Nessa stowed the seed cake safely in her pocket and headed for the quay, her head full of plans to quietly slip away with Harry with no one—certainly not her parents—the wiser. But her feelings were so fine, so elevated, so full of excitement and enthusiasm and expectation, that she took the steep lanes to the harbor at a giddy run, her arms windmilling to keep her balance as she pelted down the cobbles in a rush to arrive before Harry.
Only to find that he was waiting, leaning against the long stone jetty, and watching her ungainly flight with open amusement.
Nessa came to a breathless halt. “You’re here.”
“So I am.” His smile was everything bright and welcoming. “I thought if I just stood here and concentrated, I might will you down the hill to meet me.”
Nessa could feel her toes curl inside her boots—she was helpless in the face of such natural charm. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Excellent.” He turned to survey the harbor. “I have a bet with myself to see if I remember which one is yours—the one with the red sails?”
“Aye. Well done. Is that a picnic?” She noticed a wicker hamper at his feet.
“It is, packed with care by Castle Keyvnor’s diligent staff, so I’ve no idea of what’s in it, only that we shall be very well provided for should I be able to convince you to run away to sea with me.” He tipped his smiling face up to the sun. “For who knows when we may get another day so fine?”
Her heart was going to explode from pure, unadulterated happiness. There would never be a day so fine. Ever. “No convincing necessary.”
“Then shall we?”
She practically ran across the spit of shingle to the row of frape-moorings running out to deep posts, only belatedly mindful of his difficultly in navigating the sand with his bad leg and the hamper.
Because all the while her brain had been turning cartwheels of delight—a hamper! It was as if the magic were already working in her favor. The sooner she could invoke the full power of the charm, the better. Nessa immediately set to hauling in the mooring line.
“Allow me.” He did not wait for permission but laid his hands right next to hers and lent his strength to pulling the looped line along the pulley. The boat fairly flew in to crunch its keel upon the pebbled sand.
Nessa felt herself all but vibrating from his closeness and the simple touch of his hand next to hers—she could feel his warmth spread from her nerveless fingers all the way to the tips of her curling toes. Gracious but the widow had clearly given her a powerful charm to already be working so well.
“The tarpaulin next,” she instructed unnecessarily. As if a naval captain wouldn't know to untie the oiled canvas.
But Harry made no objection, immediately pitching in, his long experience guiding him to the right task at the right time. It was no time at all before they were off the beach, with the sails up and the daggerboard down.
“You take the tiller,” she offered immediately, swinging the hinged tiller his way. As giddy as she was, she might make some error of judgment and toss them headlong into the rocks. Best to sit quietly and let him do what he undoubtedly did better than she.
But he waved her off and settled into the sternsheets opposite, stretching out his injured leg. “I put myself in your more than capable hands.”
Capable—the word doused some of her enthusiasm. That was what he thought of her—what everyone thought of her. Quiet, capable Nessa. Not pretty. Not funny. And certainly not charming.
Still, she supposed there were worse things—she could be ugly or silly or incapable—and she had charm in her pocket, ready to be deployed.
Nessa tried to ignore the nervy anticipation gripping her belly and concentrate on steering. Few boats of the small fishing fleet remained in harbor—most had already put to sea at dawn on the outgoing tide—but she still had to be sharp to judge the flow of water through the narrow neck of water just right. But the sun was warm on her back as the cool autumn breeze filled the sails, her heart was full of hope, and her pocket was full of seed cake ready to bewitch Harry.
She felt a little bewitched herself, relaxed enough to take a lovely deep breath of the clean salt air. It was all going to be right as rain. The charm was already working its magic, for Harry was smiling, clearly happy with the excursion. “All these coves,” he remarked. “It’s no wonder there’s so much smuggling.”
Some of the wind—and hope—came out of her sails, though she reasoned there was nothing particularly probing about his comment. The free trade, as the villagers preferred to call it, was a rather open secret in Bocka Morrow—no one admitted to know anything about it, but everyone participated.
“I’m sorry—is it a taboo subject?” he asked. “Oughtn’t I to know about such things?”
“No one is supposed to know about such things. But I suppose everyone does.” And everyone included Harry. For all that he wasn’t “one of them” as the villagers might say, he was a man of the world, a clever man of vast experience with human nature. And he’d lived in Bocka Morrow as a youth. Surely he understood the way things were.
“Like that lugger there.” He pointed across the water to a fishing boat anchored in the shelter of a shallow bay. “He’s not netting pilchards, is he?” He shifted his seat to have a better look.
Nessa’s disappointment took a shallow dive into unease. “On this coast, it doesn’t pay to pry too closely into other people’s business.”
He turned to look at her as closely as she had him—too closely. But he came to his own conclusions anyway—he was too smart not to. “Is it as strong as ever, the free trade, despite the war?”
“I suppose.” She shrugged, keeping her tone carefully noncommittal. “In some ways it’s just as it’s always been—just like-minded men on both sides of the channel wanting to trade their goods without interference. It’s nothing to do with governments or the war.”
“Oh, come now, Nessa,” he chided, “you’re cleverer than that. It has everything to do with the war. There is no escaping it.”
While it was always nice to be thought clever—as opposed to stupid, anyway—it was uncomfortable to bear his scrutiny. She had thought of the war as something that happened far away—to him on his ship—not in the coves of Bocka Morrow. But now, under the weight of his straightforward, uncompromising gaze, she felt all the truth of his assertion. “I know.”
He broke the moment, looking away. “I’d forgotten what this place is like—full of open secrets. I didn’t even remember about the Allantide apples. Or maybe I never did realize the whole of their purpose. I suppose I was too young, before. I just thought it was a game.” His dark brown eyes focused on her, as if he were trying to see through her—see more than she wanted to let people see. “You might have warned me, Nessa, before I ran afoul of the squire and Miss Gannett.”
If the talk of the trade had not already sufficiently doused her aspirations, the mention of Elowen Gannett was like cold water on the fire of her hope. “I am sorry.”
“So am I. What a strange man the squire must be—he seems to think nothing of his daughter engaging herself to marry a complete stranger on the strength of a single bobbed apple. I’ve never heard of such madness.”
No more mad than pinning her hope on the strength of the seed cake in her pocket. The poor man—they were all of them fighting over him like a rag doll tussled between children, and not a man who had thoughts and hopes of his own. “What do you think I ought to do, Nessa?”
Look at me. See me. Want me.
“I don’t know,” she said, instead. It was an exquisitely painful test of character—she ached from holding all the love and adoration and longing inside her, but she gathered the courage that seemed stuck in her throat. “Do you not think you will marry her?”
He let out a short huff of disbelief. “Who could marry a person one doesn’t even know? And what kind of person relies upon an apple to decide their fate for them?”
The same sort of person who relied upon a seed cake—a lonely person, a desperate person. A person just like her.
“No thinking person,” she offered.
“Exactly!” His relief was palpable. “How like you to understand that, Nessa.”
“Aye,” she agreed because she couldn’t not agree. “One must think.”
“And I think I’d like a closer look at that lugger. Prepare to come about.” Harry wrapped his hand over hers to steer the dory into Black Cove, and if the feel of the warm strength of his fingers were not enough to send her thoughts scattering to the wind, the change in direction brought her sliding up tight to his side.
She was overwhelmed by his nearness, by the heat of his body, the scent of his soap and starch of his linen.
He was not similarly affected. “All right there?” he asked with a bright smile.
Up close, his teeth were impossibly white and even. Up close, he was impossibly handsome and fine. Almost too fine for the likes of her.
But the charm must have been exerting its power, because there she was, cozied up next to handsome, fine Harry Beck. “Aye. All to rights.”
She felt her face grow warm with the loveliness of it all and forced herself to marshal her wits enough to turn and raise a hand of acknowledgment as they approached the lugger. “They’ll know it’s me,” she explained. “There’s precious little privacy in a village so small.” She would have a lot of explaining to do this evening, when she got home—in Bocka Morrow word of a person’s doings could travel faster than stink.
“Well, that’s a pickle.” Harry’s smile slid to one corner of his mouth, pressing that perfect dimple deep into his cheek. “A man doesn’t like to be spied on while he’s trying to woo a girl.”
Nessa’s breath bottled up hot and airless in her chest. She could barely breathe the word out. “Woo?”
“Ah, Nessa.” His voice was low and quiet and sure. “You don’t think I’ve packed a picnic and brought you all the way out here just so I could spy on idle pilchard fishermen, do you?”