Julia Justiss - The Smuggler and the Society Bride

Dawes stayed to assist her into the bath. By the time she’d scrubbed all the salt and sand out of her hair, the lady’s maid turned up to help her out of the rapidly cooling water, letting the housekeeper return to her duties.

‘So sorry I was absent when you needed me, miss,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Oh, but what a brave thing it was you done! I could hardly believe it when I seen you wading out into the water, for all the world like you was going to swim—’

‘You saw me?’ Honoria interrupted. Suddenly she understood the reason behind the maid’s absence and the lack of footmen: they must all have been assisting the free-traders in moving their cargo inland. ‘Tamsyn, surely you have not been taking part in illegal activities!’

‘Oh, course not, miss,’ the maid replied hastily, a telltale blush colouring her cheeks. ‘I, um, heard all about it from Alan the footman, who met some fishermen whilst walking back from the village. But you must take care, miss! The water in the cove looks peaceful, but there be a powerful current where it runs between them rocks back out to sea. If you’d gone out much farther, you mighta been swept away!’

In the agitation of the moment, struggling in her heavy, wet clothing and desperate to reach the drowning man, Honoria hadn’t particularly noticed. Now that she thought about it, she did recall how much stronger the outward tug had become as she reached deeper water. ‘Luckily I didn’t need to go out farther.’

‘Indeed, miss. But, oh, wasn’t he wonderful! Leaping off the rocks and swimming across the strongest part of undertow to haul out that worthless revenue agent! I swear, my heart was in my throat, wondering if the both of them would be sucked back out to sea,’ the maid exclaimed, obviously forgetting her contention that she’d not personally witnessed the drama.

Amused, Honoria tried to resist the curiosity pulling at her as insistently as that treacherous current. Losing that struggle, she asked casually, ‘Who was the young man who made the rescue?’

The maid stared at her. ‘You don’t know? Why, ’twas the Hawk! My brother Dickin, who’s a dab hand of a captain himself, says he’s the best, most fearless mariner he’s ever seen! Eyes like a cat, he has, able to navigate despite tides and rough sea even on the blackest night. Gabriel Hawksworth’s his real name. He’s only been captain of the Flying Gull for a few months, but folks hereabouts already dubbed him Hawk for the way he can steer his cutter sharp into land and back out again, like some bird swooping in to seize his prey.’

‘He’s not local, then?’ Honoria asked.

‘No, miss. Not rightly sure where he hails from, though with that hint of blarney in his voice, I’d guess he’s Irish.’

‘Do the Irish also fish these waters?’ she asked. Though the Hawk seemed too confident and commanding a man to have spent his life on a fishing boat.

‘Don’t know what he done before the war. He was an Army mate of Dickin’s. While with Wellington’s forces in Spain, far from the sea, they used to talk about sailing, my brother told me. Even took a boat out together a few times when they got to Lisbon, and Dickin said he’d never met a man who could handle a small craft better. When the former captain of the Gull was injured, Dickin asked the Hawk to come sail her.’

An Army man. That would explain his decisive air of command. Her brother Hal possessed the quality in abundance. ‘If he is so fond of sea, I wonder he didn’t end up in the Navy.’

‘Don’t know about the Hawk, but Dickin had no wish to be gone for months deep-water sailing. Said if the navvies ever found out how well he could handle a tiller, he’d be gang-pressed onto a frigate and never see land again! So when the Army recruiters come through, he jumped up to volunteer. Didn’t mind doing his part to put Boney away, but wanted to be able to come home afterward, take care of Ma and us kids and tend the family business.’

‘The family business being free-trading?’ Honoria asked.

Tamsyn blushed again. ‘Helping Pa run the inn, mostly, along with some fishing, miss. As for anything else, as folks around here will tell you, ’tis best if you don’t look too close nor ask too many questions. In general, the revenuers leave everyone alone, long as old Mr Marshall gets his cut regular. That man who ran his skiff on the rocks today was a new man.’

‘Who wouldn’t be around to look closely or ask questions any longer, if Mr Hawksworth hadn’t intervened.’

‘True, but the Hawk being such a good captain, I don’t think anyone hereabouts will hold it against him.’

Before Honoria could exclaim about someone being censored for saving, rather than taking, a life, 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.

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.