentally she was very afraid that nothing had changed.

‘And now we talk,’ Cory said, when he joined her in the drawing room. He gestured to the sofa beside her. ‘May I?’

‘Of course.’ Rachel shifted slightly to give him space to sit down. It felt odd, almost familiar and somehow radically different. It was still Cory sitting beside her, but a different Cory-someone she knew inside out in some ways and in others was only beginning to know. But what she did know was that he was not going to like what she had to say to him.

‘I asked you to marry me a few days ago,’ Cory said, ‘and you refused. Now will you marry me, Rachel?’

Rachel looked at him-at the expectation in his face and the tension she could see just below the surface. It was so similar to his previous proposal and yet so different. Now she knew that she loved him with every fibre of her being and would always love him. Now he had told her he loved her too. He had made love to her with passion and tenderness and taken her heart and soul for his own. And now she had to let him go.

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I fear I must refuse you again.’

She felt Cory go very still and held her breath, waiting for the explosion of temper. Instead he took her hand in his.

‘Must you, Rae?’ His tone was very quiet. ‘Please tell me why.’

His gentleness brought a lump to Rachel’s throat. His voice had been even, but one quick glance at his face told her that she was hurting him and that in the course of the conversation she would inevitably hurt him more. It felt wretched. She knew him so well and cared for him so much that the pain was her own and yet she knew her resolve could not waver. Not if they were to avoid a lifetime of misery.

‘I cannot allow what has happened between us to weigh with me,’ she said miserably. ‘When I refused you before, Cory, it was because we did not want the same things from our lives.’ She put a quick hand out to stifle his protests. ‘I know now that I love you and you love me. But the things that we want are utterly incompatible. That has not changed.’

There was a silence.

‘You say that you love me,’ Cory said dully.

The lump in Rachel’s throat intensified. ‘Yes, of course I do. You know it. I love you with my whole heart. But that does not alter our situation.’ She hurried on. ‘From the first you have known that I wanted nothing more than a settled home. That has not changed.’ Her gaze searched his face desperately. ‘But you…Travelling and exploration are your very life. And a wife must adapt to her husband’s style of living. I understand that. I would not ask you to give it up! Which is why I must give you up.’

‘You could travel with me,’ Cory said. ‘I would like nothing more-’

The first tear rolled down Rachel’s cheek and splashed on to her skirts. ‘Cory, I cannot! How soon would it be before you came to resent me, knowing that I travelled with you under duress? I hate the very thing that you love! I need a home of my own!’

‘You would have Newlyn.’ Cory had gone a little white now, as though he could see the futility of his arguments, but did not want to accept it. ‘I understand how important it is to you to have a home, Rachel, and I know that we could make matters work.’

A second tear splashed beside the first. ‘I could not bear it,’ Rachel said, her voice cracking. ‘To sit at home in that great barn of a place with a brood of children, waiting for you to come back or not knowing where you were or when I would see you again.’ She shook her head. ‘Better to suffer the pain of separation now, than to suffer it constantly throughout our life together.’

Cory ran an agitated hand over his hair. ‘Rachel, I understand what you are saying, but I cannot give up my travels or my excavations! It is my life’s work! Not even for you-’ He broke off and gathered her into his arms, pressing his lips against her hair. ‘I love you so much. I want you with me…’

Rachel wriggled free of his embrace. ‘Please do not make this any more difficult. Cory. You know it cannot be.’

Cory was shaking his head. His mouth had set in obstinate lines. ‘You cannot simply dismiss what has happened between us and pretend that nothing has changed.’

‘I do not,’ Rachel said. ‘But we may carry on as before. No one need know.’

Cory got to his feet. ‘No one need know? I know! And you know! Do you think you will ever forget?’

‘I doubt it,’ Rachel said, with a watery smile that wobbled a little. ‘But I can school myself not to think of you all the time.’

‘Not if I am always there before you, reminding you of what could have been!’ For a moment Cory looked furious. ‘You cannot deny the passion between us, Rachel. You cannot simply put it away and pretend that it does not exist-that it has never existed!’ He made a noise of disgust. ‘I suppose that you have not relinquished your dream of finding a prudent man with whom to settle down? What kind of a pale, cold existence would that be compared with what we could have together?’

Rachel was shaking now. ‘I do not plan to marry, Cory. Even I can see that that would probably be a mistake now.’

Cory’s eyes blazed into hers. ‘Why? Because of what happened between us? There is nothing shameful in that, Rachel. Do not, I beg you, force yourself into the box society dictates for you just because of your wish for an ordinary life.’ His voice was savage as he caught her to him. ‘It would crush your spirit. Do you really wish to become the perpetual spinster who suffered a disappointment in love in her youth or the wife to a worthy man who discovers that you were indiscreet enough to have a love affair and makes you pay for it every day in petty little ways? Have the courage to marry me instead! I love you so much!’

Rachel clenched her fists with fury and grief. ‘Very well, Cory! You have thrown down a challenge to me and now I offer one to you! Give it all up. Give it all up for me to prove how much you do love me! Take the risk that it will not be as bad as you think!’

They stared at each other for a very long moment, then Cory let Rachel go and she fell back in her chair. ‘You cannot,’ she said. ‘I knew it.’

Cory’s grey eyes were full of pain. ‘How odd it is,’ he said, almost conversationally, ‘that I cannot give up all the things that I hold dear for you, Rae, and you cannot risk all for me. Even in that we are well matched.’

He got up, but stopped when he reached the door, pausing with his hand on the panels. ‘You once wished that someone would break my heart,’ he said. He smiled at her. ‘I know you well enough, my love, to realise that it will give you no satisfaction to have been the one to do it.’

Rachel heard the front door bang and the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, and then there was nothing but silence.