Christmas Wedding Belles: The Pirate's Kiss / A Smuggler's Tale / The Sailor's Bride
be my great pleasure to bring him to justice.’
The cold crept along Lucinda’s neck and slithered down her spine. Surely he must be speaking of Daniel? Could it be true? She could hardly condone smuggling, for it was against the law—even if half the gentry in the county turned a blind eye and Justin Kestrel himself cheerfully admitted to buying French brandy. But spying for the French was another matter. Had Daniel turned traitor during the long years of the war? Was it all a matter of money to him, and patriotism counted for nothing? She felt sick even to think of it.
‘I think I will go back, as you suggest, sir,’ she said, aware that her voice was not quite steady. ‘And I will warn them up at the house. Good wishes for your hunting.’
Chance touched his hat and cantered away up the path, and Lucinda stood for a moment alone beneath the pines. She did not wish to return yet to the stuffiness of the overheated house. Owen Chance’s words had disturbed her deeply. She could not believe that it was true. Yet what was it that Daniel had said the previous night?
‘We both made our choices…Mine to be wild and irresponsible…’
But a traitor? She did not want to believe it of him. And yet she did not know the man he had become. He might well consider that his country’s secrets were just commodities to sell, like brandy or French lace.
In her agitation she realised that she had left the main path and plunged off down a narrow track to the right. It forced its way through the trees, downwards towards the river. No doubt in summer it was completely impassable, but now the grasses and bracken underfoot had died back a little, and Lucinda thought that if she followed the path down to the water’s edge she could walk back to Kestrel Court that way. She knew there was a very pretty trail that followed the course of the stream until it reached the gardens.
Nettles brushed Lucinda’s skirts, and thorns clutched at her as she passed. Overhead the chatter of the birds had died away, and the pale winter light barely penetrated, but then she caught the flash of water ahead of her. The trees were thinning now, and suddenly she was on the edge of Kestrel Creek, with the water still and dark before her. She had come out further along the stream than she had intended, almost out in the bay—precisely where she had promised Owen Chance she would not walk. She had better turn for home at once.
The tide was ebbing. An oystercatcher pattered across the mud, leaving little footprints, then, as it saw her, it rose into the air, giving its piping call.
Lucinda smiled and wrapped her cloak more closely around her against the salty breeze. She could taste the tang of the sea here, but she knew she should not linger.
She went on, coming to a place where there was a sharp turn in the creek, and then she stopped, drawing back instinctively into the trees. The creek had widened into a deep pool and there, beneath the overhanging trees, hidden from the open river and the sea beyond, lay a ship at anchor. Lucinda’s breath caught painfully in her throat as she took in the snarling dragon figurehead on the prow and the name: Defiance.
All night she had lain awake, knowing that Daniel was nearby, imagining his ship riding at anchor out in the bay, perhaps, but never thinking that he was so close by, in this hidden mooring deep in Kestrel Creek. Suddenly the truth of his identity and his whole way of life hit her anew with the force of a blow. He was a criminal, a wanted man, very likely a traitor. The Daniel de Lancey she had known was gone for ever. There was nothing for her here.
She turned to go, stumbling over tree roots in her haste, and in the same moment a figure stepped out onto the path before her and a sack, thick and suffocating, was thrown over her head. She struggled, felt her arms pinioned to her sides, and then she was picked up as easily as though she were a sack of flour, thrown over the man’s shoulder, and carried off.
It was Daniel. Lucinda could tell from the feel and the scent of him, and from the disturbing familiarity of his hands on her body. He held her impersonally, and yet she burned with awareness. It made her angry to be at his mercy. She managed one well-placed and satisfying kick that landed somewhere soft and caused him to swear, and then his arms tightened about her so painfully that she could scarcely breathe, let alone move.
Being upside down completely disorientated her. There was the sound of voices, she was passed from hand to hand like a parcel, and then, finally, she was placed back on her feet and the sack pulled roughly from her head. She stood there, panting and glaring about her.
‘What were you doing spying on my ship?’
Daniel’s voice, measured and hard, snapped Lucinda’s attention straight back to him. She was standing in a well-appointed cabin that was lit by the rays of the sinking sun. The refection from the water outside made patterns on the wooden panelling and she could hear the gentle slap of the water against the stern of the ship. Daniel was sitting at a fine cherrywood desk and was toying with a quill between his fingers. A book lay open on the top of the desk, and a half-finished letter beside it. It was so peaceful, and so utterly removed from what Lucinda had expected, that for a moment she could not speak. The pristine cleanliness was a far cry from the smelly darkness she had anticipated, with a roaring drunk crew knocking back the rum and dallying with quayside whores.
‘Well?’ Daniel sounded slightly bored, as though he found stray women spying on the Defiance every day of the week. Lucinda felt prickles of resentment run along her skin that he should treat her with such disdain.
‘I was not spying,’ she retorted. ‘I was walking back from Kestrel Cove and took a wrong turn on the path.’
Daniel raised one dark, disbelieving brow. ‘You got lost? I see.’
Lucinda ran a hand over her hair and tried to smooth it down. There were stray pieces of straw—no doubt from the sacking—sticking to her cloak. She smelled faintly agricultural. Catching sight of herself in the small mirror on the bulkhead, she realised that she also looked a complete fright.
Daniel, in contrast, looked deplorably elegant, and she hated him for it. He had always been able to wear his clothes with careless aplomb, and now, with his dark well-cut jacket and snowy white linen, he looked hard and tough, with no soft edges. He was still watching her with cold impassivity, and she felt colour flood her cheeks as hot and embarrassing as though she had been a young girl. She knew he thought she had gone there deliberately to see him, and that the more she protested the less he would believe her.
‘You can believe what you like,’ she said, ‘but I did not seek you out.’
Daniel shrugged. His face was set in hard lines. ‘So you say.’
‘It’s true!’ Pride and embarrassment compounded Lucinda’s anger. ‘What, do you think yourself so dashing, so irresistible—the gallant pirate captain!—that every female in the neighbourhood must want to throw herself at you? Do you think I was so bowled over to meet you again last night that I could not keep away?’
Daniel’s firm mouth lifted in a slight smile that was not quite reassuring. He stood up. ‘I don’t know, Lucy. Were you?’
‘No, I was not. And stop calling me Lucy!’
‘I forgot. You are—you always were—Lucy to me.’ He had come to stand before her, and suddenly the spacious cabin seemed very small and very airless. Lucinda caught her breath. She tilted her head to glare up at him.
‘And you always were so arrogant! Believing that I came here solely to—’ Lucinda stopped abruptly.
He was so close to her now, perilously close, his body all but pinning her against the door. She found that she was watching his mouth, that tempting mouth, as he said softly, ‘Yes?’
Lucinda ran her tongue over her lips. ‘To…um…’
‘You are somewhat inarticulate for a governess. I noticed it last night.’
He put his hands flat against the door on either side of her head and leaned in. Their breath mingled for a moment and then his mouth captured hers. Only their lips touched, but that was more than enough.
The kiss was ruthless in its intensity.