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 sayThis 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-saltedinnuendo 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 theBoadiceathink 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 seeingyour 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 strandedSirento 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.”
