Chapter Four
There was still a good deal Cate knew that she needed to tell John.
Her own feelings would have been a good place to start.
What precisely had occurred between Mr. Hepworth and herself at that house party was insignificant now.
Living with her father was so terrible that it was worth the risk.
She might have also told him what had made her so nervous in the assembly rooms. But frankly, she couldn’t think when John touched her in such a manner.
His hands explored her body, exciting her. All of what she had been hoping and praying for, his breath in her ear, his tongue on her skin, was finally happening.
When John pressed against her, Cate could only hear the thudding beat of her own heart. She needed his hands on her skin. Enough words had been spoken. Such trivialities could wait. All that mattered was that he continued.
That was her last thought before he felt her up beneath the hem of her dress and stroked her leg as she clung to his shoulders. She arched her back into the rocky alcove and prayed that he would touch her between her legs, as she imagined him doing countless times.
Her muttering caused him to chuckle. His fingertips were so close to her core that Cate could have screamed. When he kissed and nibbled her neck, Cate dug her fingers into his dress coat, urging him on. She was long past caring.
“You like this?” His accent was stronger and deeper as he stroked her drawers, easing his fingers between the opening and parting her curls.
“More than you could ever imagine,” Cate swooned.
“That’s good.” His smile seemed almost wicked in the moonlight, titillating as he pressed his body more fully against hers. He slid his finger inside, circling the point of her that made Cate gasp.
Cate glanced up and beheld him as he caressed her.
The rocks behind her were cold, but there was no escaping John’s intensity as he pressed, stroked, and enticed her further.
Cate gasped, her legs weakening as her body reacted to his fingers, craving more.
More of everything. Especially him. He made her feel better about life, the world, and herself because he made her feel safe.
“Please.” She could barely recognize her own voice.
It sounded coarse, but she didn’t care. There was a tension within her that she needed to release, but she could not master it herself.
Every lift and press of her own body simply drove her madder.
She needed him and wanted him, and continued to moan, desperately wishing he’d help her find the release she sought.
He gently brushed her curls, exciting her. She shivered as she clung to him with a wave of colors and pleasures. Cate cried and gasped into John’s arms. All the while, he made soft, soothing, and wondrous noises, kissing her face and forehead, holding her as she unwound.
Despite the darkness and the distant noise of revelers, Cate hummed with pleasure. Her body felt fresh and reclaimed. She became the wanton her father had proclaimed her to be. Yes, but only for her husband.
She snuggled into his arms.
Overhead and along the walkway, footsteps echoed. Cate and John smiled at each other as the ignorant passersby hurried on.
Perhaps they would have stayed there a few more minutes, secure and safe, loved and quiet, were it not for the series of voices that intruded upon their privacy. They were masculine and harsh, cutting through the sanctity of their alcove.
“…it ain’t visible yet…”
“No, no laddie. Won’t be down here, but along the front…”
“Did you tell the others?”
“You know I did.” There was a cockiness in his reply.
The other man laughed. “Wouldn’t do for any of us pinners to miss such a hoard.” His tone betrayed eager greed. Everything Cate had feared reared its ugly head. Surely not, she thought. Surely it was too early for the men to be out already scouring the beaches on the make.
They could hear more footsteps over their hiding spot. Evidently, a dozen more men joined them. They still muttered, despite Cate’s dearest wish that they would all vanish.
“Nah, you’re right. Our lady wouldn’t like that. She wouldn’t want us to miss out on a delivery.”
Next to Cate, John froze. She watched his face.
The moonlight revealed his calculating expression.
He glanced down at her, horror playing over his features, as he worked out what they were hearing.
They were smugglers planning a delivery this very night.
Their activities were masked by the ball.
When he looked down at her, John noticed Cate’s lack of surprise.
John began to pull away from her, but Cate gripped his arm.
“You knew?” he said. Guilt rushed through her, but Cate did not release his arm. After all, she had known when she’d heard it in the ballroom and how furious, given his role in the navy, he would be that smuggling was happening so close to him.
“I overheard some of the women talking tonight about the free-traders.”
“Smugglers.”
“Yes,” she said. “Whatever you might call them.”
“This is my job—if my employer—” John lowered his head, so their faces were only inches apart. “Did you lie to me?”
“No,” she hissed, aware that she could not raise her voice. “I would never lie to you. I only found out this very night—that is why I was so nervous when we were dancing. I had just overheard the women discussing it. The Pinhayers, they called them.”
John scoffed, shifting his stance and attempting to ease back so he could see how many men had passed over them. “What else did they say?”
Cate frowned. The conversation had been jumbled, caught when she had been gathering her gloves and a glass of punch.
Mrs. Raleigh had been far more focused on leaving Lyme Regis come January and seemed to give very little respect to what she was interrupting.
It was Miss Guthrie and Mrs. Olwen who’d been thick as thieves discussing the ‘free-traders.’
“There was a female smuggler mentioned,” John cut in, “I wonder who that is. That is unusual. Perhaps it’s a code.”
“It sounded as if she was the ringleader,” Cate said, pulling his attention back to her.
“Why?” His stare was all-consuming. Cate wished she had not been distracted earlier.
“Miss Guthrie…that is—the ladies I overheard stated that the leader was a woman. They didn’t know who it was, though.”
John was still frowning as he dwelled on her words. Cate assumed he was digesting the information, but as he spoke, she realized her error. He was thinking of something else entirely. “I don’t have any weapons on me.”
“No.” She let out an uneasy laugh and lifted her arms to wrap them around her body. It was not just the cold she was now aware of, but the increasing dread of what her husband might do next. “I don’t think they are normally worn to festivities. Unless I missed an important new ruling from Society.”
Cate had tried to joke, and in response, John gave her a grim smile, as if he were not entirely listening.
“You mean to go and confront them?”
“I can hardly do anything else.”
“But you have no weapons—”
John glanced around himself as Cate spoke. Then he crouched and lifted a large rock, tossing it as he got to his feet once more. “This will do. At least I can take out someone with a good blow to the head.”
“You cannot confront an entire—”
“What else would you have me do? How else could I look at my captain—how would I be able to address Montacute unless I did my duty and stopped them?”
“You would not be able to do it. They’ll kill you.
” Panic rattled Cate’s bones now. He was so different from the mild-mannered man she’d seen before.
During their honeymoon, she’d unraveled his heart.
She discovered his consideration and humor, not to mention the bright gleam in his eyes whenever she joked.
She adored his affection for his family.
He had been so kind to her when she’d had her monthly courses, and she couldn’t forget the effort he’d made to find her favorite honeyed cakes.
She had not wed such a man only to lose him.
She held him tightly. She might never know if they could build a life together.
Horror of horrors, she could be returned to her father.
Not when she had been falling in love with the man who had saved her. “They will kill you.”
“It is known about town that I am a lieutenant in the navy,” John insisted. He rested his free hand over her fingers. “It is my duty to act. Someone amongst that number might know the consequences of killing a man of my position.”
“They will not care.”
“I—” For the first time, Cate was relieved to hear a note of doubt enter his voice.
He recognized the danger that not only he but also she might be in.
“You have spent some time with Misses Fossey. You have met their mamma. They are good people. Go to them directly. Tell them I have sent you there…”
“No!” Cate cried. “I will not, if you go down—if you go after those men, I will come with you. You will not fight them alone.”
“I forbid it.” For the first time, John looked so angry that she could almost see the red in his cheeks. Despite this, she did not fear him. She was more afraid of what he might risk in the name of honor and his position.
“You cannot stop me,” she declared, hoping that she would not need to prove her point by following him.
“Can you fight? Or use a weapon?”
“No,” Cate admitted. “I’ll have to use my fists.”
“Just as well, because I have no intention of letting you—”
John leaned in and kissed Cate’s forehead before lowering his mouth and claiming her lips. It was an all-consuming and devastating kiss. Cate realized that he was saying goodbye. He was going to die trying to stop the smugglers.
“I have to go. It is my responsibility.”
“No,” Cate cried. She stopped John in his tracks before he was two feet away from her. “You cannot leave me.” He could not abandon her, not without knowing the truth. “I love you too.”