Miranda Jarrett - Christmas Wedding Belles - The Pirate's Kiss / A Smuggler's Tale / The Sailor's Bride

Lucinda had observed that it was often the way when a young lady was engaged: all the gentlemen who had been wary of approaching her when she had been husband-hunting now felt free to pay attention to her, knowing she was promised to another. And none was more assiduous in his attentions than the Riding Officer, Mr Owen Chance, who was even now dancing with Stacey, the two dark heads bent close to one another as they indulged in intimate conversation.

Lucinda sighed. Not only was she concerned by what she saw—as was Mr Leytonstone, glowering from across the other side of the floor but too cowardly to intervene—but she felt for a moment a wave of envy so sharp that it that shocked her. Envy for Stacey, and for the way that Owen Chance was looking at her, and for her own lost youth and her lost love.

She had not seen Daniel since the night he had kissed her in the woods. She had run from him then—run from his harshness and the feelings he could still stir in her. More than anything she had run from the fact that he was not the man she wanted him to be, and her heart ached that she had loved him once and now he was a stranger to her.

She had kept away from the creek, just as Daniel had demanded, and had taken her walks in less dangerous places. Sometimes as dusk was falling she would stand by her bedroom window and scour the wide expanse of the bay for a scarlet and black ship with a snarling dragon on the prow, but the horizon was always empty, and she would draw the curtains together with a sigh and feel her heart plummet to her slippers. If only she had never met him again. But she had, and memory, reawakened, was difficult to dismiss. It taunted her at every turn with the restless passion and excitement of that distant summer when she and Daniel had been young. And the knowledge that he was a different man now, supposedly a criminal and a traitor, tortured her.

She had asked questions about him of Sally Kestrel, and had listened to Midwinter gossip with avidity. Although she knew she should forget Daniel, she found she could not help herself. His name was mentioned frequently, but the stories were as insubstantial as smoke, and at the end it was impossible to tell the truth from the myth. Intriguingly, many of the legends painted Daniel de Lancey as a hero—a man secretly in the pay of the government rather than the renegade he pretended to be. Lucinda found she ached for it to be true, but thought it probable that she would never know.

‘My dear Mrs Melville, you look blue-devilled!’ a warm female voice beside her commented, and Lucinda turned to see the Duchess of Kestrel smiling sympathetically at her. She followed Lucinda’s gaze to the couple on the dance floor.

‘Matter for concern, do you think?’

‘As a chaperon, I would say most definitely,’ Lucinda said. She hesitated. ‘As someone who would wish to see Miss Saltire happy, perhaps not.’

Sally Kestrel’s green eyes focused shrewdly on her face. ‘You think that Miss Saltire will be making a mistake in marrying Mr Leytonstone?’

Lucinda shrugged a little awkwardly. She was acutely aware that in her youth Sally Kestrel had chosen the rather more solid merits of Stephen Saltire above the dashing brilliance of Justin Kestrel, and that it had been twenty years before they were reunited. Their glowing love for one another now was plain for all to see, and was something else that made Lucinda feel even more cold and alone.

‘I think that Stacey should marry for love, not money,’ Lucinda admitted reluctantly. ‘Though it contradicts my duty to say so.’

Sally Kestrel smiled understandingly. ‘We do not wish to see others make the same mistakes that we did,’ she said. ‘I have already tried to speak to Cousin Letitia, but she is adamant. They have no money and Mr Leytonstone is very rich.’

‘And Mr Chance, I suppose, is not?’

Sally Kestrel shook her head. ‘He is better born, but he has no fortune. And I fear that Cousin Letitia values fortune above all things.’

Lucinda glanced towards the doorway, where the Master of Ceremonies was announcing a late arrival. The knot of people gathered by the doorway parted to allow the newcomer entrance.

‘Mr Jackson Raleigh!’

Lucinda’s breath caught in her throat. She dropped her fan and had to rummage under the rout chair to find it again. She felt hot and cold all at the same time, shaking as though she had a fever. Raleigh, she remembered, was the name that her good friend Rebecca de Lancey had used when she had lived in London before her marriage. It was the name of a famous sailor whom some might say had been a privateer…

She straightened up. Daniel De Lancey was coming directly across the room towards her. He looked spectacular, in evening dress of a stark severity that emphasised the breadth of his shoulders and the hard, strong lines of his body. His step was light, and his demeanour one of confident charm that, Lucinda sensed, drew the eye of every woman in the room.

She tried not to look at him, afraid that if she did it would in some way give him away. She was surely the only one present who knew his identity. A little flicker of anger heated her blood to think that Daniel was taking her silence for granted, that he believed that she would not betray him. He had the audacity of the devil himself, and a part of her thought he richly deserved a fall. Another part of her was terrified that he would be found out.

‘My dear Mrs Melville,’ the Duchess of Kestrel was saying. ‘You have gone very pale. Are you quite well?’

‘I am very well, thank you,’ Lucinda said, recovering. ‘I feel a little chilled. It is a cold night.’

‘You should dance, you know,’ Sally Kestrel said, smiling. ‘Just because one is a chaperon…’

‘Oh, I do not dance these days,’ Lucinda said.

‘Not even when the most handsome man in the room is intent on asking you?’ the Duchess enquired.

Lucinda looked up. Daniel was now cutting a very determined path through the small crowd towards her. He was looking straight at her, with a mocking challenge in his eyes. He was taunting her, daring her to denounce him. Lucinda drew herself up a little straighter in her chair.

‘Madam,’ he was bowing over her hand now. ‘Allow me to introduce myself to you—’

‘I remember you,’ Lucinda said, before he could finish. ‘We have met before.’

She savoured the first faint sign of wariness that she saw in his dark eyes and smiled. ‘How do you do, Mr Raleigh?’

He raised her hand to his lips in an old-fashioned gesture and pressed a kiss against it—a real kiss rather than a formal brush of the lips. Her skin tingled, and she tried to withdraw her hand, but he held her fast for a long moment.

‘I am flattered that you remember me, madam,’ he said.

‘Oh, I had all but forgotten you until you walked in,’ Lucinda said airily. ‘But then I thought that you seemed vaguely familiar. Pray permit me to introduce you to Her Grace the Duchess of Kestrel. Your Grace, may I introduce Mr Raleigh?’

Daniel bowed, smiling, and Sally Kestrel looked delighted. ‘Mrs Melville! You did not vouchsafe the fact that you and Mr Raleigh were already acquainted. How do you do, sir? What brings you into this part of Suffolk?’

‘Business,’ Daniel said promptly. He smiled at Lucinda, a smile of cool confidence, and to her annoyance she could feel herself blushing like a schoolroom miss.

‘But when I saw Mrs Melville across the room,’ Daniel added, ‘I was tempted to renew our old acquaintance and mix business with pleasure.’

‘A capital idea,’ Sally Kestrel said promptly. ‘I was remarking to Mrs Melville only a moment ago that it is an evening for dancing…’

‘My sentiments precisely, Your Grace,’ Daniel said. He held out a hand to Lucinda. ‘If you would do me the honour, madam?’