Chapter Twenty-Nine
They set off, Harry supremely conscious of the cold draft whistling up the exposed crack in his bottom and Georgie practically plastered to his thighs. Both of them doing their best to convey that there was absolutely nothing untoward going on at all as they picked a tightly knit path through the crowd.
Of course, everyone stopped them. His peers wanted to congratulate him on the Boadicea and, because gossip always spread like wildfire in the navy, on his recent and sudden engagement. They were only halfway to the terrace when Admiral Nugent reappeared and beckoned them over, and then, because his wife had only just told him the good news, he pressed glasses of champagne into their hands.
Before Harry could stop him, the admiral called the room to order. “A little bird has just told me that Captain Kincaid’s charming companion has taken leave of her senses and agreed to be his wife!” Nugent raised his glass high in the air. “Three cheers for the happy couple! Hip hip!”
“Hoorah!” shouted the room in unison as Harry gripped Georgie’s hand in apology.
“When is the wedding?” shouted a commodore in the crowd.
“Well… we… um…?” This was all getting out of hand very quickly and he had no clue how to make it stop. “Next year. There are obviously lots of plans to make and—”
“Next year!” Lady Nugent flapped that aside. “When you are sailing away in six weeks for goodness knows how long! No, indeed. That will not do when all the wives here will happily help Georgie with the plans.” Then she apparently had an epiphany. “Better still, we shall relieve her of the entire chore, isn’t that right, ladies?”
That elicited squeals of agreement from every woman present, bar Elizabeth, whose lips were so pursed she looked ready to blow on a trumpet. Pettily, that was the only part of the debacle he found some enjoyment in.
“That is such a generous offer,” said Georgie, gripping his hand behind his back for all she was worth while her body still protected his modesty. “But obviously I will need to consult with my own family before I accept it.” Not only were they now engaged, but she had miraculously grown a family. “They would want us to do the deed in London, wouldn’t they, Harry?” She jabbed him in the back, willing him to save them.
“They’d have us hanged, drawn, and quartered if we didn’t.”
“I actually have to head back to London next week…” She jabbed him again, as if he needed any reminder at all that as soon as blasted Flora returned, she’d be gone. “So I don’t think it would be sensible to make any sort of plans until I… um… return.” Which of course she wouldn’t, and then he’d have to come up with another lie to explain why their hasty engagement had been called off.
Good grief.
It suddenly dawned on him that because of one ill-judged response to his first fiancée, he was soon doomed to go down in naval history as the only man to lose two fiancées within days of proposing to them! Once was unfortunate, especially when he’d been stupid enough to propose to Elizabeth, but twice suggested he was the problem. Especially as Georgie had gone down a storm here tonight. She had Nugent and his wife eating out of her dainty little hand. To prove that, Lady Nugent pouted.
“Fiddlesticks! And I was so looking forward to accompanying you to the modiste’s tomorrow, Georgie. But we also have to return to London shortly, so we could just as easily go to the modiste’s there. Madam Devy is the absolute best and she owes me many favors.” The light of excitement reignited in her eyes. “With your mother of course.”
Georgie pinched his side this time, as if to say This is your mess, fix it.
“Well, that isn’t going to work either as my sister would murder me if I allowed Georgie to go to the modiste’s without her. You all remember Flora, don’t you?” Harry pulled a face at his comrades. “She can be terrifying.” A couple of men in the audience nodded, as Flora had never been one to pull her punches when a sailor was foolish enough to make a pass at her. “You are going to have to postpone all plans until my sister returns from her travels and Georgie returns here to Plymouth.” Before Lady Nugent asked when that was going to be, he wafted what he hoped was a firm hand. “Now if you will excuse us, I am afraid my darling fiancée needs some air, so I must escort her to the terrace.”
Another stupid lie he forgot to think fully through and one that elicited a roomful of winking, whistling, and vocalized sailor-salted innuendo that he was going to have to make a groveling apology to Georgie for the moment he got her outside.
“We were actually headed for the terrace before the admiral waylaid us.” Georgie shifted positions to stand almost beside him and had miraculously managed to do something to her face to make it look pale and wan. “I’ve been a little under the weather all day, but I think the short sail from Cawsand proved my undoing.” Her stoic but wavering smile was suitably tragic. “It’s ironic that I am about to marry a sailor when sailing doesn’t agree with me in the slightest.”
“Oh, you poor dear.” Lady Nugent bustled over to take her temperature with her palm. “You do feel a little clammy. You know what they always say about seasickness. You spend the first day of it terrified that it is going to kill you and the second petrified that it isn’t. Ginger helps. I’ll get the kitchen to put some in some tea for you.”
“There is really no need.” Keen to escape before they were forced into more lies, Harry decided to be decisive. “Fresh air always works best for Georgie, doesn’t it, my darling.” And she really was a darling even if she wasn’t his.
“It is very warm in here,” said Georgie in a faraway voice as she leaned her entire weight against him and his aerated breeches as she clutched at his waist, subtly pushing him forward in case he had a mind to linger. “I am so sorry to be such a bother, Lady Nugent.”
“Clear a path!” The admiral’s wife dashed ahead of them, wielding her fan like a sword, and the crowd parted between them and the French doors like the Red Sea.
As soon as they were through them, and after Harry had reassured their hostess that he really did not need her assistance any longer, they walked sedately until they were out of sight of the party. Him acting like the most concerned escort and her looking as though she could faint at any moment.
“Well, that went from bad to worse rapidly, didn’t it?”
She was laughing. Giggling, in fact. It was such a delicious sound that it was infectious.
“I’m sorry. I panicked, yet again, and didn’t even consider the consequences.” He raked a hand through his hair, realizing that he had left his hat at the reception, and huffed. “The whole world and his wife now think that we are engaged. The crew on the Boadicea think that I ruined you in my cabin, and next week, I’ve got to lie through my back teeth yet again and come up with a suitable reason to explain why you left me.”
“It was the pocket watches.” She flicked one and that made her giggle more. “I felt that I couldn’t compete with either of them.”
“That will do wonders for my shredded dignity, I am sure.” He supposed the two watches were ridiculous.
“At least nobody saw your backside, so every cloud…” She collapsed with laughter again as she wandered behind him to inspect the damage. A combination of the sea breeze hitting his bare bottom and her lifting the back of his coat to take a look at it raised goosebumps on his flesh.
“Oh good heavens above, Harry, that really is quite some tear. No patch is going to fix that damage.” She had tears of mirth in her eyes as she handed him her shawl. “If you don’t cover it up, you’ll be arrested for indecency before we get to the dock.” Then she snorted, as if she hadn’t found anything quite so funny in a very long time. “But at least the daisies on the shawl will match the ones on your boat. Few men suit a daisy, but bizarrely”—she clutched her ribs and roared some more—“you do.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
She nodded as she swiped the tears away. “I cannot wait to tell Lottie. She will be very jealous she was denied the chance of seeing your naked bottom, as she could barely speak after she saw you bare-chested in the bath.”
Harry had always found sailing on a gentle sea under the stars sublime, but to do it with Georgie was magical. She had rarely been on the water, and so saw everything as a wondrous adventure. She stared, entranced, as he picked out key constellations, soaking it all in while idly trailing her fingers in the waves lapping against the hull, seemingly oblivious of how utterly beautiful she looked now that the wind had freed her wild curls from their pins.
As he had since he arrived back in Plymouth, he used the stranded Siren to navigate, and they both waved at the trio of sailors smoking pipes on the dimly lit upper deck. “I feel sorry for them. They’ve run out of money. Hence they are stuck here.”
As Harry turned the rudder, she grabbed the side as the little sloop bounced across a flurry of waves caused by the strong underwater current. “How does a big ship like that run out of money?”
“Pure mismanagement when any oceangoing vessel can command ten pounds a tun for cargo.”
“Ten pounds a tun!” Her lovely jaw dropped. “Half my yearly salary, you mean.” Her nose wrinkled as she stared over her shoulder at the ship. “How many tuns can she hold?”
He glanced back at the ship himself to estimate. “A good two hundred. Maybe two-fifty. Clearly, her captain is an idiot.” He mimed drinking. “Likes his rum and his gambling too much, by all accounts.”
“If you taught me how to be a captain, I’d take his job in a heartbeat.” She stared covetously for a moment. “Two thousand pounds a voyage appeals to me.”
“You’d need to learn to sail first.” Before he could stop it, the little devil inside him piped up. “If you’d like, I could give you your first lesson tonight.”
“Really?” Her wide smile took his breath away. “I’d love that!”
He shuffled over, not caring that he was likely making a reckless mistake as she squeezed her lush body beside him, then wrapped his arm around her so he could teach her how to use the rudder without them veering wildly off course. “You see that light over there?” He pointed to the stubby lighthouse that sat on Tor Point. “Aim there until I tell you otherwise.”
She did, and as she began to get a feel for the boat, he loosened his grip on it but not his hold on her. She didn’t need him to—Georgie was too spirited and independent to need anyone’s support—but he needed to hold her.
“It’s pulling.” Her nose wrinkled in concentration.
“Of course it’s pulling. That’s the Channel current you can feel now that we’re a long way from the harbor.”
“If it’s this strong on a calm summer’s night, I dread to think what it’s like in a winter storm.”
“Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.” He subtly sniffed her hair because her perfume mingled with the salty air was suddenly his favorite scent.
“Who was that? Nelson?” She smiled without removing her fixed gaze from the light ahead. “Drake? Atilla the Hun?”
“Byron, actually. Despite his lack of any military wisdom, those words resonate. You have to keep your wits about you on the waves, where the tide can turn on a sixpence and every raging tempest could be your last.”
“Profound. And poetic. Byron too?”
“No. All me, for once. I am the son of a failed poet, after all, despite my two pocket watches. Now bring her gently starboard.” He couldn’t resist cuddling her closer while he redirected her, chuckling at her baffled expression. “Starboard is right, Georgie. Turn her right and aim for that low light over there. Do you see it?” He used his finger to angle her chin. “That’s the seawall at Cawsand.”
“We’re almost home?” She sounded disappointed, as if she, like he, never wanted tonight to end. She twisted and their eyes met, and because it felt like the most natural thing in the moment, Harry didn’t even hesitate before he kissed her.
She sighed against his mouth as she kissed him back. It was an unhurried, gentle, and leisurely exploration that lasted at least a minute before their boat bounced on a rogue wave and reminded them of the looming beach. Neither did they speak as their lips parted and he shifted position to lower the sail.
She shuffled over so he could man the rudder for the tricky maneuvers necessary to get them safely where they needed to be. Waited while he tied off the boat, allowed him to help her off it, and then, seeing as that one kiss clearly wasn’t enough, came willingly into his arms as he tugged her closer.
Harry couldn’t resist twirling his finger in her untamed hair, marveling in its texture and the way the moonlight picked out certain strands before he pressed his lips to hers.
Still, neither of them hurried. Their next kiss was as gentle as the filmy wash that lapped the sand, and somehow all the more potent as a result. He felt her desire as plainly as she doubtless felt his pressing against her belly, yet in tacit agreement, they both respected the immovable boundary of their circumstances and held their passions back. As if they both realized that this kiss, like their relationship, was a transient, temporary escape from their real lives and responsibilities.
Because it felt fitting, he linked his fingers in hers as they slowly wandered up the silent dark and winding roads toward the house. Pausing here and there for another final kiss goodbye. Another taste of what might have been, if he wasn’t him and she wasn’t her and fate hadn’t such atrocious timing.
When they reached the gate, he kissed her again, and because they both knew it had to be the last, the timbre of it changed. Tongues and teeth and hands frantically explored all those parts they knew they weren’t supposed to in the shadow of the house. He cupped her breasts, her bottom.
She cupped his—through the tear so that skin finally touched skin—and moaned as he hoisted her skirts up. Parted her legs so that he could caress her intimately. Dip his finger inside her.
So soft.
So warm.
So…
“Harry? That you?” Tom’s frantic holler from the porch had them jumping apart seconds before they were illuminated in the soft glow of his lamp. “Thank the Lord!” Oblivious of what he had just interrupted, he hollered behind him. “They’re back, Ada!”
“Oh, thank the Lord!” Ada’s muffled response was typically theatrical. “Then make haste, Thomas!” He dashed back inside, plunging them into darkness again, save only for the moonlight above.
“That doesn’t sound good.” Georgie’s breasts fell in time with her erratic breathing and she looked every inch a woman who had been thoroughly ravished. Her hair was a riot. Her lips swollen. Her dress hopelessly creased. His fingers still damp with the dew from her body. His body so consumed with desire for her, it frightened him.
“Knowing Ada, it’s a storm in a teacup.” They hurried toward the house while Harry tried to ignore the excruciating discomfort of his nether regions. Even with their new ventilation, and thanks entirely to his straining, rock-hard cock taking up every last bit of give, his damned breeches were now strangling him. Their feet had barely hit the front step when Tom flew out the door again and almost knocked Georgie over.
“Sorry!” He disappeared around the side of the house carrying two big bags which, if the subsequent sounds were any gauge, were tossed into a cart. “Rebecca is in labor.” Then he was gone again, leaving them to follow.
Indoors, Ada was in a panic. “Thank goodness you are both home as I didn’t want to have to drive myself all the way to Hessenford in the dark and leave Tom here with the children!” She shoved another bag at her husband and then began to wrestle her arms into her coat. “The young ’uns are in bed and there’s plenty of food in the pantry. If all goes smoothly tonight, we’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe the day after.” She grabbed Tom’s coat from the peg and held it up as he returned, and only then did Harry realize that he and Georgie were about to be left.
For the rest of the night.
Totally unchaperoned.