Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (28 page)

The ruined yacht. Good Lord, the intrepid woman hadn't wasted her time wandering around on the moor. She'd gone and taken refuge right in the shipwrecked yacht that sat in the cove below the house, flaunting her independence under his very nose.

Score a point for Miss Windsor's resourcefulness.

Rylan shook his head, his gray eyes ruefully amused. It could be worse, he told himself. At least he could keep an eye on her every move, even if he couldn't touch her, and he would go insane. But he did worry about the weather, unpredictable at this time of the year.

He wanted her back.

He missed her terribly.

He paced to the edge of the cliff path and stared up at the sullen morning sky. Clouds massed on the horizon. A gale could blow up and dislodge the yacht before she knew it. The rising wind smelled of a storm.

Sydney could be washed out to sea during the night and lost to him forever, just as the Burgundian princess of legend was lost to the lonely warlord who was said to haunt this very spot. Rylan was beside himself with concern. He wouldn't rest until he brought her back home.

All of a sudden Sydney popped out of the cabin, a cloth in her hand. She waved gaily up at the cliff from the splintered deck. Her long brown hair danced in the wind. Rylan felt a tug of longing deep in his gut. She made him feel so good.

"Good morning, Lord DeWilde!" she shouted. "We're neighbors now—in a manner of speaking. Perhaps you'll pay me a proper visit after I tidy up a bit. This place is—a wreck."

His mouth tightened in an unwilling smile as he hurried down the path toward her. "What do you think you're doing?"

Sydney walked unevenly over the listing deck to grin down at him. He stared at her moist pink mouth, remembering the taste of it. "How nice of you to come calling, my lord," she said. "Unfortunately, I'm not receiving visitors today."

"I miss you, Sydney."

"I'm sorry to hear that." She was really delighted.

"I haven't eaten a thing since you've been gone," he said.

She tossed her hair back. "It's only been two hours, Rylan."

He gave her a heart-melting grin. "I'm wasting away to a mere shadow of myself."

She made a show of eyeing him.

It was difficult to muster up much sympathy for six feet two inches of solid muscle and sinew.

"Frankenstein misses you, too," he said. As if on cue, the dog dropped its heavy head down on the sand between its paws. "He wants to sleep beside you again tonight. So do I."

He managed to look forlorn for several seconds. Sydney steeled herself against this subtle but potent method of seduction.

"Frankenstein is welcome to sleep in the cabin tonight," she said sweetly. "You, however, are not."

He folded his arms over his chest, and what a masculine chest it was, she couldn't help noticing. The rising breeze lifted his straight black hair from his shoulders.

He stood like a pirate with his powerful legs planted apart, looking arrogant and ready to plunder. Sydney realized she might have quite a fight on her hands, and most of it with herself.

"You can't stay here," he said, frowning.

"Why not?" She bit her lip to break the spell of his sinful appeal. "Do you own the beach, Lord DeWilde? Would you like me to pay you for harboring this ship— shipwreck—in your cove?"

"Come back to the house with me," he said, holding out his hand.

She clutched the cloth to her chest. She wouldn't show him how tempted she was to go anywhere he would take her. "Why?" she asked warily.

"You won't be safe here," he said, tsking in concern. "I'm worried about you."

She backed up against the railing. "You said yourself that there's nothing around here for miles."

"Sydney." He spoke her Christian name with a sensual smile that she almost could not resist. "You might get cold during the night. The sea air. The fog. You're a delicate woman. You need to be sheltered from the elements."

"I'll use an extra blanket."

Rylan gave her a worried look. "What about the ghost?"

"Ghost?" Sydney felt gooseflesh ripple down her forearms. "What ghost?"

"The warlord's ghost. He haunts these cliffs searching for his lost princess."

Sydney shivered as she remembered the strange blue light during the shipwreck, and the gauntleted hand that had saved her. "Perhaps he's a friendly spirit. And what would a warlord's ghost want with me?"

Rylan arched a thick eyebrow. "He might want to mate with you—in an otherworldly sort of way."

Sydney scoffed at this dramatic nonsense. Imagine having sexual relations with a spirit.

"It's the sea that poses the greatest risk," he added gravely. "A storm could dislodge the yacht and drag you back into the waves. You'd sink before I could reach you."

"Save such dire imaginings for your next novel," Sydney said calmly. "I shall be perfectly safe in my little shipwreck."

Rylan had planned to ride to the moorland burial cairn that night to observe the villagers' attempt to exorcise the warlord's ghost the following morning. The people of St. Kilmerryn blamed the ghost for their poor fishing harvests and stormy weather. The ghost-laying was to provide inspiration for the next scene in
The Raven Never Sleeps
, which Rylan would complete in a rough draft for Valentine and Geoffrey to edit.

But he had no horse. And he was obsessed in watching Miss Windsor from his window with a pair of field glasses.

How could he think about corpses and tormented creatures when that woman was driving him to distraction? Not that he didn't enjoy the distraction. He'd been working too hard lately. A few more months alone in this house and he'd become a permanent eccentric.

His eyes narrowed. "Lord," he said to himself. "She's hanging her stockings out to dry on the mast." And instantly he pictured her undressing for bed in that draughty little cabin. He saw her pointy breasts and heard the helpless sighs of pleasure she had uttered on the sofa. He wanted to feel her legs wrapped around his waist. More than anything he wanted to sink inside her and stay there forever.

He growled aloud, as irate as a caged beast.

Mrs. Chynoweth gave a sniff of disapproval behind him. She'd gotten used to hearing him growl when his writing went wrong, so she didn't jump in horror as she had her first days in this house. " 'Tisn't right, my lord. That young woman alone and unprotected in the ruined cabin. She ought to be sleeping here tonight."

"Indeed she should," he said heartily, although they were both thinking about Sydney's sleeping arrangements in an entirely different context.

He and Sydney would wake up in the middle of the night holding each other. Rylan would make slow, gentle love to her until dawn. He'd kiss her from head to toe and everywhere in between and ask her advice on the scene where his creature seduces a schoolmistress because she was so sweet and innocent and caring, which was exactly the sort of woman Rylan's heroes couldn't resist.

They might discuss their plans for the future and how he'd always hoped to have a big family. He decided to keep her away from his brothers until after the wedding—the
private
wedding. The practical jokers would probably try to abduct her and hold for hostage.

The sky had turned gray. A gust of wind banged at the shutters and a few drops of rain splattered against the windowsill.

"I knew a storm was coming," he said. "She can't stay in that wreck."

Mrs. Chynoweth put down the coal bin she'd brought to the hearth. "My husband took her some hot tea and pasties. Miss Windsor seemed quite determined to stay by herself." She paused. "The villagers are saying that she's the spirit of the Burgundian princess who was drowned at sea while her betrothed waited on the cliff. They think the warlord is going to come and get her tonight."

Rylan threw the field glasses on his chair. "Well, he's not going to take her away from me. I'm bringing her home even if I have to drag her here."

Dusk had fallen over the cove.

Sydney sniffed with emotion as she read the last page of the story; the ending never failed to touch her heart. It was a book with startling perceptions and profound insights that provoked the mind.

The story of the corpse's return to the otherworld after trying to redeem his soul would haunt her for a long time. She felt his need for forgiveness and understanding.

Only a man with deep passions and compassion could write like this.

She closed her moist eyes. She pictured DeWilde's sinfully handsome face. She felt his dangerous male energy. She didn't care if all the villains in the DeWilde books were based on his character. She had developed a weakness for villains.

"Brilliant." She reached blindly for a handkerchief to blow her nose. "The man is not only beautiful but brilliant."

She gave her nose a noisy blow, not hearing the man himself answer from the unhinged cabin door.

"Thank you. I'm glad you liked it."

She clasped her hands over her chest, sniffing loudly. "He speaks to my secret heart."

"Sydney."

She sat up slowly. "I can even hear his voice."

"It is my voice, you nitwit."

Sydney suppressed a shriek. Her brain went into shock. In her unfastened gown, with bare feet and unbrushed hair, she wasn't prepared for his visit. An empty teacup and an embarrassing mound of gnawed apple cores were strewn on the sofa.

She jumped up to confront him.

He was dressed in a white shirt and snug black velvet breeches that were molded to his powerful thighs. His long black hair was tangled from the wind. His lean face wore an expression of chilling urgency. He was the most dangerous thing that she, having had a relatively sheltered life, had ever seen.

"Oh, golly," she whispered.

She realized she was trapped. Not only by his physical superiority, but by her own imagination. She tingled all over with the thrill of anticipation that reached to her toes.

Shipwrecked… and now seduced!

"I think we should talk about this first," she said, bumping into the wall.

"We don't have time to talk," he shouted. "We're going to die if we don't act now. Nature doesn't wait for a tete-a-tete before unleashing herself."

Sydney's heart dropped at that. She wasn't sure she could withstand a session of Nature unleashed in the form of Wicked DeWilde. The very foundations beneath her feet seemed to tremble. Blood roared in her head, and she lost her sense of balance.

She closed her eyes. "I realize that a man like you experiences dark passions. And even though I may appear to be a sophisticated woman—"

"You appear to be a cork-brain, Sydney!" he roared.

She gasped as he lunged at her, or at least she assumed he lunged at her. Actually, he was thrown by the impact of a wave against the yacht. Her thought processes stopped as his body slammed into hers. They pitched backward onto the sofa, and stars exploded behind her eyes.

"Tell me this is another dream," she said with a groan, disentangling their limbs.

Rylan picked an apple core out of his hair. "Neither of us is going to live long enough to worry about dreaming if we don't get out of here," he said.

A blast of wind broke through the cracked porthole. The candles in the girandole on the wall went out, plunging the cabin into darkness.

"What was that?" she whispered.

"The sea. There's a storm moving in even faster than I expected. Didn't you notice it?"

Sydney's eyes widened as she felt the violent pounding against the yacht. "I was too caught up in
Confessions of a Scottish Corpse
."

He grabbed her arm, wrenching her toward the door. "We are going to be genuine corpses if we don't get out of here."

A wave crashed against the cabin door, spraying a spume of water into the air. A rock appeared behind the porthole.

"Hell's bells," Rylan bellowed. "We're being washed out to sea!"

Sydney stared down at the cold seawater rushing around their feet. "I think you might be right."

The cabin floor lurched to the left. Sydney stumbled back into the solid blockade of Rylan's body.

He clasped her against his chest. "Does that convince you we're in danger?" he demanded.

She stared up into his face. His chest felt like steel. "Oh, I'm in danger, all right."

He steered her toward the door, only to force her back down on the sofa as an enormous wave flooded the cabin. Within seconds chilly water gushed up to their waists. Sydney began to shiver at the shock of the cold.

"Take off your clothes," he ordered her.

"Why?"

"We're going to swim," he said in exasperation. "I can't have your petticoats dragging you down."

"Swim?"

He nodded and ripped off his boots. "If we get pulled into one of the caves, we're lost. The undercurrents are too strong to fight."

"It's so dark outside, Rylan. What happened to the sun?"

He tore off his cravat. "I'm going to tie this rope around your waist and mine. Be strong, Sydney. This isn't called the Devil's Elbow for nothing."

Rylan stripped down to his drawers. Sydney shed everything except her chemise and pantalettes.

She couldn't believe she was going to swim for her life in her unmentionables with Lord DeWilde in a Cornish sea.

Half-naked, bound together at the waist they escaped through the door and plunged into the witch's cauldron of wind-swept sea. The sky was almost black. The storm had already tossed the partially submerged yacht into the current, and Sydney would never have made it out of the cabin without Rylan's strength fighting to keep her at his side.

A small crowd witnessed the rescue.

In a year the story would become legend in St. Kilmerryn.

Farmers on ponies waited to be of assistance, wondering aloud if the Blue Knight had struck again. Ropes and life preservers were lowered from the cliff. Hounds howled over the roar of the dying wind and rain. Housewives held up lanterns whose golden light was reflected on the cove.

Rylan hauled Sydney onto a rocky ledge and took a breath. The yacht bobbed out to sea, truly ruined this time. Sydney stretched out on her side like a waterlogged mermaid and moaned.