Caught in a Cornish Scandal by Eleanor Webster (top novels of all time .txt) 📗

was content to cling to this man, this sole survivor, but as the panic lessened, she felt an awareness that was embarrassment mixed with something else.

She had never been so close to a male. Ever.

Her cheek was flush to his skin. His hands encircled her and she could feel her body tight against him. She felt the pressure of his embrace and a consciousness of the exact inches where his palms and fingers touched her back.

She had been clinging to him as though for survival, but the feeling morphed and she became aware of his skin and the movement of his muscles.

She had never touched a man’s bare chest or shoulders. She had never felt this sensation of curiosity, awareness.

She jumped back. Her arms dropped quickly to her sides.

‘I—I am so sorry,’ she said, stammering as heat rushed into her cheeks.

She glanced up. He was standing quite still, his expression unreadable. His hair was still wet and fell forward on to his forehead. She knew a sudden wish to push it back. She pressed her hands tight to her sides.

‘I cannot think why I behaved so,’ she said, stepping further back, wishing he would say something.

Their gazes met. His eyes were a dark greenish-grey. She looked away. For another moment he said nothing and when he spoke it seemed to require an effort. ‘It might have something to do with near drowning and seeing, well...what we saw.’

‘I...um...do apologise. It...it certainly won’t happen again.’

‘I did not mind,’ he said.

She supposed he wished to be reassuring, but somehow his tone and his expression made the confusion worsen. Heat fired into her cheeks. Her throat became dry. She rubbed her eyes, which were still damp from the tears.

‘Here.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and his fingers brushed her hand as he handed it to her. They were warm, yet his touch sent cold shivers coursing through her body.

‘You still have a handkerchief?’ Her voice sounded strangely husky.

‘Every well-dressed gentleman does.’

She took the handkerchief, still damp from the sea. ‘Thank you.’

After wiping her eyes, she looked around the surroundings and realised that the landscape was not quite as foreign as she has supposed. ‘I feel quite composed now. I suggest we continue to the nearest town,’ she said.

‘An admirable suggestion. I’ll pull out the map.’

‘No need to be facetious. Fowey should be that way.’ She nodded in a south-west direction.

‘Is that a whim or do you know the area?’

‘I know it. I walk a lot. I have not been this far, but I recognise the landscape as similar to what I’m used to.’ Her words came out quickly, sounding like a hurried babble to her own ears.

He looked doubtful. ‘You are a woman of surprises, but I will follow your lead, given I have no better ideas.’

Miss Lansdowne started forward with surprising confidence. The cap had been lost and wind pulled her hair loose in a wild, tousled mop. Although quite short, her stride was brisk and he found himself quickening his pace to keep up with her.

She was an anomaly, different from any woman he had encountered, and oddly appealing. The way she had clung to him, the surprising soft fullness of her body pressed against him, had invoked a gamut of emotion.

Her eyes were huge and blue, not a flat cornflower blue, but a dark, deep blue. He watched her nimble movements and the ease with which she negotiated the rugged path, despite her bare feet. He lived in a world where conformity was paramount. His father had wanted him a certain way, an imitation of all the other sons from centuries past who had gone to Harrow and graduated into White’s. He’d hated Harrow and he did not particularly enjoy White’s. His father had sent him to school days after his mother’s death. He’d learned to survive. But survival had depended on being the person others had wanted, not the person he was.

This girl should be singing and torturing a musical instrument, not running around Cornish bogs in sailor’s trousers. He did not know if he envied, admired or disapproved. All three, perhaps?

How did one go from tea parties to smuggling? Why would one go from tea parties to smuggling?

‘You mentioned being in London some years ago. Have you visited more recently?’ he asked, as he followed her brisk steps.

‘We are still in mourning,’ she said, her tone flat.

‘Of course, I am sorry.’

‘Yes, people always are.’ Again, she sounded almost angry.

Grief did that, the pain mixing with a desolate, impotent wrath so that one did not know where one emotion ended and the other began. He remembered when his mother died and how the pain and shock had shifted into rage.

Miss Lansdowne had suffered two losses: father and brother. Two losses so close to each other would be tough on any family.

‘It must have been a difficult time,’ he said.

She stopped a few feet ahead of him and turned, her hands set squarely at her waist. Her dark hair blew wildly and there was something about her silhouette, starkly outlined against the moorland’s grey sky, which had an untamed wildness that was akin to pagan. He could imagine her as a direct descendant from the druids who had once walked these shores.

‘As I mentioned before, I am not comfortable with small talk or condolences. If you must talk, why do you not enlighten me about your aquatic escapades? How did you end up half-drowned off the coast anyway? I still do not even know that.’

‘Nor do I,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘I do not know what happened.’

‘You do not know?’ Her brows pulled into a ferocious frown, as though finding this statement a personal affront.

‘No. Everything is blank.’

‘I suppose you were drinking.’ She spoke flatly, a statement as opposed to a question. It struck him as surprising that such a young female should be knowledgeable about drunkenness.

‘My brother’s evenings usually started with food and ended in stupor,’ she said, answering his unspoken question.

Indeed, Tom had been habitually three sheets to the wind, but