There was something about the sea that had always called to her spirit. Somehow it reminded her of her littleness in the grand scheme of things, and yet strangely that was a soothing rather than a belittling thought. It made her feel a part of something vast, her own little worries and concerns of no great moment after all. When she was close to the sea, she could believe that all was well-and somehow always would be.
She could have lived contentedly in Cornwall for the rest of her life if only…
Well, if only.
She would not have lived there all her life anyway. She had been going to marry Henry Arnold, and he lived in Gloucestershire, where she had grown up.
She sat where she was for a long time until she realized that the evening was now well advanced. She was suddenly glad of her cloak. The day had been warm, but dusk was approaching, and the breeze blowing off the sea was fresh and slightly moist. It smelled and tasted salty.
She got to her feet, scrambled back up to the cliff path, and strolled onward, her face lifted to the breeze, alternating her gaze between the beauty of the gradually darkening sky above and the corresponding loveliness of the sea below, which seemed to be absorbing the light from the sky so that it turned silver even as the gray overhead deepened-one of the universe’s little mysteries.
If she were a painter, she thought, pausing again in order to look about with half-closed eyes, she would capture with her brush just this effect of light before dark. But she had never been much of an artist. Somewhere between her brain and the end of her arm, she had always said, her artistic vision died. Besides, a canvas would not be able to capture the salt smell of the air or the light touch of the breeze or the sharp cry of the seagulls that clung to the cliff face and occasionally wheeled overhead.
It was as she walked onward that she became aware that she was not the only person out taking the evening air. There was a man standing out on a slight promontory ahead of her. He was gazing out to sea, unaware of her presence.
Anne stood quite still, undecided whether to turn back in the hope that he would not see her at all or to hurry past him with a brief greeting and a hope not to be detained.
She did not believe she had seen him before. He was not either Lord Aidan Bedwyn or Lord Alleyne. But he was probably one of the other Bedwyns or their spouses. This was, after all, the duke’s land, though it was possible he allowed strangers to wander here beyond the cultivated bounds of the park.
It was still only dusk. There was light by which to see the man. And as she looked Anne found it difficult either to retreat or to advance. She stood and stared instead.
He was not dressed for evening. He wore breeches and top boots, a tight-fitting coat and waistcoat, and a white shirt and cravat. He was hatless. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and slender waist and hips and powerfully muscled legs. His dark, short hair was ruffled by the breeze.
But it was his face, seen in profile, that held Anne transfixed. With its finely chiseled features it was an extraordinarily handsome face. The word
He might well be, she thought, the most beautiful man she had ever set eyes upon.
She felt a craving to see him full face, but he was obviously still quite unaware of her presence. He looked as if he were in a world of his own, one that held him quite motionless, the gathering gray of the evening sky sharpening his silhouette as she gazed at him.
Something stirred inside her, something that had lain dormant in her for years and years-and something that must
She could not simply retreat, she decided. He would probably see her and think her behavior peculiar, even discourteous. She could only continue on her way and hope that a cheerful
Was he perhaps Lady Morgan’s husband? Or Lord Rannulf Bedwyn? Or the Duke of Bewcastle himself? Oh, please, she thought,
She wished then that she had decided to go back. But it was too late to do that. As she approached closer to the man, keeping to the footpath that would pass behind the promontory on which he stood, he became aware of her and turned rather sharply toward her.
She stopped short, not more than twenty feet from him.
And she stood transfixed again-but with horror this time. The empty right sleeve of his coat was pinned against his side. But it was the right side of his face that caused the horror. Perhaps it was a trick of the evening light, but it seemed to her that there was nothing there, though afterward she did recall seeing a black eye patch.
He was a man with half a face, the extraordinarily beautiful left side all the more grotesque because there was no right side to balance it. He was beauty and beast all rolled into one. And all of a sudden his height and those powerful thighs and broad shoulders seemed menacing rather than enticing. And equally suddenly the beauty of the gathering darkness and the peaceful solitude of the scene were filled with danger and the threat of an unknown evil.
She thought he took one step toward her. She did not wait to see if he would take another. She turned and ran, leaving the path and the cliff top behind her, half stumbling over the uneven ground, tugging at her cloak as it snagged against gorse bushes, and feeling the sharp sting of their scratches on her legs. Her stockings would be torn to ribbons, a part of her mind told her.
The trees surrounding the inner park were dark and threatening as she crashed through them, making all sorts of loud noises to reveal where she was. The lawn when she reached it looked dauntingly wide and very open, but she had no alternative but to dash across it and hope that at least she would be within screaming distance of the house before he caught up with her.
But her first panic was receding, and when she glanced quickly and fearfully over her shoulder, she could see that she was alone, that he had not followed her. And with that realization came a return of some rationality.
And deep shame.
Was she a child to believe in monsters?
He was merely a man who must have suffered some fearful accident. He had been out to take the air, as she had. He had been minding his own business, enjoying his own solitude, gazing quietly at the view, perhaps as affected by its loveliness as she had been. He had not said or done anything that was remotely threatening except to take that one step toward her. Probably all he had intended was to bid her a good evening and go on his way.
She felt quite mortified then.
She had run from him because he was maimed. She had judged him a monster purely on the strength of his outward appearance. And yet she had a reputation for tenderness toward the weak and handicapped. When she became a governess, she had deliberately taken a position with a child who was not normal according to the definition of normality that society had concocted. She had loved Prue Moore dearly. She still did. And she was forever instilling into the girls at school and into David her conviction that every human being was a precious soul worthy of respect and courtesy and love.
Yet she had just fled in panic because the man whose left profile was godlike had turned out to be horribly maimed on the right side. He had no right arm. What had she expected he would do to her?
Hunger and shame made her feel somewhat light-headed. But she closed her eyes, drew in deep lungfuls of sea air, and then opened her eyes and deliberately returned the way she had just come.
Darkness was definitely falling now, and she was aware that she ought not to be wandering thus in a strange place. But she had to go back and make amends if she could.
She came to the path she had been following. And there, she thought as she looked about to get her bearings, was surely the promontory. She looked to left and right and decided that yes, that was certainly the place where he had been standing.
But he was no longer there.
She could not see him anywhere.
She hung her head and stood where she was for some time. She might have said good evening to him and nodded genially. He probably would have replied in kind. And she might then have walked onward, content with her
