Free First Sinners by Kate Pearce Page B

nonsense out of me. What more could any man want than to be an English peer?”
    His caustic tone made her want to weep. Instead she kissed his mouth until he murmured her name and kissed her back.
    After a long while, he retrieved his watch from his pocket and consulted the time.
    “It’s well past three. Shall we continue down toward the beach and see if the tide has gone out?”
    “I suppose we should.” Faith reluctantly stood up and handed the earl back his coat. By her reckoning, the tide should be well out by now and their path back up to the house clear. “Thank you.”
    “For my coat? I was glad to be of service.”
    “No, for everything. You’ve been more than kind.”
    He paused in the act of putting on his coat to look at her. “That sounds remarkably final. Are you worried that we won’t make it out of the caves alive? You can swim, can’t you?”
    “Of course I can.”
    “Then there is still a lot to look forward to.”
    “I suppose so.”
    He caught her hand. “Don’t tell me that you haven’t enjoyed our little adventure, Miss Pelly?”
    “Some of it.”
    He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I enjoyed making love to you, and I hope to repeat that experience soon.”
    She pulled out of his grasp and turned toward the sea. “Shall we go?”
    “Faith, what’s wrong?”
    She couldn’t look at him anymore, so she set off, one hand on the tunnel wall to guide her. The sound of the waves had diminished considerably and she was certain they would be safe. Gloom descended over her as she walked. Her night of adventure was over. All that beckoned was a gray dawn, a cold walk up to the house, and a quick, stilted good-bye. After that, she’d have to seek out her family and warn them that the earl was after something. Then he’d be furious and all would be lost.
    She kept walking steadily downward, aware of the change in the light and the texture of sand and rock under her feet. The passageway opened up into the first of the caves. A black line of seaweed on the wall showed how high the water had been the previous night. If they had kept going, they would’ve fallen straight into thirty feet of swirling, dangerous tidewater and been dragged out to sea or dashed on the rocks by the current.
    She kept moving until the mouth of the final cave loomed ahead of her and beyond it the small beach at the bottom of the cliff below her home.
    “Miss Pelly!”
    The earl was behind her but she didn’t turn. There was no point in prolonging her agony.
    “Miss Pelly, wait!”
    She kept going, shielding her face with her hand as she came out of the darkness into the new dawn and the rising sun. The sharp crack of something ricocheting off the rock over her head made her glance upward. The next second, she was grabbed around the waist from behind and brought down.
    Another crack , and the body stretched over hers jerked once and then went limp. It was only then that she started to cry and struggle to be free.

6
    Faith finally managed to shove the earl slightly to one side so that she could crawl out from beneath him. He still wasn’t moving, his eyes were closed, and what looked like blood seeped from a nasty gash on his head.
    “My lord?” She shook his arm. “Ian? We need to get away from here. I think someone is shooting at us.”
    His eyelids flickered, and she took a hurried moment to look around. At least there was no sign of anyone clambering down the cliff toward them.
    “Pistol . . . in my pocket.”
    She barely made out the words, but immediately started looking through the earl’s capacious pockets and discovered a very fine dueling pistol along with extra shot and a flint. She also found his handkerchief and after making sure that the pistol was safe, dabbed at the blood streaming from the earl’s head.
    “Don’t worry. It’s just a graze,” he murmured. “Head wounds always bleed like the devil.”
    “Do you think you can stand yet?”
    “I’m sure I can if you help