Stephanie Laurens - Beyond Seduction

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.

As the wave receded, Ben sat up spluttering. He was drenched.

Harry and Edmond exchanged a glance, then burst out laughing.

Ben sat in the sand, picking feathery strands of seaweed from his hair and flinging them off.

Harry and Edmond staggered up, clutching their sides.

“Your face…” Edmond gasped.

“Fumblefoot,” Harry said.

Ben looked mulish. “I didn’t trip. Well, not over my own toes, anyway.”

He didn’t wait to hear his brothers’ opinions on that, but instead scrambled down to a spot below his feet and started sticking his fingers in the sand. “Here.” He stopped poking and started digging.

Harry frowned and shifted closer. “What?”

“It’s here.” Ben worked his hand into the sand. “What I tripped over. The wet sand keeps filling in the hole…”

Edmond glanced at Ben’s face, then crouched down and used his hands to pull the sand back from the spot where Ben was digging. Harry did the same on the other side; between them, they eased aside the surrounding sand enough to stop it sliding back immediately Ben dug down.

“Got it!” With a wriggle and a wrench, Ben pulled a sand-encrusted object free. A thick strand of seaweed dangled from it; wrapped around it, the seaweed had anchored the object in the sand.

“Look out!” Edmond pointed down the beach to where another, larger wave was rolling in.

Leaping up, they ran back to where the sand was dry.

Ben stopped and brushed at the damp, compacted sand clumped all over his find. Metal winked; the object was shaped like a long oval big enough to cross Harry’s palm. But the wet sand stuck.

“Here-let me.” Pulling his shirt from his breeches, Harry lifted the oval from Ben’s hand and, using his shirttails, carefully dried it, then poked, flicked and blew the sand free…a clump covering the center finally fell away.

“Oh, my God.” Harry stopped and stared.

Edmond’s and Ben’s eyes grew round. Their mouths fell open.

Ben recovered first. “We did it!” he shrieked. He danced around. “We found buried treasure!”

“Sshhh!” Edmond said. He grabbed Ben and held him still.

“Shut up!” Harry glanced around.

So did Edmond and a contrite Ben. But there was no one on the beach but them, no one on the cliffs that they could see.

“Sorry,” Ben mumbled. He looked back at their find.

Then, simultaneously, the three looked down the beach to where they’d made their discovery, the sand now smoothed by the wave. They walked back, searching the surface, kicked, prodded, poked, but there was no sign of any other buried items. Finally retreating from the incoming waves, they glanced at the cliffs again.

“Lucky it’s so early. No one’s about.” Halting, Harry studied the oval; the other two gathered close, staring as he cradled it in his palms. “It’s a brooch, isn’t it?”

Edmond picked it up and turned it over, exposing a long pin running the length of the oval. “It looks like a brooch.” He set it back on Harry’s palms right side up.

Reaching out a wondering finger, Ben traced one delicate metal curve. “That’s gold, isn’t it? And are those diamonds?” The awe in his voice touched them all. “And what’s that?” He pointed to the large rectangular stone in the brooch’s center.

Harry swallowed. “We’ll need to take it home and clean and polish it, then we’ll be better able to see…but I think that’s an emerald.”

They stared in stunned silence, then Edmond, the most practical, said, “What should we do with it?”

Harry raised his brows. “Is it even ours to decide?”

“Of course it’s ours,” Ben hotly declared. “You saw me find it-it’s treasure trove. We asked about the laws and that’s what they say-anything found below the tide line is treasure trove and belongs to the finder.”

“True.” Edmond nodded at the brooch. “So what-”

“I know what we should do with it,” Ben said. “We should clean it and give it to Madeline for her birthday. Much better than that scrappy scarf thing we got at the festival.”

“It’s not a scarf,” Harry said. “It’s a fichu, and she’ll like it and use it, but most ladies use a brooch to hold their fichus in place.” He held their find up between thumb and forefinger. “A brooch like this.”

He looked at Edmond, then at Ben, and the decision was made.

“Right, then.” Edmond turned and headed toward the path they’d scrambled down. “Let’s take it home and wrap it.”

Madeline’s birthday fell two days later. She awoke to sunshine, and stretched luxuriously in the comfort of her bed, a smile curving her lips as she wondered what the day would hold.

Her brothers had been so busy over the last two days, she’d had to be careful not to stumble into any of their whispered conferences-with each other, with Muriel, and even with Milsom and other members of the staff. They had something planned, that much was obvious, but as to what…they’d succeeded in hiding that from her, no mean feat.

Rising to wash and dress, she was conscious of welling anticipation.