Page 5 of Sir Durham’s Disarming Asset

“My father and I landed there when we came to Britain. I do remember a peaceful-looking town. But that is all. I was young.”

“Portsmouth is full of the Royal Navy now. After Trafalgar, they have more than doubled in numbers.”

She had shaken her head. He had told her tales of what had happened in the past year in the conflict between Britain and France. Down in her cell, she had gotten little water or gruel, let alone news of great victories by Britain. Though news of Bonaparte’s genius at his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz had readily reached the farthest cells of the Conciergerie.

“Why no guards for our captain of the packet?” she asked him now as they waited for the man in front of them in the queue to finish hiring a cab. She thought it odd that their scruffy, mean-looking smuggler had landed so easily upon British soil. Years ago, she had learned the rules of bringing in contraband to a port from her father. In addition to his tobacco plantations, her father had been the owner of the largest shipping company south of Baltimore. She had grown up not only along the banks of the Rappahannock River on their plantation, but also on the docks of Alexandria, Virginia. She knew sailing ships of every size and purpose, from schooners to gunboats.

It shamed her that she had been so ill on their sail crossing the Channel. She had always wished for good sea legs, but had never gained them. Now, she had other weaknesses of body, voice, and mind because the French guards had bullied her, beaten her, and raped her.

One day, all that they stole will be mine again. She had vowed it often, voicing it to Rafe.

He shook his head. “Our captain must have friends among the revenuers.”

“Revenuers?”

“Those who collect taxes from importers. And who catch smugglers and their illegal goods.”

The very idea of anyone who was an enforcer of laws or crimes had her clinging to Rafe’s arm. The ones she had known had not been ethical. “I am sorry I asked.”

“Never be, chouchou. In those pale golden eyes of yours, I see your promise to yourself to become stronger. It will happen in all your tomorrows. Today is filled with beef and potatoes and—”

“Whiskey!” she added. She had often entertained him with her bravado.

He chuckled, as he always did, at her boldness. His humor was the other quality of Rafe Durham, the bear, that kept her oriented toward improvement and survival.

“I will hire this next hack.” And off he trotted to the skinny fellow talking to his draft horse.

She watched him go. Her bear was elegant despite his bulk. She had never met a man like him. Giving, kind. Hard. Where and how he had grown to become such a person, she often wondered. He’d declined to tell her.

“A boring tale.” He would wave a hand and dismiss her curiosity.

But she recalled in the gray shadows of her mind the night that Rafe Durham had come to her with another man. They murmured to each other. They walked about on cats’ feet. Somehow—one day, she must make him tell her—they subdued the guards and opened her cell to free her and her cellmate, a young man named Luc Bechard.

Then Rafe had picked her up like so much dust and carried her away to the cool, fresh night air and to a small batteau floating on the Seine. There sat one woman who had kissed her cheek, whispered words of encouragement, and embraced her briefly that fateful night, then had given her back to the strong hold of Rafe Durham. She was Inès Bechard, sister to Luc. The other gentleman, whom Zeph had learned later was Inès’s new husband, the Earl of Halsey, had been quick, urging and prodding the others to act. The three of them had come to rescue Luc, the man in prison who had sheltered Zeph from guards who had come the previous night to rape her like two others had. By accident or plan—she did not know—they had rescued her as well.

“Let’s climb in,” Rafe told her now with a hand to help her up the coach’s step.

In a moment, they were sitting in the carriage. He cradled her back against his chest, his usual mode of comfort for her in the rough circumstances of their escape from everyone who would take her away. Like this, she had known his embrace, tender and kind. If she could term his embrace nonchalant, she might counter that with the knowledge that he had done everything so vital to her survival, some of it shockingly intimate, and by that, she knew he cared for her. His attentions had been toward her, as a lady to be tended to, revived, renewed. Perhaps as a friend. No more.

And she was grateful.

“Go to sleep, chouchou. I will wake you when we arrive.”

“Where?” She tipped her head back into the crook of his arm and, in the dim moonlight, admired the cut of his square jaw and the high arch of his black brows.

“Brighton.”

She stiffened at the name of that fashionable town. “We won’t—?”

“Go in Society? No, we won’t. But we will get you dressed properly and introduce you to one or two kind people.”

She shivered. “No. I am not ready.”

“What do you say to seeing the lady who helped rescue you?”

“Inès Bechard? I barely remember her,” she said, hoping that would convince Rafe not to press her on the matter. For she knew if she accepted one, he would want her to try to meet another.

“But you met her once at the Countess Nugent’s home in Paris.”