Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ inland herself, heading for the large stable yard and the buildings that had been fashioned to blend in with the architecture of the stone house. She skirted the three-railed fence, carefully picking her way, then looked up and gasped. A village?

      No. Not a village. A street, only one, but with houses on both sides and a few small shops. And all of it not a quarter mile from Becket Hall.

      She hadn’t seen any of this the night they’d arrived; it had been much too dark. She’d had no idea….

      “We’re fairly self-sufficient here on the estate, Miss Carruthers.”

      Julia gasped, then turned to see Ainsley Becket standing not ten feet from her. “Mr. Becket, good morning,” she said, dropping into a quick curtsy. “I…I, um—”

      “I saw the girls, yes. They’re amusing themselves. I’m so pleased Cassandra has company now. As well as Alice. Would you care to walk with me?”

      “I’d like that, yes,” Julia said, and when he inclined his head toward the low rise leading up to the small houses, she fell into step beside him.

      Ainsley Becket was tall and lean and very fit for a man she believed to be on the sunny side of fifty. He had silver threaded through his black hair that he wore shorter than his adopted sons, with only a stray lock or two blowing across his forehead in the breeze coming from the Channel.

      “Chance would have told you that we came here some years ago,” he said as they walked along. “My family, myself and most of the crew from the two ships that brought us here. Their wives and families, as well. You’ll see bits of those ships everywhere, in the walls of the houses. We left the sea, you understand, and made certain we wouldn’t be tempted to go back again.”

      “But you have the sloop?”

      “Yes. It amuses Jacko. He occasionally runs it out toward any French vessel that sails too close, only to watch the Frogs hop away.”

      Julia laughed, for the first time finding something that, if not serving to make Jacko endearing, at least made him seem human. “Chance was a sailor, as well?”

      “I owned two ships, Miss Carruthers. There is a vast difference between owning ships and being a sailor. I made my fortune carrying other people’s goods from place to place. Mostly I would say I was a bookkeeper.”

      “A trader,” Julia said, keeping her gaze on the uneven ground as they walked and not believing a word the man said. Ainsley Becket had the look of a man who’d spent a lot of years standing on a deck, squinting into the sun.

      When she looked up again, it was to see a huge wooden carving that stood at least twenty feet high. “Oh, my goodness!”

      Ainsley laced his fingers together behind his back, this strikingly handsome man, dressed all in black and with bluest-blue eyes older than time. “The bowsprit and figurehead of my best ship, Miss Carruthers,” he said, gesturing toward the marvelous carving. “The boys refused to part with her.”

      “She’s a mermaid, isn’t she?” Julia asked, still amazed. It was as if someone had sliced off a portion of the very front of a ship, then planted it in the ground, braced it with thick beams. The large painted figure had a lower body of silvery-blue scales and a graceful, sweeping fish tail, and her bare breasts were partially covered by her long golden-yellow hair. She seemed to be looking off into the distance, always the first to see something new as the ship cut through the water.

      “Pike carved her. One of my men,” Ainsley said, placing a hand on the polished wood the mermaid was attached to, stroking that wood almost gently. “Now she looks from the land to the sea. I wonder if she’s ever lonely for it.”

      “Are you, Mr. Becket?” Julia asked before she could guard her tongue. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

      He offered his arm and then turned away from the figurehead, from the double row of small cottages behind it. “I made my fortune in the islands, Miss Carruthers. But it was time to come back to England. The girls, you understand. The boys were one thing, but not the girls.”

      Julia nodded. “Yes, I understand. You’ve built a world for them here, haven’t you?”

      “Yes…excuse me,” Ainsley said, removing the support of his arm as he turned and walked, his strides long and purposeful, toward the large fenced-in area where several horses grazed.

      Julia looked toward the shoreline to see Cassandra and Alice were busy picking up mussel shells and arranging them on the wet sand, and then lifted her skirts and quickly followed after him.

      By the time she caught up, he was standing at the fence, stroking the neck of a large bay horse that had stuck its head over the railing.

      “Oh, he’s hurt,” she said, seeing the dried blood on the animal’s flank.

      “Spence’s horse,” Ainsley said as if speaking to himself. “Damn.”

      Julia had been forgotten, she knew, as she watched Ainsley take off again, this time his long strides leading him toward Becket Hall.

      Suddenly she wanted the girls with her and all three of them back inside the safety of Becket Hall’s strong walls. She wanted to see Chance, be assured that he was all right.

      “Girls!” she called out as she ran, knowing she was still too far away for them to hear her as the increasingly stiff breeze carried her words away. “Girls! Time to go back!”

      Cassandra finally looked up, waved to her. “Julia! Come see what we’ve found!”

      Julia stopped running, willing her heart rate to slow, and pinned a smile on her face as she neared the girls. Obviously they had been digging in the sand. “Sunken treasure, no doubt?”

      Cassandra shook her head, shaking her hands in front of her, trying to rid herself of clumps of wet sand. “Everybody knows there’s no sunken treasure here. It’s only an old boot.” Cassandra’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “We think there’s still a foot in it, don’t we, Alice?”

      “Julia?” Alice asked, hugging herself as she gave a delightful shiver. “Will you look for us?”

      “I most certainly will do no such thing,” Julia told them, pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of her pelisse and using it to wipe at Alice’s hands. “Callie is only teasing you, aren’t you, Callie?”

      The girl shrugged. “Who knows? Who knows what goes on here in Romney Marsh?” she said, wiggling her sandy fingers at Alice, who gave a small squeak, then buried her head against Julia’s side.

      “All of you Beckets are a handful, aren’t you?” Julia said, then felt her heart do a small flip in her chest as she looked toward the terrace to see Chance standing there, watching her.

      Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

      He stood with his legs apart, wearing long, heeled boots that covered his knees, his shirtsleeves billowing in the breeze and his hair blowing long and wild about his head. He’d worn London clothes comfortably, but dressed as he was now, the man looked…he looked free. More at his ease than she’d seen him before. Or was that proud stance that of any man who’d recently bedded himself a virgin?

      And where СКАЧАТЬ