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The Captain's Frozen Dream
Georgie Lee


Can He Salvage her Reputation?Trapped in the Arctic ice, intrepid explorer Captain Conrad Essington was driven on by thoughts of his fiancée, Katie Vickers. Finally home, he’s ready to take her in his arms and kiss away the nightmare of that devastating winter.Except the last eighteen months haven’t been plain sailing for Katie either. With Conrad believed dead, and her reputation in tatters, Katie has relinquished all hope of her fiancé ever returning to save her. Now he’s back, can the dreams they’ve both put on hold at last come true?







‘Conrad?’ Uncertainty as much as the fading daylight danced in her eyes, making them glow like the low polar sun on the ice. ‘Is it really you?’

‘It is.’ He raised his hand to touch her cheek, then hesitated, afraid that if he caressed her she might disappear like one of the many mirages he’d seen hovering above the Arctic sea. Returning to England and Katie had seemed like an impossible dream when he’d imagined it from the cold hold of a ship buried beneath darkness and ice.

Now, with the curve of Katie’s small chin so close to his palm, her thick eyelashes fluttering with each disbelieving blink, the grip of the nightmare began at last to ease.

He was home.

Conrad brushed her face with his fingertips and the tender warmth of her skin made him shiver for the first time in more than a year from something other than cold. Despite the shadows beneath her eyes, the faint blush spreading under the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose could hold his gaze for hours. He shifted closer. He’d been too long without her and the comfort of her embrace.


AUTHOR NOTE (#ulink_29c4d849-2fdc-5196-afe2-402488650008)

The idea for Katie and Conrad’s story came to me a couple of years ago, when I wanted to explore the idea of two lovers separated and then reunited. It took me a while to develop the story because I couldn’t think of a good reason why two people should be apart. Then I read a book on early British exploration of both the Arctic and Africa, and Conrad’s reason for leaving Katie was born.

I chose the Arctic over more southern climes because the southern regions usually involved higher rates of fatality from tropical disease. An Arctic expedition, while no less risky, wasn’t likely to kill a man within a few days of his arrival, but there was still the possibility of things going tragically wrong. The risk of Arctic ice trapping a ship at the end of summer was very real, and a crew might easily find themselves forced to overwinter in their ship, facing possible starvation, scurvy and frostbite until the spring thaw freed them. This is what happens to Conrad, and it keeps him from returning to Katie.

Once Conrad’s profession was fixed I needed a heroine with a scientific passion equal to his. I stumbled upon Katie’s obsession as a result of my little one’s interest in dinosaurs. In many books I read about Mary Anning, the young fossil-hunter. I was intrigued by her and the early fossil finds, and began to delve deeper into the geological discoveries of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

I incorporated a great deal of what I learned about both Arctic exploration and early geology into the story, bringing in historical figures and using my research to make Katie and Conrad more real. I hope you enjoy their story as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.


The Captain’s Frozen Dream

Georgie Lee




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


A lifelong history buff, GEORGIE LEE hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then she fulfils her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading non-fiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent.

Please visit georgie-lee.com (http://georgie-lee.com) to learn more about Georgie and her books.


To my little one,

whose obsession with dinosaurs gave my heroine hers.


Contents

Cover (#uce09baca-bfed-5d0e-b638-c6bd31a7360f)

Introduction (#u714e02d1-2d7c-5f7f-ad49-06feaa157c84)

Author Note (#ud84e793a-e02d-5121-9c16-4d596d5fff67)

Title Page (#u6f1d9158-243b-5eef-b560-d6ecdaa506db)

About the Author (#u1babc825-e64d-57df-ba12-05c4b1875d1c)

Dedication (#u0befd325-e6b9-5603-927d-d60059f017ab)

Chapter One (#u4e41e2ca-0b69-5513-885f-d472b1b9f963)

Chapter Two (#ua4f74777-5ee9-5645-8449-4f743bbf9acd)

Chapter Three (#u92797b40-4fdd-50fc-b175-3701a7280a2a)

Chapter Four (#u927441fe-635c-5c3e-af7c-5ff477eb7d88)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Author Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#ulink_2905521f-f6aa-5a06-bc3c-6d6e1b79596e)

England—October 1st, 1820

‘No, let go of me.’ A woman’s strained voice carried over the rolling hills of the West Sussex countryside.

Captain Conrad Essington kicked his horse into a canter, and as he crested the rise in the road he spied a gig beside it, the horse grazing lazily on the tall grass. Up a gentle hill, just beyond the shade of a wide ash tree, a man and woman stood together. The setting sun blazed behind them, turning them into little more than silhouettes. The woman tried to walk away, but the man grabbed her by the arm.

‘Listen to me,’ he demanded.

She twisted out of his grip. ‘No, I won’t hear it.’

‘Can I be of some assistance?’ Conrad slid off the hired horse and flicked the reins over the animal’s head.

The man let go of the woman and offered a dismissive wave. ‘I assure you, we’re fine.’

Conrad continued up the hill, not so easily dissuaded.

‘And you, my lady?’ The brown grass crunched beneath his boots, releasing the sharp aroma of warm, dry earth. Conrad pulled in a lungful of air. Even with the nip of autumn in the air, after a year and a half in the stinging cold of the Arctic, this was paradise. ‘Are you well?’

The glare of the sun behind her blotted out all but the roundness of her hips beneath a dark-green dress and the light ringlets of blonde hair framing her face.

‘No, not at all.’ The familiar melody of her voice more than the waver in her words slowed Conrad’s steps. It drew from somewhere deep inside him a happiness and comfort he hadn’t experienced since he’d stepped aboard HMS Gorgon and set sail in search of the Northwest Passage.

She started cautiously down the hill towards him, entering the shade of the tree. The shadow freed her from the overpowering sun and brought her cheeks and fine nose into focus. Her brilliant blue eyes stopped Conrad and he stood in awe as she approached.

‘Katie?’ In the dark hours of the long winter aboard HMS Gorgon, when the sun had lain hidden beneath the horizon, months away from shining on him and his crew, he’d dreamed of this moment, of seeing her again. It was all he’d thought about during the long walk across the ice and snow, and in the ship coming home. It was the one thought which had guided him since disembarking in Portsmouth this morning. He’d sent his lieutenant, Henry Sefton, ahead to London with Conrad’s official report so Conrad could set off in search of her. He hadn’t expected to stumble upon her on the London road, or for her to be more beautiful than he remembered.

‘Conrad?’ Uncertainty as much as the fading daylight danced in her eyes, making them glow like the low polar sun on the ice. ‘Is it really you?’

‘It is.’ He raised his hand to touch her cheek, then hesitated, afraid if he caressed her she might disappear like one of the many mirages he’d seen hovering above the Arctic sea. Returning to England and Katie had seemed like an impossible dream when he’d imagined it from the cold hold of a ship buried beneath darkness and ice. Even a mile back, when the tang of chalk from the Downs had at last replaced the mouldy stench of bilge water clinging to him, his weary mind still couldn’t believe his trials were over.

Now, with the curve of Katie’s small chin so close to his palm, her thick eyelashes fluttering with each disbelieving blink, the grip of the nightmare began at last to ease.

He was home.

Conrad brushed her face with his fingertips and the tender warmth of her skin made him shiver for the first time in more than a year from something other than cold. Despite the shadows beneath her eyes, the faint blush spreading under the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose could hold his gaze for hours. He shifted closer, craving the sweet taste of her lips parted with surprise. He’d been too long without her and the comfort of her embrace.

Conrad leaned down, ready to claim her mouth, but Katie didn’t rise to meet him. His hand stiffened against her cheek while he waited for the adoring woman he’d left over a year and half ago to embrace him, but she didn’t. In her eyes wasn’t the love she’d seen him off with in Greenwich, nor was it simply disbelief. It was a lack of faith, the same blistering kind he’d seen in Aaron’s eyes before he’d walked out into the snow to die. Conrad’s stomach clenched as hard as it had the night he and Henry had watched the sea ice harden around Gorgon.

‘Miss Vickers, do you know this man?’ the gentleman asked, his intrusion as much a shock as the silent gorge opening between Katie and Conrad.

‘I do.’ Katie stepped back out of Conrad’s grasp, her blush deepening with something Conrad sensed had nothing to do with the strength of the afternoon sun. ‘Captain Essington, allow me to introduce Mr Prevett.’

Conrad straightened and dropped his hand. His fingers, stiff after months of near frostbite, tightened into a fist at his side. He stared at Katie, as unsure of his position now as when Gorgon had sailed north beyond the known regions of the map. He searched Katie’s face for some silent explanation, reluctant to hear the one he expected her to provide.

‘Captain Essington is my intended,’ Katie clarified.

Conrad’s hand eased. Whatever had shifted between them, at least this still remained.

Mr Prevett’s gaze jerked back and forth between Conrad and Katie before an awkward smile broke across his thin lips. ‘Captain Essington? Why, I can’t believe it, all of England thought you were dead.’

‘So did I, more than once.’ Conrad laced his fingers behind his back as though on deck and examined the man as he would an unruly junior officer. ‘Tell me, Mr Prevett, what are you doing out here, alone with Miss Vickers? Have you no care for her reputation?’

‘Her reputation?’ Mr Prevett snorted before a fierce glare from Conrad sobered him. ‘We were searching for fossils. I’ve had a great deal of luck finding them in this vicinity.’

Mr Prevett, who could be no more than thirty, appeared too finely turned out for a man hunting only bones. ‘It seemed as though you were having a more heated discussion than one about fossils.’

‘We were having a disagreement regarding a certain line of research he wished me to pursue,’ Katie hurriedly explained. ‘I told him he should abandon it, as I have my own ideas about how best to proceed with my research.’

‘Speaking of which, I must be getting home. My wife is expecting me.’ Mr Prevett shuffled past Conrad, pausing beside him, but not too close. ‘Congratulations on your return, Captain Essington. I look forward to reading your papers when you publish them.’

‘I’ll be sure to send you a copy.’ Conrad replied, the demands of publishing the details of his expedition paling beneath the desire to be alone with Katie.

Mr Prevett hurried away down the rise and soon the grinding of wheels over dirt joined the fading plod of the horse as it drew the gig out of sight.

Katie didn’t watch Mr Prevett leave, but remained focused on Conrad, sliding her opal ring on and off her finger, the movement jerky and fumbling.

‘Did you really forget me so soon?’ Conrad accused, suspicion hard in his voice.

‘So soon?’ Katie shoved the ring back on her finger. ‘You promised me you’d only be gone for six months, for as long as the Arctic summer lasted, but it’s been over a year since you were supposed to return. I thought you were dead, everyone did. How dare you come back now and accuse me of anything?’

Conrad trimmed his suspicions like a sail in a storm. A calm head would win the day, just as it had seen him and his men through the winter. ‘I only want to know what was happening between the two of you.’

‘What you saw was the result of your having been gone, of you chasing your ambitions and leaving the rest of us to deal with the consequences.’

* * *

Katie rushed past Conrad and down the hill, as livid as the day his uncle, the Marquis of Helton, had turned from ruining Katie’s reputation to destroying her father’s. For the better part of the last year, she’d borne the malicious whispers of London and the snubs of the Naturalist Society alone. Now Conrad was here, tossing suspicions on the heap his uncle had worked so hard to build.

‘Katie, wait,’ Conrad called after her, his quick footsteps muffled by the soft earth.

She stopped to face him, further accusations silenced by the sight of him moving through the grass. He isn’t dead.

Her heart leapt in her chest, but the pain of everything she’d suffered since he’d left trampled her joy. If only he’d come back before all the troubles had begun. ‘I waited for you for over a year, I won’t wait any longer.’

She turned her back on him and made for the road, the dust kicked up by Mr Prevett’s gig choking her along with the biting injustice of Conrad’s return. She’d prayed so many nights for him to come home. For her prayers to be answered after it was too late stung as much as the day she’d finally accepted he’d perished.

Though he wasn’t dead.

She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to take it all in, but it was too much, especially on the heels of the other shocks she’d suffered today. Her spirits dropped lower at the sight of her canvas satchel lying beside the road, set aside by Mr Prevett before he’d driven off. Inside was a selection of her papers and sketchbooks, the ones she’d been so eager to show to Dr Mantell. She curled her fingers in against her palms, her fingernails as sharp as Mr Prevett’s betrayal. It was the second time she’d been deceived by a man she thought her ally in her fight to regain the Naturalist Society’s recognition. She didn’t know Mr Prevett had been swayed by London gossip enough to believe she would become his mistress. At least he hadn’t tried to force himself on her like the other false friend.

She stopped in front of the sad canvas bag sagging over its leather bottom. Was there any person in England who wouldn’t fail her? The strangling loneliness of her youth, when her father used to lock himself in his study to work for hours, filled her again.

As much as it galled her to admit it, her mother was right; the only person a woman could rely on was herself.

She snatched up the bag, then turned to see Conrad standing by his horse, stroking the length of the animal’s tan nose. The changes which had shocked her as much as his resurrection were highlighted by flecks of grey in his sandy hair. He was still a rock of a man, but noticeably leaner, his jaw tighter and more angular, but it was his dark eyes which stunned her the most. They held none of the optimism and excitement which used to illuminate them before he’d left. It was as if the chill of his experiences still draped him, the way her sorrows hung around her in the quiet house she’d once shared with her father in Whitemans Green.

‘It’s getting late. We should be going.’ The tender tones which had graced his voice on the hill were noticeably absent.

‘There’s an inn not far from here. I can walk there and spend the night, then take the coach home in the morning,’ she feebly protested, knowing she had little choice but to join him. Even if she could reach the inn before midnight, she didn’t have the money to pay for a room, or the coach to Whitemans Green.

‘You know me better than that, Katie.’ He came forward and took the satchel by its scarred wooden handles, his fingers brushing hers as he grasped it.

‘You needn’t be a hero, Conrad.’ The time for him to save her had already passed.

‘Then let me be a gentleman.’ The circles beneath his eyes darkened with the fading daylight. It wasn’t just exhaustion blackening them, but something like the despair of loss, a sadness she was all too familiar with. She slid one finger cautiously over the back of his hand, the desire to comfort him as he’d once comforted her overwhelming. He’d been the rock upon which she’d planned to build her life, then he’d sailed away.

She let go of the bag and a heaviness descended over her as he turned and walked back to the horse. With misgivings she followed, noting the ripple of his muscles beneath his faded uniform as he tied the satchel to the saddle bag, the force with which he pulled the leather straps tight telling.

Once the satchel was secure, he took the reins and settled one foot in the stirrup. Stiffness marred his movements as he mounted, but it didn’t diminish the power of him. His sturdy frame reminded her of the beams used to support the quarry wall and the trees in the fields encircling the mines. They’d spent so many lazy afternoons in the tall grass together beneath such oaks, the fossils she’d collected scattered about the blanket to keep the edges down as his solid legs intertwined with hers. In the words of love and temptation he’d whispered in her ear, she’d forgotten the loneliness which had marred her life. The memory made her cheeks burn with delight and regret. She should have followed her instincts instead of her heart and never fallen in love.

He clicked his horse into a walk, bringing it beside her and extending his hand. Red patches of raw skin marred the palms, like old blisters which had healed. It tore at her to see such blinding evidence of what he’d endured, but she was careful to subdue the urge to comfort him. She, too, bore bruises from the last year and a half, only hers weren’t as obvious as his.

‘Perhaps we should walk.’ In the face of so many startling events, she could hardly climb in the saddle with him and expect to maintain what little remained of her calm.

‘It’ll take too long and we’re already losing the light.’

He was right, but it didn’t lessen her unease as she placed her hand in his and slid her foot over the toe of his boot in the stirrup. She exhaled with surprise at the strength he used to pull her into the saddle, the vigour which had first caught her notice three years ago when he’d sought out her father’s expertise overwhelming her again.

She settled herself across his thighs, his chest against her shoulder as troublesome as the front curve of the saddle digging into her buttocks. She shifted, working to keep her balance, worried as much about being this close to Conrad as toppling over on to the ground. She gasped as he slid one hand around her waist to steady her, then took the reins with the other and set the horse in motion.

‘What happened between you and Mr Prevett?’ he asked.

She rocked uncomfortably against him as the steed ambled down the wide lane marked by brown parallel wheel tracks with dry grass growing in between. She kept her back straight, attempting to maintain some distance between them, and ignored the shift of his thigh muscles beneath her own. She didn’t want to tell him, or relive any of the ugly moments of the past eighteen months, especially the night she’d nearly been compromised, but he’d seen too much for her to dismiss it easily. ‘I asked him to drive me to Dr Mantell’s so I could share with him my papers and drawings of Father’s best fossil specimens. Mr Prevett mistook my request as an invitation for something more.’

‘Why did he think you might indulge him?’ His body tightened against hers, making her heart race, his solid presence as disturbing as his sudden return.

‘Because while you were gone, your uncle did everything in his power to ruin me,’ she retorted, her base reaction to his nearness more unnerving than his question. ‘As you saw, he succeeded.’

‘He hasn’t succeeded for good. Whatever he’s done, I’ll undo it and make him pay,’ Conrad said sternly. ‘I promise.’

She looked down at his wide hand on her stomach, the fingertips spread over her dress. It would be so comforting to lean in to him and believe in his promise the way she used to when they’d lay together in the field above the slate mine with the dust of the rocks still fresh on her hands. Back then, it’d been so easy to trust in Conrad’s love and his promise to treasure her more than any reputation or expedition. Both had been illusions, like a white stone which from a distance looks like something spectacular, but up close is nothing more than a plain rock.

Pain tightened her chest and she closed her eyes to picture the bones arranged on the small table in her father’s old study, the ones she’d dug from the Downs a week ago. They were clean now, the clinging dirt carefully chipped and brushed away. In her mind, she tried to imagine how each fitted together as she always did, but nothing came to her now. It couldn’t, not with Conrad so close.

She opened her eyes just as they reached a fork in the road and Conrad urged the horse to the left.

‘Where are you going?’ Katie demanded. ‘Whitemans Green is the other way.’

‘Heims Hall is closer. We’ll rest there tonight and in the morning I’ll see you home.’

‘I don’t want to go there.’ He’d already conjured up too many tormenting memories for her to face more.

‘You needn’t worry. Miss Linton should be there and can serve as an appropriate chaperon,’ Conrad offered, as if guessing her concern.

Katie heaved a weary sigh. It was Miss Linton as much as spending the night at Heims Hall which worried her. The spinster had only ever been grudgingly cordial to Katie; she wasn’t likely to welcome her, or her tattered reputation, with open arms now. More than likely she’d pull Conrad aside and whisper in his ear every disgusting London story the marquis had created and spread, including the one where she’d traded her favours for a single published paper in an obscure journal.

Katie sagged a little against Conrad. She’d never thought he would come home, so she never thought he would ever have to hear the nasty things being said about her in London. Now he would hear them all. Whether or not he would choose to believe them, especially after what he’d seen today, she didn’t know. Everyone else had been so quick to accept them, so why not him?

‘I’m home now, Katie, you don’t have to worry,’ he whispered in the same soft voice he’d used to deliver the news he was leaving for his expedition. It didn’t soothe her any more now than it had a year and a half ago.

‘It would have been better if you’d come back sooner.’ Before she’d lost all faith in him and their future together.

‘I would have, but the ice had other plans for me.’

His hand against her stomach eased. Guilt swept over the back of her neck along with the faint caress of his breath. For everything she’d suffered, his suffering must have been tenfold. She laid her hand over his, noticing the slight tremor in his fingers. She squeezed his hand and the shaking stopped. Their future together might be over, but it didn’t mean she didn’t care for him or couldn’t soothe him.

He didn’t return the small squeeze, but slid his hand out of hers and took the reins. He was pulling away from her and she couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t the homecoming he’d expected. It wasn’t the one she’d pictured either, though she’d given up imagining him returning months ago. Now he was here and she didn’t know what to think or believe.


Chapter Two (#ulink_fd3d23d1-7b75-51d9-b823-8201c845c8a8)

The countryside around them appeared to Conrad like a dream. Familiar rocks and trees dotted the landscape and the rising full moon turned them a ghostly grey. A cool breeze brushed through the grass flanking the road, and the steady clop of the horse’s hooves filled the night air. Wisps of Katie’s hair danced about the sides of her face, sliding free of the slim pins keeping the tangle of blonde curls together at the back of her head.

An owl called from somewhere overhead and the horse broke its steady pace. With one hand, Conrad tugged the reins to stop the horse from bolting. With the other, he held on tight to Katie to keep her from falling. The soft inhale his grip provoked proved as jarring to his nerves as the owl’s screech, more so when his manhood stirred at the shift of her buttocks against him. Conrad drew in a steadying breath. In the evening air hung the faint must of wet, fallen leaves mingling with the sweetness of Katie’s rose soap. Without thinking, he drew her closer against him, the heat of her more welcome than any he’d ever enjoyed from the stove deep in the hold of the ship trapped in the hard-packed ice.

She sat rigid against him, refusing to relax the way she used to whenever they’d ridden out together in search of fossils and time alone. The distance between them unnerved him. He didn’t know the extent of what had happened while he’d been gone, but he could imagine. Without Conrad to protect her, it would have been easy for Lord Helton to set the dogs of society upon a woman of Katie’s humble background. He’d seen his uncle level several such attacks on his mother and knew the vicious lengths the marquis might employ to ostracise and punish those he didn’t think worthy of bearing the Helton family name.

Conrad adjusted his feet in the stirrups. He’d promised Katie when they’d become engaged he wouldn’t allow society or his uncle to harm her. He’d failed. It was another in a mounting pile of failures and mistakes threatening to crush him like an avalanche.

He ran his fingers through his hair, the shortness of it still a shock after he’d grown it so long in the Arctic. By now Henry must have reached London and handed Conrad’s report to Second Secretary of the Admiralty, John Barrow. Conrad could only imagine what fury and damnation awaited his inability to find the Northwest Passage and bring Gorgon home. Mr Barrow had stood beside Conrad before, when Lord Helton had done all he could to prevent Conrad from receiving a command. He didn’t know if Mr Barrow would stand beside him again or viciously denounce him like he had Captain Ross after Ross had failed to explore the bay Mr Barrow believed led to the Northwest Passage. The Second Secretary had been stealthy in his attacks against Ross, penning anonymous articles in widely read magazines and whispering against him to influential members of the Admiralty. No one could ever prove it was Mr Barrow who’d been behind the attempts to discredit and disgrace Captain Ross, but he’d never been fully exonerated either. If an attack was coming, Conrad wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

The horse rounded a curve filled with trees and Heims Hall at last came into view. Conrad straightened in the saddle, indulging in the sight of it. It’d been a long time since he’d seen the sturdy brick walls lined with rows of familiar windows and the steeply pitched roof. Built in the sixteenth century, it was small and intimate, the home of a man, not the seat of a scion. Only Katie, so solid in front of him, kept him from sliding off his horse to kiss the ground in thanksgiving. There’d been too many times when he’d thought he’d never see such a glorious view again, but he’d fought nature and overwhelming odds to return.

Not all of his men would have the same opportunity to experience this relief at coming home.

His hold on the reins eased as the intermittent trembles which had plagued him since Greenland weakened his grip once more. Thankfully, the darkness covered the shaking. It was bad enough Katie had sensed it before. He didn’t want her, or anyone, to know how deep the scars from his expedition ran, or how they continued to strangle his belief in himself and his abilities as a leader.

Conrad settled back down against the leather and guided the horse around the house to the stables behind, determined to allow the events of the past year to lie tonight. In the morning he’d get to the meat of them. He only prayed the damage wasn’t as bad as instinct warned, either to himself, his career or his future with Katie.

In the shadow of the stable lamp, a groom rose from where he sat whittling, curls of wood falling over his lap. His eyes went wide at the sight of Conrad before he tossed the stick and knife aside.

‘Captain Essington! Why, I don’t believe it.’ Mr Peet hustled forward on his long legs to catch the reins, his joy at Conrad’s return as bright on his face as the light from the lantern. ‘Mrs Peet will be so glad to see ya, everyone will be, well, excepting Miss Linton, she’s never happy to see anybody.’

‘It’s good to be home. You remember Miss Vickers.’

‘I do.’ He doffed his cap at Katie. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Vickers.’

‘And you, too, Mr Peet,’ Katie replied, although her voice lacked the same enthusiasm as the groom’s.

‘Oh!’ Katie breathed, as Conrad let go of the reins and slid his hands around her waist. It was smaller than he remembered and she seemed more fragile and vulnerable than when he’d left. She gripped his wrists tight as he shifted her off his lap and lowered her to the mounting block. As she stepped off it, she rocked as if she’d been on the deck of a ship for months, not on the back of a horse for a mile or two.

Gritting his teeth against the stiffness in his back, legs and hands, Conrad slid down on to the block. He turned to see Katie watching him, worry marring the small lines along the corners of her lips. She’d seen him wince, sensed the slowness of his movements and guessed he was weakened by the north. He turned to the saddle bag to retrieve her satchel, not wanting her or anyone’s pity, not even his own.

With the small bag in his hand, he stepped off the block, patting the horse’s rump as Mr Peet led it away.

‘Shall we?’ Conrad motioned to the house.

* * *

The rising moonlight glinted off the large bank of windows making up one wall of the conservatory jutting from the rear of the house. Katie didn’t want to go inside, especially with the light burning in the upstairs window. The flick of a curtain in Miss Linton’s room announced the spinster’s presence and her curiosity. Whenever Katie and her father had stayed here, she had gone to great lengths to avoid the thin, buck-toothed woman. More so after Katie and Conrad’s engagement had been announced. The woman, only a year or two older than Katie’s twenty-five, had always looked upon Katie with as little warmth as Lord Helton. However, they couldn’t stand in the mews all night and Katie accompanied Conrad up the walk and into the conservatory.

She tried not to look at the marble table in the centre as they passed through the moonlit room, her shoulders brushing the delicate fronds of the many palms filling it. It was too difficult to see the empty top of the table and not think of her father working on the strange tiger-like fossil there in happier times. Through the opposite door, they entered the dimly lit hallway and the scent of scouring soap and wood oil overwhelmed her. Surrounded by so many familiar things, it seemed as if she could reach out and take Conrad’s hand and the past year and a half would vanish. If it did, then all the optimism and faith she’d once possessed in him might return. She kept her hands at her sides, unwilling to expose herself to more disappointment and heartache. She’d spend one night here, then tomorrow she’d leave Conrad and their past behind.

The hallway opened into a tall entrance hall with a slate floor. In the moonlight coming through the window, she could see the scattering of ammonite fossils embedded in the flat stone. Then the dark imprints of curving shells caught the orange light of a candle from somewhere above them and Katie looked up to watch Miss Linton descend the stairs.

A plain house dress hung from Miss Linton’s scrawny shoulders and her lacklustre brown hair was pinned in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Unlike the groom, there was no wide smile to lighten her long face. She fixed her eyes first on Conrad and then Katie, her scowl deepening with each step until she was at last in front of them.

‘Conrad, what are you doing here?’ It was exactly the sort of dismissive greeting Katie expected from the shrewish woman.

‘Cousin Matilda, it’s a pleasure to see you as well,’ Conrad replied with a sarcastic bow.

‘Of course, I’m glad you’ve returned safely,’ she replied as if he’d been out in the fields, not presumed dead for nearly a year. ‘It’s certainly most unexpected.’

‘Is the guest room and my room as I left them?’

‘They are, but the linens haven’t been changed or the fires lit. If I’d received some notice of your arrival instead of being startled at night, things might have been better prepared.’

‘A man doesn’t have to send word to his own house.’

Miss Linton stiffened at the reminder of her place. Frustrated in her effort to enforce some control over Heims Hall, she turned to Katie. ‘Will she be staying here?’

‘You mean Miss Vickers?’ Conrad’s voice was low and warning. ‘Yes, she will.’

The little colour in Miss Linton’s face drained out, leaving her an unappealing shade of white. ‘But, Conrad—’

‘We’ll rely on you to serve as an appropriate chaperon.’

Miss Linton jerked back her shoulders in indignation, as if Conrad had asked her to walk down the high street of nearby Cuckfield naked. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for a woman like me—’

‘Thank you, Matilda.’ He cut her off, turned to Katie and held out his arm. ‘Shall I escort you to your room?’

Only the desire to vex Miss Linton prodded Katie to place her hand on the firm muscle beneath the wool coat. ‘Thank you.’

Conrad guided them around his cousin and they climbed the stairs. His solid form beside her was a welcome comfort against Miss Linton’s hostile stares burning a hole in the back of Katie’s dress. If only he had come back sooner, before Lord Helton’s lies had done their damage.

The staircase curved, taking them out of sight of Miss Linton and Katie removed her hand from Conrad’s arm, reluctant to encourage any intimacy between them.

Conrad didn’t protest, but continued to escort her down the short hall illuminated by the light spilling out of Miss Linton’s open bedroom door. It filled the narrow space with a wavering amber glow and sharpened the lines of Conrad’s straight nose and strong forehead.

He stopped before the open door of a bedroom in the middle of the hallway. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of the adjoining rooms at the end, the ones she and her father had occupied when they’d stayed here to study the tiger fossil. There were enough lingering memories to torment her, she didn’t need more.

‘In the morning, after we’ve both had some rest, we’ll talk,’ Conrad stated, as if the problems of over a year could simply be surmounted with a conversation.

She took the satchel from him, careful to keep her fingers away from his. ‘There’s little to discuss.’

She moved to enter the room, but Conrad shifted between her and the door. ‘There’s everything to discuss. Whatever happened while I was gone to make you think differently of me, I’ll see it set right.’

Katie fingered the rough spot on the satchel handle where the varnish had been rubbed away during her father’s many trips to visit scientific men. They’d appreciated his ability to find fossils, but not his theories on why the strange animals no longer existed. ‘Conrad, I spent my childhood listening to my father make promises to my mother, one after another. He’d make sure she never regretted leaving her family for him, he’d spend time with her once he was done with this paper or cleaning that fossil. In the end he couldn’t keep any of them.’

‘I’m not your father.’

‘But you have his passion for work, the all-consuming kind which places itself above anyone and everyone. When you first proposed, I told you I had doubts about entering your world, making myself visible to society. You were so gallant in your promise I’d never suffer and I believed you. Then you left and everything I feared, everything you assured me wouldn’t happen did.’

A new light flickered behind Conrad. Miss Linton stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall, her disapproving scowl deepened by the candle she held.

He lowered his head, his face so close to hers, Katie could see the faint outline of his beard along his chiselled jaw. ‘This isn’t how it’s going to end, Katie.’

Her chest caught at the nearness of him. If things were different, if he hadn’t left, she might have risen up on her feet and touched her lips to his, fallen into his arms and known the bliss they’d once experienced together on the Downs, away from everyone and everything except each other, but things weren’t different and the time for discussion had passed.

‘Goodnight, Conrad.’ Katie slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.

* * *

Conrad frowned as the lock clicked shut.

Matilda scurried up behind him, moving so quickly the candle flame danced and nearly went out before she raised her hand to protect it. ‘Conrad, we must speak.’

‘Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.’ He made for the stairs, rolling his stiff shoulders. He needed to eat and sleep in a real bed, not endure his cousin’s company. Hopefully the groaning of the ship’s timbers and the far-off thunder of breaking ice wouldn’t haunt his dreams. Too much was already cracking up around him for him to face tomorrow exhausted.

‘It can’t wait.’ Matilda dogged his heels as he descended, the light from her candle waving erratically over the plaster walls. ‘You can’t think to allow her to stay here.’

‘I’ll allow whomever I wish to reside here for any length of time.’ He stopped on the landing and levelled a pointed look at his cousin. ‘As I’ve allowed you to reside here and manage the estate in my absence.’

She pursed her lips in indignation. ‘Then I cannot continue to remain here, risking my reputation to lend some thin veneer of credibility to hers.’

Conrad glared at her as he would a sailor who dared to question his orders. ‘Careful, Matilda, how you speak of the woman who is to be my wife.’

‘Don’t think to cow me into withholding my opinion of your connection to a woman of no standing who can bring nothing to your family.’

‘She’s the granddaughter of a baronet.’

‘And the daughter of a disgraced woman who didn’t have the foresight to think of her family, her name, her ancestry before running off with some poor country doctor. No wonder Miss Vickers behaved the way she did after you left. You have no idea what they’re saying about her in London.’

‘You’re right, nor do I want to know,’ Conrad tossed over his shoulder as he made for the entrance hall.

‘But you must.’ Matilda followed him. ‘They say she and certain members of the Naturalist Society were more than professional acquaintances.’

Conrad paused in the centre of the room, tightening his fist at his side before releasing his fingers one by one. Matilda’s revelation added to the unease already created by the scene with Katie and Mr Prevett on the road. Whatever had happened while Conrad was gone, the gravity of it was beginning to settle over him like a storm in the North Atlantic. Only tonight he had no time for it, or his cousin. The woman wasn’t above exaggeration, she excelled in it. He brushed her and his suspicions aside as he made for his study. ‘No doubt the stories are in existence because of my uncle.’

‘There’s no reason for an august man like Lord Helton to dirty his hands with a woman like Miss Vickers,’ Matilda countered as she followed after him. She was the only one who’d ever venerated his uncle. Her slight connection to the marquis through Conrad gave her the single edge of superiority over her small group of friends and she cherished it. ‘She isn’t suitable to be a marchioness.’

Conrad stopped and whirled around to face her. ‘What are you talking about? I’m not Lord Helton’s heir.’

‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Her dull-brown eyes sparkled with the delight of knowing something Conrad didn’t. ‘Your cousin Preston is dead. You are Lord Helton’s heir now.’

* * *

Conrad shoved open the study door and it banged against the plaster wall. The breeze of it disturbed the blue-and-gold flag from the ship of his first command hanging from the timbered rafters. The stench of stale air hit him as he made for the sideboard and the decanter of brandy sitting on top.

What the hell happened while I was gone? It was as if he’d sailed away from one world and returned to find another, more contemptible one had taken its place.

He flipped back the silver stopper and raised the crystal to his lips, ready to drown himself and all his shattered plans in the liquor. Nothing had gone as he’d intended, not his expedition or his homecoming.

Over the top of the glittering decanter, he caught sight of his father’s portrait hanging over the mantel. Conrad lowered the decanter. This had once been his father’s domain and he’d filled the shelves with his collection of beetles, the research of which had garnered him the presidency of the Naturalist Society. Later, his study of the insects had provided a refuge from the nightmares of the hell his own brother, the Marquis of Helton, had consigned him to for daring to defy him, the one which had ruined his health and broken his spirit.

Conrad followed the stare of his father’s painted brown eyes across the room to where the spoils of Conrad’s expeditions now adorned his father’s precious bookcases—Inuit spears, beaverskin moccasins, wood totems and the fossil remains of animals both known and unknown. They were a silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. Taking it in, his gut sank like it had the morning he’d watched Gorgon break apart and slip beneath the icy water, leaving them trapped. It was his blood trapping him now, the legacy his father and mother had spent years struggling to escape, the one ruled by the iron fist of Lord Helton.

Conrad took another long drink and silently cursed his uncle. Lord Helton cared for nothing except power and using it to make men in government and society bow and scrape before him. After Conrad’s father’s early death had put him beyond his brother’s reach, it’d been a struggle for Conrad and his mother to escape Lord Helton’s grasping control. If it hadn’t been for Heims Hall and his mother’s brother, Jack, they might never have known peace, or the security of a home and an income not encumbered by the Helton legacy.

Conrad smiled at the memory of his mother standing in the grand entrance hall at Helton Manor after his father’s funeral, breaking Lord Helton’s walking stick over her knee after he’d dared to strike Conrad with it for mourning his father. She’d pelted the man with the broken bits and a barrage of insults, stunning Lord Helton into silence for the first time in his life.

Conrad’s smile faded. Afterwards, Lord Helton’s methods had become more subtle and he’d resorted to lies and rumours to attack her instead of confrontation. When she’d passed, Lord Helton then turned his vengeance against Conrad, using his influence in government to make sure every ship Conrad received after becoming captain was more worm-eaten than the last. Yet Conrad had accepted each doomed command and made a stunning success of them all, securing his reputation as a first-rate officer and diluting Lord Helton’s influence. After Napoleon’s defeat left Conrad without a ship and on half-pay, he’d volunteered for the Discovery Service and built a name for himself as an explorer, one of Mr Barrow’s favourites, a man who always succeeded.

Except this time.

Conrad took another deep drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He should have turned Gorgon for home before the short Arctic summer had ended. Instead, he’d pushed north and others had paid the price for his mistake, sacrificing fingers, toes and even a life to Conrad’s desire to accomplish his mission.

He gripped the decanter tight against his chest, hanging on with both hands to keep it from slipping out of his grasp. At times, he’d barely been able to hold his pen on the voyage home, the weakness nearly crippling him as he’d reread his journal and relived the horrors of his experience to write his report. In the cold north he’d thought it would ease once he reached warmer climes, but as time passed it was becoming apparent the weakness was driven not by cold but by memories, especially those of Aaron’s hopeless eyes meeting his before he’d slipped out of the tent door and into oblivion.

Eyes as vacant as those of the skeleton of the tiger-like creature perched in front of the window.

Conrad rocked a little as he approached the animal, coming face-to-face with the long jaw and the two curving canine teeth protruding from the mouth. He slid his hand over the top of the skull, feeling the slight pits and crevices of the bones. It was an exquisite specimen, one he’d purchased from an Inuit trader in Greenland at the end of his first voyage to the Arctic three years ago. The same man had sold Conrad the skeleton that was even now in one of the many crates making their way to Heims Hall, the likes of which he’d never seen in any book or collection.

He ran his fingers over the tiger’s long nose and down the back edge of one curved and serrated fang. He’d spent hours watching Katie and her father meticulously clean and piece this animal together. Katie would do the same with the creature in the crate, making sense of the jumble of bones in a way he could never understand. Her face would light up in excitement when she did, just as it had when she’d attached this skull to the vertebrae.

He flicked the pointed end of the fang with his fingernail. A dead animal would receive a warmer welcome than he had.

He backhanded the skull, knocking it free of its neck and sending it flying across the room. It thudded each time it bounced along the carpet before the leg of a wide, leather bench brought it to a sudden stop. He marched up to it, ignoring the sting to his hand as he focused on the hollow eyes watching him above the mercifully unbroken fangs. He raised his foot to stomp the poor thing into oblivion, to crush it and all memories of the frozen wasteland which had ruined everything, but he couldn’t.

He lowered his foot, staggering a bit before he righted himself. He was a man of discovery, not a destroyer, though this last expedition had nearly crushed him. He braced himself against a nearby desk, the wood beneath his fingers smooth and cool, unlike the rough timbers of the ship. The sounds of the house surrounded him—the whinny of a horse in the mews, the twitter of a night bird. They were as familiar now as they’d been when he was ten and in their echoes he found a faint comfort. Then the creak of the floorboard beneath his boot sent a shock racing up his back. In the straining wood he heard the echoes of Gorgon groaning beneath the pressure of the ice, struggling to keep it at bay until at last she’d given up the fight.

Conrad moved uneasily to the chair beside the cold fireplace, set the half-empty decanter on the table and dropped into the thick cushions. The house was much quieter than the ship. During the long Arctic months, the wind had always been blowing and the men had been talking, complaining or playing cards, anything to fill the hours of boredom with something other than worry. The weariness of the past eighteen months, of the last few hours, settled over him like the fog of drink. He should go upstairs. He needed to sleep in a proper bed, but he couldn’t move. He’d known true exhaustion and this wasn’t it. Even if he went upstairs, there was no guarantee of rest, only hours of sleep jerked from him by nightmares of the cold.

It didn’t matter. Years of exploration had taught him to catch sleep where and when he could, to do with as little of it as possible in order to make it through another day. Only this wasn’t the North Pole, or the hull of a ship. It was the study where he’d first wooed Katie, the woman whose soft voice and love he’d hoped would silence the doubts and memories torturing him.

As the darkness closed in around him, the crack of icebergs slamming together drowned out the quiet of the house. Each thud made Conrad wince until at last it faded and a dreamless sleep brought much needed silence.

* * *

Katie peered into the dark study. In the hallway, she thought she’d heard a noise, but everything in here was quiet. She must have imagined it the way she sometimes imagined hearing her father return from a dig. She’d look up from sketching a specimen, thinking she’d see him come through the door, only to remember he was never coming home again.

It shocked her how keenly she noticed his absence. Even when he’d been home, he’d never truly been there. There’d never been anyone who’d been willing to place her above their own selfish pursuits, not her mother, her father or even Conrad.

Bitterness stiffened her steps as she moved beneath the timbered ceiling and past the books, animals and artefacts filling the room. At one time the tattered flag, seal skins and the stories behind each item had impressed her. Tonight, they were a crushing reminder of Conrad’s true passion, like the tiger was a reminder of her father’s.

She stopped in front of the skeleton bleached an eerie white by the moonlight coming through the window. It stood just as she’d last seen it, wired together as her father had arranged it, except for the skull. It was missing.

She searched the floor beneath the table, looking for it, irritated to think it’d been ruined by someone’s carelessness. She and her father had spent hours hunched over the bones, studying, drawing and arranging them just as she had as a young girl when she’d sit beside him in their small house in Whitemans Green, cleaning away the hard dirt encasing her father’s latest find. Working with him had been the only way to garner his attention and she’d taken in everything he’d taught her about anatomy and biology. He’d even spent precious money on drawing lessons to increase her natural skill, though those had been more for his benefit than hers so that she could sketch his collections.

Despite her father’s selfish reason for tutoring her, those days with him were the only times she’d ever felt wanted and loved, until she’d met Conrad.

Pain squeezed her chest. If she’d known, less than a year later, Conrad would be aboard Gorgon and off to embrace his true passion, she would have been more cautious with her heart.

‘Come to see the animal?’ Conrad slurred from behind her.

She jerked up straight and focused through the darkness to where Conrad pushed himself up out of a chair by the fireplace, swaying as he stood.

She laid a shaking hand over her chest, as startled by his drunkenness as his unexpected presence. She’d never seen him drink to excess before. ‘Conrad, I didn’t know you were in here.’

‘You’d have avoided the room if you’d known?’

Yes. ‘No, I wanted to see the tiger.’

‘Of course you did.’ The edge in his voice disturbed her as much as the incomplete skeleton.

‘Where’s the head?’

‘Over there.’ He pointed to where the skull glowed white against the dark carpet.

She walked over and scooped it up, then turned it over in her hands to examine it. ‘I don’t think any permanent damage has been done.’

‘Can’t say the same about much else, now can we?’

Katie ignored the sarcasm as she reattached the skull to the neck.

‘I suppose you’ve heard my status in the world has been quite elevated since I’ve been gone?’ Conrad slurred as he staggered over to stand beside her.

‘As the heir, will you resign your commission?’ There was a little too much hope in her question.

‘No,’ Conrad answered without hesitation. ‘It’s what Helton expects me to do and I’m not about to do his bidding.’

‘I see.’ There was nothing in the world which would persuade him to cease exploring, not a title, or even love.

‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ Conrad prodded.

‘I don’t envy you enough to congratulate you.’ There were few but the most sycophantic of people desirous of a place in government who envied a connection to the Marquis of Helton.

‘You’re right, you shouldn’t. No one should.’ The same desperation Katie had experienced during the past year, when the long days of spring had turned into summer and then autumn with no sign of Conrad or his ship, coloured his voice. He peered past her into the night beyond the window, the lines of his face hardening with a pain she felt deep inside her heart. ‘I had to leave him.’

‘Who?’ Katie whispered, troubled by the mournful tone of his voice.

‘Aaron.’ He choked out the name as if it cut his tongue.

Katie swallowed hard. She remembered the red-headed Scotsman with a laugh as thick as his brogue. Of all the men who’d assembled on Gorgon’s deck to meet her, the barrel-chested man with the quick smile and lively eyes had seemed the least likely to perish. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’ He staggered back to the side table and took up a heavy, square decanter, gripping it tightly in one hand as he raised it to his lips. The liquid inside sloshed as he struggled to hold it, then he lost his grip and the heavy crystal tumbled to the floor, its fall broken by the head of the lion skin lying prone beneath the chairs.

‘Damn it.’ Conrad stared at his fingers as though they’d betrayed him.

Katie rushed to him, laying a comforting hand on his arm, wanting to draw out his pain like a splinter and help ease both of their suffering. ‘What happened, Conrad?’

* * *

The contrast between Katie’s white hand on his dark, sea spray-stiffened coat was as startling as this second show of tenderness after so much reserve. It gave him hope, but not enough to make him speak. At one time he could have described to her the heart-wrenching moment he’d discovered his friend lying frozen in the snow and the agony of having to leave him where he lay. He could have described to her the pain and fears he’d experienced during the winter and the damage they’d wrecked on his confidence, body and soul. He could have told her of his concerns about his reputation once Mr Barrow received his report. The Katie from over a year ago would have listened and comforted, but not this one. ‘You aren’t the woman I left.’

She snatched back her hand. ‘Did you really believe you could sail away and nothing and no one would change while you were gone? Did you think you could leave and come back to find everything the same?’

‘I believed our love would be the same.’

‘Love isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for my parents. It isn’t enough for us.’ The surrender in her voice ripped through him like a gale wind.

He stepped closer, wanting to wrap her in his arms and soothe away the distress furrowing her brow, but he didn’t. She was no frail society miss. He’d seen her break ground with a shovel in search of a fossil too many times to think her weak. But as he’d learned over the past year, those who thought they were the strongest were sometimes the most vulnerable. ‘The Katie I knew before wouldn’t have given up like that.’

‘That Katie hadn’t seen how ugly London and everyone could be and how willing you were to leave me to face it alone while you chased your precious dreams.’

His sympathy vanished. ‘You know I wanted us to marry before I left. You were the one who insisted we wait.’

‘Because I needed to see what it would be like to live in your world and I did, every day while you were gone.’

‘That’s not my world. It’s my uncle’s.’

‘No, your world is in far-off lands,’ she scoffed, her dismissal of his work and everything he was as stinging as her rejection.

‘What did I do to you to engender such derision?’ he hissed.

‘You left.’

‘You know I had no choice.’

‘You could have resigned your commission. Instead, you chose to remain in the Discovery Service and put Mr Barrow’s whims and wants above everyone else’s. It’s the rest of us who were left with no choice but to deal with it and all the consequences. Despite coming home, it won’t be long before Mr Barrow snaps his fingers and you’re gone again.’

‘And what of you?’ He levelled an accusing finger at her. ‘Are you ready to leave your work for me, to give up the fossils and chasing after the acceptance of all the scientific societies to place me first in your life?’

She recoiled, her answer in her silence.

‘And you accuse me of being selfish.’ He snatched another decanter from the table, using both hands to grip it. The silver tag hanging around the bottle’s neck clanked against the crystal as Conrad raised it to his lips. By the time he lowered the thing, she was gone.

He dropped the decanter on the table with a thud, his failures hardening around him like ice on the masts of the ship. Katie wasn’t the first person to doubt him enough to give up and walk out on him. How many more would desert him when news of his failures in the north became public? He ran the toe of his boot over the wet fur of the lionskin rug, matting and staining the tan pelt with the dirt from his sole. Perhaps Katie was right and he never should have left. The mud on his boots from one expedition was rarely dry before he was in Mr Barrow’s office campaigning for another. He should have been more hesitant this time, more cautious, but he wasn’t a man to sit idle in the country with nothing better to do than hunt and raise dogs.

He tilted his head to the mountain of trophies surrounding him, the silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. None had come easily, not even the first commission which had cemented his reputation as a master explorer. It was an achievement he’d fought long and hard to secure, one he wouldn’t surrender to his own doubts and fears.

He kicked the decanter, sending it spinning across the floor in a flurry of reflected moonlight and scattered drops. This was how weak and snivelling men dealt with their failures. It wasn’t how Conrad would deal with his. He’d made mistakes, but there wasn’t a captain alive who hadn’t. Nothing had been decided in London or here at Heims Hall. Whatever criticisms Mr Barrow decided to heap on him for his mistakes, he’d meet them and overcome them, just as he had so many other obstacles. Whatever victories his uncle believed he’d won, Conrad would see to it they were short lived, and if Katie thought she could simply walk away from him, she was wrong. In the morning, she’d expect him to see her home, but he wasn’t about to do her bidding. He hadn’t fought storms and scurvy to reach her only to let his misgivings or hers defeat him now.

He took up the flint and some tinder from the holder beside the mantel, knelt down in front of the hearth and sparked a small flame. When the fire was going, he tossed in a handful of coal from the bucket, rising to watch the fire grow taller as it consumed the fuel.

He would only have a day or two before he had to return to London and face, good or bad, whatever Mr Barrow had in mind for him. He’d use the brief time with Katie to draw out the love he’d felt in her soothing touch. Despite her hasty departure, her reaching out to him revealed something of the woman he’d left all those months ago. Their love had been strained by his absence, but it wasn’t gone. It was only hidden like grass beneath the snow waiting for the spring warmth to draw it out.

With any luck, the cart carrying the things he’d purchased in Greenland would arrive in the morning, before he ran out of excuses and delays to keep Katie here. On it, packed tight in sawdust and woodchips, was the one thing he knew would make her stay.

He was betting their future together on it.


Chapter Three (#ulink_5bf25121-abda-5167-936e-27d458bc4ddb)

Katie marched across the kitchen garden to where Conrad stood by the cart, unloading crates, his jacket draped over the side. He’d avoided her all morning, leaving her to Miss Linton’s scowl at breakfast before secluding himself in his study to speak with the estate and mine managers. The part of her which still cringed at the nasty accusations she’d levelled at him last night was glad he’d stayed away. She wasn’t proud of what she’d said, but it was the truth and better he know it now than be led on by her silence into believing in something which no longer existed.

‘You’ve avoided me long enough. I insist on going back with this cart once it’s unloaded,’ she demanded, startled when he straightened. The strings of his shirt were undone and open, revealing the light chest hair underneath. The memory of his bare muscles beneath her palms, the soft sun caressing his shoulders as she held tight to him in the tall grass on the Downs nearly rattled her out of her purpose. They’d never gone far enough to completely compromise her, but they’d indulged in a few pleasures, the memory of which made the skin of her thighs tingle.

‘You can’t. It’s going back to Portsmouth.’ He slid the last crate off the wood and carefully laid it on top of the stack beside the wheel.

‘Then call the chaise.’

‘Matilda has use of it this morning.’ Conrad leaned against the cart and propped his elbows on the rough wood to face Katie, not as the angry, drunken man from last night, but as the self-assured one who’d won her heart two years ago.

‘Then saddle a horse. I’ll ride home,’ she insisted, eager to get away from him and his state of near undress.

‘Come, Katie, you don’t know how to ride.’ He playfully tapped the end of her nose, his touch as unnerving as his jibe.

‘I know what you’re trying to do, Conrad, and it won’t work.’

He picked up the crowbar lying beside the cart. ‘What am I trying to do?’

‘Keep me here.’

He slid the bar between the crate and its lid and pushed down. The nails broke free in a screech of metal against wood. ‘You’re right.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, I have something for you.’ He shoved the lid aside and dug through the straw until he found what he was searching for and raised it up into the light.

Katie gaped at the sight of the elongated skull, dark from its long rest in the earth, and all desire to hurry home vanished. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘I purchased it from an Inuit in Greenland before we boarded the ship for home. I had a great deal of free time on the voyage and cleaned the bones, the way you taught me.’

Their eyes met and the memory of their time alone together in the evenings, sitting side by side at the table in the conservatory while she positioned his hand over the bones, passed between them. His cheek would rest against hers while she’d reach over his wide shoulder to guide the small metal pick between his fingers in the patient removal of dirt from bone. She didn’t think he’d remembered the lessons, not with all the kisses and caresses which had distracted them.

She ran one fingertip over the smooth curve of her opal ring, regretting the loss of those days. They’d been some of the happiest of her life, but there was little time to ponder them or their passing as Conrad held out the skull to her. She took the heavy thing, her excitement heightened by the sweep of his fingers across hers.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

She held it up to examine the row of long, dagger-like teeth lining the jaw, struggling as much to comprehend the animal as to avoid Conrad’s piercing gaze. ‘It’s marvellous. Like nothing I’ve ever seen in any of the books or private collections. It’s certainly not an ichthyosaur.’

‘Ichthyosaur?’

‘It’s what the lizard with the flippers Miss Anning found is called now. Mr Konig named it in his paper to the Royal Society last year. They rejected mine.’ She lowered the skull, bitterness marring her excitement.

‘Then they were fools.’ Conrad’s solidarity was only a slight comfort. ‘What will your father think when he sees it?’

‘He won’t see it.’ Katie set the skull down on the flat bed of the cart with a thud, irritated by how little the man knew and how much she was left to explain. ‘He’s dead.’

Katie felt more than saw Conrad stiffen with shock. She was too focused on the skull and holding back the tears blurring her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her pain, or to appear so weak and fragile around him. She wanted to be as resilient as she’d always been, but she was failing.

Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. He was hot from working and the heat penetrated the thin shirt to warm her tearstained cheeks. There’d been no one to hold her like this the day her father had died, or during all the lonely ones afterwards. ‘What happened?’

She didn’t want to answer, but she was too tired and worn down by carrying the pain alone to stay silent. ‘A patient had come to see him and he’d turned her away. I was angry, we needed the money and I told him if he didn’t earn some, I’d sell his fossils. He stormed out of the house, saying he’d find the one which would save us, something a private collector would pay a fortune to possess. A miner found him a few hours later at the bottom of a ladder, his neck broken.’

Katie squeezed her eyes shut, unable to block out the memory of her father’s limp body as the miners had carried him into the house. The foreman had swept the dining table free of her father’s fossils, making the bones clatter over the floor like pieces of broken china. Another man had crushed one beneath his work boot as he’d jostled with the other men to lay out her father’s body. Then they’d filed out, uttering their apologies and leaving her with nothing but the tragedy, bills and bones. ‘The only things he left me were his debts, and after what your uncle did to me there were few in England who’d purchase my finds. If it hadn’t been for my American collectors, I wouldn’t have had any buyers and I would have starved.’

‘I’m so sorry, Katie.’ His voice vibrated through his chest, the way it had on the Downs when she’d cried against him as she’d revealed for the first time the anguish of her mother leaving. In between sobs, she’d described the loneliness of sitting in the window at Whitemans Green waiting for her to return, and the letter which had arrived three months later with news of her death. Then, just as now, Conrad had tenderly rocked her, making her feel safe and loved in a way neither her father, nor the mother who hadn’t cherished her enough to stay, had ever done. ‘You should have told me sooner.’

She pushed out of his embrace, her heart nearly shattering at the absence of his warmth, but she steeled herself against it and her weakness. Despite the comfort he offered, she didn’t want to depend on anyone, especially someone who might disappear over the horizon as easily as her mother had. ‘I didn’t tell you for the same reason you didn’t explain to me minute by minute the hardships and suffering you experienced while you were gone.’

‘I’m not asking for the details, only the broad strokes.’

‘And now you have them. So you may return to London and Mr Barrow and publish your journals and enjoy everyone in the Admiralty and the Naturalist Society falling at your feet.’

‘Careful, Katie, your anger near drips with jealousy.’

Katie stared down at the mess of bones in the crate, shamed out of her resentment. He was only trying to be kind. ‘You’re right, I am. No matter what I write or draw, my success will never match yours simply because of my sex. Only my connection to you and my father’s work has ever made anyone take note of me before.’ Even then they’d pinned her success on her feminine wiles, not her talent, listening to the vicious lies of Lord Helton and all those willing to repeat them.

‘Then this could be your chance to change that. If this animal is as unusual as you believe, then stay with me and study it, draw it and write a paper the Naturalist Society won’t be able to ignore.’

‘Last night you said you wanted me to give it all up,’ she challenged, confused by his change of heart and the wavering of hers.

His enthusiasm dimmed as he picked at a splinter on the edge of the cart. ‘I think we both said a number of things last night we regret.’

Yes, she regretted saying a great deal, despite most of it being true.

‘Even if I did stay and study it, I doubt anything I do, even on something as unusual as this, could sway the Naturalist Society members to support me. The last night we were at the society, they tore my father’s reputation to shreds, accusing him of plagiarism. It was the reason we finally left London.’

He flicked away the splinter. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’

‘Because of your uncle.’ She stomped her foot against the soft soil. ‘He wasn’t content to ruin me, but my father, too.’

Conrad banged his fist against the cart. ‘Then now’s your chance to ensure he doesn’t win.’

‘You make it sound so easy, but it isn’t.’ She ran her hand over the curve of the creature’s skull, thinking through each of the books she’d read in the Naturalist Society library and how no animal in any of them resembled this one. ‘You don’t know what it was like to stand there and watch them tear him, and me, apart, to have everyone whispering about you.’

‘No, but I know what it’s like to fight awful odds, to keep going even when you, and all those around you, want to give up.’ He shifted closer, his face set with determination. ‘If you think I’m going to let you surrender to my uncle, to crawl away and hide from all the difficulties, you’re very mistaken.’

‘It’s not your decision to make.’ For the past six months she’d hidden from the world, facing no one except through letters and doing all she could to avoid criticism and judgement. She didn’t want to enter it again and confront the hostile men who’d dismissed her research simply because she was a woman.

‘It’s my creature, and if you don’t think you’re up to the task of studying it, I’ll hire another,’ Conrad threatened.

‘You can’t.’ Panic burned through her at possibly losing such a specimen and how much like her father she felt at this moment. She’d cursed him so many times for being too involved with his research to see her, her mother, his shrinking medical practice and the mounting bills. Even after her mother had left, the fossils and his research had determined nearly every decision he’d ever made. Katie was about to allow them to do the same for her.

‘Don’t be afraid to show the men of the society what you’re capable of,’ Conrad urged. ‘This creature could be the making of you.’

He was right. With this animal, she could prove it was her brains and not her favours which had gained her past notice. If she succeeded, it would mean work as an illustrator, money from publishing books and pamphlets, and the security she’d craved since the day she’d taken over the finances in her mother’s absence and seen the harsh truth of her and her father’s situation.

Katie fingered one of the creature’s sharp teeth. Staying was risky. Conrad was tenacious in his determination to achieve whatever it was he set his mind to and now it was focused on her. However, she had only to hold out until Mr Barrow’s next order came through and pulled his focus, and presence, away from her. As much as she didn’t want to be here with him, leaving Conrad meant leaving the bones and she couldn’t do it.

‘All right, I’ll stay and examine the creature.’ A smile of victory spread over Conrad’s lips, as annoying as it was tempting, but she wasn’t about to let him believe he’d won. She was staying for her benefit, not his. ‘But it will be like it was when my father worked for you. You’ll pay me just as you paid him.’

Conrad scooped up the skull and laid it back in the crate. ‘I won’t.’

‘Then I won’t stay.’ She crossed her arms over her chest, as much to emphasise her seriousness as to calm her fears over losing access to the creature. ‘This is to be a business deal like any other and when it’s done that’ll be the end of it.’ And us.

‘All right,’ he conceded, picking up the lid to the crate and setting it down over the top, covering the bones. ‘Draw up a list of things you need from Whitemans Green and I’ll send someone to fetch them and close up your house. When you’re finished with your research you may keep the fossil, and the paper, and your drawings.’

‘If I’m to keep everything, what do you hope to get out of this arrangement?’

‘You.’ He brushed her lightly under the chin, the same self-satisfied smile he’d worn the first time he’d stolen a kiss from her in the study drawing up the corners of his wide mouth. ‘I’ll have Mr Peet bring the crate to the conservatory. I expect your work to be very interesting and revealing.’

Before she could tell him what to do with his expectations he slipped into the stable, his muffled instructions to Mr Peet carrying over the shift and whinny of the horses.

Katie slammed the top of the crate with her palm, dislodging the lid. It fell into the dirt, revealing the creature’s menacing smile. Her weakness and Conrad’s glib determination frustrated her. She shouldn’t remain here and torture herself with what couldn’t be or give Conrad false hope for reconciliation, but she couldn’t give up this specimen either.

Motion near the house caught her attention and she looked up to meet Miss Linton’s pinched scowl. Worry slid through Katie like it had the day she’d narrowly missed being hit by a rock falling from the side of a slate mine. She and Conrad had always been careful when Katie had been here before, only intimate with one another late at night or far from the house. She wondered how much Miss Linton had seen of her and Conrad’s embrace. It’d been innocent enough, but Miss Linton wasn’t likely to view it in such a way and it wouldn’t be long before the spinster was adding yet another nasty rumour to those already circulating. Once again Katie would be judged for something she didn’t do instead of on the merit of her work.

Katie picked up the crate lid and set it back over the animal. Tracing the words burned into the wood, she wondered if there was something more for her in life than fossils and research. Her father had never given her the chance to discover it and necessity had forced her to keep on with his work.

Katie made for the house, determined not to endure the spinster’s disapproving scowl or entertain her own doubts a moment longer. This was her calling, as much as it’d been her father’s, and she would use it to make her way and prove everyone like Miss Linton wrong. They might scoff at her in England, but in America there were many she corresponded with, their eagerness to acquire the specimens she unearthed matched by their enthusiasm to exchange ideas, illustrations and knowledge with her. They cared nothing for her gender or the rumours circulating in London and their admiration was such that Mr Lesueur had invited her to join him as an illustrator on his next expedition West. She hadn’t turned down his generous offer, but she hadn’t accepted it either. There’d been a time when she wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving England; now it was more tempting than ever. With the money from Conrad, she could afford passage, if she wanted it.

She paused outside the conservatory door, uncertain if she should leave, or if there was anything left in England to keep her here. She’d soon find out. Where Lord Helton and his vicious stories had lowered her, the bones could raise her up. If this animal was as rare as she believed, any paper she published about it would be the making of her. It had to be, she possessed little else to believe in.


Chapter Four (#ulink_af7cb8ce-730e-59fc-b79b-7c080ad42879)

The late-afternoon sun fell through the high glass walls of the conservatory, warming it and making candles unnecessary. Katie had been hard at work piecing the creature together since yesterday, staying up late into the night, then rising early that morning to continue. Conrad had left her in solitude, but she’d caught his influence in the meals delivered to her and the supply of paper and pencils laid out by the footman. She’d tried not to allow all these small gestures to affect her, but it was difficult when tasting the cold chicken and warm bread not to think of him. She’d missed these little kindnesses when he’d sailed away, and would again when her work was complete and they parted once more.

Katie reached out and adjusted the creature’s vertebrae so she could better see the details as she drew it, determined to remain focused on her work and not think about Conrad. The dark bones stood in sharp contrast to the white-marble table top and the creamy parchment on which she struggled to render the creature as beautiful and elegant as it was in life. She’d arranged the bones more from instinct than from the memory of any species she’d seen in the books of the Naturalist Society library. She’d visited the impressive collection many times with her father, the two of them spending hours perusing the massive works of geology and biology. The Naturalist Society stood alone in its admittance of women to its hallowed halls and collections, both of which were the envy of even the Royal Society. Sadly, she would need access to the tomes again, especially once she began writing her paper. Conrad could sponsor her, and he would if she requested it, but she was reluctant to ask.

Katie picked up a knife and sharpened her pencil. The idea of facing the members who’d attacked her and her father was as disturbing as the steady sound of Conrad’s boots crushing the leaves in the yard as he approached. She didn’t want to rely on him any more than necessary, or return to London.

She set the knife down and returned to her sketch, filling in the dark areas around the creature’s eyes when a new sensation swept over her. It wasn’t the stiffness in her back and neck, but a charged awareness as Conrad’s shadow filled the door.

‘You’ve made good progress,’ he remarked as he came to stand at the opposite end of the table, his tone as open and welcoming as when he used to interrupt her and her father’s work.

She gripped the sides of the sketchbook to steady herself against his presence and the hundreds of memories it brought back. He no longer wore his uniform, but tan breeches tucked into high boots and paired with a crisp white shirt beneath a worn riding coat. The sweat from his day riding to oversee his lands wetted his forehead beneath his light hair, making a few small strands stick to his skin. It was the way he used to look whenever she and her father had been here before and for a moment, she could almost feel his strong hand in hers as he led her over the Downs.

Sadly, those times were gone.

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ she croaked before regaining control of herself and her voice. ‘The skeleton is much like a bird’s, but at the same time different. The pits along the nose remind me of those on a crocodile’s snout.’

‘A reptile couldn’t survive in the cold of the north. Little does.’

‘That’s why I don’t think it’s a reptile.’ She picked up a flat, arch-like bone, struggling to keep the spicy scent of man, leather and sandalwood gracing Conrad’s skin from befuddling her as she handed it to him. ‘Look at this furcula. It’s curved like a peregrine falcon’s, but not as tight.’

‘You think this is some kind of bird?’ He set the bone back down where she’d arranged it between the ribs.

‘It’s possible.’

‘Birds don’t have teeth,’ he politely challenged, tapping the table top with his fingertips as he made his way to her side, creeping up on her like the tabby cat behind the house did when stalking a mouse.

‘They don’t have forearms instead of wings either.’ Her mouth went dry as she slid around to the opposite side, moving slowly so as not to appear as if she was running away, though she wanted to, swift and fast out of the door and away from the draw of his presence. ‘But look at the feet and the position of the legs in the hips.’

Mercifully, his focus dropped to the creature. ‘They certainly appear bird-like. Perhaps it’s a species which no longer exists.’

‘I could make a strong case for such an argument if I could compare this beast to one of the larger species of birds.’

‘Such as an ostrich?’

‘Exactly.’ Katie met his eyes and her heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t laughing at her, but encouraging her, like he always used to. It was the first time since he’d sailed away that she’d enjoyed such support. She’d nearly forgotten what it was like.

‘Come with me.’ He reached across the table and took her hand, drawing her around it to the door leading to the hallway.

She barely had time to set the sketchbook and pencil down as he led her into the narrow, wood-panelled passage, his grip as startling as his speed. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’ve thought of something else which might help you.’ He pulled her along the shadowed hallway towards his study.

She hurried to keep up with his long strides, holding tight to his hand, giddy and terrified at the same time. This was how it’d been before, when they would come home from searching for fossils, then seclude themselves in his study to pour over books and identify what they’d discovered.

Inside the study, he released her hand and made for a bookshelf. ‘There’s a bird in Australia, similar in shape and size to the ostrich. I made a sketch of it when I was there.’

Conrad knelt down before the bottom shelf and plucked out a book. His back arched gracefully beneath his coat as he bent over one of his old journals, the back of his neck just visible above his collar beneath his neatly trimmed hair. He rose and handed her the open journal, revealing a poorly drawn bird similar to an ostrich. ‘If you can find a better illustration of this animal and its bones, and include it in your paper, it could bolster your case for the creature being some type of bird.’

He moved to stand behind her and look over her shoulder at the drawing. The heat of his cheek was so close to hers it nearly made her drop the book. It was too much like the last time they’d been in here two years ago, when he’d showed her the maps of the Arctic and the route he intended to take. The map she’d drawn from his description was still tucked in her old sketchbook, the timeline faithfully followed by her while he was gone, then worried and fretted over when he hadn’t returned, until so much time had passed, she couldn’t bear to look at it any more.

Yet he was here, close and as enthusiastic as ever about one of her ideas. The faint spark of hope she’d experienced when he’d climbed the hill yesterday rose up again, sending a more powerful thrill through her than any unknown creature could ever create. ‘What if an animal like the one you purchased still exists and lives secluded in the north?’

‘I don’t believe they do.’ He waved her over to the globe near the wall. He spun it around to show North America.

‘I’ve been this far and two others have been here.’ He laid his finger near the top. ‘There’s nothing there but ice. Captain Ross saw evidence of caribou, but only up until this point. None of the Inuit I’ve spoken with have ever mentioned an animal like the one in the conservatory.’

‘I’ll need more proof than hearsay.’

Conrad stared at the globe as though it were a nautical chart on which he was plotting his course. In the look, she glimpsed something of the optimistic man who’d escorted her over Gorgon’s deck, describing in detail his plans for the coming adventure, not the despairing and acerbic man who’d faced her in here the other night.

‘Etienne Brule explored Canada for years. If something like the creature still roamed the north, he, or the natives he lived with, would have noted it. The Naturalist Society library contains an impressive collection of his works. If we left for London in the morning, we could be there by the afternoon.’

Her eagerness to prove the creature didn’t still live, and was in some way related to birds, paled under the reality of stepping back through the Naturalist Society’s grand front entrance. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to return so soon.’

‘Yes, you are.’ He wrapped his solid fingers around hers. ‘I know it.’

She squeezed his hand and a faint whisper of the elation she’d once experienced with him on the Downs passed between them. All she needed to do was follow him, just like before, and she wanted to. It was a prospect as alarming as descending into a very deep mine to dig for fossils, but strangely enough, with him, she wasn’t afraid of the danger. ‘Yes, we’ll leave in the morning.’

‘Good girl.’ He slid one arm around her waist, resting it on the small of her back as he drew her closer. She slipped the journal out from between them, allowing it to dangle from her hand as she relaxed against him, tilting her face up to his. The desire burning in his brown eyes proved as mesmerising now as the first time they’d kissed. She wanted to believe in him and their love and everything he promised, just as she had during all the lonely nights when she’d cried herself to sleep with grief. Only he wasn’t dead, he was here, alive, warm and so achingly close.

He leaned in closer until the faint ring of gold in the centre of his eyes became clear. The journal dropped to the floor with a thud at Katie’s feet as all resistance to him faded with the subtle pressure of his fingers against her back. She laid her hand on his shoulder, forgetting everything except the shift of his hips against hers and the flex of his muscles beneath her palm.

A soft knock on the wall near the door echoed through the room. Both of them turned to see Mr Turner, the mine foreman, standing there, hat in his hand, his eyes focused on the floor as though it were embedded with gold coins.

Conrad let go of Katie and she stepped back, her heart racing as much from the near kiss as being discovered by someone in such a compromising position.

‘Yes, Mr Turner?’ Conrad asked, no hint of embarrassment colouring his words.

Of course he didn’t need to worry, he was a man. Little could touch him while the slightest whisper might further damage her already tarnished reputation, and no amount of support from Conrad or the scientific community could salvage it. Katie picked up the journal, her confidence and faith in Conrad wavering. It’d been wrong to be intimate in a place where anyone could stumble upon them. Mr Turner might be a simple foreman, but Katie knew how little time it took for stories from the common man to find their way into the drawing rooms of polite society.

‘Captain Essington, we found something in the mine,’ the thick-necked foreman explained. ‘Miss Linton wasn’t interested in seeing such things while you were away. Now you’ve returned, I must know if we should dig it out and bring it to you or leave it where it is.’

Katie clutched the journal to her chest, trilling her fingers as though the foreman had brought the artefact for her to feel. After her father’s death, the Whitemans Green foreman had barred her from the pit, afraid she might meet with an accident, too. It’d left her with only the Downs to scour for fossils, but, while she’d collected some interesting pieces, none could match those entombed in the slate.

Conrad cocked a smile at her as a thrill crackled between them. ‘Shall we go and see it?’

‘We shall.’

* * *

Conrad guided the gig over the bumpy road leading from Heims Hall to the mine. He slid a sideways glance at Katie who sat beside him in the high seat. The deep green of her sturdy walking dress highlighted the apples of her cheeks, which glowed pink with the cool air. Her aqua eyes shone bright with the same excitement which had graced her beautiful face before they’d been interrupted in his study.

He flicked the reins over the horse’s back, making the beast increase its pace. It heartened him to think he could draw from her as much emotion as the bones, though he envied the old creatures for the current smile decorating her full lips. It was only the second time he’d enjoyed the simple pleasure of seeing her happy since coming home.

They came around a sharp bend in the road and the gig tilted to one side as they made the turn. Katie leaned hard against Conrad’s arm to keep from tumbling out until the vehicle rocked back upright.

‘The bone has been buried for ages, we needn’t risk our lives rushing to see it,’ Katie chided with a half-laugh.

The wheel struck a small rut and her hand shot out to grasp his thigh.

‘I wouldn’t call it a risk.’ He flung her a teasing smile. She pulled her hand away and grasped the edge of the leather seat. ‘And if we don’t hurry, we’ll lose the daylight.’

The October sun was already low along the horizon, stretching out the shadows of trees to cover the road and fields. In the steady pulse of the horse’s hooves and the sharp scent of dry earth and grass, Conrad felt something of his old self, the one who still believed he could and would accomplish anything he set his mind to. It was as big a comfort as Katie’s unconscious decision to grasp him for support and their near kiss. It meant everything he’d been through hadn’t buried the best parts of him. It offered a glimmer of hope for his future and Katie’s.

Her willingness to come to London with him was another. He couldn’t dally here in the country much longer and hope to keep Mr Barrow’s support, assuming he still possessed it. If Mr Barrow set his mind on Conrad’s ruin, as he had with Captain Ross, then all Conrad’s influence with the Naturalist Society would vanish and with it Katie’s hopes. Conrad shifted his feet on the boards, tugging one rein to guide the horse down the right path. His decisions had broken and maimed enough men already, he hated to think they might do more damage to Katie.

The horse began to slow and Conrad snapped the reins, urging the animal on faster, feeling like a fraud for entertaining his fears while he insisted Katie fight hers. Nothing with Mr Barrow had happened yet and he refused to let his worries undermine him or her. Whatever waited for him in London, he would face it as he did all his challenges and with Katie by his side.

They crested the hill and the narrow buildings of the mine came into view. Conrad tugged on the reins and slowed the horse as it trotted over the long drive leading to the open hole in the earth. The men were leaving for the day, making their way down the short hill towards the now-quiet chimneys where the cartfuls of slate were crushed and burned to create the lime needed for construction in London.

Mr Turner and a few of his men waited beside a tall ladder leading down into the pit. They removed their hats as Conrad pulled the gig to a stop in front of them. He jumped out, but before he could help Katie down, she was already on her feet and coming to join him in front of the men. One miner raised a curious eyebrow at this blatant display of female independence, but he was deferential enough to Conrad’s position as lord of the manor and his employer to remain silent.

‘Where is it?’ Conrad asked the foreman.

‘Just down there.’ He pointed to another ladder perched along the mine wall, not too far from the main ladder. ‘The ramp for the mules is on the other side. We can go down that way.’

Across the wide pit the ramp sloped into the grey earth. It wasn’t far as the crow flies, but reaching it meant walking the wide circumference of the mine.

‘We’re already losing the light and walking will take time. The ladder will do just as well as the ramp,’ Katie insisted, making for the wood.

The man looked to Conrad, waiting to see if there would be a disagreement but Conrad merely shrugged, then moved to step between her and the ladder.

‘Let me go first.’ Before she could protest, he gripped the top pole and swung himself around to catch the rung, sliding more than climbing to the bottom. He hopped off, looking up past the layers of jagged rocks to usher Katie to follow.

While Mr Turner held the top, Conrad stayed beneath Katie as she descended, ready to catch her should she fall. She managed the ladder with the agility of an experienced rigging monkey, except no man on his crew moved with such tempting grace. Her hips shifted from side to side as she took each rung and her cotton dress swung in time to her steps. As the fabric swayed, it revealed a teasing length of black stocking and a shock of white thigh just above it.

Conrad admired the hint of flesh and the memories it conjured of another evening like this one, a week before he’d left for the Arctic, when the two of them had come here after dark, lanterns in hand, to search through the rocks. He flexed his fingers, remembering the curve of her calf beneath his palm as he’d reached up to slide his hand beneath her skirts and caress the derrière hidden beneath her dress. She’d stopped in her descent and he’d waited for her to kick him away. Instead, she’d met his bold gesture with an inviting smile, dropping down from the ladder into his arms with a kiss as searing as her flesh against his.

The length of him burned with the memory of her pressed beneath him against the wall of the mine as he’d caressed her exposed thigh resting against his hips. They’d teased each other to near desperation, eager in their desire to cling to one another and forget his coming departure. He’d been careful with her, tender but restrained, satisfying her as he denied himself, not wanting to leave her with child when the dangers of his mission lingered so close. Though he’d been cavalier back then about dying, he’d known the risks, but with her breath heavy in his ear, her body trembling against his, he’d believed there’d be many more nights to indulge in the full pleasure of her when he returned.

Conrad stepped back, attempting to shield himself from the tempting hint of her legs and the heat it sent ripping through him as she manoeuvred the last few rungs. She wouldn’t greet his touch with such enthusiasm today, no matter how much he needed the comfort of her embrace.

Humiliation as much as desire burned through him. He shouldn’t need or want her, especially if she didn’t want him, but it wasn’t simply lust driving his pursuit, but the craving for peace. The night before last, when she’d clasped his hand on the back of the horse, it had stilled the trembles which had plagued him since his rescue. In the study today, with her breasts pressed against his chest, all the glories of his past exploits and all the hurtful words of that night had faded away. There’d only been her and the glimmer of love which had carried him through so many dark, Arctic nights.

Katie hopped off the last rung with a wide, exhilarated smile Conrad could feel in his core. The brisk breeze caught a strand of her hair and whipped it across her face. Conrad reached out and tucked it behind the curve of her small ear, though he wanted to wrap the gold curl around his finger, bury his face in the softness of it and make them both forget the past and the present.

Katie’s dark lashes fluttered as she watched him draw his hand away. She bit her bottom lip, the anticipation in her expression urging Conrad forward, but he held back. He didn’t want to push her too far and break the fragile bond they were slowly repairing.

‘Hurry, I want to see the fossil before it gets too dark.’ Katie quickly moved off over the loose piles of slate and around the large outcroppings of rock dotting the mine floor.

Conrad followed, stopping to join her at the base of the second ladder. Katie peered up at the length of dark bone so distinct against the grey slate and the metal stake driven in next to it to mark its place. A nearby overhang increased the shadows in this portion of the quarry, shading the mine wall and the bone.

‘What do you think it is?’ he asked. It was difficult from where they were standing to tell.

‘I don’t believe it’s an ichthyosaur. It looks too long and thick. I must get a closer look.’

‘I’ll have the men dig it out for you tomorrow,’ Mr Turner offered as he came to stand with them.

‘No, we make for London tomorrow. I must see it tonight,’ Katie insisted.

‘Then I’ll fetch a lamp.’ Mr Turner hurried off to secure the light.

Katie crept closer to the ladder, tilting her head back and forth to try to get a better look at the bone. The curls at the back of her neck caressed her shoulders before one of them caught in the small lace of her neckline. Conrad reached up to free it and Katie jerked around to face him, then took one small step away.

‘Dr Mantell found a large bone he thinks is the leg of some unknown creature,’ Katie explained. ‘Mr Cuvier says it’s a kind of hippopotamus from before the deluge, but Dr Mantell isn’t convinced. He and I discussed the matter. He’s afraid to publish his paper on it for fear the societies will laugh and reject him. It’s difficult to be taken seriously if one doesn’t come from a titled or wealthy family.’

Katie toed a small piece of slate with her boot.

‘Then all the more reason to align yourself with a man who possesses both.’ It wasn’t a subtle reminder of his standing and small wealth, but a powerful one. Though he’d always cherished Katie’s eagerness to love him despite his money and family connections, he wasn’t above using both to try and persuade her to be with him now.

Katie peered around Conrad with a frown, obviously not as enamoured with his argument. ‘What’s taking Mr Tucker so long?’

The sun was falling fast and the shadows deepening by the minute.

‘He’ll be back soon.’

‘I can’t wait any longer.’ She marched to the ladder, sliding a little on a piece of lose slate before she regained her balance.

Conrad hurried up behind her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘If I managed the ladder into the mine, surly I can manage this one. Steady it for me.’

Before he could take hold of it, Katie began to climb.

Conrad grabbed the poles tight and the higher Katie climbed, the more the wood wobbled under her weight. As she ascended, the top of the poles nestled against the walls rattled, breaking off shards of slate. Conrad turned his head as the pebbles she’d knocked loose pelted his shoulders and scattered over the mine floor. By the time he looked back up, Katie was at the top, hands on the last rung as she strained to see the bone.




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