Page 19 of The Smuggler & the Society Bride

Putting down her teacup, she looked up to see that disturbingly intense glance fixed on her. Then he smiled.

His smile seemed to coax hers forth by right. In fact, she felt the most curious sensation that some part of her soul, awakened from a long slumber, soared up and out to meet his.

She shook her head rapidly, breaking the hold of his gaze and trying to dispel the nonsensical notion. She succeeded merely in feeling dizzy.

The tea must be too strong, she thought, her emotions unbalanced by a touch of panic. She should remove herself now, before she felt or said anything idiotish. She rose abruptly.

‘Thank you for tea, Father, and compliments to Mrs Wells for the excellent biscuits. But I must return to Foxeden.’

To her dismay, Captain Hawksworth rose immediately as well. ‘I should be going, too, Father Gryffd. Add my appreciation to Miss Foxe’s for your hospitality.’

If she’d thought to avoid him, she was disappointed, for abjuring the vicar to remain in his house, since a sharp wind was blowing, he escorted her to her gig.

Acutely conscious she had not managed to fully subdue the siren call of…of something that pulled her to him, she cast about for some topic that might lessen it. ‘It wasn’t kind of you to tease the vicar about consuming spirits. He’s a fine man, one of best I’ve met in that role.’

To her exasperation, he immediately agreed. ‘You are right, ’twas not well done of me. He is indeed a good man.’ He laughed wryly. ‘How difficult it must be for a Welshman to encourage adherence to English law! Especially one that does as much harm to Cornishmen as the customs.’

‘They wouldn’t be harmed if they just followed the rules,’ she returned tartly.

‘Perhaps, but if they obey them, how would the fisherman or day labourer earn the extra pennies that allow him to purchase tea—or a glass of spirits and a warm meal at Mr Kessel’s inn? You can’t hold it against a man to choose to do something that makes his hard life a bit more pleasant. Or expect him not to resent or flout authorities who try to prevent him from doing so, by force if necessary, merely to enrich a government in ways that do nothing to ease his lot at all.’

She shook her head in exasperation. ‘You are an Irish devil! To hear you explain it, ’tis the most reasonable thing in the world to disobey the laws.’

‘Because it is,’ he returned promptly. Seeing she was about to object again, he laughed and held up his hands. ‘Pax! I can see ’tis not a matter upon which we are likely to agree. And, you know, an Irishman has as healthy a disdain for English law as his Welsh cousins.’

‘That I can believe. I expect you’ve always been a rabble rouser! Is that how you ended up in Cornwall?’

‘It was a favour to a friend, actually. And I’ll have you know I spent a very respectable career in the Army.’

‘Where you made those respectable contacts in London, no doubt?’

His slow grin captured her again, warmed her from the face that seemed to glow under his gaze, all the way to her toes and deep within. It seemed her brain had shut down, for all she could do was gaze back, tingling with longing.

A tingling that turned to a shiver in every nerve as he grasped her gloved hand and brought it to his lips. ‘I have appreciated our conversation even more than the vicar’s excellent tea. I shall investigate finding markets for your mittens, Miss Foxe, and do my very best not to disappoint you.’

She was not sure how it happened, for her wretched mind seemed incapable of summoning coherent thought, much less speech, but suddenly her gig was beside them.

All she knew was his face angled down toward hers, his eyes staring intently, his slightly parted lips poised as if to descend to hers. Her pulse galloping like a winner at Newmarket, she waited in frantic anticipation for him to close that small gap between them and capture her mouth.

Her eyelids must have drifted shut, for in the next moment, instead of his lips on hers, she felt the captain’s hands at her waist, lifting her up to the seat.

Beneath her cloak, she felt each pad of his fingers against her ribs. The insistent pressure seemed to burn through her clothing into her skin, so that despite being fully dressed, with horse and gig and servant within a few feet of her, the touch seemed almost as intimate as if only the two of them stood there…alone in her chamber, he lifting her onto the bed.

The shocking image rattled her so much, only at the last moment did she manage to grip the rail and avoid falling ignominiously back on top of him. While the servant handed the reins into her numb hands, Captain Hawksworth bowed to her.

‘I hope to report good news for you soon. Good day, Miss Foxe.’ With a hand to his hat, he turned and walked away.

The groom set in motion the horse who, fortunately, knew the way home, since at the moment it seemed she was incapable of driving. Long practice kept the reins taut in her hands on the way out of town, until somewhere farther down the road to Foxeden, her mind finally cleared of its sensual haze and she tried to evaluate what had just happened.

Her first realization was that the captain was much more dangerous than she’d first thought him. He’d been able to almost persuade even her, who had family highly placed in government, that the laws against free-trading were flawed. He’d encouraged her to give shape to her sketchy scheme to help the girls and their families, thereby involving her in trading activities that would horrify her Ton relations.

Much worse, though, he tempted her. In him, she sensed the same turbulent, rebellious spirit that always swirled restlessly in her breast. He, like Hal, was an Army man, a man who’d been to foreign lands, tested his courage in desperate battles. Here was a man who welcomed challenges, be it against the sea, the revenue agents—or the establishing of trading contacts to sell mittens knit by schoolgirls. Here was a man who lived life vibrantly on every level.

Most dangerous of all was the call of sense to sense. In the past, she’d giggled at Minerva Press novels in which a heroine melted at the hero’s touch, her thoughts scattered to winds by his nearness, her only desire to be wrapped in his strong, sheltering arms.

She wasn’t laughing now.

She’d wanted those lips to descend and kiss her, more than she’d ever longed for a kiss from the several gallants she’d permitted that liberty. Anticipating those embraces had filled her with the zest of the forbidden, a mild and pleasurable sense of excitement—but nothing, nothing like this.

Her breathing suspended, her heart pounded, just imagining the feel of his lips on hers. She knew without ever having to experience it that kissing him would be more profoundly exhilarating than any touch she’d ever known.

The ferocity of her desire to experience it appalled her. She hadn’t escaped ruination in London to flee here and let herself be drawn into a seduction that would get her expelled from the only haven she had left.

That realization finally broke the hold the captain had established over her senses. Hereafter, she must keep her distance. The free-trader bent on his illicit trade was intriguing enough. The free-trader turned honourable entrepreneur and partner, it seemed, was irresistible. And mere Miss Foxe could no longer count on Lady Honoria’s elevated social position to distance him from her.

With the captain an expert in a game in which she was beginning to realize she didn’t even know the rules, she’d do better to take her counters from the table and flee.

Chapter Ten

Thoughtfully Gabe watched Miss Foxe until her gig rounded the curve. He chose the long way back to the inn this time, needing the wind in his hair, the crash of waves in his ears to settle his pounding heart and agitated senses.

It might require a dip in the cold sea to settle another part of him.

He’d been relieved to discover Miss Foxe had regained her equilibrium after her fright at the hands of the miners. Despite his admiration for her fearlessness to going to Laurie Steavens’s assistance, a swift and blinding rage had filled him at the thought that some ruffian might injure or frighten her.

Even a man who didn’t chart his future past the next reef or the next month could still admire her, he told himself. By Heaven, he’d scarcely believed it when she took on that drunken lout outside the beer hut—delivering a blow that would have done credit to a masculine practitioner of the fancy. Was there no end to the surprises concealed in her?

Miss Foxe had been even more approachable today—maybe too approachable. Pausing beside the gig, he’d almost ruined everything by bending down to kiss the lips that seemed to beg for his touch, right there under the gawking servant’s eye! Whatever had come over him?

Even worse, after putting his hands at her waist to lift her up on the bench, he’d had to struggle to make himself release her, so strong and fierce was the current flowing between them. He’d wanted to leap beside her, seize the reins, drive her to some isolated fisherman’s hut, strip her clothes off layer by layer while he touched and gentled and inflamed her, then make love to her again and again while the sound of the surf roared in his ears as fiercely as desire was roaring through his veins.

And she would have gone with him. He was sure of it.

Almost.

Damn, but he wished he knew for certain whether she was a matron or a maid. If she were experienced and willing, he’d sweep her straightaway into a discreet dalliance that he already knew instinctively, given the enormous heat between them, would bring unprecedented pleasure to them both.

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