Regency: Innocents & Intrigues: Marrying Miss Monkton / Beauty in Breeches. Helen Dickson

Maria swallowed down the hot rum. She gasped and began to cough, which brought a broad smile to Charles’s lips and he slapped her between the shoulder blades, which almost knocked her off her feet.

      ‘I should have warned you. It takes your breath at first, but it will warm you.’

      Maria was coughing too much to reply, but once she got her breath back she discovered that this assertion proved correct. An agreeable warmth infiltrated her body and she found it to her liking. She took another sip, cautiously this time, and seated herself on a settle before the fire to wait until it was time for them to leave.

      The deserted harbour under the town walls was just coming to life. Fishing boats were getting ready to leave, and the now-empty fishing baskets heaped on the decks would be brought back filled with plaice and sole, wet and shiny, and granite-coloured crabs.

      Jaques’s boat was a small fishing vessel plainly crafted. It looked small and insignificant alongside a brig and two tall-masted frigates, but her very insignificance was a safeguard, as was the single, modest riding light at her masthead.

      Jaques was beckoning to them on the deck, and seconds later they crossed the plank connecting her with the shore and were aboard. Maria wrinkled her nose. The boat smelled nauseatingly of fish. She looked at Charles, suddenly aware of how tense he had become. Jaques moved out of the dawn shadows across the deck towards them.

      ‘We’ll get off now. The tide’s all but full. Escort the lady below,’ he ordered, keeping his voice low.

      ‘Below?’ Maria asked hesitantly, extremely reluctant to enter the bowels of the boat. She had a dread of ships and would rather be on deck in the fresh air than down below.

      ‘Yes, Maria, down to the cabin,’ Charles said, taking her arm with a firm grip.

      She held back. ‘May I not stay here?’

      Charles’s grim expression as he met her gaze boded ill. ‘No, you may not. Until we have left the harbour you must remain below.’

      ‘But I don’t—much care for ships,’ she confessed, ashamed of her weakness, but she couldn’t help it. She hoped her request to stay on deck wouldn’t sound like cowardice and that he would understand her fear. ‘They—frighten me.’

      His jaw hardened in annoyance. ‘This isn’t a ship, Maria, it’s a boat, a small fishing boat in case you haven’t noticed.’

      Maria flinched. He spoke to her as he would to a naughty child. ‘I do know that, but they’re one and the same to me. My grandparents’—my mother’s parents’—ship went down in a storm in the Channel when they were returning to England after visiting my aunt.’

      That made Charles pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally. ‘I recall you telling me. I should have known. Nevertheless, Maria, for our sake and for those already below, it is essential that the coastguard and the harbour authorities don’t see us. If they should spot us, the consequences don’t bear thinking about. No one saw us board. As far as anyone is concerned Jaques is embarking on one of his regular fishing trips. Do you understand?’

      She did not persist. ‘Yes, and I’m sorry. Of course I’ll go below,’ she said bravely. She hesitated, reluctant to go without him, she realised with a vague sense of surprise. ‘You will come with me?’

      His voice softened. ‘Of course. We’ll come back on deck when we’re out in the Channel.’

      So she allowed him to lead her below to the small cabin. In the yellow light of the lantern they saw they were not alone. Six shapes—the émigrés, two women and four men, who had smuggled themselves aboard during the night—all sat close together, clutching their few possessions.

      Dressed in plain, shabby clothes, with caps covering their heads and pulled well down, they looked far more like the rabble who pursued them for their lives than aristocrats.

      That was the moment when Maria was made forcibly conscious that she was just like them, a fugitive, because she was obliged to hide and flee. She had no choice but to humbly accept in silence what fate might send her, even to being ordered about by someone like Jaques.

      Taking her hand, Charles drew her down on to a bench away from the others, just big enough for the two of them. Sensing her fear and feeling her body tremble next to his, he leaned towards her. ‘Maria,’ he said gently in her ear, ‘you needn’t fear the boat will go down. Jaques hasn’t lost one yet.’

      She glanced at him and then away again, conscious of the intense physical awareness she felt at his nearness. She wanted him to put his arms around her and calm her fears. She could hear the wind getting up. Down in the cabin it seemed to be blowing with a force that was terrifying.

      Something in Charles’s chest tightened. ‘Maria,’ he murmured, ‘are you all right?’ Placing a gentle finger under her chin, he compelled her to meet his gaze. ‘What is it? Are you really so frightened?’

      She swallowed and nodded. ‘Would you … Do you suppose you could hold me?’

      Wordlessly he put his arm around her and drew her close. She placed her head on his shoulder and he could feel her body trembling. ‘There’s nothing to fear,’ he murmured gently, stroking her head. ‘We’ll soon be out into the Channel and then we’ll be able to go up on deck.’ He pressed his cheek against her hair and repressed a smile, suspecting her docility was a measure of her fear and fatigue—and maybe the belated effects of the rum she had consumed.

      The moment he drew her into his arms, Maria was instantly conscious of the warmth and potential power of his body against hers, and felt an answering spark in him. She tilted her face to look at him. His hair fell in an untidy sweep over his brow. He had an engaging face. She saw something she had not seen in him before, the sweetness and humour of his firm lips, the quiet amusement behind his alert gaze. She paused, holding her breath as her heart turned over. To her at that moment, he was quite simply a beautiful man. Something stirred inside her. Something was happening, something that shouldn’t be happening—something she didn’t want to happen.

      Her body began to soften. It was a melting feeling, one her body liked. For what seemed to be an age she really looked at Charles. Even though she had been alone with him for three days, it was like coming face to face with a stranger. It frightened her, especially when his eyes locked on hers. It was all she could do to face his unspoken challenge and not retreat from him. Measure by measure the realisation dawned that this was a man she did not know.

      Nothing had prepared Maria for the thrill of quivering excitement that gripped her now. Her heart swelled with an emotion of such proportions she was overwhelmed. She was aware that this was a moment of great importance yet didn’t know in what way.

      Quite suddenly, and with stunned amazement, she was conscious of an overwhelming impulse to reach up and take his dark head between her hands and draw it down to her own. For a moment it was almost as though she could feel his thick hair under her fingers.

      Against her will and against all common sense, something stirred deep, deep within her, something dark and soft and treacherous. A hot tide of incredulous horror engulfed her mind and body in a wave of burning shame, and she lowered her eyes, hiding them with her long black lashes. They had looked at each other deeply, a look that spanned no more than a few seconds and yet seemed to last for an eternity.

      She shivered in anticipation, then almost shyly she pulled away from him. His eyes on hers were very bright, very tender.

      ‘I’m all right now. You must think I’m very foolish.’

      ‘No, Maria. To be afraid is nothing to be ashamed of. It often takes courage to admit it.’

      Charles was not immune to the unresisting woman he had held close. He was a virile man, a very masculine man, who was accustomed to the women in his arms allowing him whatever he asked of them. He was well used to the lusting pleasures that were always available to him. He had not, until he’d kissed Maria, held a woman in his arms who was not only young but innocent. Not until she had met him had she encountered the