The Vanishing Viscountess. Diane Gaston

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СКАЧАТЬ Tannerton immediately when she’d first seen him on board ship, but he’d shown no signs of remembering her.

      Thank goodness.

      That first Season in London—her only Season—he’d attended many of the entertainments, but he was already a marquess and she was a mere baron’s daughter, a Scottish baron at that. He’d provided her and Eliza with some excitement in those heady days, however. They’d called him Tanner, as if they had been admitted to that close circle of friends he always had around him. They’d peeked at the handsome marquess from behind their fans, he so tall, his brown hair always tousled. And his eyes! They’d been in raptures about his mossy green eyes. She and Eliza had devised all manner of ways they might meet him, none of which they’d dared to carry out.

      Too bad they had not thought of being caught in a gale on a ship that broke apart and tossed them in the sea.

      We forgot that one, Eliza, Marlena silently said.

      “Have I killed him, do you think?” she asked the marquess.

      Tanner reached down to place his fingers on the man’s neck. “He’s alive.”

      Marlena released a breath she’d not realised she’d been holding.

      Tanner rose to his feet.

      “Are you injured?” he asked, his breathing ragged.

      She shook her head, sending a shiver down her body. He still showed no signs of recognising her. He pulled off his wet gloves and reached for her hands to work on the leather bindings. When she’d been on the ship they had chafed her wrists, but she was too numb to feel them now. Her teeth chattered and she started trembling all over, making his task even more difficult. He leaned down to loosen them with his teeth.

      Finally the bindings fell to the sand and she was free. Marlena rubbed her wrists, but she could not feel her hands.

      “We need to find shelter. Dry clothing.” He glanced around.

      They were in a small cove, dotted with jutting rocks and a small patch of sand. Steep black cliffs imprisoned them as certainly as the walls of Newgate Prison.

      Tanner touched her arm. “If that fellow managed to get in here, we can get out.”

      She nodded, but suddenly any strength she’d possessed seemed to ebb. It was difficult to think. The cold had seeped into her very bones.

      He rubbed her arms, then pressed a hand on his ribs and winced. “Come now. We’ll be warm and dry very soon.”

      He picked up the man’s lantern and circled their prison walls. She could do nothing but watch. A huge wave tumbled ashore, soaking her feet again, but she could only stare at it swirling around her ankles. He crossed over and took her arm, pulling her away from the water.

      He’d once danced with her, she remembered, although he never knew it. Lady Erstine had held a masquerade ball, a respectable one, and she and Eliza attended, having spent many agonising hours deciding what costume to wear. Tanner had danced one dance with Marlena without knowing who she was. Eliza had been green with envy.

      “Stay with me,” he said, holding her firmly.

      What looked like one massive black rock was really two, with a narrow corridor between them. He held her hand and pulled her through. They climbed up smaller rocks that formed a natural stone staircase. When they finally reached the top, they found flat and grassy farmland. The storm had passed at last, but in its wake blew a cool wind that made Marlena’s clothes feel like ice.

      In the distance they spied one light. “A farmhouse,” he said. “Make haste.”

      Marlena had difficulty making sense of his words. She liked his arm wrapped around her, but disliked him making her walk, especially so briskly. He made sounds with each breath, as if every step brought pain. Pain would be preferable to feeling nothing, Marlena thought. She was no longer aware of her arms or her legs.

      The light grew nearer, but Marlena forgot what it signified. Her mind felt full of wool and all she wanted was to sleep.

      She tried to pull away from him. “Rest,” she managed to say. “Sleep.”

      “No.” He lifted her over his shoulder and carried her.

      They came to a cottage with a lone candle burning in the window. Tanner pounded on the door. “Help us! Open the door.”

      Soon a grizzled man in a white nightcap and gown opened the door a crack.

      “Quick. I must get her warm,” Tanner told him.

      “Dod i mewn,” the man said. “Come in, come in.”

      Tanner carried her inside and made her stand in front of a fireplace. The dying embers on the hearth gave heat, but the heat felt painful after the numbing cold.

      “Bring some blankets,” Tanner ordered. “I must warm her.”

      The man tottered into another room, and Tanner began stripping her of her clothing, which seemed a very odd thing for him to do, but nice, because her wet clothes were so very heavy, and she wanted to feel light again.

      Suddenly dry cloth covered her shoulders and Tanner made her sit in a chair close to the fire.

      The old man threw more lumps of coal into the fireplace, and poked at it with the poker, which only made it hotter and more painful.

      “M’wife and son are at the wreck,” the man explained.

      Oh, yes, Marlena dimly remembered, as shivers seized her. She had been on a ship that had broken apart. She remembered the shock of the cold water.

      A cat ambled by, rubbing its fur against her legs. “Cat,” she said to no one in particular, as her eyelids grew very heavy.

      Marlena woke to find herself nestled in a nice warm bed with heavy bedcovers over her. She did not seem to have on any clothing at all, not even a shift. Next to her, also naked and holding her close, lay the Marquess of Tannerton.

      Chapter Two

      The woman felt warm against him, warm at last, when Tanner had thought never to be warm again. He slipped his hand down her smooth back, savouring the feel of her silky skin under his fingertips. He could still smell the sea on her, but they were both blessedly dry. And warm. He had saved her from the sea, thank God.

      Thank God.

      A shuffle sounded in the room and a murmur, and the woman pushed away from him with a cry.

      He sat up like a shot.

      The woman slid away to a corner of the bed, clutching the blanket up to her chin. Morning light shone through the small window and three pairs of eyes stared at them both, the wrinkled old man who had opened the door to them the night before, a wrinkled old woman and a younger, thick-chested man.

      “What the devil?” Tanner growled.

      The spectators jumped back. The old man gave a servile smile. “M’wife and son are back.”

      Tanner СКАЧАТЬ