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The Ghost of Carnal Cove
By Evelyn Rogers
Dorchester Publishing
Copyright © 2002
Evelyn RogersAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8439-5115-X
Chapter One
A wind-borne cry, high-pitched and mournful, greeted Makenna
Lindsay the first time she walked onto the sands of Carnal
Cove.
A chill shivered through her. Was it the keen of a child? The
moan of a lost soul? Fanciful ideas both, but they would not
go away, though no one was in sight on the crescent stretch of
beach.
Nerves raw, she halted halfway to the water. Night was almost
upon her. She shouldn't even be here, considering all the work
that awaited her. A pounding heart told her to run back to the
path into the dunes, the narrow trail that twisted upward to
the sanctuary of her cottage. But that would be a cowardly
act, and she was not a coward.
Or so she kept telling herself. Leaving London had not been
cowardly. It had been smart.
The damp wind tore at her cloak and stung her cheeks. With the
setting sun at her back and the moon hidden by clouds, the
inlet was cast in shadows. Looking around her, all she could
pick out was the curved section of shell-strewn sand that
formed the isolated beach, less than two hundred yards in
width, the grassy dunes rising into rocky cliff, a dark sky
empty of birds.
And the water, of course, endless, rolling, the final boundary
of this small, secluded part of the world.
A massive structure sat atop the cliff thatrose from the far
end of the beach, a dark, rectangular dwelling whose unlit
windows and solid walls made it appear more an extension of
the rock than someone's home.
You'll be moving near Windward House, the ferryboat captain
had told her only hours before, when he learned of her
destination. 'Tis a dark and gloomy place, I'm told. There's
few who wander near. He had not offered further information;
uninterested, she had not asked for more.
She turned from the cliff and, despite herself, listened for
another cry, but heard only the incessant drone of the wind,
the pounding waves, the flapping of her cloak.
"Hello," she called out. "Is anyone there?"
Caught by the wind, her words whirled around her and died
without echo, leaving her all the more alone.
Sighing, she moved slowly across the beach, drawn onward by
the pull of the ocean, by the pounding of the waves on the
shore. Across the strait that separated the island from the
unseen English coast, the water pulsed in white-tipped peaks
banded by dark pits of shadow. A rickety pier stretched from
the shore some thirty yards into the water, the lone evidence
that man had ever walked these sands.
Her artist's heart quickened. She needed her paints to capture
the play of curving light and dark against the gray right
angles of the pier.
Later. Most certainly later. But not now, not her first day in
this alien setting that was to become her home.
She moved close to the water's edge, mesmerized by the
movement of the waves as they crashed onto the shore, reaching
the tips of her shoes, dampening the hem of her clothes. With
each thrust of the ocean, a thousand tiny pockets of air
foamed against the dark, wet sand. She watched them die, only
to be reborn in the next wave.
A strange sensation settled on her, as if she had come to a
place she knew well. But that was impossible. She had been
raised in London, had known only the cluttered boundaries of
the Thames, not this endless expanse of ocean, not this
pounding, not this wind. She had scarcely heard of the Isle of
Wight, except that it was off the southern coast of Hampshire
and was the site of Osborne House, the queen's summer home.
But then she'd had to leave the city, not knowing or caring
where she went, and in her packing had come across the deed
that brought her here. A fated finding? She did not believe in
fate. Men and women brought about their own destiny. One man,
one woman in particular. She had been as much at fault in her
despair as he.
She shook off the thought. Far more important matters faced
her now.
Darkness was falling fast. She ought to make her way to the
cottage in the remaining light. But she could not. Drawing the
stinging salt air deep into her lungs, she loosened the hood
of her cloak and let the wind catch her hair, tossing it about
as it did her skirts. She reveled in the prickle of moisture
against her cheeks. Always sedate, always reserved, she felt a
wildness smolder in her, a thrill of anticipation and
foreboding that set her heart pounding in her throat.
"Looking for sailors? I doubt you'll find them here."
With a cry, she whirled, her heavy-soled shoes marking a
circle in the damp sand. A man tall and dark as a thundercloud
loomed not ten feet away, his feet set apart and firmly
planted on the shore, as if no storm could move him from his
place. He wore no cloak, and the wind off the water molded his
dark shirt and trousers to his muscular body, whipping his
long, black hair as wildly as it tore at hers. Though his face
was shadowed in the dying light, she could feel his scowl
scorching the once-cold air.
The shock of his appearance stunned her into a momentary
speechlessness.
"What are you doing here?" she said at last, barely able to
raise her voice above the roar of water and wind.
He had no trouble being heard.
"Apparently disappointing you."
Disappointing wasn't quite the word she would have chosen.
Terrifying came closer to the truth. The cry had been bad
enough. The presence of a stranger-a man-standing so close was
more than she could bear. All the smoldering wildness of the
past moment shriveled to a trembling that even she saw as
pathetic. She wanted nothing to do with men, and here was
one-as manly a specimen as she had ever seen-standing a few
feet away in the secluded cove she had thought to be hers
alone.
Suddenly she realized what he had said to her. The heat of his
words forged the trembling into anger.
Water sucked the sand from beneath her feet. She had to move
closer to him to steady herself, daring him with the lift of
her chin to read anything personal into the few steps.
"You think I'm looking for sailors?"
She would have laughed had the accusation not been so
ludicrous. She would rather a slimy monster from the deep
crawl out of the foam onto the sand, a fact she proceeded to
tell him.
He was not impressed.
"Do you not know the appearance you make?" he said. "The
billowing cloak parting to disclose a woman's body, the hair
like silver blowing wantonly about a face upturned to the last
remains of the day?"
He made her sound enticing. It was a description as ludicrous
as his accusation. And as ridiculous as the fury she could
feel in him because she dared to walk about the beach.
Catching her hair in her hands, she held it tightly in place.
"Are you so foolish as to think I believe the legends that
give the cove its name?"
"The possibility exists. Stories of trysts between the village
girls and sailors have existed for decades. Some believe
them." His voice softened into insinuation. "Others wish they
were true."
"This is absurd. Who are you? One of the sailors lurking about
for a village girl? Look elsewhere. I am neither from the
village nor am I a girl."
Neither spoke for a moment, each letting the roar of nature
whirl around them. The power of the elements coursed in her
blood. More disturbing, she sensed strong feeling roiling in
him, a tumult beyond anger though she could not define it
further, any more than she could understand its source.
"Who are you?" He ran a hand through his hair, doing nothing
to tame it. "No, no, I do not care. You have wandered to a
place you do not belong. Go away."
He spoke with sharp authority, as if sharpness could bend her
to his will. She was not accustomed to such speech. The few
men and women close to her had been soft-spoken, though she
had learned softness had little to do with kindness. A knife
slipped softly into a human heart.
He did not know he gave his order to a woman beyond
intimidation, in any form. Her momentary fear had been because
he took her by surprise.
"I was not told anyone owned this cove," she said.
"I do so by right if not by deed."
She looked beyond him to the stretch of beach, past the pier
and up to the dark house atop the cliff at the cove's northern
edge. She should have asked the ferryboat captain more about
the place, but there had been other stories on his mind, tales
told with lascivious pleasure of the legendary copulations
that had taken place in the island cove. He'd actually used
that word, seeking she supposed to raise a blush to her cheeks
as he explained why the inlet once known as Craven Cove had
taken on a second name.
He had also mentioned rumors about the cottage, hinting of a
mystery that kept the villagers away. But he had said nothing
specific, and she had given his words the same scant attention
she gave Windward House.
But that had been before the stranger's arrival. Its menacing
presence seemed all important now.
"You live there." It was not a question. He did not respond.
She gestured toward the dunes. "I've moved into Elysium."
It was a foolishly grand name for the cottage set into the
grass-covered hills on the cove's southern boundary. Between
the Elysium and Windward House lay a high, curving heath of
more grass, more rocks, more desolation.
Again, no response, though she knew he listened with the
concentration of a hawk. With the last traces of day at his
back, she would have liked the hidden moon to cast a silvery
light onto his face. All she knew was the height and breadth
of him, and the dark aura that seemed to come from his soul.
Too, she knew his strength of will, and the inexplicable
hostility with which he viewed her intrusion into his world.
As if she could do him harm. She who wanted only peace and
seclusion and a chance to heal her broken heart.
Over the past month, she had found a will never before
possessed and, too, a combativeness that had once been as
foreign to her as flying through the air.
She gave him a taste of both.
"I'll need a deed to keep me from returning to Carnal Cove,"
she said.
She meant it as an ultimatum. She wanted to be the first to
leave, to walk from him as best she could across the shore,
back straight, head held high. But the wind took on a
ferocious power, as if it would hold her in place beyond any
will, any hostile wish.
Striding against its force, he closed the distance between
them, his boots hitting solidly against the heavy sand, the
full sleeves of his shirt whipping in a sharp cadence, its
open-throated front like black paint against his broad chest.
She had to tilt her head to look up at him, and release her
hair to wildness so that she could curl her hands into fists.
As if anything she could do would stop him from whatever
course he chose.
The moon decided at that moment to grant her wish. Easing from
behind a cloud, it bathed his features in light. Thick brows
over eyes as dark as his hair, strong nose and mouth, too
rugged to be handsome, and sharp lines to his cheeks that cast
shadows over the lower half of his face. His skin was
weathered, and fine lines etched the corners of his eyes. Eyes
that studied her with more intensity than she could endure.
And with more than condemnation. He stared at her as if
puzzled, uncertain, as if he saw in her something he had not
expected to see. The look did not last. He pulled back from
her though he did not physically move, and the dark eyes
hardened to stone.
"Damn you for coming here, whoever you are. Leave. I will not
tell you again."
Any defiance she could summon died in her throat, and a
trembling weakened her knees. His was a force she had not
known existed. For all her newfound strength and
determination, if not for the wind she would have collapsed at
his feet.
He turned abruptly and walked from her, his long stride taking
him across the beach with a sturdy, rolling gait.
She stared after him, a receding thundercloud, removing his
stormy determination from her presence, leaving a sense of
confusion tearing at her mind. All she had done was move into
a cottage that by law belonged to her and take her first walk
on the beach. In the doing somehow she had breached a
protective boundary that was as inviolable as it was
invisible.
But she had boundaries of her own. No matter how forceful he
was, she could not tolerate a man injecting himself into her
objectives. That he was used to having his way was as clear as
the fact that she was driven to having hers.
The conflict between them held no promise for the peace she
sought. Somehow she must convince him she held no threat to
his own peace, his solitude. The last thing on earth she
wanted was to find herself in his presence again.
If she could, she would call upon her ancestry and place a
Celtic curse upon his head to keep him from her. That is, if
she believed in curses, which she did not. She placed no faith
in the powers of the supernatural.
Makenna was a practical person, levelheaded, and until
recently given to little show of emotion. Somehow, using her
very ordinary skills, she would let him know what a truly mild
creature she was, mild yet stubborn. She would not bother him
if he would not bother her. How that arrangement was to be
worked out, she had no idea.
Gradually, as she put her thoughts to the problem, the wind
began to ease and the moon to silver the cove with a steady
light. She should have been relieved, by both the stillness
and the illumination. Instead, her skin prickled with a sudden
chill she could neither explain nor ignore, much like her
reaction to the cry. She pulled her cloak tight around her,
but the cold would not go away.
Movement along the water's edge caught her eye, a pale shift
of light that undulated in a rhythm matching her beating
heart. A moment passed before she realized the light was more
substantial than that cast by the moon. Someone else was with
her, someone dressed in white, someone who might have
witnessed her encounter with the man.
"Who's there?" she called out, but heard only the moan of the
now-dying wind.
Was that a gesture she saw? A raised hand beckoning her
closer? She was not sure, yet she felt compelled to skirt the
encroaching tide and make her way toward the vision.
She hurried past the slanted steps that led onto the pier, but
no matter how much distance she covered, she could draw no
closer to the woman. How she knew it was a woman, she had no
idea. Perhaps it was the paleness in contrast with the
darkness of the man.
The fickle moon chose that moment to hide once again behind a
cloud, leaving her in darkness. When it returned, the vision
was gone. She stood for a while waiting for another glimpse of
whoever-or whatever-the beckoning figure had been. She waited
in vain. Finally she had to admit she was alone.
It was a condition much wished for, one with which she should
be content. But contentment escaped her. Her world-what she
had hoped would be her isolated world-had been invaded in its
infancy, by dark and by light, by an all-too-real man and a
wispy vision that must have come from the recesses of her
troubled mind.
* * *
A broad, dark hand dragged her deep into the brine. Her eyes,
mouth, lungs filled with stinging water. Desperately she
fought the steely fingers but could not pull free.
Without warning, a force that seemed to come from the center
of the earth thrust her upward, breaking the hold of the hand.
Light as air, she burst through the surface of the water,
shattering it like glass, and awoke with a start.
Sitting up, she hugged the bedcovers to her and waited for her
heart and head to calm. Gradually sanity settled on her. She
had been dreaming, that was all. But dreaming where? The panic
returned, until she remembered her new room, her new bed, her
new home.
Slowly she became aware of a distant banging. The noise must
have awakened her. She waited a moment, but it gave no sign of
abating. Reluctantly she pulled herself from the warm bed,
eased into her wrapper, and padded barefoot through the
darkness, cautiously picking her way around the boxes into the
parlor.
Right away she found the source of the cacophony. A shutter
had pulled loose from a front window and pounded against the
stone house in the wind.
Striking a lamp, she returned to the bedroom, removed the rope
that had bound one of the boxes and hurried back to the front
of the cottage. When she opened the door, an unseen force held
her in place, an invisible barrier that kept her from exiting
onto the narrow portico.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Ghost of Carnal Cove
by Evelyn Rogers
Copyright © 2002 by Evelyn Rogers.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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