LITMIR.BIZ

      Andrew Melhurst was directing the loading of his luggage from the customs shed on to a large flat wagon. It was extraordinary how much one accumulated in seven years of living abroad. He had pared it down to necessities before leaving, but there was still enough to fill the wagon. It had been dumped on the quay when the ship was unloaded, as if the shipping company, having conveyed it thus far, wanted nothing more to do with it. Too concerned about his grandfather’s health to bother with it right away, he had paid to have it stored in the customs shed and gone home, intending to send others back to fetch it for him.

      He had been relieved to discover that old Lord Melhurst had rallied while he had been on the high seas and so he had decided it was safe to return with a couple of estate workers and hire a wagon to oversee the moving of his possessions himself. Besides the usual things like clothes and personal possessions, there were antiquities and stuffed animals and carefully wrapped seeds he had collected in the mountains of the Himalayas, which he hoped to propagate. He had also brought one or two plants, carefully packed in special containers, which he had taken home with him. Leaving them on the docks to be handled by hired help who would not understand the need for care would not have been a good idea.

      He noticed the young lad standing at the foot of the gangplank facing a group of seamen because he looked so nervous. A new cabin boy, he surmised, judging by his slight figure and smooth cheeks. Too smooth, he decided, for the rough and tumble of life at sea. Had he been forced into it by an impatient parent in order to make a man of him, or was he running away to sea and thinking better of it? His clothes were very loose fitting and years out of date, but they had once been of fine quality. He was from a good family then, fallen on hard times perhaps. The seamen were obviously intending to have some sport with him and he was looking decidedly nervous.

      He strolled over to them. ‘Let the young shaver be.’ It was said quietly, but with such authority he was instantly obeyed. ‘Go about your business.’

      The men strolled away laughing, and the boy turned towards him. ‘Thank you, sir.’ The voice was high-pitched, not yet broken. ‘Am I too late to go on board?’

      ‘Not while the gangplank is still in place, though you need to be quick. You will probably get a roasting for being late.’

      ‘Roasting?’ she said, remembering to deepen her voice. ‘You mistake me, sir. I wish to speak to someone on board before the ship sails.’

      ‘Oh, I see.’ He looked closely at the oval face, the troubled brown eyes fringed by long silky lashes, the slight heaving of the bosom as he looked upwards. By God! It was not a he but a she and a very beautiful one. How could he have ever imagined that figure belonged to a cabin boy? Running after a lover, was she? Was the lover intent on escaping?

      ‘Is it permissible to go up there?’ She nodded in the direction of the deck.

      ‘I wouldn’t risk it if I were you,’ he said, thinking about the crew who, like the sailors she had already encountered, would undoubtedly have some fun with her, not to mention the humiliation of discovering her lover did not want her. ‘Tell me the name of the party and I will go and bring him to you. There might yet be time.’

      ‘Oh, would you?’ The smile she gave him was all woman. ‘His name is Toby Kendall. He is sailing as a passenger.’

      He sprinted up the gangplank and had a word with the sailor who stood at the top, ready to give the signal for it to be hauled away. Beth watched him disappear. She kept her eyes glued to the rail, expecting to see Toby come running. Nothing happened. The activity on deck reached a crescendo as seamen swarmed up the rigging and spread themselves along the spars and someone ran to the last mooring rope, ready to cast off. Now she began to wonder if the man who had gone on her errand would be trapped on board and carried off to sea. Her heart was in her mouth.

      She saw a movement, but it was not Toby running to greet her, but the man returning. Did that mean Toby was not on board? Had he boarded some other ship? Had he not gone at all? She was beginning to feel a thorough ninny.

      ‘Was he not there?’ she asked as the man rejoined her. Too late she forgot to lower the tone of her voice.

      ‘Oh, he is on board, Miss Harley, but he declined to come out to you.’

      ‘I don’t believe you!’ In her agitation she had not even noticed he had addressed her by name. ‘He wouldn’t refuse to see me.’

      ‘I am not in the habit of lying, Miss Harley.’

      The emphasis he put on her name made her realise Toby had given her away. ‘You know who I am?’

      ‘Indeed I do.’ Behind him he heard the shouted commands, was aware that dockers were freeing the mooring rope and pulling the gangplank free. ‘The question is, what am I to do with you?’ The crack of sails being let down almost drowned his words.

      ‘What do you mean, do with me?’ The sails were filling and the ship was beginning to move. Sailors were scrambling down from aloft and, almost hidden behind a stanchion, she saw a familiar face. ‘Toby!’ she shouted, waving like mad.

      He waved back. He was saying something, but she could not make out what it was. It was then she realised the predicament she was in. Toby had refused to see her, she was miles and miles from home, alone with a man who knew she was a girl. And he had said, ‘What am I to do with you?’ She had been nervous before, but now she was truly frightened. She looked about her. On one side was the river, murky and full of flotsam, on the other the warehouses, customs shed and chandlers that lined the docks. Dockers and seamen hurried back and forth, men driving lumbering carts, shabby women, ill-clothed barefoot children, a few better-dressed gentlemen, but not a single well-dressed lady. Certainly no cabs.

      He must have realised she was considering flight, because he took her arm. ‘You had better come with me.’ And, though she resisted, he propelled her towards a carriage that stood a little way off, calling to the man by his wagon, ‘Simmonds, I’ll leave you to finish loading that and I’ll see you at home in due course.’

      ‘Let me go!’ Beth shouted, struggling with

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