The Earl Next Door Read online

  Seaton Hall was bordered by the sea at its southern edge. Marianne often walked there when the weather was fine, finding the fresh sea breezes beneficial in blowing away the gloomy air that surrounded her papa; a gloomy air that seemed to work its way into her skin whenever she was with him. A brisk walk took her to the beach and she stood there undecided as to what to do next, whether to go on, or whether to turn back. There were a number of things which needed her attention back at the Hall, and she had just decided that she should return when she caught sight of a figure standing on the rocks in the distance, gazing out to sea.

  The many-caped greatcoat and three-cornered hat the gentleman was wearing could have been worn by anyone, but the height and breadth of the figure, together with the powerful stance, told her who it was at once: Lord Ravensford.

  But what was he doing on the rocks, looking out to sea?

  Whatever it was, it would have to come to a halt. The tide was coming in.

  She expected at any moment to see him turn and stride back to the beach, but as he continued to look seaward she realised he did not know the danger he was in. The rocks at that point would be covered by the tide before another ten minutes had passed, and with the cliff wall behind him he would be trapped.

  She called to him, trying to attract his attention, but her voice was carried away on the wind.

  She began to walk across the beach, calling and waving every minute or so as the water edged its way further up the rocks. Still he did not see or hear her. She reached a spur of rock that jutted out from the cliff and knew that this was the point at which she too must turn back if she did not want to be trapped by the incoming tide. She stopped and called, the wind whipping the hood back from her face and blowing her cloak around her ankles. But still she could not attract his attention. There was nothing for it. She would have to climb across the rocks to him and lead him to the one place that was still safe at high tide: the cave.

  Using her hands to steady herself she made her way across the rocks towards him. It was something she had done many times in her childhood, and she was thankful now for her intimate knowledge of the rocks. Though they were wet with spray she moved across them surely, her old kid boots, with their roughened soles, giving her a good grip. She had almost reached him when he turned and saw her. A deep frown crossed his face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  She fought down her resentment at his tone and said, ‘These rocks will soon be under water. You can’t stay here or you’ll be caught by the tide. We’re already cut off from the beach.’

  He looked back along the beach and saw that what she said was true.

  ‘Then why did you come here, you little fool?’ he demanded, already looking up at the cliff as if assessing his chances of scaling it.

  ‘There’s a cave further along,’ she replied. ‘Kit and I used to play in it when we were children. The entrance is concealed, but it goes back a long way and rises as it does so. It is always dry, even at high tide. I have come to show you the way in.’

  ‘And wouldn’t it have been easier just to call to me?’ he asked. He gave a sudden predatory smile, showing gleaming white teeth. ‘Or did you just want the pleasure of my company?’

  At his smile Marianne felt something wakening inside of her. Was it the wolf in him that called to her? she wondered. Was it the strength of his personality? Or was it the aura of danger that surrounded him, challenging her to rise and meet it?

  ‘I have been calling to you for the last ten minutes, but I couldn’t make you hear,’ she replied.

  As if to illustrate her words a sudden gust of wind almost whipped them away, so that he barely caught what she said. But catch it he did. Giving her a curt nod he stood aside. Moving past him, Marianne made her way surely over the rocks, moving in towards the cliff. The face of the cliff appeared to be sheer, but once past a group of boulders that lay, sleek and shining like a group of seals in the windblown spray, there was a slight crack. From the outside it looked to be nothing more than a fissure which widened into a bole at the bottom but Marianne knew what lay inside. She crouched down, turning to Lord Ravensford. ‘This is the way in.’

  He took one look at the small opening and raised his eyebrows. ‘You expect me to crawl through there?’

  ‘Either that, or be washed into the sea,’ she returned.

  ‘Miss Travis, you have a streak as hard as my own,’ he said with a mocking smile.

  ‘My streak is practical, not hard,’ she informed him. ‘Kit always managed to get through the hole, even when fully grown. You are a little taller than him, and a little broader, but not enough to make any difference. It might be best to take your coat off before you try, though,’ she added thoughtfully, looking at the many capes which broadened his already broad shoulders. ‘I will go first and you can pass it through to me.’

  ‘A woman after my own heart. I have always admired enterprise.'

  Marianne pulled her cloak tightly round her and crawled through the crack, standing up inside a large, deep cave. A moment later the coat was pushed through to her and Lord Ravensford followed, standing up beside her and looking round in surprise.

  ‘Who would have thought it?’ he murmured.

  Marianne handed him his coat. As he took it, his fingers grazed the back of her hand, searing it with a burning heat. She gasped, letting go of the coat more quickly than she had intended.

  He caught it as she dropped it, giving her a wicked look as though reading what was in her mind.

  Why did he seem able to do that? she thought, finding it intimate and disturbing. He had no right to know what she was thinking; especially as her thoughts these days seemed to be all about him.

  ‘If we go to the back, we’ll be above the tide,’ she said, picking up the hem of her cloak and leading him towards the back of the cave.

  Natural light came from a hole in the cliff top, lighting a strip down the centre of the cave and casting shadows into the rocky recesses. The floor of the cave was covered in sand, which was dark and damp by the opening, and light and dry towards the back.

  ‘We used to keep candles and a tinder box here,’ said Marianne, running her hands along a rocky shelf just above her eye level when she reached the back of the cave.

  Lord Ravensford, being taller than she was by some six inches, saw what she was searching for and fastened his fingers around the box just as her hand discovered it. The contact burned her like a brand.

  ‘Why aren’t you married, Marianne?’ he asked suddenly, his eyes glowing gold in the shaft of sunlight and his fingers remaining closed round her own.

  ‘I . . . I hardly think that’s a proper question,’ she gasped, her heart drumming in her chest.

  ‘Of course it isn’t.’ He gave a wolfish smile. ‘Proper questions don’t interest me. But you should be married,’ he said, his look suddenly intensifying. ‘A woman of your passionate nature shouldn’t be condemned to the single life.’

  ‘Passionate?’ She felt her eyes lock on to his, as though he was holding them there by some magnetic force, a force from which she could not break free. She made a determined effort and drew her eyes shudderingly away. ‘I am not a passionate woman,’ she said, trying to inject a note of normality into her voice.

  ‘Oh, but you are.’

  ‘That’s preposterous.’ She retreated into being Miss Travis, taking a step back and using a dismissive tone to hold him at a distance; or at least, to try.

  But she had not stepped back far enough, and for answer he ran the back of his hand over her cheek. ‘Can you deny the way this makes you feel?’ he asked softly. ‘Can you pretend it doesn’t make you burn inside?’

  ‘Lord Ravensford.’ She tried to keep her voice level, attempting to fight down the tide of sensations and emotions that were rising inside her. ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’ Her words were intended to shock him back into polite conversation but they did nothing of the kind.

  ‘If I was trying to seduce you, you wo
uld already be . . . ’ on your back by now, he almost finished. But his hand, grazing her cheek and then pushing back her vibrant black hair, revealed a pearl earring; an earring he himself had helped Kit choose. With a flash he remembered that she was his friend’s sister, and that he was here to help her; not to taunt her with her passionate nature, a nature which he himself had unforgivably roused. He had forgotten how to behave in polite company, it seemed.

  He took his hand away from her face and, reaching up, took down the candles and tinder box. Within a few seconds he had managed to get one of the candles to light. The others, their wicks dampened by the air, took longer, but at last burst into flame. Letting a little of the molten wax drop onto a rock shelf at shoulder level he stuck the candles securely to the rock.

  ‘How long will it take the tide to go down?’ he asked, returning the conversation into more normal channels.

  ‘Enough for us to be able to get back? A little over an hour.’

  ‘Will you not be missed?’

  ‘No. I told Trudie I was going for a walk. I am often gone for an hour or more, when I can spare the time.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad your life is not all work. Will you not sit down?’ He swirled his coat down onto the sand, making a soft, dry blanket for her to sit on.

  She sighed; and then smiled. ‘So am I!’ She settled herself on the greatcoat, sitting down with her knees pulled up to her chest. ‘But tell me,’ she said, eager to turn the conversation away from the unsettling paths it had so far seemed inclined to follow, ’what were you doing on the seashore anyway?’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘I, too, was taking a walk.’ As he spoke he sat down on a boulder, one foot raised on a smaller stone. ‘It’s just lucky for me that you saw me when you did. I wouldn’t have liked to have tried to swim against the tide.’

  ‘It’s dangerous here,’ she acknowledged. ‘There are a number of treacherous undercurrents. We were both frightened of them – Kit and I, that is – on the day we discovered the cave.’

  ‘You were cut off?’

  She nodded. ‘Kit at the time was only twelve and I was ten. To make matters worse, we hadn’t told anyone where we were going. But then we discovered the crack and found the cave behind it. After that, we came here regularly. I did wonder –’

  ‘Yes?’

  She gave a twisted smile. ‘I did wonder, when he disappeared shortly after Christmas, if Kit had come down here. It was a favourite haunt when either of us was in trouble of any kind. I came to look for him as soon as I thought of it, but there was no sign of him. That’s when I accepted he’d really gone.’ She wrapped her arms round her knees, hugging them to her. Her cloak fell in loose folds round her, the swansdown lining not only helping to keep her warm but also helping to keep her dry. ‘But I’m still worried about him. And still concerned about Mr Windham.’

  She had the feeling that he could say more about Mr Windham if he had a mind to, but at the moment he was keeping silent.

  ‘You said Mr Windham was vicious, and I felt it, too,’ she said. ‘But if he is not in the pay of the money-lenders, then who is he?’

  He sat up straight, looking at her appraisingly, as if wondering what to tell her. Then he seemed to come to a decision. He threw down the piece of sea grass he had been toying with and looked her directly in her clear blue eyes. ‘Tell me, Miss Travis,’ he asked her, ‘what do you know about the Jacobins?’

  Marianne was startled. ‘The Jacobins? What do they have to do with this?’

  ‘You have heard of them?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. It is the Jacobins who are behind the troubles in France. I know about them because my mother’s governess was French,’ she explained. ‘Marie-Anne taught my mama for many years. As Mama grew older the two of them became good friends. So that when Marie-Anne unexpectedly inherited a fortune and returned to France the two of them stayed in touch.’

  ‘Marie-Anne,’ said Lord Ravensford thoughtfully. ‘Are you named after her?’

  Marianne nodded. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘How could you?’

  ‘As you say,’ he remarked. ‘How could I? And so they stayed in touch?’

  ‘Yes. Mama and Papa used to visit Marie-Anne, and in time her new husband, the Comte de Trevourny, and their daughter Adèle. And when Kit and I were old enough, Mama and Papa took us on their visits as well. When Mama died we did not go to France for a while, but the Comte and Marie-Anne persuaded Papa that it would be good for us if the visits continued. There is nothing like spending holidays in France for picking up an authentic French accent, they said. Kit and I enjoyed the visits. Kit always loved playing with Adèle. She was – is, I hope – a very pretty girl. I often used to think . . . but that is all beside the point. The point is that I know all about the Jacobins, and unfortunately at first hand.’

  ‘You came across them when you were in France?’

  She nodded. ‘It was in the summer of 1788, the last time we visited France. It was a strange summer for weather. There were hailstorms and drought and the harvest was spoiled. There was a lot of unrest. The poor people were suffering from rising bread prices, and they knew the bad harvest would make the problem worse over the winter. It was then the Jacobins began to meddle, whipping up feelings and stirring up trouble.’

  ‘The Jacobins wanted to further their own political ends,' nodded Luke. 'They wanted to overthrow the ruling classes and take power into their own hands. And they were happy to use the poor to further their own cause.’

  ‘Even so, things weren’t so bad at the time. It was more a case of the Jacobins whipping up feeling than actually causing harm, but the atmosphere in the countryside was unpleasant, and the Comte warned us not to venture off the estate. After that, we returned to England, but we heard from Marie-Anne that things were growing worse. There were violent riots throughout the winter and before long the country was in a state of upheaval.’

  Marianne fell silent for a minute. Then she sighed and continued. ‘It is such a shame. We hoped the trouble would have blown over by the following summer, but Papa received a letter from Marie-Anne telling him it would not be safe for us to visit them. There were riots everywhere, and the peasants were attacking the nobility, burning property and killing animals.’

  ‘Encouraged by the Jacobins,’ nodded Luke. ‘They are vicious people. Devious, underhand and evil.’

  Marianne nodded. ‘Marie-Anne met one of the worst of them, a fastidious and ambitious man named Robespierre. She told us about him in her letters – that is, before her letters stopped. We were all very worried about her and her family. Then came the Grand Peur, the Great Fear. So many members of the nobility were killed or injured during that time. Many of them brought it upon themselves, but Marie-Anne’s family were decent people and it seemed unfair they should be in danger when they had done no harm. But fortunately they came through unscathed. After that, we hoped that affairs in France would soon settle down.’

  ‘But instead they got worse,’ said Luke.

  Marianne nodded. ‘And now we have not heard from Marie-Anne and her family for over six months. At first we thought they were just having trouble getting a letter through, but since the execution of King Louis . . . ’ She shivered.

  He put his hand over hers. To her surprise his touch was reassuring instead of searing. It seemed that he could control the effect he had on her; something which made her feel even more vulnerable. But for now she drew comfort from his touch.

  ‘Your hands are like ice,’ he said.

  He took them between his own. His warmth flowed into her.

  ‘But why did you ask what I knew about the Jacobins?’ she asked, drawing her attention away from his firm, strong hands and trying to concentrate on their conversation.

  ‘Because,’ he said, ‘that is what Windham is.’

  She looked at him in horror. ‘A Jacobin?’

  ‘Yes. His real name is not Windham, but Rouget. Philipp
e Rouget.’

  ‘But . . . what is he doing over here?’

  She saw Luke looking at her intently. She had the curious feeling he was on the verge of telling her something important, but then he seemed to change his mind. ‘He’s trying to drum up support for the Jacobin cause.’

  ‘And why was he asking about Kit? Did he want to try and win him to the Jacobin cause, so that Kit would make sure that French nobles fleeing the terror could not land their boats in one of our coves?’

  ‘Yes, very likely,’ said Luke.

  ‘I hope he does not bother my father.’

  ‘I think it unlikely. The rumour is that Windham will soon be returning to France. Even so, it would be best not to speak to him if you should happen to see him again. If he tries to gain any information from you, about anyone or anything, then do not give it to him. He is up to no good, of that you can be certain. But now, let’s forget about him.’