Page 4 of The Cornish Mermaid

This meant touching her again, and despite the fact he’d already done so, reticence washed over Kit. If only she were wearing more clothes. He steeled himself and put a wary arm around her shoulders, propping her up into a sitting position. The effort made her close her eyes again.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She leaned away from him and cast up her accounts on the sand—a mixture of seawater and what looked like bread. She wiped her mouth and spat a few times. “Gross,” came her whisper. “Don’t look.”

Obedient to her wish, he averted his eyes and peered down the beach towards where Rosenwyn sat. Still not a single other boat marred the blue horizon.

“I feel better now,” the girl whispered, after a minute. “I’ll get up if you can give me your arm.”

Kit scrambled to his feet and bent to help her to hers. Once upright, she stood swaying slightly, eyes closed, as though dizziness threatened to overcome her, or the urge to further cast up her accounts. He kept a steadying arm around her shoulders, acutely aware of the chill of her skin against his own warm body.

Should he carry her? A difficult job through the soft sand of the dunes even though she wasn’t very heavy. He was about to offer when she spoke again.

“Where am I?”

At least she was showing some interest in her surroundings now. “Nanpean Cove. I pulled you out of the sea. You nearly drowned.”

She blinked up at him as though barely seeing him. “Where’s Josh?”

Despite the sand now sticking to her wet hair and the pallor of her skin, he could see she was a pretty girl, made beautiful by those eyes. He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have to get you somewhere warm and into some dry clothes. Can you walk, do you think?”

She nodded. “I’ll be okay now. Lead the way.”

The quicker he got her in front of the warm fire in Jago’s kitchen, the better.

He slid his arm down until it encompassed her slender waist, far too aware of the paucity of her clothing, but manners dictated that he couldn’t let her walk unaided. Not after nearly drowning. That thin undergarment felt like the next best thing to bare skin. A hot flush radiated through his body at the thought of touching this girl, or any nicely brought up young lady in fact, in such a state of undress. Usually, they were protected by their very considerable upholstery.

Together, they slogged up the heavy going of the dunes until they reached the path that led inland from the beach. This was where Kit had left his boots that morning, having run barefoot down to find his boat, carrying his oars.

He lowered his charge onto a hummock of tussocky grass. “I just have to put my boots on. Will you be all right sitting here for a minute? The next bit’s steep. Don’t talk if you don’t want to.”

A shaky nod.

In a hurry to get back to her, he pulled on his top boots over bare, sandy feet, stuffing his stockings into his breeches’ pockets. The girl didn’t look up once, her shoulders rising and falling with the effort of the walk through the loose sand, and her hair falling in sandy rats’ tails over her face. Perhaps he should have obeyed his first instinct and carried her.

“Can you go on?” he asked, and she managed a nod.

Once he had her on her feet again and they were on the sounder ground of the stony path, Kit was able to lessen his hold on her. A relief. He’d been becoming more and more aware of the rise and fall of her unprotected ribcage against his arm, and that hot glow of embarrassment he’d felt earlier had grown.

Why on earth was he feeling like a green boy? It wasn’t as if he’d never touched a naked female form before. Annoyance at his own reaction only served to make him more awkwardly aware of the girl at his side.

The steep walk up the dunes had brought some color back to her cheeks, bestowing an altogether healthier shade to a skin that was surprisingly tanned, as though she spent a lot of her time out of doors. Just as he did. How strange in a young lady of obvious delicate birth. Experience had taught him that ladies of quality normally abhorred being outside in the sun without a parasol in case they developed freckles. Did she have any? He took a quick glance and saw that a few sprinkled her small nose and cheeks.

“Not much further now. I live just up here. Do you still feel able to walk?”

A nod.

Every twist of the path from the beach was as familiar to Kit as the back of his hand, but it had never felt so long, nor so steep as it did today. The warm air hung in the narrow valley, redolent with the scent of the heather, and the cry of gulls rose above the hot summery sound of gorse popping on the steep hillside.

They paused for a breather halfway up and he lowered her onto a large rock where she sat with her head down, chest heaving with the effort.

“I’m so sorry to be such a nuisance,” she whispered, without looking up, her voice croaky.

Kit shrugged, even though she couldn’t have seen him do so. “I’m just glad I was there to save you and you’re not dead.” Not much else he could say. He fidgeted awkwardly and shifted from one foot to the other, unsure what to do next. “There’s a fire in the kitchen to get you dry, and I can make you something to drink. Brandy? Water?” Why was he gabbling like this?

The girl took away the necessity for any decision, though, by getting unsteadily to her feet. “I’m as okay now as I’m going to be. Let’s keep going before my legs give up on me.”

He put a cautious arm around her, and she leaned into him, her body warmer now than it had been. Awareness of her almost naked proximity cascaded over him again.

At last, the brambles and hawthorns to either side of the path fell back, allowing the path to widen and reveal Uncle Jago’s farmhouse on the brow of the hill. Tall chimneys poked above the horizon like pointing fingers, and the silvery woodsmoke from the kitchen range twisted up into the clear blue sky.