“Come with me. There is a bigger space farther inside. You can take your boot off and wring out your socks once we reach it,” she said.
With his boot still waterlogged, James squelched after her.
Leah was enjoying James’s company. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with him and reveal all the secret places from her childhood. She finally had someone with whom she could share them.
She didn’t use the word wonderful very often but being with him was just that.Wonderful.A bubble of joy bounced around in her stomach along with the scones, sweet apple, and ginger beer. She had almost forgotten what happiness felt like.
The low, tight entrance finally opened up into a much larger space. They stepped into the heart of the sea cave.
“Oh!” he gasped.
A grinning Leah remembered the first time she had seen inside the cave, and her reaction had been the same as James’s—pure wonderment.
“Leah, this is amazing! I could never imagine this being here. What a fantastic sight!” he exclaimed.
The sea cave was its own magical world inside the earth. The tide had been out for several hours and a patch of dry sandy beach was visible along the side wall of the cave. Many times, during her summer holidays here as a child, Leah and her sister would take off their boots and stockings and dig their toes deep into the soft sand.
In the middle of the cave was a series of small rockpools. Leah crossed over to her favorite one and looked down. It was studded with colorful sea anemones. To her surprise, there was also a fish inside the pool.
“Poor thing. I hope that when the tide comes in you get washed back out to sea,” she said.
James ambled over; the soft squelch of his sea-soaked boot echoed in the cavernous space as he walked. When she looked down at it, he shrugged. “This is a marvelous place. I’m glad you brought me here. Though my boots and wet feet are not so appreciative of the adventure. I fear that they will be making squishy noises all the way home in protest.”
Leah looked away, trying to hide her smile. James was attempting to be gruff, but he was failing at it so badly she could only find it endearing. She hadn’t known many nice men in her life, but she sensed it would take a lot to get him riled up past the point of simply being a little cross over anything which vexed him. And for that, she was grateful. There was a lot of good things to be said about a man possessed of an even temper.
“Do many other people know about this cave or is this your own secret place?” he asked.
“All the locals know of the cave, though we do tend to keep it a secret amongst ourselves. The folk of Mopus Passage are likely to give wrong directions to day-trippers who bother to enquire, even those from Truro. We like to keep it hidden.”
“Why?” he asked.
She leaned in close. “Smugglers. This cave was used for hiding contraband goods during the war against Napoleon. The boats would come in here at high tide, and drop off barrels and casks of banned imports, then the locals would wait until the tide had gone out and retrieve them.”
“I take it that it was your grandfather’s job during the war to try to catch the local smugglers?” replied James, recalling the comfortable familiarity that Sir Geoffrey had with his pistols.
Leah snorted. “Lord, no. Where do you think they hid most of the smuggled goods? My grandfather’s cellars were full of the stuff—he was one of the chief smugglers. He and the local magistrate were up to their eyeballs in it.”
She was a delight. James could not fathom how he could have allowed himself to hide away from Leah for those first few days after their arrival. Drawing and painting were his passion, but Leah was, well, she was something else.
His art stirred his heart, no doubt about it. But Leah held his soul in her hand. His very essence of existence danced in the light of her presence. He had never understood the whole notion of love, but if this feeling was love, it was the most powerful force he could ever have imagined.
Their gazes met and James found himself lost in a heaven of blue eyes. One slow blink of Leah’s long brown eyelashes and he was gone. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them, before capturing Leah’s lips in a soft, lingering kiss.
At first Leah didn’t respond, but slowly, surely, her mouth softened, and his tongue swept past her lips. He tried to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back. He sensed her hesitation and waited for her to break contact, but she continued to move her lips against his, staying within the kiss. Their tongues glided over one another once, twice.
A hand pressed against his chest. It was barely a push, but it was enough to give him a clear message. He drew back and broke the kiss. Leah’s eyes were cast downward; she would not meet his gaze.Damn.
He had misread her signals. Pushed when he should not have. In the unsettling silence, he sensed her fear. She was alone with him, exposed and vulnerable.
“I should not have done that. Pardon my misjudgment; it was wrong of me to take such liberties with you,” he said.
“I think it is time we returned to the manor.” Leah stepped past him and headed for the entrance to the cave.
After collecting the picnic basket, they headed back to the manor in silence. The whole way, James wracked his brains, trying to think of anything he could say that could undo the damage he had just done.
He came up empty.
On the long walk home, Leah thought about the kiss. It had been even better than the first time. James was skilled when it came to tender, warm kisses. She could never grow tired of the heady sensation of his lips on hers.
