CHAPTER NINE

“O’Roarke Hall?”

“Well, Divers O'Roarke Hall, then." He raised his glass. Yes, physicality was everything in this business which was also why he flashed another smile as he did it, rocked on his heels too. “No sense quibbling about it. I don’t know about you but for me, Doom Bar sounds what it is. Now … “ He lifted the lid off the nearest tureen. “Let's eat, shall we?"

Pea soup. Not his favourite but Gil had made no claims to be a cook and the smell could be worse. At least it smelled warm with a hint of mint even if it probably had no salt, stock and damn all peas, given the fact it looked like he’d dragged a bucket of water out the well and flung it in the tureen. Then there were the lamb cutlets he and Gil had slaved over. At least he supposed it was lamb. It had been hanging up on a hook in the cold press. It might be anything. The beauty of this? Beyond giving him something to extend the evening, what it was didn't matter.

“You have no problem with that, Destiny?”

“Me? Why should I?”

“Because you haven’t drunk your wine.”

”Oh? Well, then? I better rectify that.“ As she wound translucent fingers round the glass, her smile dripped more honey than a ten foot honeycomb. “Here was me thinking you meant the food because, let’s face it, it doesn’t smell the best does it?”

He shot her another glance. Clever, wasn't she, with all her amenability and pretence at being that teeny bit tipsy? But not as smart as him figuring out her stomach was probably empty as a drum and that wine would rocket straight to her head. And there was a cellar of it on the table. How did he know right now this was pretence? This was his world. As for that amenability, he was going to have to take a hammer to? His world too. By the time he'd finished with her she'd be singing like a canary. And the smuggling trails and spidery, shadowy web that operated here, the ways experience had taught him a local knew better than anyone, these would all be his.

He edged into the seat at her side, where he’d positioned his place. Preferable to sitting in what felt like another country. A sort of frozen wilderness for all it was a late autumn evening. Did people really need dining rooms that sat half a city? Even on a summer evening when the very bricks should swelter, the room probably needed heated. Things he would shortly use to his advantage here, although he wasn’t fool enough to believe this was going to be plain sailing. Not given the hand he was going to have to prise loose from the tiller first.

“So?” She dabbed her mouth with the back of that hand, set the glass down. An empty glass though. “About your plans? What do you intend?”

“Lots. I mean the place needs a good shake up, brought into the present century, don’t you think? We should drink a toast to that too.” He stretched out his legs and reached for the bottle.

She shrugged, averting her gaze. “You know, you are probably right about that wine.”

In fact he had the distinct impression she was about to put her hand over her glass. He waited, his own hand hovering. “I’m sorry?”

“Orwell buys it. Well … at least that’s as much as I know. At least, I assume he buys it. One never knows round here, the amount of blind eyes that get turned to government business even by law abiding citizens. You have to be careful who you can trust when just recently the penalties have become so very severe. I don't know if you remember him, but last month they hung Griffin St. Gerren. Can you imagine? For smuggling that rubbish too.”

So she did have fingers in smuggling pies? What else could she mean by blind eyes, law abiding citizens and trust? As for Griffin St. Gerren? He wasn’t just a smuggler. Not the corpses he’d left on various beaches, damn the government for making it illegal to claim salvage from a wrecked ship if anyone was alive on it. Still, this wasn't taking long, was it? Three little words, Doom Bar Hall, plus one glass of piss poor wine she plainly knew he was trying to ply her with and she was ready to sing like a canary. Unless she somehow thought he was plying her to get into her drawers? A man of his sterling undercover qualities?

“Just the same, here." He reached forward.

The time had come to get gold out of this miser’s tooth. Refuse another drink and--well? It would make it very plain to him she was onto him. And she wouldn't want to do that, now would she?

He smothered a chuckle. The first to want to burst from him in so long. “Unless you want to forget about the wine, if it’s that--?”

“No. No. It’s fine. Honestly. Just fill up me glass. There’s nothing like breaking the habits of a lifetime.”

“Just what I like to hear. Cheers." He nudged his glass against hers. “To the future. Divers O'Roarke Hall. I think I'm going to start--properly that is--with in here.”

“Really?” She lifted her glass to her smiling lips. “But I thought you'd already started in—“

“Now then, Destiny, I said properly, didn’t I? And properly it will be. No more, no less, the justice I intend doing this place, building on the work of generations.”

“Oh. Well, cheers then.”

“Yes.” The mouthful he swallowed was long and satisfying. “These chairs, for example, the ones that came on the ark, I’m thinking ‘bonfire’. Along with the paintings. All these frowning ancestors. Getting rid of them will go a long way to taking the chill off the place. And I’m not even talking striking a flint. I mean it’s not as if they’re my ancestors after all.”

“Bonfire?” One little word that was surely as good as the Doom Bar Hall three. A little word that would have her singing sooner when he put his proposition on the table because there would be nothing for her to do but sing. “Well, I suppose … now you come to mention it … it is quite cold in here.”

“Then, have some more wine.” He pushed the wine bottle towards her. “Yes. As for the colors, well, while I am a great fan of the French style, I don’t know about you but I think this room would look best, painted plain, ordinary white.”

Christ. Had he really said all that? As if he really knew what he was talking about. But then not many people around here would know whether he did, or not. Not even her. And that was the beauty of this.

Confidence, the first he’d felt since Eirwin, flooded. What kind of foolhardy way had he been carrying on lately? Certainly it was not in a way that reminded him of how good he was at his work, or that he was going to pull this job off. He had fallen low indeed. But this was an end of it.

“Amazing.” It was such an end that, while the smile she offered was dripping with heat and honey, everything that was earthy about her, he saw beyond it to what wasn't. What wanted to take him by the throat and squeeze hard. “You don’t think you would want to be in Divers O’Roarke Hall for a while first, though? Get the feel of the place before doing anything so major? I mean white walls and the French style, while all very nice … ”

“Just who is the designer here, Destiny? Hmm?”

“You tell me,” she chuckled. ”I thought it was you? But then again …”

A nice try. But when he’d been beaten senseless, left for dead, had his ribs broken and his eye nearly kicked out, when he’d seen with his other one just how paltry bloody awful it was to be the law and the blood he’d failed to staunch seeping from Eirwin’s shattered breast bone, did Destiny Rhodes really think it mattered whether she believed him or not?

Last night maybe? Yes, that was a mistake because he’d never expected to see what his curse had done, never expected to stand in this house again and face her, to find himself confronted by so many ghosts—and not just Rose. But tonight? It was time to land the fish. In many ways having this house from her was revenge for Rose.

He was here to work after all, even if her provocative essence was winding round his senses.

Maybe he was working though? Like old times? And that warmth and laughter oozing from her wasn’t feigned? And all this wine on an empty stomach was making her more foxed than a pickled ferret? He just wasn’t seeing it for the snake of that scent round his nose. But there was a good way to find out. Insult her further. He reached to refill both their glasses. It wasn’t like he wasn’t a master at keeping his own head clear.

“You know, it’s too bad you don’t like my ideas. God knows, but your family were never ones for design.”

“Well, we can't all be good at everything.”

“Or maybe at nothing at all?”

“If you say so. But then I never had the benefit of an education. I mean I’d have liked to … Hic. But me father? Well, that daft old bugger thought I should get married. I mean? I mean, come on now, although of course, then I did. To the richest man in Devon at that. So just maybe he wasn't that daft and I didn’t need an education, after all?”

Would she really find all this so damned funny, she nearly ended herself, if she wasn't soused? The woman was a grieving widow. One that same rich man's family had given a pittance to.

“Well, Destiny—“

“Oh, that’s me all right. Destiny by name. Destiny by nature.”

“The thing is—“

“Ooh.”

“I will be away a lot in London, mainly using here for entertaining.”

“Lucky you. Hic. Gosh, you can see what I mean about this wine. It's sodding rancid, so it is. In fact a definite bouquet of—“ She sniffed the glass cautiously, then threw the contents down her throat. “Cat’s pee.”

“Now. I don’t know about the state of your wine cellar—“

“Not very good. Certainly not worth getting hung over. Did you hear that? Hungover? That was a joke by the way.”

“Indeed if you even have one, but it’s important—“

“Oh, I couldn't agree more. Cheers.”

“I leave the place in good hands when I’m gone. The hands of someone who knows how to cut certain corners. Someone who knows and understands they’re being given a good deal, given they’re no longer in control. Someone local who knows where to come by certain things at a good price for that entertaining, shall we say? The drink especially.”

“Oh, the drink is all we need. Long live the drink. Here. Fill up me glass.”

“What do you say, Destiny?”

She raised her chin, fixed her hot, glazed look on him as only she could in the darkening shadows. She even chuckled faintly right at the back of her throat. Trust him? Or not? Put the fishing net away or not? Even if she had every reason to tell him where to go, having that reason and acting on it, were two very different things. And did he really want so very much? How the hell else was she able to hang on here if she really was that impoverished? Besides, look at her. Did she even know what she was doing?

Any moment … Any moment now …

No wonder his mouth was dry with anticipation. She set her elbow on the table and in that instant her mouth hardened, her cheekbones sharpened and the light went out in her eyes.

“Tell me about your wife, Divers.”