The Smuggler and the Society Bride

’Twas good that Papa would never learn of it; she wouldn’t want to bring on another of the attacks to which he seemed increasingly prone. Mama had often rebuked her, claiming her unladylike behaviour caused him a distress that made such episodes more likely.

A familiar guilt stirred sourly in her belly. She only hoped her disgrace in London hadn’t precipitated one.

Marcus hadn’t allowed her to see Papa before leaving London, nor had she wished to. It pained her anew to think that her actions might harm him.

As someone had harmed her, though no one in her immediate family believed it. According to the diatribe with which Marcus had dismissed her, the entire Carlow family considered her a selfish, thoughtless, caper-witted chit without a care for the shame and humiliation her wild behaviour heaped on the family name.

On the other hand, given that assessment of her character, a low-born brigand was perfect for her, she thought in disgust. Though the stranger’s handsome face and attractive body probably hid a nature as perfidious and deceiving as every other man’s.

Except maybe Hal. A wave of longing for the brother who’d been almost her twin swept over her. If only Hal had been in London that evening, how differently the outcome might have been! He would not have dismissed or abandoned her.

But with Boney now on Elba, Hal had been off somewhere in Paris or Vienna, helping secure the peace, exploring new cities, seducing matrons and parlour maids and in general having the sort of adventures which had won him a reputation among his peers as a daring young buck.

Adventures which, openly criticize though they might, Honoria believed Papa and Marcus secretly admired. Adventures denied a young lady, who would find her reputation ruined by even a whiff of the scandal that settled so gracefully about her brother’s dashing shoulders.

A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of Mrs Dawes and the kitchen maid, both struggling with canisters of heated water. Wondering what had happened to the footmen who normally hefted such heavy loads, Honoria walked over to assist them. Life, she reflected wistfully and not for first time, as they poured hot water into the copper tub before the hearth, was distinctly unfair to those of the female gender.

Dawes stayed to assist her into the bath. By the time she’d scrubbed all the salt and sand out of her hair, the lady’s maid turned up to help her out of the rapidly cooling water, letting the housekeeper return to her duties.

‘So sorry I was absent when you needed me, miss,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Oh, but what a brave thing it was you done! I could hardly believe it when I seen you wading out into the water, for all the world like you was going to swim—’

‘You saw me?’ Honoria interrupted. Suddenly she understood the reason behind the maid’s absence and the lack of footmen: they must all have been assisting the free-traders in moving their cargo inland. ‘Tamsyn, surely you have not been taking part in illegal activities!’

‘Oh, course not, miss,’ the maid replied hastily, a telltale blush colouring her cheeks. ‘I, um, heard all about it from Alan the footman, who met some fishermen whilst walking back from the village. But you must take care, miss! The water in the cove looks peaceful, but there be a powerful current where it runs between them rocks back out to sea. If you’d gone out much farther, you mighta been swept away!’

In the agitation of the moment, struggling in her heavy, wet clothing and desperate to reach the drowning man, Honoria hadn’t particularly noticed. Now that she thought about it, she did recall how much stronger the outward tug had become as she reached deeper water. ‘Luckily I didn’t need to go out farther.’

‘Indeed, miss. But, oh, wasn’t he wonderful! Leaping off the rocks and swimming across the strongest part of undertow to haul out that worthless revenue agent! I swear, my heart was in my throat, wondering if the both of them would be sucked back out to sea,’ the maid exclaimed, obviously forgetting her contention that she’d not personally witnessed the drama.

Amused, Honoria tried to resist the curiosity pulling at her as insistently as that treacherous current. Losing that struggle, she asked casually, ‘Who was the young man who made the rescue?’

The maid stared at her. ‘You don’t know? Why, ’twas the Hawk! My brother Dickin, who’s a dab hand of a captain himself, says he’s the best, most fearless mariner he’s ever seen! Eyes like a cat, he has, able to navigate despite tides and rough sea even on the blackest night. Gabriel Hawksworth’s his real name. He’s only been captain of the Flying Gull for a few months, but folks hereabouts already dubbed him Hawk for the way he can steer his cutter sharp into land and back out again, like some bird swooping in to seize his prey.’

‘He’s not local, then?’ Honoria asked.

‘No, miss. Not rightly sure where he hails from, though with that hint of blarney in his voice, I’d guess he’s Irish.’

‘Do the Irish also fish these waters?’ she asked. Though the Hawk seemed too confident and commanding a man to have spent his life on a fishing boat.

‘Don’t know what he done before the war. He was an Army mate of Dickin’s. While with Wellington’s forces in Spain, far from the sea, they used to talk about sailing, my brother told me. Even took a boat out together a few times when they got to Lisbon, and Dickin said he’d never met a man who could handle a small craft better. When the former captain of the Gull was injured, Dickin asked the Hawk to come sail her.’

An Army man. That would explain his decisive air of command. Her brother Hal possessed the quality in abundance. ‘If he is so fond of sea, I wonder he didn’t end up in the Navy.’

‘Don’t know about the Hawk, but Dickin had no wish to be gone for months deep-water sailing. Said if the navvies ever found out how well he could handle a tiller, he’d be gang-pressed onto a frigate and never see land again! So when the Army recruiters come through, he jumped up to volunteer. Didn’t mind doing his part to put Boney away, but wanted to be able to come home afterward, take care of Ma and us kids and tend the family business.’

‘The family business being free-trading?’ Honoria asked.

Tamsyn blushed again. ‘Helping Pa run the inn, mostly, along with some fishing, miss. As for anything else, as folks around here will tell you, ’tis best if you don’t look too close nor ask too many questions. In general, the revenuers leave everyone alone, long as old Mr Marshall gets his cut regular. That man who ran his skiff on the rocks today was a new man.’

‘Who wouldn’t be around to look closely or ask questions any longer, if Mr Hawksworth hadn’t intervened.’

‘True, but the Hawk being such a good captain, I don’t think anyone hereabouts will hold it against him.’

Before Honoria could exclaim about someone being censored for saving, rather than taking, a life, Tamsyn paused to utter a sigh. ‘And he’s as handsome as he is skilful! So tall, with them big broad shoulders and eyes so blue, you’d think they held the whole sky inside.’

‘Why, Tamsyn, you’re quite the poet!’

The maid’s blush deepened. ‘They are ever so blue. All the maids—not just here, but from Padstow to Polperro, Dickin says!—have set their caps for him. Though as yet, he’s not shown a partiality for any particular lass,’ she added, her expression brightening.

So Tamsyn was among those smitten by the handsome captain. As for singling out one particular lady among the many apparently vying for his attention, Honoria suspected dryly that Mr Hawksworth wasn’t in any hurry to make a choice.

Replaying in her mind’s eye that bold dive into the swift-moving water and the tricky swim towing the struggling mariner, she had to agree that in this instance, he had lived up to the dashing image Tamsyn had described.

Recalling the intimate lilt of his voice, the admittedly intense blue of his gaze, she felt another quiver in the pit of her stomach. She sighed, unable to help sympathizing a bit with all the infatuated maidens.

Not that she had any intention of following their lead. Besides, except for that chance encounter at the beach, it was highly unlikely that the niece of Miss Foxe of Foxeden Manor would be rubbing shoulders with the captain of a smuggling vessel, no matter how locally celebrated.

As she pulled her chemise over her blessedly warm, clean, naked body, for an instant she felt again the brigand’s intense blue-eyed gaze, unabashedly staring at her through that all-too-thin drape of wet linen.

A little sizzle hissed and burned across her skin.

Resolutely, she shook off the sensation. Dismissing any further thoughts of the rogue who’d inspired it, she let Tamsyn lace her stays.

Chapter Three

Two days later, Honoria accompanied Aunt Foxe to church in Sennlack. A local curate normally served the small parish, but occasionally the bishop from Exeter came to conduct the services. In honour of that visiting dignitary, an acquaintance of many years, Miss Foxe had elected to drive to town rather than remain at home to conduct her own private devotions, as she had the previous Sundays since Honoria’s arrival.

Having been through the village only when her carriage halted at the Gull’s Roost for directions to Foxeden Manor the day of her arrival, Honoria was looking forward to visiting the town and viewing the inside of the rustic stone church. Except for her walks along the cliffs, she’d not left the manor’s grounds since her arrival.

After the service, the congregation filed out, shaking hands with the rector and the bishop before they departed or stood in small groups chatting. Honoria recognized the man currently speaking with the vicar as the innkeeper from whom John Coachman had obtained directions to Foxeden—the man Tamsyn later identified as her father. The senior Mr Kessel was flanked by two young men who bore him a striking resemblance, one of whom must be Tamsyn’s fishing boat captain brother, Dickin.

The curate laughed and joked with the men, much friendlier than Honoria would have expected a clergyman would be with individuals whose true occupation, she suspected, involved activities of more dubious legality than innkeeping or fishery.

‘I wonder that the vicar is on such good terms with free-traders,’ she murmured to her aunt as they made their way down the aisle.

Miss Foxe laughed. ‘A Welshman likes his brandy and spirits as well as the next man. You won’t find any hereabouts who don’t do business with free-traders. I’ve even heard there’s a smuggler’s tunnel that leads into the basement under the sacristy of this church.’

‘Surely not!’ Honoria replied, properly shocked—as, from the twinkle in her aunt’s eye, that lady had meant her to be. Was it true? she wondered.

They reached the vestibule, where her aunt’s attention was immediately claimed by the visiting bishop. Realizing that she would soon be introduced to him and probably a number of members of the local community, Honoria’s initial enthusiasm for the excursion vanished. Hoping to postpone the moment as long as possible, she turned aside, ostensibly to allow her aunt a moment of private conversation.

Remote as Sennlack—and even Exeter—were from London, she suddenly felt sick with apprehension that the bishop might, upon being given her name, have heard about her disgrace.

Her anxiety over how to counter that possibility was interrupted by a little girl tugging at her sleeve. Having claimed her attention, the child smiled, bobbed a curtsy and held out a handful of flowers that wafted up to her the delicious odour of primroses.

‘For me?’ Honoria asked.

The girl nodded. Thin, with ragged blonde hair and dressed in a worn, simple gown, she appeared to be about ten years old.