“You must leave here,” she urged anxiously. “You must go and save yourself.”
“Will you come with me?” he pressed.
“I can’t, Ashton.” Her voice was tiny. “I must go back. I must know the truth.”
“Then I will stay…and I will fight for you until this thing is settled.”
“Oh, please…please, Ashton,” she begged wearily. “I won’t be able to bear it if anything happens to you.”
“I can’t go back. I am bound to stay.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “You’re as stubborn as they say you are. Why don’t you accept the inevitable?”
“The inevitable?” He rolled on his back with a harsh laugh and stared up at the low ceiling above his bed. “For three years I searched, but I could find no woman to take your place. I was a man, and yet I could not settle back into the relaxed standards of a rutting bachelor. I had this burning hunger in my loins that haunted me, but I could find no release. Call me bedeviled. Call me mad. Call me hopelessly and completely in love with a dream that only you can fulfill.” Rolling his head on the pillow, he gazed at her. “I know what it was like without you, and I want no more of it. I have come to fight, my love, and fight I will.”
Lenore raised herself until she rested on his chest. She made no effort to pull the sheet between them, but allowed her naked breasts to press upon that bare and broad expanse. Her eyes were tender with devotion as they caressed his face, and her lips curved in a wistful smile. “We make a pair, the two of us, wanting what we cannot have. I must go back, and you are determined to stay. Yet if I could, I would persuade you differently.” She hesitated a moment; then somewhat ashamed of the proposal she was about to make, she continued without meeting his gaze: “If I give myself to you now, for the moment allowing that you may be right in thinking I am your wife, will you leave before some harm comes to you?”
Ashton lifted her until she lay full length upon him. There was no mistaking his ability to accept her offer, but he slowly shook his head. “I cannot make such a pact, my love, even though it would serve to ease my present desire. I love you too much to be satisfied with a parting gesture. I want all of you, and I will settle for nothing less.”
She heaved a weary sigh. “Then I must go.”
“There’s no need to leave now. Stay with me for a while. Let me love you.”
“It’s not right anymore, Ashton. I belong to Malcolm now.”
A deep scowl drew his brows down sharply, and he glanced away, tormented with jealousy. The muscles in his cheeks twitched as he resisted the urge to tell her how he had found the precise location of the house. A tour of the taverns in Biloxi had turned up not only a handful of Robert’s drinking cronies but an interesting array of strumpets as well. It seemed more than a few had serviced the libertine Sinclair. “I don’t like the thought of your going back to him.”
“I must,” she whispered. A light brush of her lips against his, and she slipped away from him. Smiling down into the eyes that watched her, she donned the torn shirt and jacket and gathered her hair beneath the cap.
“I’ll take you back,” he sighed, swinging his long legs over the side of the bed and rising to his feet.
The memory of the exhausting trip was fresh in Lenore’s mind, and she was not anxious to argue with him. “But how will you get back?”
“I’ll tie another dinghy behind and return in that.” He reached for a shirt and felt her hand glide admiringly over his flexing ribs as he slipped it on. The gentle caress made him tremble with longing, and he stared down at her, wanting to take her in his arms but knowing there would be no turning back if he yielded to the desire. His mouth moved to whisper the words that were aching to be said: “I love you.”
“I know,” she murmured quietly, “and I love you.”
“If I didn’t think you’d grow to hate me, I’d keep you here, but it’s a choice you’ll have to make. Until you do, I’ll be near enough to come to your aid if you should need me.” He placed a small derringer in her hand. “I’ve shown you how to use this. I can hear a shot from the house. Just keep out of harm’s way until I get there.”
He took her back to shore, and after a last parting kiss, Lenore made her way to the upper veranda. She leaned against the balustrade as she watched him row out, then entered her room, heaving a forlorn sigh. She was already lonely.
Chapter Eleven
THE muffled weeping became a reality that intruded into Lenore’s slumber with the same rude gall as the morning light that pierced the panes of the east windows. Both were annoying and equally difficult to dismiss as she sought to retreat to the sweet solace of sleep. After returning from the River Witch, she had drifted immediately into a peaceful bliss of dreams. She dearly longed to spend the morning in that same languid slumber, letting the rest of the world pass by. It was not to be. One hazard of having a room with numerous windows and wide french doors that faced the sea and sat at an angle to the southern hemisphere was its vulnerability to the rising sun. The dawning rays spread across her bed in a radiating brightness, while the sorrowful sobs relentlessly pursued her beneath her pillow. There, the realization finally penetrated that someone on the porch was grieving.
Coming fully awake, Lenore flung herself from the bed and snatched on her dressing gown as she flew to the french doors. She ran out onto the veranda and, casting her gaze along the porch, saw Meghan standing near the balustrade. Heavy sobs shook the woman’s shoulders as she stared teary-eyed toward the beach. In much bemusement Lenore followed the woman’s gaze and saw Malcolm and Robert near the dinghy. Two other men were peering under a piece of canvas that was spread across the boat, something which had not been present when she and Ashton left the craft. She was puzzled by their apparent interest in the boat and even more confused by the servant’s weeping.
“Meghan, what’s wrong?” Lenore went to the maid and laid a comforting arm about her trembling shoulders. “Whatever is the matter?”
The woman struggled to form the words to answer her mistress, but her efforts seemed in vain as tears continued to spill down her plump cheeks. “It’s Mary, mum,” the servant finally managed. “The chore boy was going out early this morning to see if he could catch some fish for tonight’s supper, and he found Mary dead and naked in the boat. The sheriff says she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Lenore stared at the woman, too stunned to grasp the realization. Mary had seemed so sweet and eager to please; she could hardly believe that anyone would want to hurt her. She blinked at the moisture that welled in her own eyes and spoke in a tone of dismay: “But I took the dinghy myself and rowed out to the River Witch. Mr. Wingate brought me back about four this morning.”
“Oh, mum, ye’d better not tell the sheriff that. Mr. Sinclair is claimin’ that she was killed by someone on the River Witch, an’ if he finds out yer man was here on shore, he’s sure to accuse him.”
“But that’s nonsense! I saw Ashton row back to the steamer in his own boat. I had a better chance at murdering her than he did.”
Meghan shook her head dolefully. “She was raped, mum.”
“Raped?” Lenore repeated the word with a gasp. “But who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, mum. I was fast asleep meself, an’ it weren’t until the lad come screamin’ through the house that I had any inklin’ o’ what had been done to that poor, dear chil’. What of ye, mum? Did ye see anyone on the beach after Mr. Wingate left?”
“No, no one at all,” Lenore answered. Nor had she heard any sound out of the ordinary, only the muffled snores coming from her father’s room. Once within the comfort of her bed, she had been lulled into a sweet, dreamy oblivion, thinking of Ashton, and nothing had disturbed that peace. “What is the sheriff going to do?”