The Vanishing Viscountess

“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 glared at them. “You disturb our privacy.”

In actuality, he and the woman were the intruders. Tanner had given the old man little choice but to relinquish what was surely the bed he shared with the old woman. The night before all Tanner could think of was to cover the woman in blankets and warm her with his own body—and be warmed by hers. He’d left their clothing in a pile in the front room and carried her to the little bedchamber behind the fireplace, ordering the poor man to bring as many blankets as he owned.

The younger man—the farmer’s son, obviously—rubbed his head and winced, and the hairs on the back of Tanner’s neck stood on end. The son, he would swear, had been his seaside attacker. Tanner frowned. Their place of refuge suddenly seemed more like a lion’s den.

He quickly regained his composure. “What are you doing in this room?” he demanded again, checking his finger for his gold signet ring and feeling under the bedcovers for the purse he’d had sense enough to remove from his coat. He held it up. “Were you looking for the purse?”

The younger man backed away to where clothing hung by pegs on the plastered walls above two wooden chests.

“We merely came to see if you required anything, that is all.” The old woman simpered.

Tanner scoffed. “All three of you at once?”

The young man gave a chagrined expression and inclined his head.

Tanner glanced at his companion, still huddled under the blanket. He turned to the others. “Leave us,” he commanded.

The old man and woman scurried towards the door. Their son moved more slowly, his hand returning to his head.

“We require our clothing.” Tanner added.

The woman paused in the doorway. “Your things are still damp, m’lord.” She tipped her head in a servile pose. “I’ve hung them out in the sun and the wind. ’Twill take no time at all to dry.”

“Good.” Tanner’s tone turned a shade more conciliatory. “Treat us well and you will be rewarded.” He lifted the purse.

The son smiled. “What else do you require, m’lord?”

“Some nourishment, if you please.”