Kinship?
Lust?
There was no denying the lust. While Westbridge might well be a stickler for propriety, Clarissa was prepared to concede that with Seb right at this moment, or during their one incendiary kiss, she had no such qualms. Lying next to each other almost touching, nothing but stark honesty and a few layers of clothes between them, every nerve ending was positively humming with lusty curiosity for this man who knew the real her and accepted her regardless. To truly be herself for the first time in years...
That was a heady aphrodisiac.
Should she tell him she had atendre?
Yes!
No.
Maybe... Just not now. He was working. Doing his duty—but once they were done Clarissa made up her mind to confess the final secret as yet unsaid. She wanted him. And she didn’t want Westbridge. There was no way she could settle for the sort of marriage the Duke offered, not when she would always yearn for her spy and those laughter lines.
‘I can see movement.’ Seb’s voice cut through her thoughts. He pointed to the furthest visible edge of the cliffs. ‘Look. Is that a ship?’
Clarissa stared intently, trying to separate the waves from the shadows in the blur of the rain. With no moonlight and the dense blanket of low clouds, visibility was poor to non-existent. It was the brief bright flicker which confirmed it, casting the bottom of the sails and the rigging in an eerie, lacy light for just a second before the sky was plunged into blackness once again. After that, it all happened quickly.
The answering flash on the cliffs was less than half a mile from where she and Seb were hidden, followed by the ghostly spectre of a ship gradually looming closer to the shore until it weighed anchor and bobbed several yards from the cliff on the storm-whipped waters below. From their vantage point it was impossible to see the thin strip of beach which separated the cliffs from the sea without emerging from their cocoon and risking being seen. There was no movement above, suggesting that whoever was waiting to meet the vessel had not come by route of the Downs. But their view of the ship was spectacular. Like ants, the crew swarmed across its deck. It was difficult to make out exactly what they were doing, suffice to say whatever it was it was being done in a great hurry. Within minutes, three large rowing boats drew up alongside the ship and were quickly involved in receiving whatever was being winched down to them.
Almost as quickly as it had arrived, the ship began to sail away while the men in the smaller boats rowed to shore and out of sight. ‘Stay here. I’m going to see if I can get a better view.’ Crouching low, Seb took himself to the edge of the cliff face and peered dangerously over the side to the steep drop beyond. The dratted man knew no fear, yet his carelessness terrified her.
‘Come back here!’
The wind ruffled his dark hair and blew her whisper back into her face.
‘Seb!’
Either he couldn’t hear or he was purposefully ignoring her, crouched as he was on the precipice while the weather billowed around him. There was nothing for it, she was going to have to drag him back. The wind, the cliff edge, the perilous rocks and churning water below were all too dangerous and making her nauseous. Things he appeared blissfully ignorant of. At the same moment she scrambled out of the oil skin, Clarissa felt all the tiny hairs prickle on the back of her neck a split second before the enormous fork of lightning split the sky overhead. The image burned itself on to her eyes, forcing her to blink to clear it, while the wind plastered her hair against her wet face. She swiped it away and then suffered the agonising pain of her heart ripping in two.
Because the edge of the cliff was eerily empty and the love of her life was gone.
