Julia Justiss - The Smuggler and the Society Bride

She wouldn’t tarnish one of the few enjoyments left to her by recalling a wretched past she could do nothing to change.

Resolutely focusing on the beauty of the cove, Honoria considered taking off her boots and wading into the water. With spring just struggling into summer, unlike the sun-warmed pond back at Stanegate Court, the water sluicing in the narrow inlet from the sea was probably frigid.

As she glanced toward the cove’s rock-protected entrance, a flash of sun reflecting a whiteness of sail caught her attention. Narrowing her eyes against the glare, she watched a small boat skim toward the cove.

A second boat popped into view, apparently in pursuit of the first, which tacked sharply into the calmer waters of the cove before coming about to fly back toward open water. In the next instant, the following boat, now just inside the rocky outcropping that separated cove from coastline, stopped as abruptly as if halted by an unseen hand. While the first boat sailed out of sight, she saw the dark form of a man tumble over the side of the second skiff.

The boat must have struck a submerged rock, Honoria surmised as she transferred her attention from the little vessel, now being battered by the incoming waves, to the man who’d been flung into the water. Seconds after submerging, the man surfaced, then in a flail of arms, sank again.

Curiosity changed to concern. Though the waters of the cove were shallow at low tide, the man would still need to swim some distance before he’d be able to touch bottom. Had he been injured by the fall—or did he not know how to swim?

She hesitated an instant longer, watching as the man bobbed back to the surface and sank again, making no progress toward the shallows.

Murmuring one of Hal’s favourite oaths, Honoria looked wildly about the beach. After spotting a driftwood plank, she swiftly stripped off bonnet, cloak, jacket, stockings, shoes and the heavy skirt of her habit, grabbed up the plank and charged into the water.

Still encumbered by chemise, blouse and stays, she couldn’t swim as well as she had in those childhood breeches, probably not well enough to reach the man and bring him in. But she simply couldn’t stand by and watch him drown without at least trying to wade out, hoping she could get near enough for him to grab hold of the plank and let her tow him in.

Shivering at the water’s icy bite, Honoria pushed through the shallows as quickly as the sodden skirts of her chemise allowed, battling toward the struggling sailor.

She had about concluded in despair that she would never reach him in time, when suddenly, from the rocks far above the water at the trail side of the cove, a man dove in. Honoria halted, gasping for breath as a rogue wave broke over her, and watched the newcomer swim with swift, practiced strokes toward the downed sailor. Moments later, he grabbed the sinking man by one arm and began swimming him toward shore.

Relieved, she turned to struggle back to the beach. Only then did she notice the string of tubs bobbing near the cliff wall on the walk side of the cove. Suddenly the game of racing boats made sense.

Free-traders! Tethered in calm cove waters must be one of the contraband cargoes about which she’d heard so much. The first boat had apparently been trying to lead the second away from where the cargo had been stashed under cover of night, to be retrieved later.

Weighed down by her drenched clothing, Honoria stopped in the shallows to catch her breath and observe the rescuer swim in his human cargo.

Her admiration for his bravery turned to appreciation of a different sort as the man reached shallow water and stood. He, too, had stripped down for his rescue attempt. Water dripped off his bare torso, from his shoulders and strongly muscled chest down the flat of his abdomen. From there, it trickled into and over the waistband of his sodden trousers, which moulded themselves over an impressive—oh, my!

Face flaming, Honoria jerked her eyes upward, noting the long white scar along his ribcage and another traversing his left shoulder, before her scrutiny reached his face—and her gaze collided with a piercing look from the most vivid deep blue eyes she had ever seen.

She felt a jolt reminiscent of the many times when, shuffling her feet over the Axminster carpet in Papa’s study after receiving a scolding about her latest exploit, she touched the metal door handle. Enduring that zing of pain had been a game, a silent demonstration to herself that she had the strength to bear chastisement stoically, despite Mama’s disdain and Papa’s disapproval. Though more lately, it had fallen to her eldest brother Marcus, de facto head of the family since father’s last illness, to deliver the reprimands.

There the resemblance ended, for the jolt induced by this man was both a stronger and a much more pleasant sensation. Indeed, she felt her lips curve into a smile as she took in the sharply crafted face and the dripping black hair framing it, sleek as a seal.

Even had he not just recklessly leapt off a cliff into swiftly moving tidal water, his commanding countenance with its determined chin, high cheekbones and full, sensual lips, would have proclaimed him a self-confident man of action. One strongly muscled arm still towing the coughing, sputtering mariner, the rescuer strode through the shallows, carrying himself with an aura of power that, like the long scars on his chest and shoulder, hinted of danger.

A commanding man, she saw belatedly, who was now subjecting her to an inspection as intense as hers of him had been.

‘Well, lass,’ he said as he approached, his amused voice carrying just a hint of a lilt. ‘Is it Aphrodite you are, rising out of the sea?’

Honoria’s face flamed anew as his comment reminded her she was standing in ankle-deep water, the soggy linen chemise that clung to her legs and belly probably nearly transparent.

Tossing a ‘well done, sir,’ over her shoulder, she turned and ran. Upon gaining the shore, she dropped the plank and hastily donned her sandy cloak, her numbed fingers struggling with the ties. By the time she’d covered herself and bent to retrieve her jacket, skirts and shoes, a crowd of men was walking toward her along the narrow beach.

Accomplices of the free-traders, come to help move the cargo inland, she surmised as she chose a convenient rock upon which to perch and put on her shoes. She’d just seated herself to begin when the first of the men reached her.

Suddenly she realized their attention was fixed not on the rescuer or the cargo waiting in the cove waters—but on her. She could almost feel the avid gazes raking her body, from the seawater dripping from the loose tendrils of hair to her bare feet, the curiosity in their eyes overlaid by something hotter, more feral.

Horror filling her, she shrank back. Instead of the windswept cliffs, she saw the darkness of a London town-house garden, while the cawing of seabirds was replaced by exclamations of shock and surprise emanating from the path leading back to a brilliantly lit ballroom.

Eyes riveted on her, men closed in all around. Their gazes lust-filled, their lips curled with disdain or anticipation, their hot liquored breath assaulting her as she held the ripped edges of her bodice together. Anthony, disgust in his eyes, running up not to comfort and assist but to accuse and repudiate.

Panic sent her bolting to her feet. Boots and stockings in hand, ignoring the protest of the handsome rescuer who called upon her to wait while he deposited his coughing cargo, she pushed through the crowd and ran for the cliff path.

Gabriel Hawksworth’s admiring gaze followed the honey-haired lass fleeing down the beach. After pulling the half-drowned mariner onto the shore, he straightened, breathing heavily, while the man at his feet retched up a bounty of Cornish seawater.