If Daniel hadn’t spent the entire night unable to sleep, he might not have been standing at his window at sunrise in time to see a small familiar figure steal through the garden and across the drawbridge.
Rebecca. Leaving the castle.
Alone.
There was no time to wake his valet. Daniel paused only to tug on breeches, a linen shirt, and his greatcoat before racing out of the guest quarters and across the garden to the top of the drawbridge, where he’d last caught sight of her.
Heart pounding, he scanned the horizon. That a woman should never venture out unaccompanied wasn’t just some namby-pamby rule to guard fashionable ladies’ reputations. It helped protect the fairer sex from being set upon by robbers or worse. And out here on the abandoned Cornwall cliffs, where smugglers were known to row ashore…
A flash of black hair and white pelisse against the infinite blue of ocean and sky. There. That was Rebecca, striding off the walking path to the village and angling instead toward the cliffs and the caves in the distance.
He ran.
Daniel had no clue what the blasted woman was up to—he didn’t even know what the devil he was about—but the last thing he wanted was Rebecca in danger.
She had vanished from the horizon by the time he reached the cliffs at the edge of the sea. His boots knocked a cloud of dust into the nothingness. Vertigo assailed him as he searched for any sign of her on the rocks below.
A hint of white disappeared into a yawning black crevice amongst the rocky outcroppings of the unforgiving cliff.
Bloody hell. His hands went clammy. Daniel hated dangling from perilous heights over the ocean almost as much as he hated passing the night with restless spirits in a haunted castle.
He dropped to his knees and eased the toes of his Hessians down the cliff face until they found purchase on a slender ledge no wider than his palm. Bits of rock crumbled away from the weight of his body as he edged his way down until there were no more toeholds. His tight muscles began to tremble.
To reach the next flat grouping wide enough to walk upon with a slightly lower probability of breaking his neck in the process, he was going to have to release his death grip on the edge of the dusty cliff above, drop another six or eight feet straight down…and hope to land on jagged rock, rather than tumble into the depths of the sea.
Brilliant.
With a final, pleading glance up at the heavens, he kicked back from the ledge and released his fingers.
Salty air rushed past his ears before his boots landed hard on the rocks below, jarring his knees and causing him to flail for balance.
Once his panicked heart slowed to a slightly less apoplectic pace, he made his way to the crevice he’d glimpsed from above and slipped inside.
Darkness surrounded him.
Light from the fissure was quickly extinguished by shadow as the cave twisted and sloped its way toward the sea. He pressed onward.
Just when he thought the pitching turns in relentless blackness would never end, a blinding light filled the cave and dazzled his eyes.
He squinted to regain his vision. His lips parted in stunned disbelief.
An opening. The treacherous path had led to a fairy-tale opening the size of a portico. On the other side was a pristine stretch of placid, white sand beach. The gentle lull of frothy ocean ripples washing ashore was the only sound to break the tranquil silence.
He was certain not a single soul had ever set foot on this portrait-perfect, inaccessible beach. Except for Rebecca.
And now…him.
He cleared his throat as he stepped out of the cave. “Fancy meeting you on this…godforsaken path that only a madwoman with no care for her life at all would dare be foolish enough to take.”
She spun around, mouth falling open. “Daniel?”
“I told you London bucks tend to get lost in the country.” He cupped a hand to his eyes. “Is this the way to the apothecary?”
She burst out laughing. “Are you ill?”
“I must be. I just climbed down the face of a cliff and through a pitch-black cave because I thought you might require protecting.” He shuddered. “As it turns out, I shall require you to carry me back up.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Fortunately for you, there’s a slightly more viscount-friendly route on the other side of the beach. If you are a gentleman, I may show you how to find it.”
“I shall worship at your feet,” he promised fervently.
She gazed back at him with pursed lips. Probably because the last time they’d spoken, he’d finally voiced what they both knew to be true: they could never be more than friends.
No matter how much he might wish otherwise, their worlds were too different. They were too different. Rebecca would find London a living hell. And he could not be away from his responsibilities much longer.
Stolen moments could not last forever.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “What are you doing out here?”
“This isn’t just the prettiest beach in Bocka Morrow…it’s the most private. Only I know the path.” She gestured toward a small linen towel left at a safe distance from the lapping waves. “Since I know I won’t be disturbed, I like to come here to swim.”
Daniel clenched his jaw. He hadn’t been protecting her after all. He was invading her secluded sanctum.
“My apologies,” he said quietly. “I had no desire to disturb your privacy. If you’ll point me in the direction of the path back to the village, I will leave you to your bath.”
“Path…is putting it rather strongly,” she admitted. “It’s traversable, but unmarked. If I don’t accompany you, you’re just as likely to wander into a smuggler’s den as you are to find the village.”
Marvelous. He wasn’t only interrupting her solitude. He had become a liability.
“Well…you’re here,” she said. “Whether you meant to be or not.”
He lifted his palms in apology.
“And I’m here,” she continued. “Desperately in need of a distraction…or at least a bit of exercise.”
Hope fluttered in his belly. Perhaps he hadn’t pushed her further away after all.
With a sigh, she peeled off her pelisse and dropped it onto the sand, revealing a long flannel bathing dress beneath. “Fancy a swim, Daniel?”
He had never removed a greatcoat faster in his life. “Absolutely.”
The water was bollocks-shrinking cold, but he quickly forgot about the temperature in the joy of splashing around with Rebecca. She was a strong swimmer, even with lead weights for modesty sewn in the seams of her bathing dress, and she led him on a merry chase through the turquoise-blue sea before they finally swam toward the shore in exhaustion.
To say that the sight of her bathing dress clinging to every curve of her body managed to obliterate his exhaustion would be a gross understatement. But her teeth were chattering in the chill October wind, and as much as Daniel would have liked to personally be the one to heat her, the only shelter from the cold were the jagged walls of the narrow cave.
More importantly, Rebecca deserved far more than a thoughtless tup at the base of a cliff. She deserved a future. A husband. Someone who cherished her as deeply as Daniel did.
As he helped ease Rebecca’s trembling arms back into the warmth of her pelisse, he couldn’t help but realize how much Bocka Morrow meant to her. Now, more than ever, he realized her life was here. She wasn’t some missish chit who swooned in ballrooms or spent weeks determining which color of feather would best suit her bonnet.
Rebecca was wide open spaces. Secret paths down soaring cliffs. Jaw-dropping views. Clever labyrinths. Sunrise strolls. The majestic sea.
He loved her too much to want to change her…or try to tame her. She was a vivid wildflower in an ocean of lifeless roses. Her fearlessness and unpredictable nature were what he loved most about her.
She smiled up at him through dark lashes as they hiked side-by-side up a winding trail. “I’m glad you were here today. This is my favorite place. After you leave, we’ll still have that memory.”
He stumbled. The last thing he was thinking about was leaving. He’d just realized he was in love with her, damn it. And she was already moving on.
Daniel looked away. She was wise to carry on without him.
Soon, he would have to do the same.