Chapter 10

Harry wasn’t quite sure what came over him, but whatever it was, it was bloody marvelous. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the fine strength in her capable hands, the heat of her sun-warmed skin.

It was a curious thing, this sudden need—this compulsion—to touch her. But he supposed he had always been curious about long, tall Nessa Teague and her solemn smiles. It was like a low fire he had banked within, only needing a fine breeze to blow into flame.

What had she been doing for the twelve years he had spent tempting fate in front of French cannon? Why had she not yet married? When had she become so particularly, singularly beautiful?

She was, after all these years, newly irresistible.

And he wanted nothing more than to indulge his curiosity.

At his question, she had gone still, staring at his hand, with her straight dark brows pleating into one emphatic line. But she didn’t remove her hand. Or his.

Harry could only hope she felt the same strange magic as he. Hope she was as utterly enchanted.

And the look she gave him—all breathless wonder—was his answer and reward. The lugger, the trade, and even the treason were entirely forgotten in the simple but consuming pleasure of her solemn regard.

Beneath his fingers he could feel the febrile fluttering of her pulse. He could hear the shoaling cadence of her breath and see the darkening of her eyes as she lifted her gaze to his. Was this what it was like—attraction, infatuation, and perhaps even love?

Lust he had certainly felt before, but not this. Not this strange feeling that stirred his body and his mind all at the same time, like a warm winter toddy swirling down his veins. Not this care and need combined into something hot and urgent and necessary.

“Nessa,” he said again, because it seemed the only word he was capable of saying when she looked at him like that—as if he were the sun and she were a moor flower, stretching towards his rays.

He felt drawn to her as well, drawn by need and hope and something hovering at the edge of his mind urging him toward her. He did so slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull back or change her mind.

She did not—she stayed still, watching him come closer and closer with those wide, unblinking eyes. His gaze fell to her mouth, to the plush pillow of her lower lip, plum colored and parted below the perfect scoop of the upper.

It was madness—a necessary madness—to kiss her. But he could not stop. He didn’t want to stop.

Another steady beat of his heart, another inch closer to the invitation of her barely parted lips. Another breath, and he had closed the space between them. He was falling under the spell of her body, enchanted by the light, innocent fragrance of primrose radiating from her skin, mixing with the homey starch of her linen. And just the thought of her linen, of the lawn chemise hidden behind layers of practical, sturdy fabric and stays—boned and laced and holding her like an embrace—brought him to a nearly painful state of attraction.

Harry angled his head to meet her lips, trying to be careful, trying to make his mouth brush gently against hers, but she was so soft and giving and sweet he felt upended, as if the boat were rolling endlessly over the crest of a wave.

He dipped his head and came again, catching her lower lip between his, pressing his mouth more intimately to hers. Her eyes slid shut, and her straight brows drew together in a frown, not of displeasure—for she did not draw back—but a sort of disbelieving wonder, as if it were almost too good to be true. As if she were concentrating on this alone—this kiss, this astonishing feel of their lips meeting for the first time.

And then she sighed, a sound so romantic and delicious and erotic, he nearly groaned in response. “Ah, Nessa.”

His arm slid around her back to hold her steady and sure while—

He was flung away from her as if by a ghost’s hand, shot forward, out of the sternsheets. But so was she, landing atop him in a tangled heap of skirts and petticoats on the hard, raised grating in the well of the boat. Harry rolled, instinctively sheltering Nessa with his body, protecting her from—

Nothing.

The alarm that had flashed through his blood like lit gunpowder fizzled out. They were shoaled—he had shoaled them.

“Oh, Devil take me.” Air sucked back into his chest. “I’ve run us aground.” He had been so completely taken up with kissing Nessa Teague that he had forgotten his direction and his training and his experience so far as to shoal the vessel against the strand.

What an ass he was.

“Are you all right?” His hands cradled her skull, turning her face up to his. “Are you hurt from the fall?” Or from the weight of his thirteen plus stone crushing her into the floorboards?

Harry shifted off her reluctantly. The feel of her long, lithe body beneath his—

“Aye. I’m all right.” Her hands were righting her clothing, pushing herself upright, and gingerly exploring the back of her head where he had slammed her to the floorboards.

A complete and utter ass. “Are you sure?”

At her nod, he made a cursory inspection and found that, by the Devil’s own luck, the dory had safely beached on the thin strip of shingle bracketed by monstrously large rocks.

“You will think me the most incompetent Royal Navy captain there is.” He had done the reputation of the senior service no favors this day. “Promise me you won’t tell a soul I ran a dory aground or they’ll never let me command anything bigger again.”

She gave him a small, sweet smile. “I promise. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Ah, Nessa.” He couldn’t stop himself from brushing a wayward strand of fine hair off her face. “You always did look like the sort of girl who could keep a secret.”

Her smile faded, like a wave ebbing away from the shore. Her gaze shifted back to the lugger, reminding him of where they were and what he was supposed to be doing before he had let himself become enchanted by the loveliness that was her. “This is Black Cove,” she said. “Named for a famous wreck on this very strand. Many’s the man who’s come to grief here.”

The lighthearted charm of the moment evaporated into the crystalline air. She certainly did have secrets. And he would have to pry each and every one of them out of her.

“Shall we have our picnic here in the boat or would you prefer the strand?”

Nessa thought it best to move—to try and find her balance. The kiss made her feel conscious enough, but her head was ringing like the inside of a church bell.

“Above.” Nearer the base of the cliff they would be out of the wind, out of sight of the prying eyes of the lugger, and out of the dory, which felt too small to hold all the conflicting feelings coursing through her mind and body. “They say the strand is haunted.”

She purposefully turned her attention away from hauntings and kisses to setting out the meal—cold roasted chicken accompanied by wine and cheese, bread and fruit served on nested porcelain plates with the Castle Keyvnor crest painted in gold. Nessa had never eaten off anything so fine, let alone a picnic meal in Black Cove.

“Do you remember when you used to help me raid the manse’s larder, stealing bread and whole wheels of cheese?” he asked.

She remembered everything about Harry, every single minute, each treasured moment. “You were always so hungry.”

“I was. But not as hungry as I learned to be in the navy.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” She offered him the first thing to hand—a piece of fruit. “You can eat your fill today.”

“Thank you, but I think I’ll stay away from Cornish apples today.”

Nessa felt her face flame. “Perhaps not an apple. Perhaps…”

She rummaged blindly in the hamper until it came to her—this was the moment. This was her chance to give him the charm. To make him love her.

“Perhaps…” Her heart squeezed the breath from her chest.

“Come, Nessa.” He smiled in that easy, open way, full of encouragement and charm. “I hope we are friends enough that we can speak freely to one another and say what we are thinking.”

“Friends,” she repeated. “Aye. Yes, friends.” It was as if the word itself was taunting her. She drew the small cloth-wrapped bundle from her pocket. “I made you something. I’m afraid it’s awfully squished from our rather abrupt landing. But I hoped… That is, if you like seed cake?”

He reached out to take the cake from her hand. “Did you? How sweet.”

She steadied herself, really she tried, but her hand was shaking so badly she nearly dropped the sad lumpen little cake before he could take it.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Nessa?” He dipped his head down to look into her eyes. “Did you hit your head when we ran aground?”

She had done, but she knew it was the pounding of her heart, hammering away in her chest like a blacksmith’s bellows that made her feel so lightheaded. “I don’t think so. But perhaps a little cake will help.” She broke off a small bit, but rather thrust it at him so that he had no choice but to take it from her hand.

But he only took a bite of the thing and grimaced.

“It’s awful. Is it awful?” She didn’t wait for his answer, but tasted it herself—it was dry and bitter, and not at all as a seedcake ought to be. “Oh, I am so sorry.” Her own mouth twisted with displeasure. “It is awful.”

“It is,” he admitted. “But I am glad, for I have finally found something that capable Nessa Teague, who can sail, and run a fête, and teach mathematics, and regularly rewrite her father’s Sunday sermons, cannot do—she cannot bake a competent cake.”

“No.” Mortified heat singed her neck and across her cheek, even as she laughed at herself. Because he praised her, at least a little, as he teased. And he had eaten some of the cake. Nessa took another bitter bite on the general theory that the more charm they shared, the better.

It was still awful. “What do you suppose it’s lacking? What did I forget?”

“Sugar, I should think.” He laughed with her. “Even though it is a luxury to which I have grown unaccustomed aboard ship, I still miss it in a cake.”

“But you are a captain now, with your own ship, and a respectable fortune of your own in prize monies—surely you can afford sugar when you sail?”

“You know the worth of my fortune, do you?”

“No,” Nessa stammered. The charm was clearly no antidote to embarrassment. “I mean—that is, I only know what was written in the newspapers or what people said.”

“Ah.” He accepted her explanation gracefully, with an easy smile. “Nice to know you were thinking of me.”

She had. Constantly. She thought of little else. “I should think it a wonderful life, seeing the world—all the places and peoples, all so different.”

“You think you should like to be a Royal Navy captain and command a ship full of rowdy, stinking men?” His brows rose in disbelief over his smile.

“No, for that would be impossible.” She was not so much of a dreamer that she wanted the impossible. “But I should like to take at least one adventure in my life and see at least some of the world, instead of living always in the same hidebound place all my life.”

“Bocka Morrow does not seem such a bad place to live. In fact it doesn’t seem hidebound today, but exciting and beautiful.”

He was going to kiss her again. She knew it from the light in his eyes and the way his gaze fell to her mouth, just as it had the first time—that first awkward, lovely, blissful moment when his lips had pressed themselves so firmly to hers. So blissful that her whole heart was squeezing itself into a quivering pudding from wanting him to kiss her again.

But this time, she would keep her eyes open. This time, she would watch his extraordinary gold-flecked brown eyes darken and draw nearer. So near she could count the number of his lashes and marvel at the difference in texture between his rougher cheek with his whiskers just below the skin, and the taut smoothness of his lips, like wild strawberries from the hedgerows.

His lips settled upon hers tentatively, gently teasing her into joining him in this feast of taste and texture and scent and warmth and intoxicating delight.

Not that she had ever been intoxicated—her mother did not approve of her girls taking wine at dinner, nor even a sip of the elderberry cordial she saved for special occasions. But Harry’s kiss made her feel giddy and ecstatic, as if she couldn’t possibly ever get enough of his lips pressed so intimately against hers.

She melted into him, pressing herself against his chest and looping her hands about his neck. This was a kiss with no hiding, no modesty—nothing but unfurling pleasure. Their mouths met, but she felt the kiss everywhere, from her lips to her hands and even the soles of her feet, which seemed to tingle with delight and longing.

And then she felt his hand, slow and sure, sliding around from her back to her side. His thumb traced the line of her stays where they scooped below her arm and his palm gently covered the round of her breast.

The pressure and weight and warmth of his hand were enough to penetrate the layers of cloak and fabric and stays and chemise, so that her nipple tightened with a pain that was almost pleasure. Almost enough pleasure to keep herself from drawing back, out of his arms, and away from his lips. But not enough to override the scruples that went deeper than the layers of clothes.

“Too much?” he whispered against her temple.

Too much and not enough, but far too much to understand in a single moment. She did not know if she had thrown herself at him or he had thrown himself at her. Perhaps they both had. Perhaps the seed cake, however bitter, had thrown them together. Or perhaps not.

Because Harry was no longer looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder into Black Cove, where the receding tide revealed a widening fissure in the rock.

“Devil take me. Is that a smuggling cave?”