The Admiral's Daughter

by Francesca Shaw

  …please do not worry, dear Mama. Lord Darvell has offered me every comfort and consideration possible. He has pressing business on St Mary’s, it appears, and cannot alter his plans to land me, but assures me he will return me to you as soon as may be. Please give all my love to John.

  Your dutiful and affectionate daughter, Helena.

  There was no way of sealing the letter, but she folded it and wrote her mother’s direction clearly. As she did so there was the sound of raised voices and a bump, signalling the arrival of the expected fishing boat. Helena snatched up the cloak and made her way up the steep companionway to the deck.

  The wind whipped cold around the flimsy muslin of her borrowed skirts and she huddled gratefully into the heavy oiled and felted wool of the cloak. Adam Darvell was leaning on the rail, quite at his ease, exchanging shouted banter with the crew of the smack tossing alongside. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, his throat in a strong line that drew Helena’s gaze and held it. His dark blond mane blew in the wind and she thought he needed only a gold earring to look the perfect pirate. The realisation that she was staring shamelessly at this man filled her with sudden confusion and sent the blood rushing hectically to her cheeks.

  She dropped her eyes, but found her confusion deepened as she took in the lithe body, strong thighs and those bare brown feet braced on the deck. Never before had Helena found herself aware of a man’s body. True, nobody who had been brought up surrounded by fine classical sculptures could remain ignorant of the male anatomy, but cold marble was quite another thing from live, warm flesh and blood.

  Her cloak flapped and snagged on a nail protruding from a crate by the mainmast. Her exclamation of annoyance attracted Adam’s attention and he left the rail to saunter over, his foothold sure on the pitching deck. ‘Miss Wyatt! Are you warm enough?’ He freed the cloak and pulled it around her, his arm around her shoulders for one brief moment. Helena shivered, but not with cold. ‘Walk up and down in the lee of the wheelhouse, you will be sheltered from the cut of the wind there.’

  Adam took her arm and walked her round to the far side, finding her a patch of sunlight and, she realised, shielding her from any view of what was going on with the boat alongside.

  ‘Is that the letter for Lady Wyatt? I will put it with mine to her.’ He made no offer to let her read what he had written, folding one within the other as he returned to the rail. The bosun handed him a battered leather pouch, already well stuffed. Adam tucked the letter in and tied the flap shut before dropping it down to the waiting boat.

  Helena was suddenly overtaken by a wave of tiredness. More crates were stacked alongside the wheelhouse and she found a sheltered corner and settled down, pulling the cloak tight around herself in a comforting hug. Now that she had the chance to reflect in tranquillity, relieved of the worst of her anxiety about her family, she could comprehend how very near she had come to death. Looking out over the cold, grey, slick surface of the sea, she knew she would have survived only minutes more without help. She was uncomfortably aware that she had appeared less than grateful to her rescuer, and to cavil at a few casks of smuggled brandy or some rolls of Lyons silk or whatever he had in the hold, was ungracious in the extreme.

  Lulled by the rocking, she fell asleep thinking of Adam Darvell and was awakened with the smell of savoury stew in her nostrils. Helena opened her eyes and found him standing before her, a plate in each hand.

  ‘Oh, I am so very hungry!’ she exclaimed, sitting up and pushing back tendrils of salt-sticky hair from her brow.

  ‘Would you like to eat up here? The weather is much better now.’ And, indeed, the cutting wind had dropped and with it the swell which now sparkled in the late afternoon sun. At her nod of assent, Adam sat down beside her and handed her the pewter plate which, beside the stew, had a thick slice of bread and cheese and a battered spoon.

  Helena ate with more urgency than good manners, digging into the meat and vegetables with an appetite heightened by exertion and a total absence of food since eight that morning. By the time the stew was gone, she recalled her social graces and nibbled at the bread and cheese with more decorum, conscious of the man by her side.

  ‘Our cook will be gratified to see a clean plate,’ he remarked. ‘Do you feel a little more yourself now?’ Adam was still working his way through his own plateful, as Helena was suddenly all too aware.

  ‘Forgive my haste,’ she apologised. ‘I had no idea how hungry I was until I smelled that stew. Do you bring your own chef aboard, my lord?’

  Adam laughed. ‘Jean-Pierre is a most superior French chef and would sooner be disemboweled than set foot on a boat again. Fleeing the Revolution and having to cross the Channel in a storm left a lasting impression upon him. It is as much as I can do to persuade him out of London and down to my country estate. No, our cook is one of the seamen, but he does a fair job for the men, and when I am in port I send ashore for my meals.’

  He took the plate from her and put both dishes on the deck. ‘What would you like to drink? I have no tea on board, I would not recommend the ale—but I do have a very respectable burgundy, if you would care for a glass.’

  Helena was not accustomed to drink wine, but there was little choice and her throat was still parched from the sea water she had swallowed. The warm heaviness of the red liquid soothed her throat as it slipped down and the fruity flavour deceived her palate into thinking it more innocuous than it was.

  Lord Darvell made no move to refill her goblet, however. He watched her with quiet amusement as the wine brought a sparkle into her eyes and the colour back into her cheeks. The breeze had tangled a curl round the filigree of her modest earring and he leaned over suddenly, unexpectedly, and began teasing the dark hairs free with surprisingly sensitive fingers.

  ‘My lord!’ Helena gasped.

  ‘Be still, it will hurt if you pull away,’ he commanded, his face intent as he concentrated on the task. ‘Will you not call me Adam?’ he asked softly as his fingers left her ear, only to brush lightly down her cheek for a fraction of a second.

  Startled, she met his eyes, very close still, although he was no longer touching her. His 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, 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?’

  He got to his feet, pulling her gently to hers and tucking her hand under his arm.

  ‘But your crew—!’ she began to say, allowing herself to be walked forward to the bows.

  ‘They are about their business. And,’ he added drily, ‘very well paid to be both deaf and blind when it suits me.’

  Helena was nettled by the implication that the crew would bracket her with the sort of woman his lordship habitually entertained on board. ‘From the sight of the female garments in your cabin, my lord, I imagine they have much practice in discretion,’ she remarked tartly.

  ‘I think you must own, Helena, that both the clothes and the discretion of my crew are beneficial to you, placed as you are.’ He paused at the bow where the bowsprit met the rail. ‘Now, if you are not too cold, let us admire the sunset.’

  Infuriating and improper though he was, Lord Darvell was quite correct and Helena allowed herself to admire the flaming red of the sky as the sun began to sink in the west.

  She did not notice as the air became cooler, nor protest when his arm went around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his side. The red wine was heavy in her veins and she felt light-headed, warm and very safe. The light faded fast and he moved beside her. All at once Helena became very aware of just how close and how big he was. She felt safe and lulled, warmed by his body heat even through the cloak.

  That morning—a hundred years ago, it seemed—she had chided herself for dreaming of standing like this in t
he shelter of his arms, watching the sea slip by under a wide sky. Now it was happening and she had no desire to break the spell, no matter how improper.

  Without speaking he began slowly, insidiously, to stroke down the column of her throat with one long finger. Helena gasped as a wave of sensation tingled to the very tips of her toes. ‘My lord!’

  He pulled her round to face him, laughing down into her flushed face. ‘Adam—call me Adam. It is very hurtful that you should be so formal, considering the circumstances of your arrival on this vessel.’

  Miss Wyatt was too inexperienced in flirtation to recognise when she was being teased. Stricken that he might think her both ungracious and ungrateful, she raised an anxious face to his. ‘Oh, Adam, I did not mean…’

  Her unconscious invitation was too much for his lordship’s carefully maintained willpower. Reflecting that it was really more than flesh and blood could stand to resist the innocent provocation of those wide violet eyes and the promise of those full, soft lips, he bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth.

  To be kissed for the first time under such circumstances robbed Helena of both her breath and any desire to resist him. She found herself overcome by a wave of entirely new physical sensations: his skin smelt clean with a tang of salt and where his lips moved on hers she could taste the salt through the sweetness of the wine. Her hand lifted to his cheek, tracing the tautness of the skin over the high cheekbone, moving down, exploring the sensation of stubble under her questing fingers.

  Adam’s kiss, had she any experience to judge it by, was restrained in the extreme, but it was enough, innocent as she was, to shock Helena to her senses. She pulled back, turning her face from his questing lips, her cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment. Adam let her go immediately, watching her as she took a trembling hold on the rail a few yards away. A rueful smile played about his lips as he reflected that flirting with virgins was a different game entirely to the dalliance he normally enjoyed with the sophisticated married ladies of his acquaintance.

  He had had no intention of frightening Helena, and he knew enough about women to guess that what had alarmed her was not his kiss but her own response to it. But at least she had shown him that she was not averse to him which, in view of the fact that the only possible outcome to this little escapade was marriage, was indeed fortunate!

  The rail was smooth and cold under Helena’s grasping hands as she gazed unseeing over the darkening sea. No wonder, she reflected shakily, that Society placed so many barriers between young ladies and young men! She was honest enough not to blame Adam for what had just passed between them—it was not so much that she needed protecting from him, more she needed saving from her own responses!

  Helena turned to face him with a social smile firmly on her lips. ‘Why, how late it has got, and how chilly now the sun has gone down. I must bid you goodnight, my lord, for I am very fatigued.’ It was true, suddenly everything felt flat.

  ‘Of course. Let me find you a lantern. Have you everything you require for the night?’ His neutral tone as he escorted her below belied his annoyance with himself. Adam Darvell was not used to nursemaiding anyone, least of all very young ladies, but he should, he told himself severely, have realised that she was exhausted, confused and frightened, however well she concealed it. And Miss Helena Wyatt was a far cry from the experienced and demanding ladies who flitted lightly through his life with commitment on neither side to anything but passing pleasure and entertainment.

  He went before her into the cabin and fixed the lamp into its gimbals so that it hung safely, however the boat tossed or rolled in its passage down the Channel. He cast a swift glance around the cramped space to check that all was well, then saw the set of Helena’s rigid shoulders as she looked everywhere but at the bunk which took up most of the space. Sensing her unease, he wished her goodnight and closed the door quietly behind him. He stood for a moment, listening. Then he heard the click of the latch as she secured the door and was surprised by the swift stab of chagrin that she did not trust him.

  Helena, expecting her anxieties to disturb her rest had no sooner climbed between the sheets than she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. Unknowingly she slept the clock round while the Moonspinner drove through the crested seas, scudding before a brisk following wind and making better time than even the most optimistic sailor could have predicted towards Adam Darvell’s rendezvous on St Mary’s.

  Lyme Bay, Portland Bill and Start Point all fell away on their starboard side while Helena slumbered. Thrice during the night Adam went up on deck, to the surprise of the crew who were used to being trusted to stand their watches alone.

  ‘Not like him to be so restless,’ the helmsman muttered to his companion on the watch. ‘I ’spose he’s missing his nice soft sheets, him having turfed the bosun out of his bunk!’

  His companion laughed coarsely. ‘It’s not his nice soft bed he’s missing—more like what’s in it!’ The laughter reached Adam who was staring ahead into the darkness, and he turned to stroll back towards the wheelhouse. Both men fell silent under his decidedly frosty eye.

  The next morning Helena woke with a start and sat up in the stuffy shadowed room. Her heart thudded against her rib cage and for a moment of pure panic she had no recollection of where she was. Then the slap of water against the wooden planking and the dim light filtering through the salt-crusted porthole brought realisation.

  Hastily she slipped out of bed and into the tiny closet, thankful that his lordship’s concern for his own comfort gave her privacy. She splashed her face with cold water from the ewer, gave up the hopeless task of getting a comb through her sticky hair and pulled on her borrowed gown and slippers.

  The muslin gown dipped scandalously low in front no matter how much she tugged it up and, despite two petticoats, clung to her form. Helena reflected as she pinned a shawl around her shoulders and across her bosom that she must take care not to allow the spray to dampen the skirts or it would become quite indecent.

  The sunlight was flooding down the companionway as she emerged from the cabin and climbed up on deck. Moonspinner was running under a full set of white canvas, fairly dancing over the blue sea and Helena could see no sight of land in any direction.

  Adam was in the bows, a long spyglass to his eye, scanning the waters ahead of them. Helena hesitated, seized with uncertainty about how to approach him after that kiss the night before. Her fingertips brushed her lips where his had pressed and she shivered with remembrance. It seemed impossible that they could carry on a normal, everyday conversation after that degree of intimacy…

  ‘Please ma’am, I’m to ask you, ma’am, if you want any breakfast.’ The cabin boy, a ginger-haired urchin, gazed at her anxiously. He wasn’t usually permitted anywhere near his lordship’s ladies, but this one looked nice and kind. Helena smiled at him and he grinned back, reminding her painfully of her brother. Had they received the letter telling of her safe rescue or had John and her mother endured a sleepless night, believing her lost?

  ‘Yes, that is very kind of you. I am indeed hungry and would enjoy some breakfast. Will you show me where to go?’

  The lad blushed to the roots of his hair. In all his thirteen years, no pretty lady had addressed him, never mind so kindly. Utterly smitten, he stammered, ‘I’ll bring it to you, ma’am, if you care to make yourself comfortable by the wheelhouse out of the wind.’

  Helena settled herself and watched with amusement as he ran off to the galley, returning a few minutes later with a loaded plate. Helena reflected that cold herring, a slab of odorous cheese, hard bread and strong coffee was not what she would choose to break her fast, but she accepted it from him with a smile and a word of thanks which quite enslaved the lad. He sat down cross-legged on the deck at her feet, ‘Just in case you want anything else, ma’am.’

  Helena was so hungry that she managed to clear her plate, although the cheese had to be shared with the cabin boy, who confided that his name was Billy. Helena was being regaled with the
entire, if short, life history of her young admirer when his narrative was cut abruptly short by the arrival of the mate.

  ‘Billy! Where’ve you got to, you little b—Morning, ma’am! Didn’t see you there. What are you doing annoying the lady—go and peel some potatoes!’ Billy was assisted to his feet by a firm though not unkind hand on the scruff of his neck.

  ‘Oh, do not blame him—it was quite my fault!’ Helena protested, handing her plate and mug to the boy. ‘Thank you, Billy, that was very helpful.’

  Adam strolled up, telescoping the spyglass which he handed to the mate. ‘Watch out for the Wolf Rock.’

  ‘Aye, my lord, though it’s a good clear day and we’ll hear the thing as soon as see it in any case. But I’ll send a man aloft now, can’t be too careful in these waters.’ He touched his forelock and strode off.

  ‘Wolf Rock? That sounds very alarming, my lord.’ Navigation seemed a safe topic for conversation.

  ‘My lord? It was Adam last night,’ he teased gently. But, seeing her drop her eyes in confusion, he added, ‘Did you sleep well? You look refreshed.’ And, indeed, Miss Wyatt with her creamy skin and clear violet eyes was looking fresh as a daisy despite her tangled hair and borrowed gown.

  ‘I confess I slept like a log—’ Helena laughed ‘—which I am sure shows I have no sensibility! But you are avoiding telling me about Wolf Rock—it sounds quite Gothic.’ She spoke lightly, but felt everything she said was artificial. What was it that seemed to crackle between them like the air before a thunderstorm? Helena sounded to her own ears like the little ninnies who giggled and twittered at young men at dances and dinner parties. And she had never affected that style!

  ‘It is very dangerous, that is for sure, although as for it being Gothic, you will judge for yourself for we will pass it at a safe distance. It gets its name from the howling of the wind and waves around it which the old seamen thought sounded like the baying of a wolf or the roaring of a lion. Once we passed it in the fog and the crew was convinced that all the hounds of Hell were calling them to their doom!’