The Captain And His Innocent. Lucy Ashford

a ship, to Calais or any part of the French coast. I can pay you—’

      They’d stared, incredulous. ‘She’s French,’ they’d said. ‘It’s the little French missy from Bircham Hall. And we know there’s someone not far from here who might be willing to pay a fine fat reward for her, lads.’

      They’d grabbed her so swiftly that she hadn’t had chance to get her gun. They’d marched her down to the harbour and the inn. They don’t know that I’ve got my pistol, she kept telling herself. They don’t know.

      But her heart had really started beating hard when they reached the inn yard, and the man strolled out. The man in the long patched coat, who wore a black glove on his damaged right hand. His voice, as he spoke to her, had been cool and controlled and almost amused. His blue eyes had gleamed with some knowledge she couldn’t begin to guess at.

      Having an adventure, are you? he’d said. And she’d felt as though she was on the brink of hurtling down a bottomless abyss.

      She would never, ever admit how vulnerable—how scared—she felt. She’d rather die than let him know it. But she knew, in that moment, that he was the most dangerous of them all.

      She’d foolishly hoped that producing her pistol would help her get away from the lot of them, but the arrival of the riders—Revenue men, she heard the others call out—had put paid to her plan. And now she’d lost her gun, one of his accomplices had her valise and the man they called the captain was dragging her away from the village, into the blackness.

      ‘Come,’ he was saying harshly.

      It was either him or the Revenue men.

      His three henchmen were just behind them, running, too. One held her valise and the other one—stocky, with spiky black hair—had her pistol. But it was the captain’s strong left hand that still grasped her wrist.

      They were heading away from the harbour, she realised, towards a rough track that led up the headland; so that as they climbed, she could see the black surface of the sea stretching out below her, its softly churning waves painted silver by the moon. A salty breeze caressed her face and teased her with its hint of freedom.

      What now? she was thinking desperately. All right; so Captain Luke had rescued her from the ruffians who’d captured her on the road. But wasn’t this man—this cold, forbidding man—even more dangerous than they were? He knew she was in Lord Franklin’s care. He knew, now, that she’d run from the Hall tonight.

      And it was clear that he didn’t intend to let her return there. Perhaps he wanted a ransom, she guessed suddenly—but she was pretty sure that Lady Charlotte would pay him to keep