Chapter 29 The Winter Sea
Leena stood at the fold where the ocean met the land, the salty water beneath her boots retreating and advancing—not a dance but a war. The savagery of the waves created ridges and footholds on the black cliffs, battering the stone into submission.
Leena had gone to the rocky beach after she’d returned from the old housekeeper’s.
After Theodore Daye had bowed his head when she’d asked him if the blood that ran through Bram St. Silas’s veins was Avon blood.
After she’d stood on the pale limestone steps of Weavingshaw, her chest aching, nearly suffocating, as if the estate was bent on stealing the breath from her lungs.
She could not bear to be on Avon land a moment longer.
But no matter how far Leena walked—toward the forest, toward the ocean, toward the cliffs—Weavingshaw’s silent tower still watched her. Even here, as the seawater licked her hem and the wind whipped her hair, she felt its bedevilment.
Leena thought of St. Silas’s expression as they arrived at Weavingshaw for the first time—not hatred as she’d originally assumed, but an intermingling of wrath and a fierce, all-consuming devotion.
She’d likewise noticed the ease with which he walked the marbled halls, his odd familiarity with the house’s secrets. And yet, his passion clearly stretched past the stone halls of Weavingshaw. She could easily remember his simmering anger at the mistreatment of the miners—all tenants on his land.
Even the ghosts in and around the fortress seemed to crave a closeness to St. Silas, their hands outstretched as if he were a life source, welcoming him home.
The wind stole Leena’s gasp as she remembered the empty tomb…St. Silas’s empty tomb…the one she’d forced him to hide in. How it had paralyzed him, and how she’d entirely misunderstood the reason for that disturbance.
Leena knelt down suddenly, splashing freezing water onto her face, inhaling sharply from the glacial temperature.
Percival Avon’s son.
But they were a study in opposites. There was nothing of St. Silas in Lord Avon’s golden features. Lord Avon exuded vitality; St. Silas was cut from menace.
No. Leena remembered that there had been one striking similarity. Percival Avon’s voice had had the same smooth masculine intonation as St. Silas’s own—used to tempt, to seduce, to ensnare.
The voice had entranced Moira, raising a bloom in her cheeks as he called her my little one—mere moments before he had strangled her.
Emotion tore through her, as serrated as a knife’s edge, leaving jagged scars in its path.
She could not tear her eyes away from the dying sun, its orange light a distorted reflection upon the heaving waves, the endless seething sea.
The gray clouds loomed, a prelude to another storm.
The shrieks of the seagulls surrounding the shore sounded like battle cries.
Somewhere far off, she could hear the rumble of thunder.
Now that Leena had learned to listen, she swore she could hear the distant cries of wolves.
She stood motionless as the freezing tide brushed her hemline, the arctic temperatures expanding her anguish until she felt she might go mad with it.
With shaky fingers, she bent down and undid the laces of her boots before sliding down her stockings.
Even that was not enough. Leena wanted to be lost within the elements, to submerge herself in the water until she felt awakened by it, far away from the entombment of Weavingshaw.
She thrust off her overcoat, throwing it behind her on the hard sand.
One button followed another as she flung her dress where her coat lay.
It was a greater struggle to undo the stays of her corset, but years of experience made her fingers deft with the laces.
She almost ripped the delicate threads of her petticoat in her haste to be rid of that, too.
She stood shivering in her lace-woven undergarments, covered only by a simple white cotton chemise that offered little protection against the battering wind, and she could not remember a time she had been so bare in the outdoors.
She gasped from the chilling bite of the ocean as she took her first steps into the water.
It was a sort of liberation not to be pulled down by her heavy skirts as she advanced farther, the chemise only long enough to cover her thighs.
Her arms were also free, catching goosebumps from the bitter wind.
It was not eerie, but right, that Leena was the only warm creature in a barren land, surrounded by the shadows of cliffs and jagged rocks.
Within moments she was waist-deep, the waves crashing and breaking against her body as if intent on claiming her as one of their own. She closed her eyes, wishing the cold would breathe life into her, reminding her that she was a living thing that had not yet yielded to death.
Leena had an urge—not for the first time in her life—to scream into the wind. It shredded through her lungs, and the sea swallowed her howls, welcoming Leena as another shipwreck on the shores of Weavingshaw.
She only stopped once she remembered Percival Avon screaming wildly—pleadingly—before a black lake. She didn’t want to tether herself any further to the Avons when she was already so deeply entrenched.
The Saint of Silence—Master Bramwell—My Lord Avon.
The raw edges of her body sensed his presence on the beach before he had even spoken.
He called to her.
She did not turn.
“Leena.”
His voice evoked within her relief and heartache in equal and unforgiving measure.
She shivered—not merely from the glacial water that had bled all the color from her skin, but from his voice as he said her name. Still she did not turn back, her gaze pinned on the looming waves that surrounded her.
“Leena, look at me.”
He was closer now, his command cutting through the burgeoning storm.
Finally, fighting the sob that had curled in her throat, she turned to him.
Fully clothed, St. Silas had come into the water after her, his dark riding coat undone and whipping in the wind. The light of the setting sun was at his back and it looked as if his entire outline was on fire. For a moment, he exuded the same force—the same holiness—as Percival Avon.
Once more she felt like Moira—her heart aching at the feral beauty that was the Avons.
He continued when she did not speak. “Have you been possessed?”
Slowly, Leena shook her head. Before he could ask, she said quietly, “You take two spoonfuls of sugar in your coffee. I do not.”
Leena was aware she must look every inch a madwoman, standing in her underthings in the winter sea, hair coming undone from the braid that had been coiled atop her head, the long tendrils whipping about her neck and waist in a frenzy.
She could forgive him for thinking she was possessed, for she must truly look a ghostly sight.
She refrained from folding her arms to cover herself, knowing that her white chemise had become see-through where it made contact with the water, her skin now exposed to the intensity of his focus.
From the moment she’d turned to face him, St. Silas’s eyes had darkened. And even from where she stood she could see his harsh swallow as he nodded his acknowledgment.
Then, as if his gaze could not contain itself, it dropped to outline the soft contours of her body.
The way he was looking at her evoked within Leena a strange alchemy. It made her feel both afraid of what was to come and yet longing for it with fervent urgency.
“I can see every—” He swallowed again, his tone rough. It was as if he could not look away, and he did not.
Her own voice cracked. “I did not expect anyone to come upon me here.” Even though he was still near the shoreline, she felt touched by his gaze, her body kindling in spite of the cold.
The tails of his dark coat floated about him as he stood nearly thigh-deep in the violent waves.
His boots were no doubt a better defense against the icy temperatures than her bare feet, and for a moment she envied his dry undershirt, the thick woolen protection of his coat.
And most of all, she envied that he was more in command of his surroundings than she.
Leena could see it now, the way the land rose and fell under his mastery.
Their differences had never been so apparent, standing there as they were within the tumultuous ocean: the control he wielded, the noble blood that flowed through his veins, his strong and rugged form a battlefront against the wind—a sharp contrast to Leena, who was stripped to the elements and flooded with the remains of the dead.
“Why are you here?” Still, his voice was raspy.
Leena could not answer him, unable to explain the insanity that had forced her to plunge into the glacial ocean. At her unblinking silence, a troubled frown had begun to breach his expression.
“Come out. The tide is rising.” He reached a hand toward her, and, in that one movement, he looked like a conqueror on a savage shore. He had brought war with him, and that invasion would reverberate through her body until he had changed the map of her. She would not survive him.
Instinctively, she allowed the harsh waves to pull her backward, shouting to be heard over the crash of water. “I’ve learned something today.”
He did not step back, nor did he waver. Instead, he stalked toward her, the sleek, rigid lines of his body parting the angry waves, the civilized attire he wore a poor disguise for the hunter beneath. “What have you learned?”
“Something about you.”
“Leena—”
“Something about your birthright.”
St. Silas halted then, watching her alertly.
Slowly, he read the secret that had shrouded itself on Leena’s face, and he dropped his hand.
He knew.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her.
“Do not.” There was a harsh warning in his eyes: Do not name me.
It was at this moment that the sky opened up, releasing a torrent of brutal rain, drenching them even further.
She plunged toward the shore, already wishing herself a thousand miles from the turbulent ocean and back on dry land where she had as firm a hold as he.
But her bare foot caught on a rock wedged deep within the shifting sand just as she began to move forward, and she plummeted back into the ocean until she was fully submerged in salt water.
The cold was so overwhelming that she felt caught in its icy teeth.
She fought to right herself, panicking when she could not tell where the ground and the sky were.
Strong hands pulled her out in one powerful motion.
“I have you; be calm.” Very rarely had Leena felt such instantaneous relief as when St. Silas took hold of her, lifting her so that he carried her cradled to his chest, one arm supporting her head, the other beneath her knees.
His long strides cut through the fierce tide, bringing them back to the sandy bank.
He paused for a moment to retrieve her shoes, before continuing against the strong gale.
Even though he carried her flush against him, Leena could no longer see him clearly in the tempest. Still, her obscured vision transformed the hard lines of his throat and arms into a lighthouse, anchoring her in this storm.
St. Silas led them away from the beach, toward the jagged cliffs and to a narrow opening that would have been impossible to see from the oceanside.
A smugglers’ cave.
Despite her better judgment, Leena allowed her head to burrow against the hard expanse of his chest, both in comfort and in a rare rush of vulnerability.
She felt St. Silas pause for a moment at her unexpected surrender, looking down at her. She refused to meet his gaze and, after a moment, he resumed his pace, but his fingers tightened on her.
Not wanting to ruminate on what he must be thinking, Leena concentrated on his scent instead: woodsmoke from the hunt, fresh washing powder still clinging to his shirt, and the sandalwood from his shaving soap.
To be so near to him was an intoxication.
Already she felt her senses begin to blur in an embittered defeat.
Leena fought against it, until she heard his voice rumbling through his chest. Perhaps she imagined him speaking altogether; perhaps it was the beat of her own heart that she heard.
I cannot surrender, Leena.
Leena did not know if she imagined his words, if they were the echoes of the storm, or if her own toiling mind was creating phantoms that were never there.
Still, she did not dare look up at him. If she did, she was afraid to confirm what a part of her had already known standing on Weavingshaw’s shore: that he saw her as another siege he would have to withstand.
That he would withstand her.
Leena shut her eyes tightly, trying to swallow the rawness of that reality.
When she finally dared to lift her head, it was to see they had entered the cave, leaving the downpour behind.