The Smuggler and the Society Bride (12 page)

She tried not to feel a glow, knowing he approved of her.

‘I'm going to go to London myself soon to see about the cost of transport and to find possible merchants to handle the goods. So, how is Eva doing with her knitting?'

‘I'm afraid she's much more interested in learning her letters. Only look, see the glow about her when she's studying with Father Gryffd!' Honoria gestured toward the two.

As she noted, Eva was beaming as the vicar showed her how the story he'd just read was inscribed in the coding on that page. If she studied hard, he added, a whole world of stories would soon be open for her to discover.

‘I suppose I should learn some knitting myself, so I might encourage her,' Honoria said, looking away from them with a
smile. ‘Father Gryffd says she hangs on my words and mimics everything I do.' She shook her head, sighing, as she recalled some recent events. ‘Not always a wise idea, I fear!'

‘Of course she watches you and copies. You possess a sparkling, dynamic presence that must make you a person of influence wherever you go. The knack of inspiring confidence in others is intangible, something that can't be taught.' He grimaced. ‘As I have often observed, some men are incapable of leading, no matter how much gold braid and lace one layers on a uniform.'

‘I would have liked to be a soldier, like my brother,' she said wistfully, almost absurdly gratified by his praise—before the new voice of caution reasserted itself, pointing out to her all she had lost by foolishly indulging the idea that she could live life on her own terms.

‘But it's silly even to discuss it,' she said with an angry shake of her head. ‘Only men have the freedom to go soldiering and exploring and to make what they wish of their lives.' Her thoughts going from herself to Laurie Steavens, she added bitterly, ‘Women are everywhere hemmed in, constrained to narrow paths with few choices and punished if they stray from them.'

From somewhere deep within her, a swell of emotion rose, a chaotic mix of anger, disappointment, hurt, fear and despair. Terrified for one panicky instant that she might weep, she fought it down.

Suddenly she wanted to get away, to seize her sketchbook and flee to the cliffs where the fierce wind and roaring surf could work its soothing magic. She didn't need this impossibly tempting man luring her further toward the danger that had already destroyed her life—or tantalizing her with possibilities that could never be.

But before she could master her voice enough to announce her intention to depart, he caught her sleeve, forcing her to look up at him.

‘I'd never thought about it before, for my sister seems happy
enough to be a wife and mother, but you're right. Women are constrained. And it is unfair, isn't it?'

The sympathy on his face and in his eyes halted her even more effectively than his hand on her sleeve. Once again, she felt herself physically pulled toward him, drawn by a fierce spirit that seemed to mirror her own as it looked deep within her, both understanding and admiring what it saw. Even after he released her, she remained motionless, staring at him, the rational, protective half of her brain warring with the wild, instinctive part that urged her to reach out. To trust him.

Caution won again. ‘Perhaps. But 'tis no point repining what cannot be changed. Father Gryffd, if it's all right with you, I believe I shall leave. I've promised my aunt some sketches of the coast and thought I'd attempt some today, while the weather is fair. Eva, I'll see you tomorrow, pet.'

‘Of course, Miss Foxe. We're about done for today anyway, aren't we, Eva?'

The child bounded up and ran to Honoria. Tugging at her skirt, she made a series of rapid hand motions that looked something like water rushing toward a shore, the soar of a cliff and cawing sea birds before gesturing emphatically back to herself.

With a smile, Honoria said, ‘You wish to come with me?'

As the child nodded enthusiastically, the captain said, ‘You seem to have learned her language quite well.'

‘We're becoming good friends,' Honoria replied before looking down to tell the child, ‘Of course, you may come.' She might initially have wished to go alone, but she could never disappoint the eager girl.

Eva bounced once in excitement, then tilted her head to the side, drew her hand slowly down one cheek and pointed to Honoria.

‘And what does that mean?' Hawksworth asked.

With a smile, the vicar answered for her. ‘It means the cliffs are pretty—like Miss Foxe.'

While Honoria flushed a bit in embarrassment, the captain murmured, ‘Clever child.'

Eva surprised Honoria by uttering a little giggle before turning to seize Captain Hawksworth's hand. Tugging at it, she made the sea and cliff gesture again.

‘I think she wants me to come with you,' the captain said, sounding amused. ‘I should very much like to go sketching, Miss Eva. If Miss Foxe does not object?'

Honoria hesitated, trapped. The strong surge of excitement that welled up at the idea of having his company ought to have been reason enough, her cautious side argued, for her finding some polite excuse to decline. But with the undertow of connection still running strongly between them, she didn't have the strength to resist.

Besides, she told the cautious brain, they would have Eva to chaperone—and what untoward thing could happen with a curious child in train?

‘Very well, Captain, if you don't think you'd be bored.'

‘In the company of two lovely and clever ladies?' he reposted immediately. ‘Impossible! However, it might be possible to become rather sharp-set during a strenuous hike. If you ladies will walk with me to the Gull, I'll see if I can persuade Mrs Kessel to kit us out with some biscuits and cider, and obtain a gig to carry us there. Would you like that, Eva?'

Naturally the child nodded with great enthusiasm. Sighing, Honoria beat back the vague unease still troubling her and agreed that she would enjoy it, too.

She would enjoy it, she told her cautious side defiantly. Enjoy the company of the eager child, this highly attractive man and the beautiful setting.

How long it had it been since she'd been on an outing which promised only pleasure?
Too long,
she answered her own question. She would suppress all those tiresome voices of
what
and
why
and
should
and
shouldn't
and simply enjoy this day as the gift it was from benevolent providence.

T
hree quarters of an hour later, Gabe helped the ladies into a gig and the little party set out. With a bit of entirely justified flattery, he'd induced a beaming Mrs Kessel to provide not just biscuits and cider, but some of her excellent ham and cheese along with a flask of ale and a blanket to spread upon the ground.

As they set out, Eva's urgent motions indicated she wished them to proceed to the south, toward Land's End. Acquiescing to her wishes, they proceeded several miles down the coast until she gestured for them to stop. She then led them to a large rock that formed a table-like structure set at the edge of a rocky point with breakers foaming below.

‘It's a perfect place to spread out our provisions,' Miss Foxe exclaimed. ‘What a clever girl you are indeed, Eva!'

‘Shall we sample Mrs Kessel's fare before you begin sketching?' Gabe asked.

Slanting a glance at Eva, she replied. ‘Yes, let's. Aunt Foxe tells me she sets an excellent table.'

‘A fact I can confirm,' Gabe replied, handing Miss Foxe the quilt the landlady had lent him. While she and the girl spread the coverlet over the flat stony surface, he unpacked the repast and they all sat.

‘I already knew her cider to be superior; the ham is delicious, too,' Miss Foxe remarked as she nibbled at the sampling Gabe offered her. Eva, however, hung back, not touching any of the feast he'd arranged before them.

‘Please, have some, Eva,' he urged. ‘The food and cider are for you, too.'

A worried frown on her face, the child looked over at Miss Foxe, as if seeking confirmation. ‘Yes, Eva, the refreshments are for all of us,' Miss Foxe said.

Even so, Gabe had to encourage her again before finally, she took a small piece of cheese. A rapt smile crossed her face after she swallowed the morsel, and she made a rapid hand gesture that even Gabe could interpret meant ‘good.'

‘Try the ham, too,' he coaxed, meeting Miss Foxe's look of disbelief and consternation over the child's head. Who could have been so cruel, her expression asked, as to have fed themselves before her while forbidding a hungry child to eat?

Knowing that Laurie Steavens worked at the inn, Gabe had a grim suspicion just who it might have been.

It required a bit more encouragement from both of them before Eva relaxed and began to partake freely of the food. And when she did, they both effectively abandoned their own repast in the pleasure of watching the child's uninhibited delight.

Each bite was chewed slowly, each sip of cider savoured. Then she set them both to laughing when, at the bottom of the basket, she discovered an orange. After picking it up and rolling it between her fingers, she was winding up her arm to throw it to Miss Foxe when that lady cried, ‘No, Eva, it's not a ball! You eat it.'

She took the fruit and held it up to the girl's nose, letting her smell it, then carefully peeled it, Eva watching wide-eyed through the whole process. After sectioning the fruit, she handed it to the girl. ‘Taste some, it's delicious,' she urged.

The child looked dubious, but encouraged by her idol, took
a tiny bite. She looked startled, probably by the sudden spurt of sweet juice, but almost immediately closed her eyes and made a little humming sound, clearly enraptured by the taste.

After swallowing the first bit, she looked back questioningly at Miss Foxe, who handed her several more sections. ‘Good, isn't it?' she asked. ‘It's called an orange—like the colour. It grows on trees in warm lands far away.'

With even greater appreciation than she'd shown with the ham and cheese, the girl methodically devoured the orange pieces. After watching Eva for some minutes, Miss Foxe looked over to Gabe and mouthed ‘Thank you.'

If he, who had only a glancing interest in the child, found it oddly moving to watch her enjoy this unprecedented treat, he imagined it must be even more gratifying for her mentor. A pleasant warmth filling him, he was glad he'd hit upon the idea of the picnic that was providing a deprived child—and the kind-hearted lady who cared about her—with such pleasure.

Indeed, so absorbed was Miss Foxe in watching Eva that not until the slices had almost disappeared did she recall she still held another segment of the orange in her hand. ‘Excuse me,' she said to him softly. ‘I almost forgot to give you your part.'

She held out the orange. He reached over to take it, but at the last minute, rather than simply pluck the fruit from her, he slipped his fingers beneath hers, brought her hand to his mouth and ate the orange off her palm.

In every sensitized nerve, he heard her almost imperceptible gasp, felt the tremor that shivered through her as his lips nuzzled and his tongue tasted. For long, lovely, slow minutes, he held her unresisting hand to his lips, even that miniscule contact sparking sensation to every nerve as with the brush of his lips and the slow exploration of his tongue he devoured the fruit, then licked up every drop of nectar.

He made it last as long as he could, well beyond any excuse he had for resting his lips there, before reluctantly releasing her hand. Her arm flopped jerkily back to her side, as if she had
little control over its motion, while her eyes never left his face, now raised and gazing straight at her.

Cheeks flushed, eyes bluer than the dancing waves far beneath them, lips slightly parted, she looked startled, taken aback—and aroused. As he certainly was, the blood rushing thick and heavy in his veins, his body tightening with erotic tension while he went as hard as her lips looked soft and pliant.

He burned with everything within him to kiss them.

But if his orange-eating gesture had been impulsive, he wasn't idiotish enough to try to make love to her before the fascinated gaze of a ten-year-old. Nor, his instincts warned him, despite that firm evidence that the spontaneous gesture had evidently shaken her as much as it had disturbed him, was she yet ready for kissing.

Oh, but soon, he hoped! Else he'd need a great many more swims in the cold sea water.

His wits needed dousing to revive them, too, for his paralyzed brain couldn't seem to come up with some clever remark, or indeed, give voice to anything at all. It was Eva, pulling at Miss Foxe's sleeve, who finally broke the spell between them. Even then, the child had to tug for a full minute before Miss Foxe finally turned to focus on her.

Still holding her sleeve, the girl gestured at the sketchbook and then toward the cliffs. ‘You want to show me something?' Miss Foxe asked, a bit breathlessly.

At the child's vigorous nod, Gabe finally recovered his voice. ‘You two go along. I'll pack the basket into the gig.'

Still looking distracted, Gabe thought, Miss Foxe allowed Eva to carry her box of charcoal while she gathered up the sketchbook and followed.

Still more than a little distracted himself, as he walked over to stow the basket, he marvelled at the strength of the sensual response she sparked in him, that could fire him to a need so acute it approached pain with just one smoky gaze and a taste of her palm.

A need that only made him even more voracious to taste the rest of her, all of her, to suck and lick and savour every delicious inch from the arch of her instep to the curve of her ear. How readily he could identify with what Eva must have felt as a starving onlooker beholding a table full of savoury dishes she was forbidden to taste!

Oh, that soon, Miss Foxe might invite him to feast.

But though he'd made good progress in disarming her suspicion and luring her closer, instinct told him he hadn't quite drawn her close enough to try breaching the citadel. Besides which, damnation, he still didn't know her true status.

Much as he burned to, he wouldn't sample the nectar from an unplucked flower—or even further disturb one from which someone had already sipped, if there were a chance that taking such liberties might harm what he only wished to cherish.

Cherish?

He shied away from the implications of that word with the speed of a timid virgin stepping out of the path of a notorious roué. Putting the notion out of mind, he turned from the gig and paced off toward the horizon beyond which Miss Foxe and the girl were about to disappear.

To his surprise, Eva was leading Miss Foxe away from, rather than toward, the cliffs. He picked up his pace to keep them in view as Eva trotted along the edge of a deep ravine, skirting large boulders, then dropping out of sight again.

Quickly rounding the rocks, he saw just the top of Miss Foxe's bonnet as she descended a narrow trail into the ravine. A few minutes later, the trail grew narrower still as it doubled back on itself, passing around and under protruding rock formations. He was about to call out for them to halt and come back, as the trail was becoming ever more slippery and dangerous, when around the next bend the path suddenly opened up onto a vista of a cove sheltered behind a narrow inlet. He stopped, inspecting the place while Eva led Miss Foxe down the steep descent to the crescent of sand below.

The inlet was even narrower than the entrance to the cove where the revenuer had run his boat onto the shoal. Waves from the open sea beyond roared through the perilously skinny passage, then broadened out into a wide, shallow cove where the water lapped peacefully onto a flat, sandy beach.

An even more perfect spot to land a cargo than the other, Gabe noted, trying to recall the features of the coastline beyond and looking for some landmark that would alert him to the presence of the narrow entrance.

The ladies were already at the beach when he arrived, but since Miss Foxe had not deployed the sketchbook, he assumed they hadn't yet reached the destination Eva desired to show them. True enough, as soon as he caught up to them, she trotted off again, leading them toward what appeared to be a solid rock face.

Not until he was only a few feet from the wall did he notice the narrow cave opening, set obliquely to the beach so it was difficult to make out. Eva halted there, beckoning them to advance.

Miss Foxe gave the opening a dubious glance. ‘Do you suppose it's safe?' she asked Gabe in a low voice.

‘Eva seems to think so,' he answered. ‘Do you want to stay here while I follow her?'

‘And be thought a poor honey?' she asked scornfully. ‘Never! I may not be very fond of low, underground places, but I shall manage.'

‘Good,' he approved, noting that Miss Foxe was not one to let fear constrain her, a trait he admired—and possessed himself. ‘Lead on, Miss Eva.'

At the back of the cave, they paused where Eva indicated to gather up and light a torch from a stack evidently left for that purpose. By its flickering illumination, Eva picked her way into a low squared passage that sloped gradually upward, whose roughly geometrical shape and the drainage channel to one side indicated it had been purposely excavated.

They followed the tunnel for some time, finally emerging inside a small stone hut. Outside it, the desolate, windswept moor extended as far as the eye could see.

‘A smuggler's trail!' Miss Foxe exclaimed. ‘Ending at this hut—a perfect place to receive and conceal goods until they can be carried off. Eva, what a wonderful place! How my brother and I would have loved to have discovered such a treasure when we were young. I'd heard such things existed, but thought them mere legend.'

‘Not legend at all, as you've just seen,' Gabe replied, amused by her almost childlike delight. ‘There are others even more clever—passages that lead into the cellars of public houses, into private homes more elaborate than this humble structure—even into the crypts of churches.'

‘Into churches?' she asked, eying him narrowly, as if wondering whether this was just another smuggler's tall tale.

‘Quite true,' he confirmed with a smile. ‘In another village, there's a tunnel leading to the stables used by the town coroner, who kindly allows his hearse to be borrowed to transport goods farther inland.'

She shook her head and laughed. ‘I begin to believe your claim that all Cornwall is involved in the trade! Was there anything else you wanted to show me, Eva?' she asked, turning to the girl.

While the two walked the area around the hut, Eva pointing out various grasses and wildflowers, Gabe put a professional eye to evaluating the surroundings.

By his estimate of the distance they'd travelled south from Sennlack, this place must be several miles from the village, yet not on the main road, if one could dignify the rough track that more or less followed the coastline by so elevated a title. A flattened area in the mix of coarse grasses and low-growing plants suggested that cargo might have been moved over it in the past, though the absence of wagon tracks said no goods had passed here recently. Across the moors, a tor in the distance served as an excellent landmark.

Making a mental note of the surroundings, Gabe walked over to rejoin the ladies.

‘Though the flowers here are lovely,' Miss Foxe was telling Eva, ‘I think I should prefer sketching the cove, where the high cliffs overhang that narrow inlet. Shall we go back?'

Apparently content after having shared her secret passage, the child followed docilely as Gabe relit their torch and led the little party back to the beach. While Miss Foxe searched for the perfect spot from which to sketch, he climbed the narrow trail back up the point where it emerged from the ravine. For a few moments, he stood there, studying with a seaman's eye the configuration of the rocks that formed the narrow inlet, the characteristics of the waves washing through it and the direction of the prevailing wind.

His inspection complete, Gabe returned to the sun-dappled beach to find Miss Foxe seated on a rock, Eva sprawled on the sand beside her, watching avidly while she sketched. The pose, as if staged by some artist intent on painting a study of a mother and child, was somehow both tender and moving.

He stopped short, surprised by his reaction. He couldn't recall having been touched by such a scene before, certainly not while observing his sister with one of her squalling brats. Perhaps it was the obvious connection between the mute fisherman's daughter and the gentlewoman, who in the eyes of the world would seem to have so little in common. Yet in their intensity, their exile from society and their uninhibited joy, both were so alike.