Elizabeth Beacon - A Regency Rebel's Seduction

‘There seems very little risk of that,’ he said and tried not to fall on the food she’d cooked like a ravening beast. ‘Can I pour you coffee?’ he asked, reaching for the pot at the same time as she did, flinching as what felt like a shock of lightning jagged up his arm as their fingers met fleetingly, then fell away.

He took a deep breath and stared at his hands, unaware until he saw his knuckles whiten that he’d clenched them into fists to stop himself gripping her slender fingers as if they were his lifeline. He loosened his fists and made himself glance at the bright morning outside the window, still gallantly promising something more than the usual London haze. Today he could enjoy the blessing of a fine morning, a useful occupation and a full belly—what more could a man ask of life? Sighing at the thought of all he could ask for, but no longer dared risk wanting, he turned back to watch her with raised eyebrows and a cynical half-smile.

‘I am perfectly capable of lifting a coffee pot for myself, thank you,’ she said sharply and he wondered if she’d been as disturbed by that startling bolt of connection between them as he had.

‘I don’t doubt it, after viewing the evidence of your industry,’ he said mildly and ate his way through a delicious meal as the headache he knew very well he richly deserved began to drum at his temples once more.

It was probably caused by the tension of wanting her so urgently, but not being able to have her, he assured himself. An old familiar and purely physical burn that, as a captain used to months without female company, he knew all too well and had learnt to endure. This time, however, he somehow doubted that reading Shakespeare or studying his charts and plotting a series of possible courses to fanciful places would distract him from it, but at least experience had taught him that the sharpness of it would dull if he could find a sufficiently absorbing occupation. Yet could any distraction blot Eloise La Rochelle from a man’s mind for very long?

‘Thank you,’ she said unexpectedly and sat and sipped her fragrant brew with what he guessed was feminine satisfaction in producing something edible when two supposedly strong men had been unable to do so between them. ‘It’s good to be busy once more,’ she added and he wondered if a life of silken idleness had palled on such an unusual Cyprian.

‘I’d be an ingrate if I failed to appreciate the fruits of your labour, even so,’ he said as he laid down his knife and fork to pour coffee and add sugar to it.

‘Should I pass you the cream?’ she asked.

‘No, thank you, I became used to going without it on board ship.’

‘Don’t most captains take a cow with them on long voyages?’ she asked and he wondered if she’d studied the life of a sea captain because her lover often lived that life without her. The shock of pure venomous jealousy at the very idea of her pining for her lover brought him up short and made him glare at his own hand stirring his coffee as if it had mortally offended him.

‘Sometimes there isn’t enough room for luxuries,’ he managed fairly normally.

‘Oh, yes, merchantmen are carefully designed to make use of every available inch of space for cargo, are they not?’ she replied, setting off that demon of envy in him once more and making him even more silently furious with himself.

‘Men-of-war are just as niggardly with every spare inch they can gain, having a goodly quantity of ammunition and unstable gunpowder to stow, as well as a vastly greater crew to accommodate,’ he explained.

‘It must be strange for you to go to sea as captain of a merchantman after commanding in the Royal Navy,’ she mused, blasting his attempt at replacing the general with the personal out of the water. He sighed as he lay back in his chair to sip his coffee and met her eyes warily.

‘I never said I’d been a navy man,’ he argued, almost groaning aloud at the defensiveness in his voice. It was still a wound he hated to have probed, which seemed foolish in the extreme compared to everything else he’d lost.

‘How else to account for the naval officer’s sword in the larder, I wonder?’ she said with a pretence at scratching her head. ‘Was Coste a dashing captain at Trafalgar, I wonder? Or perhaps he’s really an admiral on half-pay, when not pretending to be Kit’s hall porter and supposed watchman? No, I think the sword must be yours, Captain. I doubt Coste rose above able seaman in his entire career at sea and neither Kit nor Ben have served in the Royal Navy.’

‘It’s not so very different,’ he admitted because it was easier than arguing. ‘The sea can only be read or even guessed at by good navigation and a weather eye on her contrary moods. It’s still my job to decide if it’s wiser to sail before the wind or ride out a storm in safe anchorage. And at least I have a sound, fast ship that isn’t an easy target for any enterprising French frigate captain, eager to build a fine and romantic reputation as a triumphant sea wolf.’

‘And did you once roam the seas looking for such prey yourself?’

‘Of course, that’s what the Admiralty expects of flag officers not on blockade.’

‘And were you good at it?’

‘Naval captains must prove worthy of their rank if they expect to stay at sea,’ he said carefully.

‘And some do so more easily than others, I dare say,’ she said blandly, so why didn’t he trust her smile?

‘Perhaps,’ he replied tersely.

‘And you were one of them,’ she said and he cursed himself for giving her a clue if she ever wanted to track him down.

At least the Admiralty hadn’t ordered the breaking of the sword now resting in Kit’s larder, or his speedy expulsion from the Service. He almost wished they had, so it couldn’t follow him like a symbol of all he no longer was, but couldn’t quite discard.

‘Don’t bother visiting the Admiralty to find out how and when they lost or mislaid one of their junior officers, will you? Their lordships don’t encourage idle curiosity.’

‘Who says it would be idle? And you’re very defensive about a career you pretend not to care a fig for, Captain Darke,’ she said shrewdly.

‘Perhaps I hate having my life picked over for the amusement of others?’

‘And I don’t have time or inclination for idle gossip, Captain Darke.’

‘Then you must be the most unusual female I have ever met.’

‘Please don’t think me artless enough to mistake that for a compliment,’ she countered smoothly, yet he felt he’d annoyed her by lumping her with the more curious of her kind and tried to be glad of it.

‘I don’t think you in the least bit artless, I assure you, Miss La Rochelle,’ he said with a cynical almost-smile she didn’t bother to return.

‘Clearly,’ she told him, but he thought he saw a shadow of pain in her blue eyes before she gathered up their dirty crockery and bore it off to the scullery.

‘You hardly need to be with so many charms already in your armoury,’ he explained clumsily—why must he follow her into that utilitarian room when she’d given him an ideal escape route?

‘Look what you’ve made me do now,’ she chided fiercely as she jumped on finding him so close to her, splashed herself, then swatted angrily at the large wet patch plastering her dusky shirt to her torso with a glass cloth.

He did just what she asked and the cool scullery was suddenly close and stuffy as his gaze lingered on wet dark linen, clinging emphatically to wet woman and almost as closely plastered to her fine breasts and tightly furled nipples as he’d like to be himself. Hard and fierce and instantly emphatic, his painful erection would have informed him he wanted her any way he could get her, even if his hungry eyes weren’t busy devouring her like a lover. Want flared hot and heady between them again, but on its heels came a dark memory of his younger self, home from the sea and pitifully eager for the woman he thought was his. At least his wife’s betrayal had armoured him against mistaking lust for anything else. He assured himself that his annoying reaction to Eloise La Rochelle, or whatever she cared to call herself, was a physical thing he’d learn to ignore and nothing deeper.