The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(20)
“Nor I,” Oriana agreed, content to watch Girard work as she’d done many a night. “Which is why I will not sit back and watch them suffer. Not while I still have breath in my body.”
There were mothers without milk and babes dependent on them for sustenance. Fathers who were snuff-taking slatterns who refused to labor in the mines, deciding free trade would profit them more, only to get caught, tried, and hanged, leaving their families worse off than before. Children were being forced to earn their keep by age ten or eleven or brutally left to their own devices, burning to death whilst trying to light a fire with tallow and straw just to keep warm.
The things she’d seen and heard made her cringe. Families were supposed to be clannish, fighting the odds together, come what may, until everyone bedded down with a full belly.
This she could count as a blessing. While her upbringing had been hard, at least she’d always been fed and kept warm.
Embers brightened in the hearth, stoking to a slow and steady burn as Oriana inhaled the swirling, aromatic sweetness that drifted toward her position before the hearth. She knelt, relishing the fresh scent that saturated her senses, evoking memories of days long past.
Ordinary things connected her to the bedrock beneath her feet: Cornish hedges, helling stones, thatched roofs, sweet Williams, lilacs, fields of barley, parish feasts, music, and stories of old. Teasing aromas, delicious herbs stewed to perfection in kettles hanging from trivets, reminded her of her mother. And truth be told, she enjoyed listening to the wind in all its southwesterly power as it swept over the cliffs.
“You’ve a kind heart, Miss Thorpe.” Mr. Hunt’s voice flowed through her with silky perfection, making her suddenly realize that Girard and O’Malley had slipped out of the room.
“Kindness has many faces, Mr. Hunt.”
Curious as to why the fisherman lingered after Jarvis and McHugh had gone, she tipped her head to study him. He stood a few feet away, making her heart ache for something just beyond her reach, particular encounters of the flesh she could never experience without endangering the man she’d chosen. Unlike Charles, she would never put carnal urges before the safety of others.
“A heart can be a fickle thing,” she said, feeling a burdensome weight press against her chest. “Hardened like a pharaoh, yellow as a keet’s foot, or soft as a newborn’s skin.”
“Or black as a miner’s boots,” he added as he continued the Cornish saying.
“A soot that never leaves a man,” she finished.
“Just as your gown will be, Miss, if you continue to kneel that close to the fire.”
She glanced down at her hands, flattened against the floorboards. She lifted them and found they were covered in soot. “Aye. Ye ken well enough about miners, I see.”
He stepped closer and stretched out his hand to help her stand. She stared at his long, lean fingers, her heart fluttering like a seabird caught in a bracing wind. How sinful would it be to touch the man when he liquefied her insides and set her pulse to racing? She glanced back down at her dirty hands, once more struck by the differences between them.
She jumped to her feet, refusing his aid. “By the saints, ’tis I who look like a bal maiden.” She brushed her hands on her apron, freeing soot from her soiled skirts so she didn’t feel quite as dirty as the young girls who crushed rocks and pushed trams in the mines. She quickly changed the subject, hoping he didn’t notice her unwillingness to touch him. “When will your men return?”
His brow furrowed. “My men?”
“Jarvis and McHugh,” she reminded him. “Those are their names, are they not?” She narrowed her eyes as a spark of distrust niggled at her brain. More often than not, she felt as if they were speaking of two different things.
“I suspect it will take McHugh several hours to sail to Looe and back.” He cleared his throat and glanced at the longcase clock. “As for Jarvis, he may have gone out to relieve himself, if I may be so bold.” He avoided her eyes, picked up the hearth broom, and carried it across the tavern to store it behind the bar where she had retrieved it before.
“Should ye go after him?” She needed to make sure arrangements had been made for all her guests before she closed the inn completely for the night. And she needed to put as much distance between herself and Mr. Hunt as possible, else she’d go mad.
“Jarvis enjoys a good smoke on his pipe.” Mr. Hunt finished his task and turned to face her. “I’m sure he will appear momentarily. You’ve nothing to fear.”
“I do not fear anything.”
Except you, Mr. Hunt.
She moved to the window and raised the curtain. Near the stone courtyard hedge, lantern light revealed Jarvis smoking a pipe as Mr. Hunt had suggested. Why was everything he said seemingly correct? She wanted to doubt him just on principle. No one could be as perfect as John Hunt appeared. His nearness made her question her own body, her emotions, the loneliness that dogged her, and the pledge she’d made to herself never to fall in love. By fire and flame, she’d be just like her brother—a murderer—if she did, for surely Charles would use whomever she loved against her.
“My men and I will do everything we can to protect you while we are here.” He’d moved close behind her, his breath stirring the hair on the back of her neck. “You have my promise.”
She froze, luxuriating in the warmth of his breath, the wicked shudder snaking down her spine. Light-headed, she drifted, her body yearning, crying out for what she’d never experience—how to be a woman to a man.