A Most Unconventional Courtship

His fingers closed round her ankle as her hands began to scrabble on the shelving beach and they collapsed, tangled in each other’s arms where the small waves broke into foam.

‘Chance—’

He was pressing kisses into the angle of her neck, but he looked up and must have seen

the doubt in her face. ‘Let me explain about what happened on the Liston. I acted without thinking, I did not realise how it must seem to you.’

‘You did not want to be seen with me by Lady Trevick, I quite understood.’ Despite her effort at control she could hear her voice shaking. There was a trace of sun freckles across his cheekbones and his hair was dark with water. She just wanted to kiss him and not have to think, but the desire was draining out of her as the water ran down her back.

‘No, you do not. I did not want her to see you at all, not yet, whoever you were with. Not until I had made some more enquiries. Alessa—’ he sat up, pulling her with him, the water lapping around their waists ‘—I think I have found your aunt and she is staying at the Residency. You look so much like her, anyone would see it. I wanted to speak to her first, not startle both of you with the news.’

‘My aunt?’ That was too much to take in. But he had not been ashamed to be seen with her, and he had not been pretending a concern he did not feel out of a cynical desire to seduce her—that she could understand. ‘I thought you had been…that you were…’

‘I guessed that must be what you thought as soon as you had run away. I came back once I found my way to the Residency and could borrow a carriage. But you had gone.’

‘But why are you here?’ The water evaporating off her skin was bringing it out in goose bumps. Alessa shivered.

‘Sir Thomas and his family and house guests have all moved to a villa in Paleokastritsa. I came too, and borrowed a boat. It is in the next bay. But you are shivering.’He pulled her to her feet and Alessa let him, still too shaken to be modest, hardly aware of their nakedness as anything other than natural.

‘You are so beautiful.’ One hand rested on the curve of her flank, the other skimmed down, over the swell of her breast, down the slim waist to the gentle curve of her belly. ‘So…’ His gaze sharpened, focused, then rose slowly to meet her eyes. Alessa felt herself begin to blush as the look brought her to awareness.

‘Alessa, you have never carried two children.’

‘No, of course not.’ She stared at him, perplexed, then she realised what he meant. ‘Oh! You thought Dora and Demetri are mine? For heaven’s sake, Chance! How old do you think I am? They are seven and eight. I am twenty four.’

‘Yes, I guessed that.’ He sounded shaken.

‘So you think I was married at sixteen?’ Alessa marched over to the pile of her clothes on a rock and scrambled into a camisole and petticoat. They clung unpleasantly to her salt-wet skin, but at least they covered her. She spun round and found Chance was still standing at the water’s edge, hands on hips, staring at her. She tried very hard not to stare back. He was so beautiful. More than beautiful—desirable, tempting. Wickedly tempting. She made herself focus on the still-purple bruise on his hip.

‘I am not very good about children’s ages,’ he confessed. ‘I have no nephews or nieces. And have you ever been married?’

‘No.’ Alessa turned her back and walked to the edge of the beach where a tumble of rocks lay in the shade of an arching shrub. She sat down and regarded her feet, curling her toes in the dry sand. ‘And before you ask, yes, I am a virgin. And, no, I am not in the habit of swimming naked with men. I did not think there was anyone around.’

She risked an upward glance through her lashes. Chance had turned and was standing with his back to her, hands on his admirably slim hips, gazing out over the bay. ‘This is a fine mess,’ he observed, apparently dispassionately. ‘I can only apologise.’

‘Why? I expect it was something we both needed to get out of our systems.’ Alessa tried to match his tone.

‘I certainly have not got it out of mine,’he retorted grimly. ‘Now, what are we going to do?’

‘Perhaps you could put some clothes on?’ Alessa suggested, trying very hard not to stare at the long, hard, male body, and failing.

‘Lord! I had forgotten.’ To her delight Chance was blushing—at least, the back of his neck had gone scarlet. ‘I will be back in a minute.’He took a running dive into the water and swam strongly for the headland, leaving Alessa prey to wildly mixed emotions, and a quivering new awareness of her own body, which made her knees feel weak.

By the time a fishing boat appeared round the headland with furled sail and a respectably, if casually, dressed, gentleman at the oars, she was fully clothed and sitting in the shade of the bush again while she plaited her wet hair.

Chance ran the boat ashore and waded through the shallows to stand in front of her. There was no sign of his limp now.

‘Is your ankle better?’ Alessa knotted a piece of ribbon round the end of her plait and tossed it over her shoulder. Perhaps if they pretended nothing had happened…

‘Yes. Thank you. Alessa, what just happened—nearly happened—just now. That will not happen again.’

Oh. If only…‘Of course not.’ She glanced up, noticed the curving branches and the sprays of leaves of the shrub that arched over their heads, and smiled, despite the churning feeling inside her. ‘It could not, just here, in any case.’

‘Why not?’ Chance hunkered down on his heels in front of her with all the flexibility of Demetri.

‘This.’ She caught a frond and pulled it down. ‘This is the Chaste Tree. Virgins are protected by it. The other name is Monks’ Pepper.’ She rubbed the shrivelled remains of last season’s flowers between her palms and held out the hard grains for him to see. ‘It tastes like pepper, and it makes men chaste. Which is why it is so good for monks. Try it.’

‘Certainly not.’ Chance recoiled, sat down on the sand with an undignified thump and scooted backwards out of the contaminating shade. ‘I am entirely with Saint Augustine.’ She looked puzzled. “‘Lord, give me chastity, but not just yet.’”