‘Yes, miss.’ Eyes wide, Waters obeyed.
‘I merely wished to see whether you are comfortable, Miss Heydon.’ Uninvited, Luc strolled into the room and let the door swing to behind him. He filled the cosy, slightly shabby, space just as he had dominated the old hospital hut.
‘Perfectly, thank you, Captain. I was on the point of saying to Waters how pleasant it was to have a room to ourselves where we could lock the door.’
‘Indeed, that is why I thought you would like this one.’
‘You would have me believe you selected this especially for me?’ She wished she could sit down, but she would have to invite him to as well and then how would she get him out?
‘Of course. Sir George’s secretary showed me the inns he had noted for the postilions. I thought, given how busy the roads to London from the ports are, that it would be as well to keep an eye on you if I could.’ Luc propped one shoulder against the window frame, quite as comfortable as he would have been in a chair, leaving Averil standing stiffly in the middle of the room.
She sat down and fixed him with a chilly smile. ‘Most kind, but I would hardly wish for your assistance when you have your duties to perform.’
‘How fortunate that pleasure and duty do not conflict,’ Luc said, so smoothly that her fingers itched to wipe the assurance off his face. ‘We made good time to Plymouth, I spoke to the senior officer there and was ordered up to London to report to the Admiralty.’
‘Then should you not be on your way?’
‘I was not required to gallop,’ he said. ‘Merely to present myself with due despatch to their lordships. Would you care for a stroll to take the evening air, Miss Heydon?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse him, but the room was stuffy, she was stiff with sitting and she had a maid with her. A walk would be very welcome. But if Luc thought she would consent to vanish into the woods with him for further, highly educational, dalliance that would shake her tenuous composure even more, he was much mistaken.
‘Thank you, Captain. That would be delightful.’
Oh, yes, that was precisely what he had thought she would say. It was incredible how those cool grey eyes could heat into sensual invitation.
‘Come along, Waters, fetch your bonnet. And my bonnet and shawl, please.’
‘You
think you need protection from me?’ Luc asked softly as the maid went into the bedchamber, leaving them alone.
‘From the moment my feet touched the mainland I think I have re-entered reality. And my reality is one of respectability, Captain.’
‘I see. And you think Lord Bradon will appreciate these geographical boundaries on behaviour?’
‘I have no idea, but I will not insult him by risking being seen behaving in any way that is not proper—not here, where I might be recognised later by one of his acquaintance.’
‘One hopes Lord Bradon appreciates the sensitive honour displayed by his betrothed,’ Luc said as Waters emerged with Averil’s bonnet in her hand, the shawl over her arm. Gloves were one thing that she had not been loaned. It was most unladylike to go out without them, but it could not be helped.
‘Indeed. Honour is such a very subtle subject for gentlemen—so difficult for a lady to decipher.’ She tied her bonnet strings while she spoke and Luc took the shawl from the maid and arranged it around her shoulders, his fingers carefully touching fabric, not skin. The shiver could only come from her imagination. The ache, as she knew well by now, was sheer wantonness.
When they reached the yard he offered his arm. She placed the tips of her ungloved fingers on it and they strolled towards the street, Waters close on their heels. She was within earshot and Averil intended that she stayed there.
It was an effort not to let her mind run round and round their last encounter, like a squirrel in a cage. ‘This is the first English town I have seen properly,’ she said, determined to pretend it had not happened and this man had not caressed her intimately, brought her wicked delight, seduced her into sin. ‘I did not feel I could walk out in Penzance or Okehampton without an escort. Is it usual for so many buildings to be of stone?’
‘In parts of the country with good building stone, yes,’ Luc said. ‘It is the same in France. Otherwise there are brick or timber-framed houses, like that one. It can change within a few miles, depending on the underlying rock.’ They strolled on a few more paces. ‘The market square,’ Luc observed. ‘An historic feature, I have no doubt. How genteel we sound. I had no idea a small town could provide such innocuous subjects for conversation.’
‘And how fortunate that is,’ Averil returned, studying the open space. ‘Markets in India are very different. On the way we moored at Madras and I visited the market to buy Christmas presents with Lady Perdita and Lord Lyndon. There was a mad dog and Dita saved a child from it—and me, too. Then Lord Lyndon saved Dita.’
The square was warm with evening light and people going about their business. They moved slowly now, at the end of the working day, stopping to talk with neighbours, to wait for a child’s lagging steps.
‘How calm and ordered this is. I was so afraid in that market, and I did nothing, just allowed myself to be bundled to safety.’ She shivered, seeing a small boy fetching water from the pump, fair-haired and red-cheeked and laughing with his friends, so unlike the small Indian child who had run screaming in terror.
‘And you blame yourself for not being in the right place to act,’ Luc observed. ‘Of course, I have seen how timorous you are, how cowardly, so perhaps you are right.’
‘You are teasing me,’ Averil observed. There was a warmth in his look that told her it was more than teasing. He thought her courageous? Thinking about it, perhaps she had not done so very badly in the face of shipwreck and capture and a fight at sea.
‘As you say,’ he agreed with a chuckle. ‘Where shall we go now?’