Chapter One
Moonstone Landing
Cornwall, England
“Oh dear! Parrot, how can this be?” Deandra Woodley muttered as she ran toward the body of a man washed up on the beach beside the pirate caves that were on the grounds of her home, Woodley Lodge.
Parrot, who was her cousin’s dog presently left in her care, wagged his tail and loped ahead of her to begin sniffing the big man with alarming familiarity.
Deandra was out of breath by the time she reached his side and knelt beside his prone form, uncertain what to do. However, Parrot appeared to be on the task. The curious dog next sniffed the stranger’s firm rump and then stuck his nose in other unseemly places. “Ew, Parrot! No.”
But would a dog do this if the man were dead?
She glanced out across the cove waters for sign of a sunken vessel, but saw none in sight on this balmy summer morning. Indeed, she was quite alone with what she hoped was not a dead body, and there appeared to be no other survivors to be rescued, either.
Nor was there driftwood or other debris upon the water. No hint of anything amiss.
“How did you get here?” she whispered, staring at the stranger’s broad shoulders in puzzlement and debating what to do as he lay face down in the wet sand.
Gentle waves ebbed and flowed around him, but he remained unresponsive.
Even while motionless, he exuded power and vitality.
Deandra sidled closer, heedless of having her gown soaked as tidewaters softly swirled around her, too. She placed a hand on his back in the hope she might feel him breathing.
“Oh, Parrot! He’s alive.”
But barely.
How had he come to be here?
The sky was clear and a light sea breeze wafted over her, a far cry from last night’s roiling winds, crashing waves, and thunderous downpour.
Had the dangerous seas somehow swallowed up his vessel and yet spared him by spitting him out of its treacherous jaws?
Parrot barked in the man’s ear and then moved to sniff his wet boots.
Deandra’s hands wavered over the stranger’s broad shoulders that fascinated her more than they ought to. Should she turn him over? He remained motionless upon the sand, still unresponsive to the gentle waves washing over them.
Well, why should he care or even flinch when the water was warm and he was already wet from head to foot?
Suddenly, he stirred.
“You are conscious. Thank goodness.” Deandra sighed with genuine relief as he raised his sleek, muscled body ever so slightly before sinking back onto the sand with a huffing groan.
When he did not move again, she took a deep breath and decided to turn him over as gently as possible.
But he was big and solid, and not cooperating with her attempt. She accidentally fell atop him while struggling to shift him onto his back, which she finally succeeded in doing despite his resistance.
He opened his eyes.
Deandra gasped and tried to scramble off him, for she had never seen eyes so sharp a crystal green. They resembled exquisitely cut glass, beautifully jagged and dangerous, and able to pierce straight through to one’s heart.
The steel bands of his arms wrapped around her, holding her fast. “Good morning, sweet lips,” he said in a raspy rumble that shot tingles through her.
Then he did the unthinkable and captured her mouth in a kiss so hot and searing, they were in danger of setting the beach afire.
It would have been a perfect kiss had she not wound up spitting sand out of her mouth, because he had sand on his face and more than a few grains had wound up on her lips.
He had also passed out in the middle of the kiss and was once again flat on his back, unconscious in the wet sand, thus abruptly ending the shocking moment.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, refusing to admit this fiasco of a first kiss had affected her in the least. Why him for her very first? And why should she feel anything when he obviously had no idea whom he was kissing? It could have been Parrot’s lips he’d captured, for all he knew or cared.
Yes, this was a big disappointment.
“Oaf,” she muttered, for she had hoped for moonlight and magic, and actually knowing the man, in what ought to have been a memorably romantic occasion. “Sir! Sir!” She shook him lightly, trying to stir him awake because she refused to allow him to be dead after he had kissed her.
His groan revealed he was still responsive.
She studied him when he opened his eyes once more. He stared at her a long moment and then smiled. “It’s ye, my sweet lips.”
Ugh, again? Seriously? Where did he think he was? In some tawdry tavern?
“Um, good morning to you.” She tried to push off him because he had wrapped his muscled arms around her again, and seemed in no hurry to release her.
But she must have touched a sore spot on his chest when insisting on rising, because he winced and then grunted in pain.
“You are hurt, sir. I cannot help you if you won’t permit me to get up. ”
“Who are ye?” he asked, his voice still deep and raspy, sounding Irish to her ears. “And where am I?”
“I’ll gladly answer all of your questions as soon as you let me up.” Not to mention she wanted to give him a smack on his head for kissing her when he had no idea who she was.
Certainly a way to make a young lady feel special, she thought wryly.
“All right, lass. But give me a moment. There’s something quite nice about holding ye. Do ye not feel the rightness of it?”
Yes, it was quite nice. His wet shirt was pasted to his skin, and every glorious muscle was visible to her. She not only felt the magnificence of his hard body but saw it with her own eyes.
She would never admit this to him, of course. Naughty rogues such as this one should not be rewarded for their misbehavior. He must have learned early on how to hold a woman in his embrace.
“Are you going to allow me up, sir?”
“Aye, lass. Although it breaks my heart to let ye go.” He released her, brushed sand off his hands and face, then tried to sit up on his own. But the effort proved too difficult and he sank back once more onto the wet sand.
Now that Deandra had moved off him, the sun shone directly in his eyes. “Botheration, that’s bright!” he declared, and placed a hand over his eyes to shade them while he continued to study her. “Ye’re a pretty thing.”
“And you are lucky you are not a dead thing,” she shot back, more annoyed with herself for enjoying the kiss that had spiraled to disaster halfway through and probably meant nothing to him at all. “Who are you? And how did you get here?”
“I cannot recall, and I suppose it depends on where here is,” he said, grunting out the words as he rolled to his knees with stubborn determination and then cautiously rose on wobbly legs without her assistance.
She rose along with him and was now forced to look up at him, for he was a tall man.
Powerfully built, too. And she could still see the rock-hard contours of his arms and shoulders through that wet shirt.
“Ye still haven’t told me where I am,” he reminded her as she gaped at him.
“But I’m Captain Sean McTavish, very willingly at yer service, miss…
or are ye a lady? Aye, ye’re a lady, judging by the impertinent tilt of yer nose.
Not that I’m complaining about it; ’tis a fine nose.
Indeed, not complaining about any part of ye. ”
He cast her a rakish smile as he took inventory of her body.
Ugh.
The shameless man had been at death’s door only moments ago.
“Will you please stop gawking at me?” she said, making no attempt to hide her irritation.
“Hard to do, lass. It isn’t often one is in the presence of such beauty.”
“Your flattery is not going to work on me.” But she softened toward him because she had recognized his name and realized he was a friend of her cousin, Draco, Earl of Woodley. She had seen this man once years before, but only peering at him through binoculars from a distance.
Still, she had felt a tingle back then. As though their souls had sensed each other and somehow connected.
Foolishness, of course.
Shaking out of her thoughts, she eyed him more closely and frowned upon noticing a circle of dried blood and slashing tears across his shirt. Those must have been incurred during his struggles in the water.
She reached out to inspect the patch of dried blood. “Let me see that—”
He nudged her hands away. “’Tis nothing, lass. I need to find someone, and ye might help. I’m looking for the Earl of Woodley. He resides at Woodley Lodge in Moonstone Landing. Have I found it?”
“Yes, but Draco isn’t here right now.”
“He isn’t? That is a bother,” he muttered, frowning as he brushed a hand through his wet hair that appeared a dark red but would probably lighten to reddish-blond once it dried.
“I am Lady Deandra Woodley.”
“Deandra?” He graced her with a generously warm smile. “Ah, so ye’re the lovely cousin Draco’s been tryin’ to protect from me all these years. Now I can see why. I suppose every man ye meet tells ye how beautiful ye are.”
“No one has ever told me such nonsense.”
He frowned again. “It isn’t nonsense. To be honest, ye take my breath away.”
“Oh, I expect it was your near drowning that stole your breath,” she replied with a genteel sniff and a roll of her eyes. “Not everyone is as outrageous as you are, Captain McTavish.”
“How is it outrageous to speak the truth? I suppose ye circulate in Polite Society, which really ought to be called Impolite Society because everyone is in it for themselves and will not think twice before shredding rivals. They’ll say whatever they think will give them greatest advantage.
Still, yer loveliness is obvious and I cannot believe no one has ever compared ye to the stars in heaven or yer eyes to silvery moons. ”
“What they have told me is irrelevant to your situation. And how would you know what goes on in those exalted circles?”