But he was clearly afterher.
Even more alarming, he knew hername.
Not wanting to show fear, she lifted her chin. “How do you know who I am? What are you doing here, chasing me down thebeach?”
“Miss Raines…lass…” He raised his hands, palms outward. “I made enquiries after Samhain, seeking to find you. I learned your name from an old friend. Leastways your familyname.”
Ophelia wasn’t about to tell him more. “Did you follow me to StonyBay?”
“Nae.” He sighed. “On my mother’s sainted soul, I mean you nae harm. I had business here, with Widow Muir if you know her. I was on my way home, walking along the road, when I sawyou.”
Ophelia pushed back her hair, her pulse racing. “I know Kirsty Muir,” she said, still not ready to credit his mention of the widow as proof of hischaracter.
Stony Bay was so tiny a sneeze at one end could be heard at theother.
The widow’s name would be known byall.
Tossing it to her like a bone to a dog provednothing.
“She will tell you I am nae fiend.” The rogue – she thought of him asMr. Wiggle– took a few steps toward her, his hands still raised. “Go ask her now. I will wait here until you return. We will speak then. Indeed, wemust.”
“Why?”
He came closer, his agitation clearly growing. “Because…” He made a sound that could have been a curse beneath his breath. “I wish to clear up a few things betweenus.”
“No need.” Ophelia leapt backward, almost tripping over a seaweed-covered rock exposed by the tide. “Nothing binds us except to forget we chanced to visit St. Nicholas Kirkyard on All Hallows’ Eve. I have already put it behindme.”
“I cannae.” He came closer, his gaze locked on hers. “I suspect you feel thesame.”
“I do not.” Ophelia glanced about, seeing no one. Nothing stirred except windblown sand, the fishing boats that bobbed at their moorings. Nearby, seabirds pecked at a mound of glistening seaweed. “I put you from my mind before I scrambled over the kirkyard wall.” She hardly heard her words for the hammering of blood in her ears. “I am not happy to see younow.”
Yet…
He did soundsincere.
Not that she trustedhim.
Worse, he was even more attractive by daylight. His dark hair and eyes, and the small, curled scar on his cheek, gave him the look of a romantic pirate of old. The image enhanced by the sparkling sea behind him, the cold salt wind tearing at hiscloak.
Why hadn’t she thought of a smuggler or wrecker? The heinous sort of blackguards who used false light to lure unsuspecting ships onto rocks, then plundered the spoils while ‘silencing’ anysurvivors.
Such an image should have popped into hermind.
Annoyed that it hadn’t, she pressed a hand to her breast and tried to imagine him as a toad. A short, fat, and odious man, his nose bulbous, and with bloodshot eyes, his spindly legs at stark contrast to his great and jiggly belly. But, of course, she failed miserably. Greyson Merrick – she knew his name – was anything but anogre.
He was the most dashing man she’d everseen.
There was just something about him that drew her. He’d even followed her into her dreams, stirred long-cold hopes and wishes she did not want tokindle.
She’d enjoyed his kiss, losing herself to itsmagic.
And that only angeredher.
“You are a beast.” She took another few backward steps, afraid he’d pounce if she flat-out ran. “A rogue who took advantage of my need to avoid discovery. I should not have been out. Encountering you was my punishment, the cost of mydaring.”
“Och, nae, sweetness.” He shook his head. “A kiss at midnight, on such a special night, can ne’er be seen as that. A blessing, it was. A gift from thegods.”
“The gods were damning me.” She was sure. “Or maybe they were laughing? Looking for amusement on a night all know belongs to them and not mortalfools.”
