of duty.
‘I’ll give you forty minutes precisely,’ Gareth answered, before turning and walking out of Harry’s room.
Harry’s hand settled on Ash’s head and stroked behind the dog’s ear as he looked at his letter, which came from an unknown source.
Dear Captain Marlow,
I am so glad I have discovered your name. I have been longing to know it for three whole weeks and now I know it I can write to you.
I have seen you on the beach with your beautiful dog. It is charming the way you and she play your game of fetch.
The woman from the shore. The Colonel’s—very forward—auburn-haired daughter. She should surely not be writing to him.
I wonder, that is I hope, that you might be willing to walk with me along the seafront one day, perhaps today. I can be there at four. If you are going to the beach today? There is no need to write back, simply meet me if you can.
Yours sincerely,
Charlotte Cotton
Cotton… A frown pulled at his brow. It was not the retired Colonel’s surname. A step daughter then? Perhaps?
She was in Harry’s mind again, then, as he dressed. With her large, fascinating hazel eyes and her vivid hair.
He let Ash accompany him to the stables, then left the dog in Obsidian’s stall before leading the horse out into the middle of the huge stable block full of whinnying and neighing horses.
Gareth was waiting outside, sitting astride his horse. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I am,’ Harry answered as he mounted. The weather today was bright, warm sunshine.
They smiled at one another before they turned the horses. Then left the barracks at the pace of a trot, talking as they rode. They rode out to the hills at a canter before letting the animals have their heads in a gallop. It was as good for Harry as it was for Obsidian to feel the wind whipping at him as Obsidian cut through the stillness of the world at a raging gallop.
At the top of the cliffs they stopped and looked down, watching the sea.
Harry looked back towards Brighton and thought of the woman who would be waiting there for him at four. He had no intent to go, or rather, he might go to exercise Ash, but he would not communicate with the woman… He said aloud, ‘The woman on the shore—’
‘The one who has been watching you?’
‘Yes.’ Harry looked over at his friend as they walked their horses farther along the cliff path.
‘What about her?’
‘If you give me a chance I will tell you.’ Harry laughed, then continued. ‘I know who she is.’
‘You have spoken with her? When? What did she say?’
‘Last evening at Colonel Hillier’s. She is his daughter. Or perhaps his step-daughter. They do not have the same surname.’
Gareth broke into laughter that came from deep in his throat.
‘Why is that amusing?’ Harry charged.
His friend drew in a deep breath to quell his mirth. Then smiled broadly. ‘You fool, Harry. I never had you down as a naïve man.’
‘Naïve…’ Harry’s eyebrows lifted.
‘She is his mistress. Not his daughter.’ Gareth laughed again.
His mistress… Lord. He’d had no idea. He swallowed and looked ahead. ‘She did not behave like his mistress.’ He thought of how regularly her colour had heightened and how she had looked away. Yet the fact the Colonel had used her to serve them fitted Gareth’s definition.
‘I have not seen her so I did not recognise her on the beach, but I have heard the woman is an outstanding beauty. Everyone comments on her when they have been to Hillier’s.’
Something scratched along Harry’s spine, like a knife on stone. It was the word, ‘everyone’ that had stirred the sensation. The image in his head was something he did not want to picture. ‘She is beautiful.’ She was. Her auburn hair and her eyes seemed even more attractive now he knew she was a touchable, attainable woman, another man’s, but only because that man paid for her keep. Yet the thought of being able to touch her conjured up more images he did not want to see.
She had asked him to meet her. He wanted to do so now. Would it be wrong for him to speak with her?
He debated the question internally during their ride back to the barracks and as he brushed Obsidian down. He was undecided when he ate his luncheon and he remained undecided even after that. It was not until half past the hour of three that he made up his mind.
He would go and he would speak to her. He saddled Obsidian again and took Ash with him as he normally would. Having Ash beside the horse quietened his doubt. If he changed his mind he could just walk down to the waves.
He left Obsidian at the inn, then walked towards the sound of the sea. The noise of the water washing up on to the pebbles began to ease his soul and he could taste the salt in the air.
She was there, with her maid. They were on the path at the head of the beach, a few yards away. He crossed the street. She walked towards him and intercepted his path. ‘Captain Marlow!’ she called. ‘Well met!’ She spoke as though she had not written and he therefore presumed the maid did not know that this interchange had been orchestrated.
He bowed, slightly. ‘Miss Cotton.’ What was the etiquette for a man’s mistress? He knew how to behave with whores and with respectable women, but a mistress was somewhere in between. ‘Would you care to walk with me?’ He lifted his arm, in the way he might have offered his arm to one of his sisters or cousins.
The maid held back to walk a few paces behind them as Ash looked up at him with eyes that asked why he had not walked on to the pebbles. Harry clicked the fingers of his free hand and tapped his leg to tell Ash to stay at his side.
‘I like your dog. What is her name?’ Miss Cotton said loudly. He presumed for the benefit of the maid as much as for an answer.
‘Ash. She was named by my niece.’
She looked at him as though the fact that he might have a niece was a bizarre thought. ‘Oh.’
He smiled. Her colour had been high since the moment they had faced each other, but now it became even redder.
‘Your dog has a very pleasant nature.’
‘Yes, she does.’
‘I am glad you came,’ she said in a quieter voice, leaning closer to him as he’d seen her do when she spoke to her maid. ‘It took me so much courage to write. But you have never looked at me here. Then you looked at me last night and I wrote in a rash moment because I have had a great desire to know the man with the lovely dog. I hope you do not think me too forward.’ Her back straightened when she had finished her conspiratorial
