What a Lady Craves Read Free Page A

with shards and splinters of wood, the flotsam of a foundered vessel. Word would spread soon enough. By the time the sun rose, the villagers would come to comb the shore for anything that might prove useful—if indeed anything salvageable remained once the waves had churned the remnants against the rocks.
    How ironic that a ship had survived the long miles of open water, the storms, the hidden shoals all the way from India to sink so close to its destination.
    She picked a path between boulders, pebbles shifting beneath her half-boots. She ought to make her way back up the bluff to the manor, but she couldn’t face it yet. Couldn’t face
him.
Before too long, she would have to quash her feelings and return. Lady Epperley would rise with the dawn and demand Henrietta’s presence.
    But if she kept walking along the shoreline, she would eventually come to the village. Perhaps she might be lucky enough to find an abandoned newspaper, one containing advertisements for another position. As much as she’d thought her current post might buy her a measure of independence, the price was too high when it included close contact with the man who had jilted her.
    Shouts farther down the beach pulled her out of her recollections. Now that the sky was brightening with the impending sunrise, the villagers were up and about, picking the shoreline for whatever bounty the waves might offer. She ought to return, but her glance settled on a cluster of rocks not far away.
    Or maybe not. One was too regular, too square. Something had survived the shipwreck and the relentless tossing of the tide. She crossed the shifting pebbles to a wooden box, ornately carved and miraculously intact. Or nearly so. A gouge across the polished ivory hide of an inlaid elephant showed where the sea had attempted to smash through and reveal its secrets.
    Bending down, she lifted the article. It was heavy for its size. No matter which way she turned the intricate chunk of wood, she could not see a single crack or hinge that might indicate it opened. Solely decorative, perhaps, but clearly valuable with its ivory inlays. And was that lapis? She might use it to buy passage back to London and start over.
    No, that would be running away, not to mention stealing. If she stood her ground and showed him, showed Alexander, the past left her unaffected, she’d prove her strength. She’d cloak herself in indifference that, perhaps, would eventually encase her soul. Then she mightfinally be free.
    “Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue.” She muttered the words of Mary Wollstonecraft like a litany.
    The voices came closer. If she was caught, she might have to yield her prize. It was simply too valuable to leave behind. With any luck, she still had time to stash it in her quarters before her employer called. She turned toward the steep path that wound its way back to the manor, the coffer hidden beneath the folds of her cloak.

    The village was farther from the manor than he remembered. Alexander straightened his spine and limped along the downward slope to where a few houses huddled against a cliff face overlooking a rocky beach. One step followed another despite the protest of his aching muscles. Despite the residual pounding in his head and the sharp pain in his ribs that came with each breath. He would make it to the village if it killed him.
    And likely it would, at least if he heeded his aunt’s physician. But then, the deuced man had wanted to bleed him. After an entire morning of being poked and prodded, Alexander had protested that treatment. Likely he’d bled enough from the various cuts that peppered his body. Satya’s concoctions would have to do him for strength, at least until he reached his goal. How he’d make it back home was another matter, one he preferred to ignore for now.
    He passed the first buildings, their once bright colors faded by the relentless, salt-laden winds to dull browns and grays