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The silver eyes held her gaze in a silent moment, strangely glowering, yet, she thought, searching, evaluating, in a way that puzzled her. Should she have thanked him? Perhaps acknowledged what she wasn’t even sure was meant to be apologetic? Whatever it was, she didn’t seem to have met his expectation. Never had she met a more mystifying man.

He cleared his throat, which she had learned was a sign that he was finally getting to his circuitous point. “However, I would like for you to ride with me today.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I only ask you to ride with me, Miss Darrow, not conspire.”

“Then if you have nothing to hold over my head, why should I ride with you?”

“Because I want to ride with you. Just to ride. Because it is such a perfect day.”

Jane saw in his eyes a different kind of intensity. Not the chilling coldness she had first known in him, nor the blazing heat of his fury. It had a depth and warmth that made her question herself, wonder if she had always been wrong about him, and perhaps the icy gray had never been there. Made her think, perhaps, yes, the man inside was not soulless.

It drew her like the pull of a magnet.

She should say no. Just to show him she could.

But it was a perfect day. So she joined him. They rode and rode and rode, then walked to rest the horses and let them graze, and rode some more. They stopped for a glass of claret beneath the tall oaks in the forest, and tasted slivers of fine Cheddar cheese he carved off a wedge with his knife. They rode along the river, along the tall cliffs and at last, along the beach.

The sea was yellow gold as the sun dropped toward the horizon, a quiet plane of precious metal that melted into silvered sand, and as far as the eye could see, changed from gilded sea to brilliant amber sky. All the world was silver and gold.

The horses paced across the wet sand, their steps muffled, disturbing the metallic sheen that settled back to serenity in the little rounded puddles they left behind. Only the quiet huffing of the horses’ breath and the faint screech of gulls far out from the shore broke the silence.

She had long ago loosened her bonnet and let it fall behind her, to feel the delicate breeze in her hair as they rode. Beside her rode the man with silver eyes and golden hair, his face dark in the shadow, as silent as the quiet water. It had been his idea to ride along the shore, taking advantage of the long beach created when the tide ebbed. But low tide was a curious thing that made one believe in the forever of an instant. She had come along, appeasing him because…Was it because she must keep him occupied, to keep him from making discoveries about the people she loved?

Oddly, though. She had come to expect, almost to want his companionship. Never knowing when he would turn the quiet of the moment into some strange demand that ruined all that was beautiful. Or if he would not. Perhaps today was one of those times when he would remain silent, or trade the silence for small, beautiful words.

He was, in so many ways, a strange man. He did not court her. But he shared beautiful things with her, often in silence, as if he accepted or believed they saw them the same way. She wondered if they did. Did he see and feel the colors with the sort of passion that invaded her?

They reached the headland that separated this beach from the next, and he pulled ahead. Here, their ride must come to an end.

“Don’t go there,” she said, and reached for the bridle on his bay.

“Why?” But he reined in his horse.

“It isn’t safe beyond this point.”

“Is that a cave?” His head inclined in the direction of the sharply jagged cove tucked between two cliffs.

“Yes. But you can only see it when the tide is out.”

“Then I want to see it.”

“No. It is dangerous. There have been too many rockfalls into the sea, and it’s hard to go around except when the tide is very far out. And if you stay too long, the tide will trap you.”

“I could climb out.”

“But your horse could not.”

For an answer, he stroked the bay’s mane. She knew he was fond of Hector. Something about him told her he had a fondness for all horses.

“Is it a smuggler’s cave?”

“It’s called Colliver’s Cove. They say it was used by Robert Colliver, but they also say Robert Colliver left Looe in his youth and never returned. Both could not be true. They also tell tales of men who drowned because a high sea came up and caught them inside. When the tide comes in, the cavern floods.”

“Is there another way out?”

“There is a hole near the top, but it cannot be reached from inside.”

“So you have seen it.”

“Yes.”

“You got out safely.”

“I went when everything was right. I did not stay.”

Edenstorm leaned forward in his saddle. He planted a fist on his hip and narrowed his eyes as he studied the small, dark opening that marked the top of the cave. “If I were a smuggler, I’d think it ideal. Drop ropes through the top. Hide the ankers, strung together inside the cave. Let them float. But pull them through the top when there is no one around to see.”

“But you are not a smuggler, and you do not know everything you would need to know.”

“And you do?”

“More than you, and that is not enough. They say once the kegs floated out to sea and the entire cache was lost.”

“So they have used it. Do they use it now?”

“There is no need for it these days.”

“Why?”

“There is a war. No one pays much attention to free traders these days. You have never seen a riding officer near Looe, have you?”

That deep dimple formed in his right cheek. “No.”

“Don’t go in there,” she said again. “There are many ways to be killed on the Cornish Coast. That is one of them.”

His ghostly silver eyes studied her for a moment, then he dismounted. He held his hands up to her and she slid down, his hands catching around her waist. They turned back to the beach they had just left.

He stopped, scanning the distant horizon where the sun dropped lower in the sky and began to tinge the gold with pink.

“If you painted, how would you paint this?”

“Rapidly. Soon the sun will go down and we will never see it quite this way again.” She swept her hand in an arc along the horizon. “It is not simply golden, anywhere. It is only the way the many colors work together that makes it so.” She pointed to a distant promontory. “Look over there. Even the rock in the distance is bathed in gold, yet none of it is truly the color it seems.”

He stood there, his eyes intense and hazy, darkening to smoky pewter. She was aware of the scent that was his, so close and mingling with the salt of the sea and flesh of horse, with leather and brawn.

“I could never paint,” he said, his voice as soft as fine doeskin. “But I could never forget this. If I could paint, I would paint you, bathed in gold, just as you are right now. The color of your hair gleams like tiny strands of golden light.”

He took one of her curls into his fingers, then slipped a hand into her hair. A tangle of longing twisted and turned in his eyes. “I’d want to capture the light shining in your hair and playing across your face, the softness of your lips.”

“How do you know they’re soft?” she whispered.

“I just do.” The pad of his thumb crossed over her lower lip. “Yes, soft.”

She gasped as his lips touched hers, but not from fear or outrage, but because she had not known her own longing. Had not known the feel of his arms circling her and pulling her close to his body where she could feel all his firmness as if she flowed into it, his kiss deepening and stroking in ways that set her afire inside. Her heart raced with the pounding of an unexplainable wildness within her, the heat she had not understood that had been building from the moment she had first seen him on the beach.