Chapter 1
Miss Poppy Summers was accustomed to finding odd, unwanted objects tangled in her fishing nets: clumps of seaweed, discarded rum bottles, even the occasional clay pipe. But until that sun-soaked June morning, she had never, in the course of all her twenty-three years, had the misfortune of catching a man.
A strapping, half-dressed, unconscious man, at that.
Perched on the seat of her small rowboat several yards offshore, she raised a hand to her forehead and shielded her eyes from the glare in order to have a proper look at him.
He was sprawled facedown on the beach, his head turned to one side, long legs akimbo in the frothy, lapping waves. Raven hair covered his eyes, and sand salted the dark stubble along his jaw. Beneath the remains of his shirt—little more than a few scraps of lawn—he had the broad shoulders of a swimmer and the trim waist of a boxer. His trousers were plastered to thick thighs, and his bare feet were nearly the size of oar blades.
Zounds.
He must have stumbled out of the surf and collapsed on the beach. Her beach. To make matters worse, one corner of the net that she’d strategically placed in the deepest part of the cove was now wrapped around his left ankle, all but dashing her hopes for a good day’s catch.
Disappointment sank onto her chest like a rusty anchor. The only time Papa smiled lately was when Poppy came home with news of a bountiful haul, but there’d been precious little cause for celebration lately. A devastating uptick in cod worm meant a third of the fish she caught weren’t fit to eat, and the healthy ones tended to be younger, smaller fish that didn’t bring nearly as good a price.
She’d weathered tough seasons before, but this summer was different. Her poor father rarely left his bed since taking ill over the winter, and her brother, Dane, had been spending more time in London of late. Perhaps that was for the best, though, since he had an infuriating habit of gambling away the meager earnings from the family’s business—a business that she was now single-handedly trying to keep afloat.
Still, she supposed an empty net was the least of her problems. The stranger passed out on the sand could be a smuggler, a pirate, or worse. Good heavens, for all she knew, he could be … dead.
“Hullo!” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted over the whoosh of the waves. “Can you hear me?”
He didn’t flinch.
She hesitated, then started rowing ashore. Approaching the man was risky to be sure, but he was clearly in need of help. Besides, no one could accuse her of being naïve or sheltered. She had a fillet knife strapped to her calf, and if necessary, would resort to using an oar as a bludgeon.
But she rather hoped it didn’t come to that.
With a few easy strokes, she turned the bow into the waves and maneuvered her boat onto the shore. “Hullo!” she called again. She hopped lightly onto the sand, resting the oar on one shoulder like a cricket bat. “Are you injured?”
The man remained ominously still and silent.
Warily, she circled him, set down her oar, and knelt beside his head. The ocean breeze riffled his hair, revealing a wicked gash at his temple. The dark slash of an eyebrow was caked with dried blood, but his color was good, and his lips weren’t blue.
On the contrary, they were full and slightly parted. Quite perfectly formed, in fact. Despite his rugged, dangerous air—or perhaps because of it—she had to admit that the man was devilishly handsome.
And most definitely not from Bellehaven Bay.
Which was no doubt for the best. All Poppy needed to do was rouse him, send him on his merry way, and cast her nets back into the water. He’d be erased from her memory as quickly as a drawing in the sand.
Tentatively, she poked at his shoulder, startled to find it much harder than her own. “Wake up,” she urged. “You don’t want to be lounging about when the tide comes in, do you?”
No response, but the subtle rise and fall of his back told her he was still breathing. At least for now.
She nudged his arm, harder this time. “Come on then,” she said, deliberately brusque. “I have fish to catch, and I’m guessing you have brandy to smuggle. Or ships to commandeer. It matters little to me, really. All I ask is that you conduct your shady business on another beach.”
When he failed to reply, she stood, planted her hands on hips, and sighed. “Not the cooperative sort, are you? I suppose I’ll need to fetch Dr. Gladwell.” She lifted her chin and gazed at the pink and blue horizon, mentally rearranging her day. Thanks to the mysterious man, there would be no fish to salt and dry, no reason to drive her cart to market, and no coins to put in her pocket. She swallowed, determined to ignore the familiar panic prickling the back of her neck.
She would find a way to keep food on the table and purchase the tinctures that relieved Papa’s aches.
But first, she had to make sure that this man didn’t drown in the surf. Not on her beach.
“I’m going to roll you onto your back,” she said conversationally, on the off chance some hazy corner of his brain was listening.
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—she had some experience dealing with large, unresponsive men. At least once a month the barkeep at the Salty Mermaid summoned her to retrieve her drunk-as-a-wheelbarrow brother from the pub. Her current situation wasn’t terribly different. It simply required a combination of physical strength, patience, and finesse.
Using her body for leverage, she pushed the man’s shoulder until he flipped over, belly up. She stepped back, waiting a moment to see if the movement woke him, but he was just as still as before.
She took a moment to study him, and her gaze was naturally drawn to the swaths of skin visible through the shreds of his shirt: the sprinkling of hair near his sternum, the defined contours of his chest, and the fuzzy ridges of his abdomen. He certainly didn’t have the paunch of a man who drank six pints a night. But it was not going to be easy to drag a man his size ten yards up the beach.
“We’re headed for that spot of shade at the base of the cliffs,” she said as she wedged her hands beneath his shoulders. “Ready? Here we go.”
Summoning every ounce of strength, she lifted him, raising his upper body a few inches off the sand. But his heavy head listed to the side, making him too unwieldy, so she gently lowered him to the ground again.
Copyright © 2023 by Anna Bennett.
