Free The Earl Next Door by Amanda Grange Page A

in.
She expected at any moment to see him turn and stride back to the beach, but as he continued to look seaward she realised he did not know the danger he was in. The rocks at that point would be covered by the tide before another ten minutes had passed, and with the cliff wall behind him he would be trapped.
She called to him, trying to attract his attention, but her voice was carried away on the wind.
She began to walk across the beach, calling and waving every minute or so as the water edged its way further up the rocks. Still he did not see or hear her. She reached a spur of rock that jutted out from the cliff and knew that this was the point at which she too must turn back if she did not want to be trapped by the incoming tide. She stopped and called, the wind whipping the hood back from her face and blowing her cloak around her ankles. But still she could not attract his attention. There was nothing for it. She would have to climb across the rocks to him and lead him to the one place that was still safe at high tide: the cave.
Using her hands to steady herself she made her way across the rocks towards him. It was something she had done many times in her childhood, and she was thankful now for her intimate knowledge of the rocks. Though they were wet with spray she moved across them surely, her old kid boots, with their roughened soles, giving her a good grip. She had almost reached him when he turned and saw her. A deep frown crossed his face.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
She fought down her resentment at his tone and said, ‘These rocks will soon be under water. You can’t stay here or you’ll be caught by the tide. We’re already cut off from the beach.’
He looked back along the beach and saw that what she said was true.
‘Then why did you come here, you little fool?’ he demanded, already looking up at the cliff as if assessing his chances of scaling it.
‘There’s a cave further along,’ she replied. ‘Kit and I used to play in it when we were children. The entrance is concealed, but it goes back a long way and rises as it does so. It is always dry, even at high tide. I have come to show you the way in.’
‘And wouldn’t it have been easier just to call to me?’ he asked. He gave a sudden predatory smile, showing gleaming white teeth. ‘Or did you just want the pleasure of my company?’
At his smile Marianne felt something wakening inside of  her. Was it the wolf in him that called to her? she wondered. Was it the strength of his personality? Or was it the aura of danger that surrounded him, challenging her to rise and meet it?
‘I have been calling to you for the last ten minutes, but I couldn’t make you hear,’ she replied.
As if to illustrate her words a sudden gust of wind almost whipped them away, so that he barely caught what she said. But catch it he did. Giving her a curt nod he stood aside. Moving past him, Marianne made her way surely over the rocks, moving in towards the cliff. The face of the cliff appeared to be sheer, but once past a group of boulders that lay, sleek and shining like a group of seals in the windblown spray, there was a slight crack. From the outside it looked to be nothing more than a fissure which widened into a bole at the bottom but Marianne knew what lay inside. She crouched down, turning to Lord Ravensford. ‘This is the way in.’
He took one look at the small opening and raised his eyebrows. ‘You expect me to crawl through there?’
‘Either that, or be washed into the sea,’ she returned.
‘Miss Travis, you have a streak as hard as my own,’ he said with a mocking smile.
‘My streak is practical, not hard,’ she informed him. ‘Kit always managed to get through the hole, even when fully grown. You are a little taller than him, and a little broader, but not enough to make any difference. It might be best  to take your coat off before you try, though,’ she added thoughtfully, looking at the many capes which broadened his already