Unlacing Lady Thea

Rhys spun her round and caught her up in his arms before she fell on the rough cobbles. ‘Steady! Are you all right?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Tight in his embrace, close against his body and breathless with laughter, Thea looked up into intent blue eyes and smiled.

And then he went very still and his arms tightened around her as his eyes went dark. It lasted a second. It lasted an hour. Heat, strength, intensity. A hard, very adult, body against hers. A body that was becoming aroused.

Then he let her go, stepped back, stared at her in horror. ‘God! I am sorry. Hell, Thea...I never meant for a moment to...manhandle you like that.’

Rhys was more shaken than she had ever seen him. It was that bad, holding me in your arms, was it? ‘Please, do not regard it. I most certainly do not, you merely steadied me.’ Once I would have paid with everything I owned to be in your arms.

‘Of course you should regard it,’ he snapped. As though it was my fault, as though I had flung myself into his embrace on purpose... ‘I beg your pardon. Let me escort you back to the inn.’ He offered his arm and she slid her fingers under his elbow. Through the kid leather of her glove she could feel his warmth and the thud of his heart against his ribs. So agitated by discovering I am female!

‘There is no need. I would like to see the ship and the carriages being loaded.’ Anything to stop her thinking about how the body that had pressed against hers had been so... A man’s body, not a youth’s.

Rhys ignored her, as though intent only on setting a brisk pace towards the Queen’s Head. Then, just as she was on the point of jerking her hand free, he said, ‘You are right not to regard it. Men are creatures of instinct, I am afraid. To find one’s arms suddenly full of woman... It is no excuse, but you must not take it personally. It does not mean I do not hold you in the highest respect.’ He cleared his throat.

As well he might, he has probably just heard how pompous he sounds. The rake lecturing on propriety, indeed! And he has just admitted that he was aroused and that I would have recognised that, so now he is thoroughly embarrassed and it is all my fault.

‘I should regard it in the light of a cat who cannot resist catching a trailing ball of wool or a hound chasing a rabbit?’ Thea enquired with all the sweetness of a lemon drop. She could not decide who she was more angry with: Rhys for making it so very clear that never again, if he was in a position to give it a moment’s thought, would he take her in his arms, or herself for finding that attitude wounding. She should know better than to care. Caresses were betrayals; Anthony had taught her that.

‘I am afraid so, hence the rules young ladies are sheltered by. But please, do not fear that it will ever happen again. You will have severe doubts about travelling with me now, of course. I will change places with your maid for the rest of the journey. Or I could escort you to a friend. Are you sure you do not have one in the area?’

There is no need to sound quite so hopeful, you exasperating man. ‘There is no one and, besides, I am so desperate to reach Godmama that I would risk travelling with a carriage full of rakehells if need be. I could not bear to be taken back.’ She sensed his frowning sideways glance, but kept her own gaze firmly forward, focused on the uneven stone setts. He really had no idea of what an emotional prison she faced. Men had so much freedom, unmarried women, none. ‘You may rest easy. I have no intention of casting myself upon your manly bosom a second time.’

* * *

Delivered with punctilious formality to the custody of her maid, Thea waited until the parlour door had closed, then threw bonnet, reticule and finally herself onto the plush-covered sofa.

‘Did the sight of the sea upset you, my lady?’ Polly scooped up the scattered things and began to roll the bonnet ribbons neatly. ‘I’m used to it, but I know many folks get proper queasy just looking at it.’ Thea’s silence seemed to make no impression as she chatted on. ‘Mr Hodge says as how his lordship’s taking the carriages over on deck. Now, that’ll be the place for you to sleep, my lady. The chaise with the window open. Fresh air’s what you need. Me, I like it nice and snug down below and I’m used to the smell of the bilges, what with being brought up on me dad’s sailing barge on the Thames.’

‘Really?’ Thea made herself listen. It was ridiculous to sit there panicking—besides, what Polly said made sense. ‘I’ll do that, then. The chaise seats convert into a bed.’

‘If you’ll take my advice, my lady, you have a nice wash now and leave off your stays when you dress again. That way you can lie down and be properly comfy.’

No stays? It sounded rather...loose. A huff of laughter escaped her at the unintended pun. Loose or not, it also sounded exceedingly sensible, and she could always wrap her cloak around her so any lack of support was not noticeable. Not that there was anything wrong with her figure that made stays a necessity. It was a perfectly nice, perfectly ordinary figure that went in and out where it should. Nothing jiggled unnecessarily, there were no scrawny bits. Perfectly ordinary...

‘That was a big sigh, my lady. You’ll be tired, I’ll wager. I’ll ring for the hot water and you have a little rest.’

Polly bustled out and Thea sat quite still and kept her hands folded in her lap, nowhere near her lips that tingled as though Rhys’s mouth had touched them.

* * *

Of all the damn-fool things to have done, embracing Thea came top of the list by a country mile. What had possessed him? The only consolation was that he had not kissed her. Rhys strode along the quayside past a group of loitering labourers who stepped back sharply at his approach.

He was scowling. Rhys unclenched his teeth and slowed his pace. Poor girl, she must have been appalled to find herself being clutched like that by her old friend, the man she so obviously trusted. No wonder Thea had snapped at him. It had never occurred to him to think of her in that light and then, suddenly, there she was in his arms, laughing up at him, and all he was conscious of was warm soft curves pressed against him and smiling lips and the faint scent of roses, and his treacherous body had reacted.

And she had felt it and had understood what was happening. Twenty-two! He still could not get his head around the fact that she was an adult—although when she was in his arms he’d had no trouble with the concept.

Thea had been too shocked to move, he thought, heaping hot coals on his conscience. Why, she hadn’t even turned her head away. Her mouth had been... Stop it! Even now, thinking about it, he was growing hard, to his shame. Thea. Hell, he might have kissed her. He might be an arrant flirt, but he never trifled with virgins. Never.

‘My lord?’

Rhys found himself at the foot of a crane alongside a sturdy hoy. With the tide full, its deck was on the level of the quayside and a blue-coated man with his hat pushed to the back of his head was standing, hands on hips, studying him. Men were leading away the teams from the carriages and removing the shafts under the watchful eye of Tom Felling, the coachman.

‘I am Lord Palgrave. Are you Captain Wilmott?’

‘I am, my lord, and this is the Nancy Rose all ready to take you to Dieppe in an hour.’

‘How long will the crossing take?’

The captain squinted up at the sky. ‘Twenty-four hours, give or take.’

‘Give or take what?’ Rhys demanded. Twenty-four hours cooped up on a boat with an embarrassed, angry woman was probably fitting penance, but he could do without the uncertainty.

‘Give or take sudden changes in the weather, accidents to the sails or rigging or getting stopped and searched by the coastguard,’ Harris said. ‘Acts of God, men overboard, collisions with whales...’

Rhys bit his tongue. The man was master of his own vessel and wouldn’t take kindly to imperious orders to get a move on. ‘Try to avoid the whales,’ he said with a smile to show he knew it was a joke. I hope it was, he thought as he strolled over to watch the men fixing ropes to the chaise to attach it to the crane.

There was something very compelling about watching experts working. Within half an hour the carriages were on deck and were being lashed down and the harness and shafts stowed. Rhys, temper restored, walked back to collect his party. The only possible approach was to act as though nothing had happened.

* * *

Thea, he found, was at least as good an actor as he was. ‘Polly is an experienced sailor,’ she remarked as they left the inn, a lad with a barrow trundling their hand luggage behind them. ‘She advises that I sleep in the chaise in order to benefit from the fresh air. Will that inconvenience you, my lord?’

He echoed her tone of careful formality in front of the servants. ‘Not at all, Lady Althea. She will be joining you, I collect?’

‘She says she prefers to be below decks. There are no other passengers on board, are there? Surely I will be quite safe alone.’

‘I will sleep in the carriage with Hodge. You have only to call out if you feel alarmed, but you will be quite secure.’

‘Begging your pardon, my lord, but if I might spend the night below decks I would appreciate it. I don’t rightly fancy being up on the top like that.’ The valet was wearing his usual poker face and Rhys wondered whether it was fear of the sea or the company of Polly that motivated him.