that Julia jumped. “Waylon! Haul your singed arse back in here and fix Miss Julia’s betrothal ring. What a pitiful excuse for a smithy you are, Waylon, letting a lady stand waiting on you.”
Julia bit back a laugh as Jacko winked at her even as Waylon and his young assistant came scurrying back into the smithy.
But that didn’t mean that her hand refused to stop shaking for the whole of the time Waylon measured her finger and refit the ring…especially when she had a sudden thought: had Morgan deliberately maneuvered for her to be alone with Jacko? Had this entire meeting been planned?
But when Morgan finally joined her at the blacksmith shop, her smile was devoid of guile as she asked Julia if she wanted a piece of rock candy she then handed to her in a twist of greased white paper.
“I saw Jacko,” Julia said, accepting the sweet as the two of them waved good day to Waylon and made their way back toward the village proper.
“Did you?” Morgan remarked in seeming innocence, licking her fingers after popping a small bit of the confection into her mouth. Then she winked broadly at Julia. “Had the old warhorse come to Waylon to be re-shod?”
Julia smiled at the small joke as she wavered between two conclusions. She was overreacting to what she had romantically imagined to be a family not only rife with secrets but loyal to the death…or this really was a family rife with secrets and loyal above all to each other.
No matter which conclusion was correct, she knew she was very glad to be on the inside with the Beckets rather than classed as the enemy….
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHANCE SAT IMPATIENTLY, looking toward Becket Hall as he was rowed toward shore, having been told he was dressed like “too much the toff” to be handed an oar of his own. Four days since he’d seen the Hall. Three full days too many, to his way of thinking.
He was caught between anger and bemusement at how much he had missed Julia. Her voice, her smile, her dogged inquisitiveness. Her bravery. Even her stubbornness.
Her ability to draw him out of himself, make him look at his past again, at his choices, at his failings. At his newly discovered hopes.
His last sight of her had haunted him as he’d stood on deck on the Respite, his face turned into the wind. Her nervousness as she had complied with his wish to leave her as she’d lain half-naked and sated in her bed had stayed with him, along with the certain knowledge he had taken with him that this woman would bend, but she would not break. There was a strength in her, a quiet strength, and more than a little daring.
Being on the water again had set Chance’s heart pounding, not with the hated memories he’d expected but with the desire to have Julia standing beside him, sailing ahead of the wind. Showing her the stars by night, holding her close against his side as they raced the tide, chased the moon. Lying beside her in the captain’s cabin as gentle waves rocked them to sleep after an evening of loving…
It wasn’t just the timing of the thing—Julia coming into his life just as he returned to Becket Hall, just as he began to make peace with his past, with his family.
Or maybe it was. Perhaps Julia had entered his life precisely when he needed her, turning it upside down, questioning his responsibilities to Alice, even questioning his loyalties. And never taking a step back.
Chance swiveled on the plank seat to look back at the Respite, its sails lowered and secured, riding high in the water while firmly anchored. How cannily Ainsley had crafted her, a gentle mix of the Bermuda and the Jamaican sloop.
Over sixty feet long and twenty-one feet wide, her weight had to be close to one hundred and fifteen tons, yet her draft was only eight feet. Fast, agile with its fore and aft rigs so superior to the square-rigged Waterguard vessels.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
