Once in a Blue Moon

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

The first primroses of spring were blooming the week she came home to Cornwall.

Jessalyn walked to church that Sunday morning down a lane lined with high hedges exploding with the yellow blossoms. Seeing no one about, she picked up her skirts and climbed on top of the stone wall. She spread her arms wide and tilted her face to the sun, filling her lungs with a deep breath. The air had an applelike smell, crisp and green. Laughing aloud, she spun around and took off running along the top of the hedge the way she used to do as a child, and the wind whipped her hair and numbed her cheeks and carried her laughter out to sea.

The first primroses of the year. It meant that winter would be over soon. It meant a new beginning. She would pick one later, she thought, to show Gram. There hadn't been any primroses in London.

The wind was blowing a gale by the time she arrived at the church, the sea running thick and heavy, presaging another storm. But for the moment the sun shone and the primroses bloomed, and Jessalyn rejoiced in being alive.

The church that served the tinners and fishermen in this corner of Cornwall was called St. Genny's after St. Genesius, an early Celtic saint who had been beheaded for his faith. It was said he haunted the moors with his head tucked like a bread loaf beneath his arm. Years ago Jessalyn and Clarence had once spent a summer night lurking among the gravestones with a fishing net, hoping to catch him. But instead all they'd caught had been a lecture from Reverend Troutbeck, and poor Clarence had gotten another thrashing.

Made of gray stone splotched with moss, the tiny church had a crenellated square tower that looked as if it would be more at home on a fortress. Inside, the squat nave smelled of mildew and of the bats that lived in the belfry. On rainy days one had to take care where one sat, for in spite of numerous grinning contests over the years, the roof still leaked.

Jessalyn brought a great gust of wind into the church with her that rattled the pages in the psalters and nearly snatched the wig from Dr. Humphrey's head. She slipped into a worm-eaten pew just as the Reverend Mrs. Trout-beck's wavering soprano launched into the final notes of "O come, let us sing to the Lord."

The Reverend Troutbeck, wearing a surplice stained with the muggety pie he'd eaten for breakfast, mounted the pulpit. He sucked in a deep breath, his corset creaking like an old pair of bellows, opened his mouth, and held it open as the door squealed and another great gust of wind filled the church.

Everyone turned in unison to stare, and Jessalyn's heart lurched up into her throat. The earl of Caerhays stood within the doorway. The morning sun shone full on his reckless face with its flaring cheekbones and shadowed eyes. In his snuff-colored riding coat and buckskins, he looked as if he'd decided only at the last minute to attend the service. His young wife stood beside him, bundled head to toe in a blue Angola hussar cloak and blushing prettily.

His gaze collided with Jessalyn's. She sat stiff-backed, her chin lifted high, refusing to look away, while the old familiar ache squeezed at her heart. Love was not a matter of will; she couldn't make what she felt for him lessen or go away. She could hate him, and she did, for hurting her, for leaving her, again and again. But she would go on loving him with each breath she took until she died. And even then it would not end. For if there was such a thing as a soul, then hers would go on loving him throughout eternity.

He stared back at her, and his face might have been carved of the same rock as the Cornish cliffs.

Just then Emily noticed her. The girl's face lightened with a surprised smile, and that was Jessalyn's undoing. She jerked around, dropping her psalter. As she bent over, fumbling for the book beneath the pew, she saw his glossy top boots and Emily's kid slippers walk together down the aisle. Tears filled her eyes. She stayed hunched over for a moment, blinking and swallowing hard, until she could raise her head and look dry-eyed at the Reverend Troutbeck in his pulpit.

Not an inspiring preacher in the best of times, the village parson was so disconcerted to have such an exalted personage as an earl in his church that he grew nearly incoherent. As he rambled through the lesson, Jessalyn sat in breathless tension, watching the sand trickle through the hourglass grain by grain. She didn't look at Lord Caerhays again, but he might as well have been sitting beside her, his shoulder and thigh pressing against hers, his breath stirring her hair, so aware was she of his presence.

The wind gusted against the church, rattling the loose shingles, as the reverend launched into a final prayer. "It seems, O Lord," he intoned, "that you are about to visit us with another storm. We pray thee that no wrecks should happen...." His voice dwindled to a squeak as he began to perceive the chasms opening beneath his feet. It wasn't too many generations ago that the notorious Trelawnys, always strapped for money, had been known to lure ships deliberately to their deaths on stormy nights by lighting false signals on the cliffs above Crookneck Cove.

Everyone—those who hadn't already been gawking at him throughout the service—turned to look at the earl. He had kept his eyes cast downward on the gloved hands folded across the ebony handle of his walking stick. Now he lifted his head and pinned the unfortunate curate with his fierce dark gaze, and his cynical drawl filled the tiny church. "We pray, of course, that no wrecks should happen," he said, "but if by chance a wreck should be ordained to happen, then we pray that God will guide it to happen at Crookneck Cove. Is that not so, Reverend?"

A silence followed this pronouncement, a silence so still Jessalyn could hear the bats rustling overhead. Then someone emitted a smothered giggle, and a second later the entire congregation of tinners and fishermen was laughing. The Reverend Troutbeck flushed and hemmed and launched into another prayer wherein he dropped a broad hint about the need for a new roof.

Jessalyn bolted from the pew before the last notes of the closing hymn had faded into echoes. The sun, pale in a paler sky, dazzled her eyes, and she kept having to blink away tears as she hurried from the church down the stony path. The wind shrieked like a demented witch. It was thick with the coming storm, tasting of sea salt and sand and chilling rain. She had just reached the lych-gate when she heard her name.

"Jessalyn? Miss Letty?"

Jessalyn turned. Emily Hamilton—Emily Trelawny— emerged from the shelter of the portico. The wind whipped off the fur-lined hood of her cloak, and her fair hair glittered like a crown. She came alone. The earl had stayed behind to speak to the reverend.

Jessalyn stood beneath the lych-gate, waiting. She would not be a coward. But it had become so hard for her to breathe through the heaviness in her chest, and the sun and wind kept making her eyes water.

"Lady Caerhays," she said as Emily stopped before her.

Emily's smile faltered a bit. "Oh, no, you mustn't do that—you mustn't call me Lady Caerhays. I had thought... well, that we were friends."

Somehow Jessalyn was able to dredge up an answering smile. "Hullo then, Emily."

"We thought you still in London, my lord and I." Emily looked behind her, as if seeking her husband's confirmation. Jessalyn couldn't stop herself from looking as well. He had his back to them; she couldn't even see his face. It didn't matter. He would forever have the ability to make her blood run hot and thick simply at the mere thought of him. More than ever she would have to take care not to let it show. Dear life, she mustn't ever again let it show.

"The country air must agree with you," Emily was saying. "For you are looking splendid. My lord said as much."

"Did he?" This was so unlike the man she knew that Jessalyn could not believe it.

Emily's soft laugh was snatched away by the wind. "Well, I said as much. But he agreed with me. How long have you been in Cornwall? Ourselves we've been at the hall nearly three months now, since after Christmas." She sighed and looked around her, her rosebud mouth curling into a smile. "It is so beautiful here, and yet so wild.... When Caerhays said he wished to take up residence at his principal seat, well, I confess I didn't want to come. But now I don't think I shall ever want to leave."

Jessalyn drew in a deep breath, trying to loosen her throat. She had known, for Clarence had told her, that McCady had come to Cornwall with his new wife. He had been borrowing heavily again, to make the hall livable and to build at the foundry in Penzance a new locomotive for competing in the upcoming trials. He was even reopening an old played-out mine, Clarence had added, shaking his head in dismay. "He's trying to save his railway company by starting up a mining venture of all things. Only a Trelawny would dare such a risk."

Jessalyn looked now at the woman who had married the man she loved. A serenity softened Emily's face, a quiescence that was at once both steely and gentle and that had drawn Jessalyn to the other woman since first they met. She shouldn't hate Emily or blame her for her own pain. But it was so hard, so hard.

"I am glad you have found happiness here," Jessalyn said.

"Happiness? Yes, I suppose I have...." But Emily's gaze sought out her husband, and an odd sort of anguish darkened her eyes.

A gust slammed against them. Emily swayed, nearly falling, and Jessalyn grabbed her arm. The wind caught the edge of the girl's blue cloak, whipping it open, and revealing a belly swollen with child.

"We are expecting a baby in four months' time," Emily said, color rising in her cheeks.

We... Pain wrenched at Jessalyn's chest, so sharp she thought it must have cracked in two. For a moment she was back in the Hamilton ballroom, hearing Clarence's censorious voice above the shattering of her heart. He only got enough upon the betrothal to pay off his brother's gaming vowels. The rest of the settlement won't be his until after the heir is born.

"How fortunate for his lordship," she said aloud to Emily. But as soon as the words left her mouth, she felt small and mean. "Rather, how wonderful that after all these years there is to be a new baby at Caerhays Hall."

Emily blushed again. "The doctors keep insisting my health is delicate, but in truth, I have never felt better. Still, I mustn't ride or walk too far. Perhaps you would come to call on us soon."

Lord Caerhays had ended his conversation with the reverend and was coming toward them, limping heavily. Jessalyn wondered if like Gram's rheumatism, his wound was especially painful in damp weather. His wife would know; perhaps she should ask his wife. Oh, God, she couldn't bear this.

"Please, I—I must be off," she said quickly. "My grand- mother has been unwell. The trip down from London is so arduous for one of her age."

Emily's face clouded. She patted Jessalyn's arm, offering a sweet and genuine sympathy. "Oh, I am so sorry. Pray, give her my respects."

"Thank you. I shall...." He was nearly upon them. Their gazes clashed again, and his hard face wavered and dissolved as tears filled her eyes.

She whirled, running down the lane. Stifled sobs burned her throat, clogging her breath. She stopped beside the hedge, leaning against it, gasping and swallowing and trying not to cry. She pressed her clenched fists so hard into the rough stones she broke the skin, yet she didn't feel the pain. She told herself not to look back, but she couldn't help it.

The earl of Caerhays and his lady wife stood side by side beneath the lych-gate, not touching. But the malevolent wind, as if to remind her, blew open the blue cloak again. Pain stabbed at Jessalyn, so fierce she nearly cried aloud. She had stood in St. Margaret's and watched them marry, and still a part of her had not believed he was well and truly lost to her.

Until now.

Home, she thought. I want to go home. So badly did she want to be back at End Cottage, where all was familiar and safe and the way it had always been, that she could almost taste it. The way she could taste the sea on the wind. She began to run, the wind making her eyes tear again, turning the primroses, the first ones of the spring, into a yellow blur. She didn't stop to pick one.

And the next morning they were gone, destroyed during the night by the storm.

They said in Cornwall that the sea had moods. That night the sea was wild and angry.

The storm drew him down to Crookneck Cove. A fierce wind whipped at the sand and waves, throwing up a gritty haze. A pregnant sky loomed, dark and heavy with rain.

The wind snatched at his hair. He had come bareheaded and without a coat, wanting to feel the full fury of the storm, for it matched the wildness surging in his blood. He wanted to roar the way the sea was roaring, to beat and lash at the rocks like the wind. He tasted the rage of the sea in the salty spume that swirled around him.

A movement down the beach caught his eye. His breath stopped; his whole body tensed. Yet he wasn't surprised to find her here. In his memories of this place she was always bare-legged and running free across the sand, her hair billowing behind her like a cinnamon cloud.

Tonight she stood alone at the edge of the wild surf, as if challenging the sea to do its worst. An enormous wave smashed against the beach, deluging her with spray. She stood unmoving still, soaked, her wet dress plastered to her body. She might as well have been naked.

He couldn't keep the desire at bay, not always, not forever. No man had that much will. He allowed himself to feel, just for a moment, what it would be like to go to her and take her into his arms, to bear her down on the sand and make her his in a way that was as wild and enduring as the raging sea.

He allowed himself to feel, and it was a mistake. His hunger for her, his need, drove him limping toward her across the sand. A solitary gull echoed a warning cry. She whipped around. His intent must have shown on his face, for he saw the fear dawn in her eyes. Fear and a horror that drove like a fist into his gut.

She ran, passing by him so closely her hair whipped across his face.

"Jessalyn!" he cried. But although he could have, he didn't try to stop her. She tore up the cliff path as if all the demons of hell chased after her.

He stayed at the beach a long time, watching wave after wave tighten, curl, and break. The gull cried again, but it was drowned out by the scream of the wind.

Lady Letty snorted and thumped the ground with her cane. "Who'd have thought we'd ever see the day? Cheeky devil. The Trelawnys have always been cheeky devils."

"I should think you'd be pleased to see the mine reopened, Gram." Jessalyn looked across the bluff at the enginehouse of Wheal Patience. It was decorated with red and white flags that snapped in the breeze, sounding like a hundred clapping hands. The enginehouse looked good as new, with whole bricks replacing the broken ones and the window frames painted a bright daffodil yellow. Smoke from the chimney stack spiraled into a sky so blue it hurt the eyes. "Think what it will mean to the men of Mousehole," she said, "to have work all the year round."

Lady Letty snorted again, although she looked pleased. "All well and good, but he's been spending money as if 'twere cuckoo spit. And they say the marriage settlement won't come due till the heir is born. He's been borrowing on future expectations, mind you. Riding for a fall, he is— typical Trelawny. What if it's a girl, eh? What if it's born dead? You can tell she ain't a breeder. Too delicate by half."

Emily indeed appeared too delicate and fragile to bear a child. She looked like a child herself, standing beside her tall, broad-shouldered husband on the bob plat, the unrailed wooden platform high above the crowd. New mining ventures were launched just like ships, and everyone breathing within miles was on hand to witness the event.

The earl and his lady had climbed to the bob plat on the top floor of the house to christen the great beam. The chimney stack and enginehouse were built on a promontory between the sheer bluff and the sea, reached only by a narrow cliff path. Jessalyn was surprised Lord Caerhays had allowed his pregnant wife to make the dangerous climb. Perhaps Emily had insisted, wanting to share in his moment. In her place Jessalyn would have done the same.

In her place... Memories assailed Jessalyn, pulling at her heart. Memories of the day they had come here together to explore the mine. They had quarreled, and he'd left her behind, but she had gone after him and fallen, like a clumsy fool, down a shaft. They had found Salome's baby; in the excitement she'd never thought to ask afterward if he'd found tin. She had known even then that one day he would start up a new venture. But in her dreams, in her silly schoolgirl dreams, she had been the one standing beside him on the bob plat.

The church choir silenced the crowd by singing "God Save the King." The Reverend Troutbeck stepped to the front of the platform and called upon the Lord to bless the endeavor with lodes of high-grade ore. Beneath him the engine moaned as it began to raise steam. Lord Caerhays then took the reverend's place, framed by the daffodil yellow window behind him. He shouted a speech into the sun-dappled air that soon had the tinners and tutworkers laughing and slapping one another's backs.

Since everyone else was staring openly, Jessalyn was able to fill her heart with the sight of him. He looked magnificent in a well-cut coat of blue superfine, pale yellow pantaloons, and a white waistcoat with pearl buttons. The breeze plucked at his hair where it curled beneath his top hat, the sun glinting off the gold ring in his ear.

Cheers erupted into the air as the earl finished his short speech. He turned, drawing his wife to his side. Emily's gilt hair shone like a saint's halo in the sun. For a moment the crowd went utterly still, awed by her beauty. She looked up at her husband, smiling tentatively, her face filled with love and a bewildered yearning.

Jessalyn looked away.

Emily kept her gaze fastened on to her husband as she raised a bottle of smuggled French brandy and broke it over the great beam. Shattered glass and drops of brandy shimmered in the sun, as if it were raining diamonds. The villagers cheered, the core bell clanged, and Lady Letty thumped the ground with her cane. Only Jessalyn stood stiff and silent.

McCady lifted his head, and his gaze searched her out, crossing the distance between them, shutting out the world. She had always been able to feel his gaze on her, like a touch, as if he were caressing her with his mind. Unconsciously her body swayed, and a soft sigh escaped her slightly parted lips as if he were running his hands over her body. His face turned stark with an emotion so deep it remained nameless, a yawning need that wrenched at her heart. But in the next moment his mouth hardened, and he turned away, and Jessalyn wondered if she had imagined it all.

The earl himself opened the exhaust regulator on the new engine that he had built, and steam escaped with a sigh, rising white and misty into the air. The pump rods fell, and up swung the great balance bob, then down fell the bob and up came the rods, again and again, thrust, thump, thrust, thump, thrust thump, and the boiler moaned and sighed.

But in the mine below all was black and still. In the mine below where untold riches might lie waiting. Riches and risk.

Becka Poole waited until the others had already helped themselves before she approached the trestle tables piled with food and drink. People she knew, people who were used to her face, she didn't mind so much. But there were many strangers here this day, men from as far away as Truro who were hoping to be taken on at the new mine. Miss Jessalyn said they didn't mean to be cruel when they stared. And in truth, it was pity she mostly saw in their eyes. But she hated the pity. Nasty taunts—well, she could give back as good as she got. But pity, that she could hardly bear.

Even though she went last, there was plenty of food left over: good Cornish fare, not like what they'd had to make do with in London. Whelks and jellied eels, ginger beer and bee wine, curlew and muggety pie. Lord Caerhays was a generous man when it came to putting out the victuals. But Becka wasn't sure she liked the earl. He frightened her with his harsh face and those fierce dark eyes. Devil's eyes they were, and she touched the hagstone around her neck to ward off the evil thought. Dear life an' body, the way he was looking at Miss Jessalyn today, 'twas a wonder the air didn't catch afire. Becka wished a man would look at her that way, so hot and hungrylike. It would never happen, though. Not with her scar an' all.

She had just bitten into a nice big slice of the muggety pie when a shadow fell across the ground in front of her. She first saw his boots, polished to such a shine her face was reflected back at her. She pulled her hair over her cheek, hiding the scar, and slowly lifted her eyes, following the long, slender length of him up to a pair of brandy-colored eyes, fringed with long lashes tipped golden by the sun. Dear life an' body, it was him —Mr. Duncan.

She swallowed the bit of muggety pie in her mouth. It tasted like a wool ball and stuck in her throat going down, and she choked.

He patted her back; she choked harder. "Have a care now, Miss Poole," he said in his soft Scottish brogue. "'Tis drinking something ye ought to be doing." He pressed a leather jack brimming with ginger beer into her hands.

He'd called her Miss Poole. Nobody had ever called her Miss Poole. She'd always been just Becka. But he'd called her Miss Poole as if she were somebody.

She gulped the beer down so fast she nearly started choking again. "Cor, I be thirsty as a cat with nine kits," she said when she could breathe. She wiped the foamy mustache off her upper lip with the back of her hand. She watched him out the corner of her eye, careful to keep her ruined cheek turned away from him. It hurt to look at him, he was so beautiful. "A proper slap-up to-do this is," she said, for lack of anything better.

'"Tis a fine day for a celebration, it is," he agreed. He had a nice voice, gentle, like his eyes.

"Oh, aye, aye, 'tis a proper day for a celibate."

A startled look came over his face. "I beg yer pairdon?" he said.

She blushed furiously. "Mr. Duncan. Sir," she added, cursing herself for her lack of manners in not addressing him respectfully. She gripped her blue linsey-wool skirt, trying to still her shaking hands.

A silence came between them. He was looking at her, but there wasn't pity in his eyes. That time in London, when she'd opened the door to him, she hadn't seen pity then either. Yet he must notice the scar. He was too just well bred to let on. He was a gentleman's gentleman after all.

And, oh, so handsome. She stared up at him in awe through the curtain of her hair. 'Twas a wonder no woman had snapped him up long afore now. But then perhaps he was married after all, or perhaps he had himself a guinea hen stashed away in London Town. It suddenly occurred to her that she knew nothing about him, except that he worked for Lord Caerhays. And she didn't see any pity in his eyes.

He glanced toward the bonfire, where almost everyone was now gathered, drinking noggins of gin and treacle and waiting to get at the roasting potatoes. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Ye ought t' try a bite of the star-gazy pie," she said quickly, to keep him from leaving.

He looked down at the table where she pointed, and his eyes widened. She hadn't thought how star-gazy pie could be a sight if you weren't used to it. What with the pilchards' heads sticking out of the crust like that, their little beady white eyes staring blankly up at you.

Indeed, his gloriously handsome face had turned the shade of the green snakes that lived in the gorse. "Uh... nae, thank ye," he said. "Truth to tell, I havena much of an appetite at the moment."

"The sea air makes ee bilious, do it? It often affects a body in that way," she said, pleased to find herself on firm conversational ground at last. Beyond discussing her own delicate health, Becka loved nothing better than to sympathize with the ills and tribulations of other unfortunates. "For indignity of the innards, I do recommend polycrest and rhubarb."

"Indignity of the innards?" His voice sounded strained. The poor man must truly be feeling unwell.

She nodded vigorously. "Rhubarb and polycrest an' ye'll be brave in no time. I've been prostitute with a bad rheum meself. Been up nights with it for a week, I tell ee. First, I gets the sweats, when the flesh runs off me like a fat goose. Then I gets the chills, and the next thing I knows me chest starts to rattlin' like a pot lid. I wake up absolutely expired."

"Expired?" An odd expression had come over his face, a sort of pained look. She hoped he hadn't suddenly suffered a rupture.

"Ais. Tired and so weaklike I couldn't wrestle me own shadow. Expired."

He cleared his throat. "Aye, of course. It sounds a dangerous state of affairs, yer rheum. Ye'd better be having a care, or it could turn into the morbid sore throat, ye know."

"Don't I just! I've tried dosin' meself with tar-water and cobweb pills and rubbin' me chest with adder fat. But them cures bain't workin'."

His blond brows drew together over his straight nose in thought. "My maether has a surefire cure for the rheum. An ointment, it is, though I don't know all of what goes into it. But she claims 'tis even been known to cure the hooting cough. I have some with me now, back in my room at the hall." She watched, mesmerized, as his sensuously shaped lips curved into a sweet smile. "I could bring it over to End

Cottage later, and ye'll feel grand again in nae time. Though I shouldna be coming much before midnight."

A gull screamed and dived at the star-gazy pie, making off with one of the pilchards, but Becka didn't even notice. Her stomach had gone all fluttery, as if she'd just swallowed a thousand butterflies. "Tedn't proper for we to be meetin' after dark," she said, giving him an arch look.

Three more gulls wheeled overhead, eyeing the food. "I do assure ye, Miss Poole," he said, shouting a bit to be heard above the screams of the birds, "my intentions are strictly honorable. Tis yer health that is concerning me, lass, nae yer virtue."

"Eh? Oh..." Becka felt all her hopes break into pieces like a dry biscuit. What a ninny-hammer she was to be thinking he'd want aught to do with her. Not Becka Poole, with her scarred face. He was a gentleman's gentleman, and as beautiful as a church painting. Too good even to be passing the time of day with the likes of her, a drunken tinner's ugly daughter.

The steady throb-throb of the engine vibrated the ground beneath McCady Trelawny's feet, as if the earth had a heartbeat. He stood within the mining house and shut his eyes, listening to a sound that was as familiar to him as the rush of his own pulse.

He felt himself dissolve, become one with the hard, driving power of the engine. The pounding thrust of the pistons, the hiss and suck of the valves, the throbbing sigh of the spent steam. He felt the heat of the firebox like a breath against his face. He breathed in deeply the hot, wet smell of steam....

And Pears primrose soap.

He opened his eyes and saw her reflected in the engine's great brass cylinder. He drank in the sight of her, at once both delicate and wild. She stood at the window, the one that faced the sea. A nimbus of light surrounded her so that she seemed an illusion that would vanish if he so much as breathed. He couldn't see her face, only the slender curve of her back and one gloved hand that rested on the sill. For a moment he thought he saw a hat with yellow primroses sitting there beside her. But it was only a trick of the light or perhaps of memory.

He went to her, ducking under the great beam as it swung down. The bootheel of his crippled leg scraped on the stone floor. She started and spun around. Her face paled, and he saw fear leap into her eyes.

"Don't!" he cried, flinging out a hand. He barely brushed her arm, but something surged and crackled between them, as powerful as the charge of a lightning bolt. She rubbed the place where he had touched her, although her beautiful, intent eyes never left his face. "Don't run away," he said.

Her eyes widened, and her chest hitched as she sucked in a sharp breath. "I'm not running away. I'm not...."

Now that he had her attention he didn't know what to do with it. There was nothing he could say to her. It was ludicrous to think they could ever be friends. A man did not become friends with a woman whose laugh, whose smile, whose very smell left him hard and aching with want.

In the silence that had fallen between them, he became aware once again of the slow, sucking noise of the pump. It was a slithery sound, like skin rubbing against hot, moist skin. Her gaze flashed to his face, then away again, too swiftly for him to read her thoughts. She moistened her lips, drawing his own gaze down to her mouth.

"Did you build this engine? My lord."

"Yes. Miss Letty."

She looked the pump engine over, nodding grimly as if this confirmed her worst expectations of him. But then she surprised him by saying, "It is a fine engine."

"Thank you.... I didn't think you'd be coming back to Cornwall," he said. God, he thought, this conversation is inane. Why couldn't they talk about what really mattered?

Why had he never been able to talk to anyone about what mattered?

Her wide mouth quivered, nearly smiling. There had always been such a joy within her, he thought, a fire that could never be doused no matter what life forced her to endure.

"We're only here for a short time, my lord. We'll be going up to Epsom Downs come May, for the Derby."

"Blue Moon is healthy then? He'll be able to compete?"

"The Sarn't Major thinks so." She raised her head and fastened her wide, smoky gaze onto his face. "You are still convinced we crimped that race, aren't you? My lord."

"I believe the collision was deliberate, yes. I shouldn't trust that jockey of yours were I you. Miss Letty."

Anger darkened her eyes to the color of the sea at night. "Topper would never do such a thing."

"Your loyalty is admirable, Miss Letty. I wonder..." A strand of her hair had come loose to wrap around her neck. He lifted it between two fingers. It felt like silk and looked like liquid fire. He tucked the curl back up beneath the rolled brim of her hat, allowing his fingertips to linger at her temple. He could see her trembling. "I wonder, if you truly cared for a man... I almost think you would forgive him anything."

He saw understanding flash behind the flat grayness of her eyes. He waited, breath suspended, for her response. Although he didn't know what she could possibly say that would ease the ache in his chest.

"No," she said. "Not anything..."

"Lookit, Miss Letty! Lookit!"

A little girl in pink pinafore and black pigtails burst through the door. She wore a gap-toothed smile so wide the corners of her mouth nearly touched her ears. In one grubby fist she clutched what to McCady's eyes looked like a bunch of weeds.

She skidded to a stop and held the scraggly posy up to Jessalyn. The weeds had been pulled up by the roots, and they trickled dirt onto the newly swept floor. "I picked these for ee, Miss Letty."

Jessalyn accepted the bouquet of weeds with a smile that pierced straight through to McCady's heart. "They're beautiful," she said softly. "Thank you, Little Jessie." She brought the posy up to her face, her nose wrinkling as she fought to hold back a sneeze. McCady caught a pungent whiff of wild garlic. He turned his head to hide a smile.

A pair of jackdaws flew across the open window, black wings flashing, drowning out the thump of the engine with their raucous cawing. "Look!" Little Jessie cried.

McCady's head jerked around, following the direction of the little girl's pointing finger. The sky was empty now, but something had disturbed the jackdaws. He strode to the window, leaning out. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a man running down to the sea, slipping in and out among the rocks, a thick-chested, shaggy-haired man in a miner's coat and ragged drill trousers.

"It was Grandda!" Little Jessie cried, her voice shrieking louder than the crows.

"Jacky Stout," Jessalyn said. She shivered, and McCady was surprised to see fear shadow her eyes.

"Who?"

"Jacky Stout." Jessalyn gathered the little girl against her legs, resting her palm on her head. "Little Jessie is the baby we found here in the mine that day." Startled, McCady looked down at the child. The pale, fey face that stared back up at him stirred a distant memory. She had a sharply pointed chin and tilted catlike eyes. Her black braids hung nearly to her waist, and a hole in her pantalets revealed a scabbed knee. Surely this child was too old. But then it had been over five years. "Jacky Stout is her grandfather," Jessalyn said.

"I remember him. I thought he'd been hanged for poaching"

"I don't like Grandda," Little Jessie said. "He hit me once an' called me a—a bastid. Mam says he's good for nothing but gallow's fodder."

McCady hunkered down on his heels so that he was eye to eye with her. Little Jessie. Without thought his hand came up to cup her cheek, as if needing to touch her to prove that she was real. For so long that summer had seemed more dream to him than memory.

"I doubt it was your grandfather," McCady said softly. "It was probably some curious tinner come from far afield and looking for work."

"It was Grandda," Little Jessie insisted.

He looked up at Jessalyn, and although her face had gentled, he caught the lingering shadows of fear in her eyes. He wanted to ask her about Jacky Stout and why she was so afraid of him when she had not been afraid that summer. But his wife came tripping through the door just then, her pretty face alight with happiness. Jessalyn stepped back with a guilty flush, as if she'd been caught doing something wicked just by speaking with him.

"Oh, you must come see!" Emily cried. "Jessalyn... my lord." Color blossomed on her cheeks as her gaze fell on her husband. "You must come. They are having a hurling contest. Some of the miners are trying to see who can heave an old pit prop the farthest." She captured a smile with her hand. "I have never known the like."

Shrieking with excitement, Little Jessie ran to Emily, and Jessalyn followed more slowly. McCady straightened but remained where he was. The engine tender came in to stoke the fire, and the place suddenly seemed crowded.

The engine tender threw open the damper, releasing a great blast of heat. He shoveled in more coal and the fire blazed higher. The two women and the child stood within the great arched doorway, backlighted by blue sky and green sea. Laughing, Emily said something to Jessalyn. McCady waited, his heart suspended for Jessalyn's answering laugh. But it didn't come.

After that he told himself he would stay away from her. But he felt as if there was something alive inside him that had to be fed and instead he was slowly starving. So he kept seeking her out, with his eyes, with his nerve endings. And when he saw her break away from everyone and walk alone to the cliffs, he followed her.

The swiftly running tide swallowed the narrow beach, making a soft, rushing sound, like a pulse. She sat upon a rock hoary and shaggy with weeds and lichen. He sat beside her. She stiffened, but this time she made no move to run away. There were only the two of them and the gulls.

His hands trembled to touch her. He clenched them into a fist between his spread knees.

He spotted a single primrose growing in a bit of dirt within the cleft of a rock. He plucked the flower, twirling the stem between his fingers. The moon was coming up early in the afternoon sky, pale and half spent. It was not a blue moon.

"It is so wild and beautiful here," she said, breaking the silence between them. "Yet I was thinking of how this will all look in a few months, covered with mining attle and gritty black slag heaps."

He did not look where she did—at the yellow water gushing from the adit at the foot of the cliff, already staining the sand, swirling like spilled paint into the sea. He looked at her. Wisps of hair, the color of a campfire at night, curled about her face. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Her mouth... her mouth...

He looked down and saw that he had crushed the primrose in his fist. He opened his hand, letting the bruised flower fall into the muddy sea. "I thought you would be pleased that I have opened the mine," he said.

"Oh, I am, I am. I was only being selfish."

A moment passed in silence as they watched a small plover scurry over the dripping rocks, a sand eel wriggling in its beak. She started to push herself up, and he helped her with a hand beneath her elbow. A gentleman's touch, an acceptable touch, a proper touch. But once they were on their feet, when he could have let go, when he should have let her go, he did not. He could feel her heat through the thin muslin sleeve of her dress, feel her trembling. "Jessalyn..."

She pulled her arm from his grasp. "I wish—" She stopped the words by sinking her teeth into her lower lip, hard enough to leave imprints like tiny cuts.

He stared into her face. Her wide gray eyes impaled him, piercing his heart. "What do you wish?" I would bring you the stars in the palms of my hands if I thought that it would only make you laugh again.

"I wish that you would leave me alone, my lord. I wish that you would go away forever and leave me alone."

"Cor, Becka girl. Ee've got about as much sense as a peahen with no head."

Becka Poole pulled her fringed shawl close beneath her neck and folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. He wasn't coming. He had said he would, but he wasn't going to come. Like as not he was back in his room at Caerhays Hall right this very minute, sitting afore the fire, toasting his toes, and laughing to think of her outside all alone at midnight, a prey for corpse lights and with a gale abrewing.

She touched her hagstone for luck just as lightning flared in a liverish sky. The wind had come up, high and thick with salt. It whistled like a pierced pig's bladder and set the boughs of the hawthorn and wild nut trees streaming out like flying witch's hair.

She huddled against the stone wall of the little dairy where she had arranged to meet him. Inside, some cheeses were starting to ripen, and their smell came to her on the wind. As did the sweet scent of lavender water. She had splashed a whole bottle of it all over herself before she'd changed into her best Sunday meeting frock. She hoped she hadn't overdone it.

Something curled around her legs, and she caught a scream with her hand before it could come flying out of her mouth. It was that wretched cat, Napoleon. She had just managed to calm her thudding heart when for some reason known only to himself the beast started yowling as if he'd just caught his tail in a mousetrap.

"Hist yer noise," she whispered loudly, flapping her hands at him. Dear life, she had to shut him up, or Miss Jessalyn would be out in two shakes to see what had him so overset. "Shoo, now. Off to bed with ee."

The runty orange cat streaked across the courtyard and leaped onto the front parlor windowsill. The window must have been left open a crack, for he pushed it with his paw and disappeared inside.

"Miss Poole?"

Becka whirled around, nearly leaping out of her skin. She pressed her hand against her breastbone because her heart was beating fit to burst out of her chest. Lightning flashed. He looked like a painting she had seen once of the Archangel Gabriel, his golden hair swirling in the wind, his tall, broad-shouldered body silhouetted against a black sky.

"I was thinking 'tis nae likely I'd be finding ye out this night after all," he said. He was wearing only a shirt that fluttered with his hard breathing. She wondered if he'd run all the way. She hoped not. Running wasn't good for the lungs, especially when they got to heaving like bellows against the walls of the chest. "Nae with this wind," he added.

"Oooh, this wind! 'Tes blowin' so hard a body needs two hands to hold down the hair on his head."

His smile glimmered like a silver trout in the dark. He had the straightest teeth, and they were very white. It occurred to her suddenly that she didn't often see him smile.

"Were ee born on a Wednesday?" she asked. "'Tesn't good to be born on a Wednesday. I were born on a Tuesday. Wednesday's child be full of woe. Tuesday's child—"

He took her arm leading her deeper within the shelter of the dairy's low-thatched eaves. Her heart started to hammer again. It was beating so hard Becka feared she was having a heart stroke.

"Do I seem woeful to ye, Miss Poole?"

"Well... ais, ee do, betimes." She looked up into his face, struck nearly breathless suddenly with fear and excitement and a growing wonder. She was out here alone in the dark with a man who was handsome enough to be a prince. And who was lowering his head and parting his lips as if he were about to kiss her.

His mouth captured hers, held it fast a moment, then began to move with gentle, insistent pressure. When he ended the kiss an eternity later, Becka sucked in a great draft of air as if she'd been drowning.

"Cor!" she exclaimed. "Why did ee do that?"

He brushed her lips with his again. "It seemed the moment called for the doing of something frivolous."

Suddenly he lifted his head, sniffing the air. She thought he was going to sneeze. She hoped he hadn't caught her rheumy chill by kissing her. Her lips still tingled from where they had touched his. His lips had been the strangest combination of soft and hard. And they had been hot, too, and sort of melting, the way the top of a candle is just after you blow it out. In truth, she had rather liked the feel ol them. She wondered how she could get him to do something frivolous again.

"Do ye smell smoke?" he said.

"Eh?" She drew in a deep breath, wrinkling her nose. She smelled the cheese and the sea and lavender water... and, aye, she smelled smoke. "Mebbe Miss Jessalyn couldn't sleep and she got up to stir the fire."

He stepped out from beneath the shelter of the dairy, and she went with him. She noticed something odd at the parlor window where Napoleon had slipped through ear lier. An orange light, looking fractured and wavy through the mullioned glass.

She was just about to point this out to him when the roof erupted into flames.