The Admiral's Daughter

by Francesca Shaw

  “WILL YOU NOT CALL ME ADAM?” HE ASKED SOFTLY.

  His fingers left her ear, only to brush down her cheek for a fraction of a second.

  Startled, Helena met his eyes, very close still, although he was no longer touching her. Adam’s gaze, under long, dark lashes, was the dark navy of the jacket he was wearing. The intensity of the look took her breath away, and she could only stammer, “But, m-my lord, we…”

  “If you are going to tell me that we have not been properly introduced, I shall have no patience with you, Helena! Come, I thought you had more spirit than to be cowed by the conventions. Who is there to hear us?”

  Francesca Shaw is not one but two authors, working together under the same name. Both are librarians by profession, working in Hertfordshire but living virtually side by side in a village in Bedfordshire. They first began writing under a tree in a Burgundian vineyard, and although they have published other romances, they thoroughly enjoy writing historicals. Their shared interests include travel, good food, reading and, of course, writing.

  THE ADMIRAL’S DAUGHTER

  FRANCESCA SHAW

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  The man’s bare feet, brown and braced on the bleached planking of the yacht’s deck, were what first caught the eye of Miss Helena Wyatt from her vantage point perched on the quayside bollard. She gave the vessel a closer, curious look: Siddlesham Mill quay was not of such a size that gentlemen’s yachts were commonly to be seen, even one as plain and workaday as this large converted cutter appeared. The name Moonspinner was visible on the bows.

  If only she had brought her sketch pad and pencils, for the sailor would make an admirable study as he stood there, head thrown back to watch the rest of the crew in the rigging. He was the sailing master, she guessed, her artist’s eye travelling up the strong musculature of his calves revealed by the canvas duck trousers. His hands were on the broad leather belt which encircled his waist and his white linen shirt flapped in the idle breeze rippling across the harbour.

  Helena studied his face, committing to memory the tanned skin, the chiselled planes marred only by a nose which had obviously been broken at least once in the past. If only he would move a little closer towards the bow so she could see his mouth more clearly, for already the picture was taking shape in her mind. The April sunshine was suddenly dimmed by a black cloud passing overhead and a flurry of wind lifted the man’s sun-bleached hair and caught the edge of her plain straw bonnet. With an exclamation of annoyance, Helena put up her hands to straighten her hat and found herself looking directly into dark blue eyes regarding her with quite blatant admiration.

  Miss Wyatt might be only nineteen years of age and raised with the utmost propriety, but even so she clearly understood the message that insolent stare was sending her. Furious for having put herself in a position to encourage such familiarities, she swiftly averted her gaze from that other penetrating one.

  Through her confusion she suddenly realised that she had not seen her young brother for quite ten minutes. Trusting that the brim of her old sunbonnet was hiding the blush which was rising hectically to her cheeks, Helena scanned the dockside. Long experience of John’s uncanny ability to vanish into thin air tempered any alarm she might be expected to feel on finding a lively ten-year-old no longer within view. He would be in one of the warehouse sheds, no doubt, hunting for rats amongst the sacks of corn landed for the mill, or plaguing the fishermen with questions or wheedling one of the old sailors into showing him yet another knot. For John, young as he was, was obsessed with anything to do with ships or the sea, and counted the days until, thanks to the influence of his uncle, Commodore Sir Robert Breakey, he could join the fleet as a midshipman.

  His widowed mama might have been expected to show more anxiety about her only son’s marked lack of diligence in his studies relating to anything other than mathematics, navigation and the tying of knots. However, beyond bewailing the rapid turnover of governesses, Lady Wyatt was quite happy to allow him to run wild with only his sister watching over him until the arrival of the next unfortunate preceptress at Norton Manor.

  But John was not annoying the fishermen. Helena, risking a glance down the quayside again, observed that the insolent sailor had once more fixed his attention on the upper rigging. Her relief was short-lived. Behind the man’s broad back a slight figure in a blue jacket and nankeen trousers was stealthily advancing up the gangplank of the cutter, its eyes glued to the sternchaser gun bristling menacingly beside a pile of cannonballs.

  Helena rose hastily to her feet. John was known and tolerated by all the regular users of Siddlesham’s tiny harbour, but this boat was strange to the area and no private yachtsman would take kindly to some scrub of a boy sneaking about his property. Nor did the shipmaster, now shouting an order at a seaman who was fumbling with a coil of rope at the mainbrace, appear an indulgent man. With an appearance of calm she was far from feeling, Helena strolled down the quay, stepping over tarred ropes with little concern for the plain old cotton gown she had donned to accompany her brother on his daily adventure.

  She reached the gangplank, hope rising that she would be able to retrieve John before he was seen. He was never snubbed or turned away, even by the hardest local tar, for the men were tolerant of his enthusiasm and had the deepest respect for the memory of his father, Rear Admiral Sir Gresley Wyatt, who had lost his life at Trafalgar. But this shipmaster showed neither tolerance nor benevolence in his hard features, and John would be humiliated to be chased ignominiously away.

  ‘John!’ she hissed, as loudly as she dared. ‘Come here!’ Her brother was poking a grubby finger at the topmost of the pyramid of shot and her voice made him start guiltily. With an awful inevitability the iron ball rolled from the summit and down the pile, dislodging several others as it went. With a rumble like a small thunderstorm the balls spilled across the decking, leaving scars on the white scrubbed perfection as they went. The sailors in the rigging ceased their hauling to lean over the spars and the shipmaster spun round on his heel, his brows drawn together in anger.

  He strode towards the boy who was hopping from one foot to another to avoid having his toes crushed by the heavy shot. ‘You!’ With one furious sweep of his arm the man had the child by the collar of his jacket and swung him off his feet to dangle in mid-air. ‘You brat! What are you about? I’ll paddle your backside for you! Jakes! Higgins! Get down here and pick up this shot.’

  Two sailors slid speedily down the shrouds at the anger in his voice and began retrieving the balls. John still dangled in the man’s grasp, his face white and set. Helena knew he would not disgrace himself with tears, but equally she knew he was very frightened.

  Without thinking, she ran up the gangplank, crying ‘Put him down! Put him down this instant!’ John was set unceremoniously on his feet and Helena found herself confronting those blue eyes at very close quarters indeed. The amused insolence with which the man had regarded her earlier was quite gone. All the annoyance of a busy man who had been interrupted and whose property had been damaged showed in the flinty gaze.

  ‘Ah! The governess. I assume you are responsible for this brat?’ His voice, far from being that of a rough professional sailor, held the cultured tones of an English gentleman. Helena was aware that she was looking unflatteringly stupefied and hastily shut her mouth. The angry retort on the tip
of her tongue was cut off by the embarrassing realisation that she was appearing as a veritable hoyden before a member of Society. To be escorting her young brother while dressed in an old gown and bonnet was one thing—to be found wandering around the dockside attracting the attention of sailors was quite another. She had no intention of having her name bandied about over cards in some exclusive gentlemen’s club. For whoever this man was, and however eccentric he might be in working with his own sailors, he was quite clearly of the Quality.

  Her mother’s blue-stocking approach to girls’ education and preoccupation with her own academic studies might have delayed Helena’s come-out, but that was not to say that Miss Wyatt was careless of propriety or unaware of the damage to her own reputation this man could do her if he discovered her name and chose to gossip.

  She dropped her violet eyes and murmured, ‘Yes, sir, I am sorry, sir. John, come here this minute!’ The boy scuttled to her side; Helena longed to put her arm around him but, conscious of his dignity, only rested one hand on his shoulder and pushed him down the gangplank in front of her.

  Furious with everyone concerned—herself, her imp of a brother and most of all that domineering man—Helena propelled John with more force than necessary along the quayside towards the ferryman’s hut. She could feel those hard blue eyes burning into the nape of her neck: either he was laughing at her or he was ogling her and Miss Wyatt found both equally unpalatable. Well, she had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of looking back.

  ‘What, going back over already, Miss Helena?’ The ferryman got to his feet from the bench where he had been mending crab pots and steadied the rowing boat for her to climb in. ‘Fine day like today, I’d have thought you’d be walking back right round the harbour, same as usual.’

  Helena took his hand as she climbed over the gunwales and settled her skirts tightly around her knees as she sat in the stern. ‘Thank you, Ned, but the wind is getting up. John, sit down directly and do not fidget under Ned’s feet! I do declare, I have had more than enough of your conduct today.’

  The old sailor looked up in surprise from his oars as he pushed off. Not like Miss Helena to come all snappish with the lad! Something had put her out of countenance for sure. He backwatered to allow a fishing smack to go out on the falling tide and glanced sideways at her heightened colour. Always healthy looking for Quality, unlike those mimsy females who came down from London for the air and spent all their time under a parasol. But, none the less, he’d never seen her cheeks so flushed, nor that sparking anger in her eyes—a right pretty colour that violet…

  The few moments it took for the boat to reach Selsea Ferry House was enough to make Helena rue her irritation with her brother. He was only a child—high-spirited and adventurous, just as a boy ought to be—and she was too fond of him to stay cross with him for long. She felt in her reticule for a coin and pressed it into John’s grubby fist. ‘Here, please pay Ned for me.’ John shot her a worried look, then seeing her face relax into a smile, squeezed her hand.

  ‘Do you think I should have offered to pay for the damage to the deck?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Only I think it would take my allowance for months, and I do not know if Mama would advance me all that, especially not,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘as I still owe for the parsonage window and Mr Willoughby’s chickens.’

  Helena laughed at the recollection of the farmyard race which had led to the escape of the neighbouring farmer’s poultry. ‘No, I should not worry. That man can more than afford to put right a few scrapes on his deck.’ They climbed ashore and John scampered off down the shingle beach, all cares forgotten. Helena sighed and followed him, wishing her own equilibrium could be restored as easily.

  ‘Please, can we go down to the shore?’ John pleaded as they trotted through the winding lanes towards home. Helena nodded absently and continued past the gate of Norton Manor and down the track to the beach. The morning’s expedition was entirely to entertain John and give her mother a little peace and quiet: it made no difference where they went until it was time for luncheon.

  She should have put the sailor in his place, of course, for being so open in his admiration of her face and figure. She was quite capable of depressing pretension even though she was not yet out, for local society held many admiring young men. None, however, had managed to advance beyond the coolest social contact, or the granting of Miss Wyatt’s hand for a country dance at one of the informal local parties.

  And yet this man…this man had shaken her composure to the core. Was it the boldness of his manner, the blatancy of his admiration of her looks or the unconventionality of his attire? She thought again of those strong, long legs, the bare feet, his toes flexing on the planking as he balanced easily against the swell…

  Angrily Helena shook herself, realising that the old pony had stopped in his usual place where the track ran into the shingle and that John had jumped down and vanished once again. The panicky eruption of a flock of ducks from the marsh bordering the beach told her where he must be and she resigned herself to taking him home not just grubby, but thoroughly muddy to boot. Not that Mama would give it a thought, for she was deep in a new translation of the poems of Sappho which would no doubt be well received by literary circles in London.

  ‘Helena, come and see what I have found!’ John’s excited voice came from where the marsh drained to the sea. Helena saw he had discovered an old rowing boat tied up at the mouth of the stream. With a sigh she picked her way over the stepping stones and joined him. ‘A French frigate!’ he announced, his eyes shining. ‘You shall be the captain, asleep on watch, and I shall board and capture you and your vessel! I will sail it with a prize crew to join Uncle Robert’s squadron and will be made a lieutenant!’

  ‘Very well,’ Helena replied placidly, climbing into the boat and resigning herself to the complete ruination of her skirts. She was too used to John’s imaginary adventures to protest. ‘Where am I to fall asleep? Here in the bows?’

  ‘Anywhere, for you have drunk too much brandy.’ John crept away up the beach and disappeared stealthily into the undergrowth.

  Helena settled herself as comfortably as possible in the boat, which had seen better days and was sadly in want of a coat of paint. However, it seemed to bob safely enough at the end of its rope, despite the sucking of the falling tide and the slapping of little wavelets raised by the wind.

  Closing her eyes was as far as she was prepared to go in imitating a drunken Frenchman, she decided firmly, finding it rather soothing to sit in darkness with the sunlight warm on her eyelids and the boat rocking. Helena fell to dreaming, her mind turning once more to the yacht and its owner. Now that would be the way to go to sea, cresting the sunlit waves with the wind in her face and a strong arm round her waist keeping her secure and safe…

  These highly improper thoughts were broken into by the sound of surreptitious footsteps over the shingle, followed almost immediately by a bloodcurdling yell, a crack and a yelp of pain. The rowing boat rocked wildly and Helena found herself tumbling backwards off the plank seat into the bottom of the boat.

  Indignantly she scrambled back into a sitting position to find the boat adrift, the shore already several yards away and John sprawled on the beach where his attacking leap had obviously broken the mooring stake. ‘Helena! Come back!’ His face was white and pinched with fright at the consequences of his playacting; the need to reassure the frightened boy kept her calm.

  ‘It is all right, John,’ she called more cheerfully than she felt. ‘See, there are oars, and you know how well I row!’ As she spoke she fitted the oars into the rowlocks, not without difficulty for the wood was splintered and old. The insidious sucking of the tide was taking her away from the beach with alarming speed, but she made herself sit squarely in the centre of the boat and raise the oars steadily. Helena dug them into the water as her father had taught her and pulled hard. To her relief the little boat responded, but she needed to turn it to row back to shore. She lifted the starboard oar clear of the
waves and dug hard with the other. The boat began to turn, then, with a loud crack, the rotten wood gave way and the oar broke. As she had been straining with all her strength against the oar, the sudden release of pressure precipitated her backward with some force. The last thing she was aware of was an intense pain in her head and John’s cry of alarm, then the world went black.

  Helena woke to find, confusingly, that she was lying on her back in a pool of water which was soaking into her gown. She blinked up at the sky through a lancing pain in the back of her head and, for a moment, could only gaze in bewilderment at the clouds scudding across the now fitful spring sunshine. Shakily Helena eased herself upright until she was sitting. But nothing prepared her for the wave of dizziness which made her retch over the side of the boat.

  The sea slapping hard against the sides of the rowing boat brought her to reality with a shock as unpleasant as the pain in her head. Frantically she cast around for a sight of land, anything to tell her where she had drifted to and how far out she was. The low headland of Selsey Bill loomed to her right all of a mile away. Helena gave a gasp of horror and for several minutes was quite beyond any rational thought as panic swept through her. Gradually she regained some control, but no one from a sea-going family, living as close to the ocean as she had always done, could be in the slightest doubt that she was in peril of her life.

  The other oar had fallen back into the boat but Helena, although taught at an early age to row, had never mastered the skill of sculling over the stern. Nor had she any confidence that this oar would not be as rotten as the other. She scanned the horizon for other craft, but could see no sails. She forced herself to think calmly and recall her father’s words when he had spoken of sailing in small craft around these waters. The Owers, treacherous reefs, extended for three miles around the south and south-east of the Bill and, although her little craft was in no danger from the rocks, any seagoing vessel would give the area a wide berth. Helena realised she would need to be carried around the tip of the Bill before she had any hope of encountering the fishing fleet.