Tempted at Christmas

by Kate Pearce

  He gave her the merry, mischievous smile that had always smoothed his way through life.

  “You know you want to,” he pressed. “I am offering you just the kind of opportunity—the kind of adventure—you’ve been waiting for and wanting your whole life. We’ll be partners—with equal shares in the endeavor.”

  She drew in a deep breath, but though there was a small smile brewing on her lips, she still regarded him critically. “Equal. I understand what your reward will be—if my plan works, you shall be famous and feted and no doubt given a medal or two.”

  “Perhaps.” He was not undertaking such a fraught undertaking for any reward from the Admiralty, but for a more personal reason—her.

  “But I shall not be rewarded,” she pressed. “I was not rewarded last time, with a share of the French corvette, though you would not have captured it without my information and assistance.”

  “Damn if you aren’t right, Teague.” Normally a prize of the French corvette’s size would be divided up between ninety-odd men, but Matthew had only had a handpicked crew of sixteen in Bocka Morrow. With a captain and two mates, the remaining fourteen men would earn more money in one night than they had in years of regular pay once the prize was adjudicated. And there was ‘head money’ for each of the hundred or so French prisoners on top of that. With such a prize, he would finally have the independent fortune he had been working toward throughout the entirety of his career.

  “It is because I’m a woman, though you said to me that night that I had a heart of oak, that none of your lieutenants could have done better.”

  “I did.” He had actually forgotten her in the heat of battle, and was more than amazed that she had kept so cool a head—he had been impressed. “And I meant it—you were spectacular. And to prove it, I will pay you a full half of my share of that French corvette.”

  He was rewarded for his impulsive generosity by her expression—her mouth, that perfect, wide, kissable mouth, opened in a silent ‘o’ of utter astonishment. “If you come with me,” he coaxed, “we’ll be pirates together, you and I, outside of the rule of the Admiralty. Equal partners.

  Those usually sleepy eyes were shining with excitement. “Give me your hand.”

  There was no question but that he would agree—he would have agreed at twice the price. Because without her, he could not hope to succeed. He stuck out his hand. “Agreed. You have my word.”

  “As an officer of His Majesty’s Navy and a gentleman, or as a pirate?”

  “Both, for they are one and the same.”

  “Agreed. Thank you.” She let go of his hand before he could make good on the impulse to pull her tight and kiss his on the lips to seal their bargain.

  The excitement dimmed from her face when she looked across the churchyard toward the vicarage. “When do we leave?”

  “Just as soon as I can commandeer a ship.” There was at least some part of the planning that he was competent enough to see to. “Is the lugger still tied up at the quay where we left it?”

  She narrowed her eyes and corrected him. “Where I left it? Aye.”

  He had originally forgotten the fishing boat—in the immediate aftermath of the battle in Black Cove, he had taken control of the larger corvette, setting his crew to repair enough of the damage his guns had carved into the hull to keep her afloat and make her seaworthy enough to sail into Portsmouth for adjudication. Teague had seen to the lugger. “Are the guns still on her?”

  She gave him an arch look. “Did you not notice when you were up in my tower, trying to keep track of me?”

  He had not, damn his eyes. He had only looked for the girl.

  She shook her head at him. “Details, Kent. Details. The guns were there last morning. But I had plans for that lugger.”

  “Change them—you’re too good to be a mere smuggler, Teague.”

  The look on her face was the most beautiful combination of astonishment and calm understanding. “I know.”

  “Excellent.” He could feel his grin spread wide across his face—he hadn’t felt this happy, this damn excited, in months. “I’ll go now and have a look at her, and see if anything needs to be put aright.” He looked across the churchyard toward the quiet vicarage, it’s warm windows spilling welcoming light into the night. “I’ll come back, in the morning, shall I? To see if you’re still game.”

  To give her the night to make sure. To see if cooler heads would prevail.

  “No,” she said quietly, seemingly determined to be as rashly impetuous as he. “I’ll come to you.”

  “All right.” Something within him had him reaching to brush a loose wisp of her fine golden hair off her cheek. And then he leaned in, to kiss her on the forehead. And then once more on her berry-soft lips.

  So she would know—she would know without a doubt, what she would be saying yes to. “Be sure of yourself, Teague. Or don’t come at all.”

  Chapter 10

  Tressa passed a long, sleepless night. The room she had until then always shared with her sister felt empty. Nessa had packed away all her things—every last piece of clothing and linen—into her trunks in preparation for her new life with Lord Harry. One of the trunks still stood by the door, awaiting a final direction once Nessa and Harry were returned from their honeymoon and had decided upon a more permanent abode.

  If the choice had been Tressa’s, she would have wanted to go with Lord Harry upon his ship. She would have chosen to see the world.

  But so she already had—the only difference was the man with whom she would see at least a portion of it. Captain Matthew Kent was as different a man from Lord Harry as chalk was from cheese. Matthew Kent was ambitious, and his ambitions would always come before all else. Before family. Maybe even before country. And certainly before her.

  In the past that driving ambition had suited her—it worked to her advantage to have his ruthless determination in removing the traitor from their midst. But in the aftermath of the battle Kent had instantly forgotten about her very existence—he had climbed aboard the French prize ship and never looked back.

  And so he would again, once she had helped him with the scheme she had so foolishly suggested to him.

  But help him she would, for there was no other way for her to gain what she lacked. And if she did not leave Bocka Morrow—where nothing was new, and nothing would ever change—she might never again have the chance. If she stayed her life would be the same—days would turn into seasons, and seasons would turn into years, and years would turn into centuries while everything stayed the same but the aging faces of the people.

  And so it was she who had to change. To take a chance when it was offered, no matter how imperfect a chance it might be.

  Tressa rose from her bed in the dark grey light before dawn. She donned her warmest, sturdiest, plainest wool gown, and took up her heavy winter cloak and the small cloth bag into which she had put a few personal necessities. She smoothed back the covers on the bed, laid the two careful notes she had penned upon it—one to her parents, and one to dear Felicity, who was likely to worry more than Tressa’s parents if Tressa simply disappeared—and crept silently down the back stairs, taking care to step over the third to last stair that creaked so horribly.

  “Tressa?” Her father’s voice, thin and quiet. “Is that you?”

  She didn’t allow herself the luxury of hesitation. “No.” Her whisper was all for herself as she eased the garden door closed behind her. Because she was not his daughter anymore. She was someone new. Someone who was determined not to let the world think her difficult.

  Yet for all her determination, Tressa nearly turned back at the lych gate. Because if she had felt herself heartbroken before, she knew now she had been wrong. This was true heartbreak—this hideous rending pain that felt as if that absurd organ had cracked in two and was showering broken shards of glass within her chest at the last sight of her beloved bell tower, where she had spent hours and hours gazing out at the world, waiting for her chance to go out in it.

>   This was that chance, but she knew what she was about to do was irrevocable. She knew if she went with Matthew Kent now, there would be no coming back.

  The temptation to stay—to keep safe and secure with everything the same was so strong, and so frightening, her fingers shook on the latch.

  So she forced her fingers off the gate, and the moment the latch clanged shut, she ran. She ran because that was what one did—one ran away. She clattered down the steep lane, cartwheeling her hands to keep her balance on the cold cobbles. She ran away from the past. She ran away toward her future.

  And there her future was, walking up from the quay. Matthew Kent was striding up the slope with his dark sea cape billowing behind him like a sail. Matthew Kent was smiling and reaching out his hand to catch her headlong flight. “I was on my way to get you. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “I told you—I’m not missish.”

  “And so you aren’t. And I’m glad of it.” He kissed her cold fingers and then laced his fingers with hers to lead her onward. “Come, let us away.”

  Together they ran down the long, curved length of the quay, and kissed her hand again as if he could imbue her with his charming confidence before he set her aboard his ship. “You take the tiller, Teague,” he ordered with a smile. “While I cast us off.”

  Tressa readily agreed—they should begin as they meant to go on.

  She untied the line that had kept the tiller bowsed up securely, and then waited for Matthew to push the prow of the vessel away from the quay, until the bow caught the flow of the outgoing tide. Tressa threw the tiller wide, pivoting the vessel away from the stone quay. Another moment and Matthew had slipped the stern line and jumped aboard, going immediately forward to haul up the mainsail.

  The dawn streaked up the coast just as they made the open water outside the harbor, and Tressa resisted the urge to look back, to take one last look at Bocka Morrow. But Matthew was hauling up the mizzen, and the dark, rusty-colored sails filled with wind, and the tiller took the bite of the water, and she had to concentrate on the water ahead—on what was next. She set a course, running full and by to the southwest.

  “Regrets?” he asked as he came aft to lean against the taffrail.

  “I don’t believe in regrets.” She smiled at him to mitigate the sting of the lie. “I’ve never been able to afford them.”

  He laughed merrily, just as she hoped he would. “I hope you never do afford them—they’re a great waste of time.”

  It was as good a philosophy as any, as she was determined not to waste another minute of her time pretending to be anything other than she was. “Have you no regrets?” she asked. “I would have thought you regretted your decision to go against orders while blockading the Norwegian coast—”

  “Damn, Teague, but you have a talent for finding out things a man doesn’t want made known.” He shoved a hand through his hair as if he were frustrated, but he was smiling as he looked away, checking the set of the sails. As if he admired her even as he damned her. “How did you learn that?”

  “The information wasn’t that hard to find,” she admitted. “The incident was reported in the newspapers. You come from a famous Cornish family of Royal Navy captains—your father has been made a baronet in preference of his service to the crown—so it is only natural that your trials as well as your triumphs be noted.”

  “I much prefer the triumphs.”

  “Don’t we all.” Except in her life, the triumphs had never been trumpeted in a newspaper—nor even by her own family. They had been small, private moments of accomplishment—the first night she had kept track of the tots from a cargo, or when she had seen her suggestions for improving the distribution of the goods implemented. Or when she had helped Captain Kent rid Bocka Morrow of a traitor.

  But if anyone besides her sister Nessa knew any of those things, Tressa would be greatly surprised.

  Matthew Kent was thinking of more prosaic, practical things. “We’ll sail for Falmouth, and put into the Carrick Roads to find anchorage in the River Fal this night. With only two of us, I think it best not to stand watch on watch, but to overnight in protected anchorages.”

  Kent spared a look at the trim of the sails—he must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he didn’t wait for her to answer, but ducked down the aft hatchway.

  Tressa had never been below deck on the lugger—there had been no opportunity during the brief time she had been aboard during the fight against the French corvette—so she had no idea what sort of sleeping arrangements were to be made.

  But she would not be missish—she had chosen this. She had chosen him. And when they had kissed it had been glorious.

  She could only hope it would be again.

  But Kent was not intent on being romantic—he returned with a chart in his hand. “Tell me what you make of this.” He unfurled a map showing the coast of France with the long cut of the canal to Gravelines. “I’ll take the tiller for a spell.”

  Tressa knelt on the flat of the deck to study the chart. “Where did you get this?”

  His smile lit the corners of his bright blue eyes with mischief. “From the corvette. I did have some small amount of forethought in thinking it might one day come in useful.”

  “Just so.” She could feel herself returning his smile—he was impossible to resist when he was open and sunny and inviting. “These must be the fortifications the French prisoners mentioned”—the star-shaped outlines of fortified batteries were unmistakable, even to her—“on both sides of the canal at the mouth of the channel and here, closer to the old town itself. Vauban designed these in the last century if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You haven’t been mistaken yet.” His smile felt full of admiration, but he returned his attention to the ship and the tiller. “Tell me more.”

  “The rumors I heard in Guernsey are that warehouse is not within the fortifications—I believe it’s here, along this deep canal they’ve dredged to accommodate ocean-going vessels.”

  “You’ve been to Guernsey? There’s a vast deal more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there, Teague.”

  Not even his compliment could distract her, though it did warm her in the chill morning wind. “I shouldn’t think you’d want to sail up that narrow, tidal canal—you’d be very easily trapped.”

  “Ah, but we won’t mind the lugger being trapped—we want her to be. We will set her on fire, and hope the flames we set will spread to other ships, as well as to the warehouses.”

  “Ah.” Tressa pondered that requirement. “If we sail into the canal, we have to pass the batteries before we set the fire, or they will surely try to sink us.”

  “Aye.” He moved closer to stand just behind her, so he could look over her shoulder. “So we’ll have to time it precisely so the fire is large enough by the time the ship has reached these docks.”

  She followed the line of his pointing finger, letting speed and distance measure out in her mind. “I’m not so worried about the fortifications—they’ll take one look at your south coast-built lugger and take her for a smuggler.” She pushed her thoughts in new directions. “What are the prevailing winds there?”

  “I like the way you think, Teague.” He rewarded her with a reassuring hand at her shoulder—a warm, confident squeeze that eased some of the tightness she didn’t know she had in her neck. “Westerlies, which would not be so convenient, as they would blow the fire away from the warehouses. But I can lash the tiller wide at the last, to steer her for the docks.”

  “So the problem is not how to get in, but how then to get out without a ship.” How to stay alive in the midst of such danger.

  Tressa felt suddenly cold beneath her cloak, despite the strong winter sun warming the deck beneath her.

  “Exactly, lass.” Matthew’s hand started kneading her shoulder in calm reassurance. “My brain is all for the main objective in setting the place afire, but I do realize a dead man can’t collect medals or preferments or prize monies, and I should like to stay
alive to receive at least one of them.” His mischievous, devil-may-care laugh flew away with the wind. “So what say you, Teague? How shall we stay alive? For all I can think is that we’ll have to learn to swim.”

  Chapter 11

  “Can you not swim?” She gaped at him as if he were mad. “And you on the water all your life?”

  Matthew really did need to teach her to flirt. Or better yet, to swim—there was a world of sensual slippery possibilities there. “Aye, lass, I was only joking.”

  Tressa sighed out her relief, and went back to the business at hand. “I should hope so—in case you had forgotten, it is November, and we wouldn’t last three minutes in that cold. I think we had far better use those fishing dories stacked on the foredeck instead—boats are a far more rational, far less lethal idea than swimming.”

  She stood and shaded her eyes to look forward to the small boats in question, piled one atop the other like peas in a pod upon the deck. “And there appear to be enough of the dories to perhaps…”

  Tendrils of her fine hair were blown in the wind, but his gaze was all for the fierce concentration on her face—it was as if he could see the wheels starting to turn faster, the gears meshing in her mind. “Aye, well done. Go on,” he encouraged her. “Impress me.”

  “A dory is the most practical and logical means of escape—nothing simpler than to tail one off the stern of the lugger but…” She knelt back down at the chart, and measured the distance along the length of the canal with her fingers. “What we want to do is spread out the risk amongst the boats, and therefore increase the chances of success. That’s what I do with the smuggling—divvy the cargoes into different boats and caves.” She squinted at the map, as if she might make it come alive beneath her vision. “Do you know this coast—is this stretch of beach inhabited?”