The Smuggler and the Society Bride by Julia Justiss

Author:Julia Justiss [Justiss, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9781742787527
Google: 4lUvcVYkHU8C
Amazon: 026321611X
Barnesnoble: 026321611X
Goodreads: 8540656
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-08-14T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Honoria practically ran for the door, aware of Mr Hawksworth’s puzzled gaze following her, the words he’d tossed out with such levity still cutting into her heart like a sabre’s slash…creating a scandal that would banish one from one’s family forever.

She halted outside the door, trying to calm her racing pulse. He must indeed come from ‘proper folk,’ for that one phrase, obviously meant to be lightly taken, validated his good character more than anything else he could have said. A rogue comfortable operating outside the law would never have conjured up such a remark, and only one secure in the backing of one’s family could speak so slightingly of losing that support.

Perhaps no one fully understood the true value of one’s place within a protective, encircling clan, until one lost it.

Still, she’d acted like a looby, running off like that. She’d been trying to discourage him by assuming an overbearing, disdainful manner, not scare him away from a crazy woman.

Perhaps she’d be more successful at the latter than she’d been at the former. Her thoughts still too much in disorder to sort out, she pushed them, and questions about the all-too-attractive free-trader, from her mind and went off to carry out her aunt’s commissions. By the time she’d dropped by several shops and stopped to dispatch some letters at the post, her nerves had steadied.

Her last errand took her to the draper’s shop that stood on a rise to the north of town, overlooking the harbour. After handing over her aunt’s order for cloth and lace—suspicious now about the origin of those items—she walked out, pausing to gaze down at the cove where a dozen ships rode at anchor. Some were obviously fishing craft, but several vessels, sleek of line and with sails reefed and ready, looked as if they were straining at their mooring lines, yearning to sprint into the freshening breeze. One of them must be the Flying Gull.

Unbidden, the memory of the captain’s handsome face flashed into her mind. What had possessed her to speak so frankly? She was supposed to be discouraging him, an unsuitable man far below her in station. Though she was not yet sure what her eventual station would be. Was a disgraced gentlewoman still a gentlewoman? Maybe she had fallen to the level of a common smuggler.

Whatever his station, he’d not been easy to discourage.

Curiosity sparked as she considered his behaviour. Now that she thought about it, Captain Hawksworth was rather well-spoken. Much better-spoken, in fact, than any common seaman or soldier she’d ever heard.

Might he be the son of a gentleman? When she added his genteel speech to the polish of his manners with Aunt Foxe and the innkeepers, she could not help but conclude he must have sprung from the gentry.

Who was he, then? His birth could not be too elevated, certainly, or he’d never be here doing what he was doing. Though the words were meant to be humorous, the fact that he’d mentioned being banished—though not yet entirely—seemed to indicate he might be the black-sheep son of some baronet or squire.

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