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.
As Honoria looked from the flowers to the child, she noticed with a small shock that while the girl’s one blue eye stared directly at her, the other, grey in hue, seemed to be inspecting the distance beyond. The mismatched colour and wandering eye gave the child an unsettling, other-worldly look.
‘How very kind of you…’ As she paused, waiting for the child to supply her name, a woman hurried over.
‘Sorry, miss, I didn’t mean for her to bother you! Come with Mama, now, Eva,’ the woman coaxed.
‘She’s no bother. It was sweet of her to give me flowers,’ Honoria replied.
Pulling free of her mother, the girl wiggled her fingers like a flowing sea, then made a dog-paddling motion.
‘She brought them because she thought you were so brave, trying to help the man who looked to drown,’ the mother explained.
Giving Honoria a lopsided smile as slightly off-kilter as her eyes, the girl nodded.
Honoria felt both charmed and embarrassed. ‘I’m not brave at all, but thank you, Eva. The primroses are lovely!’
The little girl patted the skirt of Honoria’s gown and made another gesture, to which her mother nodded.
‘She thinks you are lovely, too, miss.’
When the mother’s fond smile abruptly vanished, Honoria glanced in the direction of the woman’s gaze. One of the innkeeper’s sons was bearing down on them, an angry scowl on his face.
‘I thought you’d been warned not to bring her here,’ he snarled at the mother.
‘Sorry, Mr John,’ the woman said, curtsying as she grabbed the girl’s hand. ‘We was just going.’
Seeming content now that her errand was discharged, the child let her mother lead her off.
Honoria watched them go, frowning.
The innkeeper’s son shook his head. ‘Not right for her to bring that halfwit here among normal people. Bad luck, it is.’
‘She didn’t seem half-witted to me,’ Honoria retorted, her temper stirred by the man’s harshness to the child.
He gave her a dismissive look. ‘Meaning no disrespect, miss, but you’re a stranger
