Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
The laugh that Luke managed did not ring true to his ears, but Miss Adena Garland seemed satisfied. Her gaze slipped off him, and moved to the now almost invisible ocean that they could hear slowly crashing against the shoreline, but could barely see in the evening twilight.
Luke coughed, and shifted himself on the soil. If he was honest with himself – and it was not a position that he liked to be in, to be sure – he would have to admit that he was now starting to care a little too much about Miss Garland’s opinion of him.
Sweeping her off her feet in the sea, winning smiles, building a shelter: his attempts to show off were juvenile, and his face flushed in the growing darkness when he considered his actions.
He would expect just such silliness from a pup of eighteen, about to attend his first ball and desperately hoping to secure the card of the most eligible lady in the room.
Not from Luke, Marquis of Dewsbury and contented bachelor.
“Marooned?” He said in what he had hoped with a joking tone, but there was a little quiver in it as he tried not to glance over at the woman beside him. “Yes, I suppose we are. ‘Tis rather like an adventure novel, do not you think?”
There was no answer but a shrug from his companion.
Attempting to make light of the situation and her comment had not worked.
Luke felt the searing heat of jealousy flow into his heart as he saw her complete non-interest in his words.
Of course she would not, he told himself.
She is engaged to another, and does not have the time nor the inclination to favour you with her smiles.
Luke could not help it. He tilted his head slightly so that he could look at Miss Garland; the curve of her neck as she stared out towards the ocean, the way she had buried her feet into the sandy soil, the red hair, curling even more now that it was starting to dry.
What was he doing, allowing himself to – what, feel something for this woman? It was ridiculous to feel jealous of a man whom he did not know and possibly had never met.
And after all, had he not decided against marriage? Was it not his constant irritation, these last few weeks, that the great and the good of his acquaintance were succumbing to the temptations of the marriage bed without any thought for the decades of trials and tribulations to come?
A seagull squawked overhead, and Miss Garland looked upwards, a smile breaking across her face. Luke’s stomach twisted horribly, and yet it sent a jolt of heat towards his pelvis.
What was he getting himself into?
Luke jumped up. “I am going to see what improvements can be made to our shelter,” he said hastily.
Miss Garland barely looked round, her eyes were still transfixed on the sky seeing if she could espy the bird above them.
Luke cleared his throat. “Miss Garland, I will be leaving you for a short while.”
Why did he care so much for her response? Why did it matter to him so much that she noticed his leaving, that she was interested in his actions – perhaps, responded to him?
“I will be back shortly,” he said in a brusque voice, and turned away before he heard the reply he realised he was desperate for.
“And I am going for a short walk,” said a gentle voice, with none of the ire remaining in it. “I feel the need for a little stroll, and I hope that my gown will dry a little with the movement.”
It struck Luke that the quickest way to dry out the gown was to remove it, and suspend it over a fire, but he was not going to spark the anger of Miss Garland with such a suggestion.
“That is an excellent idea,” he said instead, but as he watched her rise in the night air, he added, “Miss Garland, you must take this. Here.”
Luke shrugged off his greatcoat, and held it out to her.
If he had known her well – if she had been a friend of the family, perhaps, or a woman that he had known for many years in society – then she would have stepped towards him, turned with a coy smile, and allowed him to drape the greatcoat over her shoulders.
There would have been a moment of intimacy, of flirtation, of suggesting what could be.
Not so with Miss Garland. She outstretched a hand to take it from him, and refusing to take a step closer, could not reach it.
Luke smiled, stepped forward, and allowed her to take it from him. For a split second, their fingers touched.
Her gasp was masked by his own, as heat and sparks seemed to move between them as her delicate skin touched his. It was like two magnets finding their home with each other; unlike anything Luke had ever experienced.
Throat dry, heart racing, his eyes moved from his fingers to her face. He saw in her expression the answer to his own: shock, surprise, and a little curiosity as to what could cause such a strong reaction.
“Thank you, my lord,” she whispered, eyes not leaving his own.
Luke coughed, and nodded. “You are quite welcome, Miss Garland.”
The first true smile that he had seen from her emerged slowly, and then she took a step forward and handed back his greatcoat.
“Perhaps you would be so good?”
He had never felt this way about a woman before him, Luke thought as he gently placed the greatcoat over her shoulders.
His heart almost stopped beating, and he could hear his breathing heavy in his ears as he gently and almost reverentially gathered her hair together, placing it outside the greatcoat so that it fell, fire-like down her back.
She was so close. So very close that he could feel the icy chill of her, and was glad that he had thought to give her what little additional warmth he could offer her. Her breathing seemed irregular, and without stepping away from him, she tilted her head to look at him.
Her lips were pink, and glistening. She had just licked them, and Luke felt a stirring deep inside him that was definitely not gentlemanly.
“Thank you, my lord,” Miss Garland whispered.
He could feel her breath on him, and he knew that all he had to do was move two inches, no more, and he would be kissing her. The temptation was overwhelming.
“I think, given the circumstances,” he whispered back in a low voice, “that it would be quite acceptable for you to call me Luke.”
For an instant, it looked as though she was going to censure him for impertinence; it was a very forward remark, and one that he would have been astonished at, if he had heard such intimacy in London.
But this woman was like no other.
“In that case,” she murmured, and Luke attempted not to follow the elegant movement of her lips, “you should call me Adena. I hope you will.”
“Adena,” Luke breathed, and unable to resist any longer, moved forward.
But he moved too late; Adena had stepped forward, greatcoat now clutched around her body, and she smiled back at him as she went. “I will not stray too far, and your concern, bizarre and unwarranted as it is, is noted.”
“Be careful,” Luke found himself calling after her. “Do not wander too far from me, you may not find me again.”
As she wandered into the darkness, Luke shook his head with a smile as though drunk.
You may not find me again: did his desperation to be near her have to be quite so blatant?
What had got into him? He had met many a pretty woman before, plenty of fiery, spirited women before, but had experienced nothing like this.
But not quite so stunning as her, he admitted to himself. Nor so spirited, nor combining so much of spark and spirit in one woman.
The evening gloom had already swallowed up Miss Adena Garland – or Adena, as he now had permission to consider her. Luke grinned. They were a long way from the drawing rooms of the ton.
The smile faded as the thought struck him that she may find her way back to the mainland on her little excursion, or at the very least, see that there was a way back, despite his information. If she discovered his deception, she was unlikely to look at him with such a pleasing eye.
Luke shook his head, and started off in the opposite direction. In the unlikely event that she did, what was the problem? All he had to do was act as astonished and relieved as she was, and his surprise would completely hide his knowledge from her.
He almost stumbled over some gorse as a little needle of guilt pricked his conscience. What sort of a man was he that could happily lie to a woman – a woman whom he had never met before this evening, and who had put her life, her very reputation in his hands?
Without knowing the exact time, Luke estimated that it was almost thirty minutes later that he deemed his haul of large leaves and additional branches ready to be taken back to the initial shelter that he had started.
His fingers were covered in dirt, there were at least two thorn scratches up his arms, and this shirt would never be the same again.
He had never worked so hard with his hands in his life, and he felt it. With an aching back and weary arms, Luke turned once more towards the shelter, and smiled ruefully.
If any of his friends could see him now, they would laugh at him just as much as he would have done, if he had watched another act in the way that he was. Why was he trying so hard to impress this woman?
Was it because the title, a mainstay in his wooing repertoire, seemed to have had absolutely no effect?
Was it because her beauty had completely dazzled him, to the point where he seemed unable to comprehend sense?
Or, said a small voice somewhere deep in his heart that he discovered to his surprise, was it because Adena was unlike any he had ever met, or was likely to meet – a truly unique woman. That sparkling wit that she started to reveal before she went on that walk of hers…
There was nothing else for it: Luke trudged back with his spoils, trying to ignore the aches and complaints of his body, and trying not to imagine Adena slowly removing that damp gown by a fireside.
She is engaged to another, he reminded himself. Engaged to another, and one with a title too, so there is no need to hope that she will be impressed by your own.
There was something strange up ahead that caused him to pause slightly in his return.
It looked, to all intents and purposes, like a lamp: but that surely could not be.
He could not be so unfortunate, Luke thought bitterly to himself, to find himself ‘trapped’ with Miss Adena Garland just to find that there was another man here out to get her too!
He was immediately overcome with shame. Out to get her?
The lamp light flickered, but as he took a few steps forward, it became clear that it was no lamp, but a fire. There was a figure standing beside it, tall and strong. Luke’s heart sank. So, it was to be another gentleman joining them. Of course it was.
But then the figure moved, and Luke’s breath caught in his throat. If he was not mistaken, that was no gentleman, but a lithe and elegant woman standing wearing his greatcoat by a fire.
Like a siren calling out to sailors to throw themselves towards her, a voice spoke out from the darkness.
“My lord? Luke, is that you?”
Luke tried to speak, but couldn’t. He could refute his own feelings no longer: he was entranced by Miss Adena Garland, utterly taken in by her bodily charms. His own body yearned to rush over to her, abandoning all he had collected for the shelter, and sweep her into his arms, pouring down his passion and lack of restraint in hot kisses.
“Luke?”
“It is I,” he managed in a strangled voice.
So. He had feelings, of a mingled lust and obsession sort, for this woman. ‘Twas merely an infatuation, however, and he needed to guard his tongue and his temperament to ensure that the lady was not put to any trouble or awkwardness on his behalf.
Luke found himself smiling dryly. Turns out that he had plenty of honour left in him, but it had taken a strange encounter with a woman he had never clapped eyes on before this night to discover it.