With his hands at his lower back and a brisk, cool wind in his face, Noah allowed Miss Wimbley to lead their path. They walked in companionable silence around his chemistry-experiment-gone-bad. He’d been fortunate he hadn’t leveled Stonemare into the sea below, sitting on the edge of the cliffs as it did.
Miss Wimbley came to a stop, plucked the ties of her bonnet free, and tore it off as if it choked her. The winds whipped her skirts into a frenzy, giving him a tantalizing view of slim hips and shapely calves. In build and coloring—but for her dark hair—she was similar to Docia. Unlike Docia, there was a vibrancy about her that shimmered in the muted sunlight. The band confining her hair was no match for a sudden updraft gust. The light-colored leather strip seemed to suspend in midair then floated down and disappeared long before it hit water. “Oh, dear.”
The dark-brown curls barely draped past her shoulders in a surprisingly unfashionable length. But the shorter style suitedher delicate, pixie-like features. She turned then, facing him with an impish grin.
The sight mesmerized him and refused to let go.
“I expect you’re wondering why Lady Abra and I showed up on your doorstep,” she said. Her frankness shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did.
The melodic timbre again held him spellbound. She looked up and squinted into the sun with no care for her complexion. He caught sight of a sprinkle of freckles across her nose that teased him to distraction. Her deep-chestnut curls had an unnerving effect on his libido. She was like a dark avenging angel but for her startling navy eyes. The perfect illusion, he suspected, as her words penetrated. He’d almost forgotten his own mission to learn what she was about. “Er, ah, I… Yes, I admit to a certain interest,” he said slowly, welcoming her entry to the conversation.
She gave him a sharp nod. “I have reason to believe your father seduced my mother.”
A slow chill seeped into his bones. “I don’t understand.” Yet he was afraid he did.
“Your father is a known libertine.” Of course, it didn’t occur to her to use a more polite word. Her boldness shifted from refreshing to an irritation that set his teeth on edge.
“Was.”
Her brows lifted. “Pardon?”
“Was. My father is dead. Perhaps that fact escaped your memory. It was this morning, after all, when the topic was raised in the vestibule.”
Once the words penetrated, her face blotched a fiery red. “Oh, I’m—” Her voice cracked.
Noah winced, instantly regretting his forthright harshness. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. Not really. “Where is yourmother? I can’t imagine she gave you leave to travel here on your own to confront a known libertine.”
“No. She would have been suitably appalled,” she said with another of those razor-sharp smiles that did not reach her eyes. She lifted her delicate shoulders. “She died in ’38 and left no instructions on how to conduct my life.” She glanced over her shoulder, but they’d drifted from Lady Abra’s line of sight.
He was struck with a bolt of lightning. Such fortitude masked other emotions, he’d guess. Fear? Vulnerability? Anger? Which was it and, why? She was a woman virtually alone. He speared her with a depth usually reserved for one of his experiments. No, she didn’t appear frightened, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t. This went deeper than she was revealing. “My condolences on your mother’s passing, Miss Wimbley. That must have been most difficult for you.”
His words didn’t turn her into a simpering miss. She ignored his acknowledgement as if he hadn’t spoken. No, his words had a whole other unexpected effect. Her spine straightened, her shoulders squared, her chin lifted. Her eyes met his unwaveringly. “I happened upon your father’s name not two weeks past. As I mentioned, I came here for answers from Lord Pender. Your father,” she clarified. Her shoulders fell. “But now he’s dead.” Then she speared him with those oddly shaded blue eyes as the genuine despair in her voice dug into his chest with the force of a dull spoon.
The briny-scented wind whipped her cloak about while he considered how to handle her. But then, he doubted anyone knew how to handle such an obstinate ball of fire. It was her vibrancy that held him enthralled, but he’d never been one ruled by absurdity and certainly not by his emotion. He forced his thoughts into their normal realm of analytical common sense. His scientific process of thinking, he insisted silently.
In that scope, he reluctantly asked, “What kinds of answers?”
She looked back over the jagged edges of the cliffs and didn’t speak for a long moment.
He followed her gaze farther out to a small island that jutted from the ocean’s floor. He’d always dreamed of boating over, but the Northumberland seas were too violent for any sort of safe crossing. Not with weather that changed on the flip of a shilling.
“I believe it was your father who visited my mother when she was ill. For years, I believed it a dream. I was just a child, you see, but the memory is too vivid.”
Noah waited.
“I-I heard her beg him to take me with him.”
Startled by that notion, his head shook, balking at what she was inferring. It wasn’t possible. “You believe my—” He swallowed. Hard. “The earl is, was,yourfather?”
“I know she doesn’t belong to you…”
She jerked around, facing him. “No!” She shuddered. “Absolutely not. My father is—was—a sailor. Hardly ever home. Addicted to the perils of gin, I fear. But he was definitely my father,” she said, looking as if it pained her in admitting so.
Her adamant denial sent a shot of harsh relief through him for reasons he refused to examine.
Miss Wimbley inhaled as if bracing herself to continue. “But your father took something from Mama,” she said fiercely. “And I want it back.”
Julius.She wanted Julius. She’d learned Father’s secret somehow. What else could it be?
