Page 45 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
Giselle felt the security like a balm to her fears. She was succumbing to the charms of ordinary pleasures. And of Clive.
*
Despite never havinganyone to talk with about what she did or why, she still did not wish to start now. Except to share her thoughts with Clive. That, she recognized, was how her love for him changed her. But she ignored it and turned to her work and her cooking. Clive said little to disturb her or distract her.
She held her tongue. Held her breath. Soon she would be finished with her work. Finished here with him. And leave.
The prospect began to tear at her. No drawing, no cooking could tame her anxiety. She feared for her contact, Jacques Durand’s man. She did not sleep well. During the day, she kept in constant motion. Her work, her cooking, her obsession with contemplating whatever had happened to the various men who had tracked her or those who had protected her. Then one day, worn to a frazzle by her fruitless worry, it vanished.
She let it all go.
She still wished for a way to communicate with the Ashleys or Ramseys from here. She could not risk the mail. Did not have enough coin to hire a messenger. Nor could she even find one. No one cameto their cottage but the Campbells.
From the beginning of her work here along the Channel, she’d understood she worked alone. Never afraid for her safety until Durand’s man had not appeared outside the Old Ship and other, more devious-looking men began to pop up, she was grateful for the protection Clive offered. Another reason to appreciate his spontaneity with her cooking; another reason to marvel at his generosity. Another reason to love him.
And because she had to leave him, those were also good reasons why she must never tell him so.
*
Precious.
That was the only word she could think of to describe her days and nights with him. He lured her with quiet acquiescence to her needs. With his easy offer to help her cook or clean, his hearty laugh, or his recognition that here in this cottage they were friends, walking around each other carefully. By her preoccupation with all else, save him, she told him they could not sleep together. That she would not approach him to make it so.
They were here for a reason that had a beginning and an ending, as chilling as it was dispassionate. By keeping his distance, he seemed to have silently agreed that their desire for each other was an emotion from another time, another place, another realm. None of which would ever be theirs again. Yet between them in the quiet hours, when she sat opposite him after dinner and before she retired to her bed alone, she knew she could claim him as hers forever if she just crossed to him and forgot her purpose and lived for the moment.
Despite her devotion to her own cause, she felt the promise of what might have been as, throughout each new day, her gaze drifted toward him. She would watch him read, his firm lips pressed into anappealing line. She could trace the outline of his jaw, square and strong, his beard heavy. From that night they’d spent entangled in each other, she recalled his whiskers against her cheek. They were soft, brushing her senses with his heat.
She’d shake her head and go back to her book of poetry. But heavens. She knew the lines by heart. There were few books in this cottage, and the poetry seemed the only one upon the shelf that could entertain her. Except when it didn’t. And Clive Davenport was the only person she ever wished to read. Bored as she was with the bad poems, pretending fascination was not her skill. Her eyes, rebellious and needy, would close, open, and seek out the beauty of him.
He filled her gaze, her mind, her heart tumbling over with praise for what he was. What he did for her.
Smart man, he would meet her regard with those large gray orbs—and hold. First came his flash of delight that she watched him, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the fleeting joy. Then a searing desire would narrow his gaze upon her and burn its way into her tormented heart.
She had no alternative but to hurry to her cold and lonely bed.
*
Proximity brought himinsight.
Clive poured two short glasses of cognac. They had just finished their dinner, a feast of fresh flounder sautéed in butter and topped with crab. His darling was a fabulous cook. Their meals these past three weeks had been the very best he’d ever eaten.
So too had their companionship become easier. She did not talk much as she pored over her drawings. Mumbled to herself, yes, about this stroke or that. The color was too deep. The tone too heavy. She’d correct each little bit.
Watching her work, putting together what he knew, he alsounderstood what he needed to do. What he needed to draw from her. When a child, he’d been a keen student of his father’s knowledge of the sea, the tides, the moon and stars. He’d been at his work for the Foreign Office for three years. A contentious marriage and a need to contribute what he could had sent him to offer his services. His knowledge of the southern shore had been useful to Secretary Mulgrave, but also to Halsey and the prime minister.
They had discussed with local officials the needs and improvements for fortifications along the coastal towns and villages. They had consulted with the navy and the army about deployment of troops, ships, and supplies. They had determined what kind of timing was necessary if Bonaparte attacked here or there. Or if he came by hot air balloon, a tunnel under the Channel, upon amphibious craft, or by ship, they calculated how to repel him. They had estimated how quickly he might land troops, gain control over British forces, how quickly he could put in fresh troops for those wounded or killed. They had estimated under any scenario how quickly the Frenchman might resupply his men with rifles, food, and shelter.
Now, nine months since Mulgrave, Halsey, and Clive had begun their own plan of coastal defense, they waited with bated breath for a sign—any sign—that the two hundred thousand men of the Grande Armée were ready to go to sea. He had heard them—who had not?—rallying from Boulogne, their wildhuzzahscarrying to England on the winds. He had read reports from his three agents in Normandy that they drilled night and day. Bonaparte had tightened their ranks, the regiments filled with experts in attack, defense, maneuver, and some new strategic movement called the wheel.
The emperor had also reorganized the structure of each regiment. Within each were paymasters, engineers, scouts, and experts of all types. Independence from other regiments thus ensured that any segment cut from another by choice or chance would continue efficiently until reunited with the rest. Thus, their integrity assured fora short or long time, the soldiers of the armies of France could go proud and confident to battle. Whether they went confident to sea was a question unanswered in Clive’s mind.
That was not a matter he could settle tonight with Giselle. But he could bring to a head the question of her work. He’d nurtured for weeks grave suspicions of what she did. Now that he had a closer look each day, he assured himself that his conclusions were sound ones. But he would no longer live in the dark, allowing her any quarter that she was free or right or capable of enacting this charade on her own. He would demand she tell him what she did. Perhaps even why.
He watched her as she went to the bed beyond the great room wall. As she did each night after supper, she took down her midnight hair and let it curl about her shoulders and her firm, generous breasts. Then she brushed the waves to a shine. Tonight, he had no intention of allowing her to end the day and easily elude him by climbing into bed.
He would have answers. He would have closure.
His gaze on the way her hands stroked her hair over her shoulder burned with new urgency. “Come talk with me, Giselle.”
