Chapter Four

      Being at sea was more pleasant than Thea had anticipated. The sun shone, her heavy cloak kept the wind at bay and seeing how the ship worked was entertaining. The captain took them straight out into the Channel where they met the large waves head on, so, once she had got used to the motion, Thea felt quite comfortable.

      ‘Take my arm,’ Rhys urged.

      It was a foolish indulgence to cling to him, feel his strength expended just to keep her safe, to be looked after, the sole focus of his attentions. This was how beautiful women felt all the time: cared for, fussed over, treated as though they were fragile and valuable.

      ‘We can stagger drunkenly up and down the deck together,’ he added as they set off, surprising a gasp of laughter from her. No, Rhys didn’t think of her as a delicate flower. Good old tomboy Thea, that’s me.

      It was difficult to speak, the wind whipping the words from their mouths, so they fell silent, occasionally pointing things out to each other—the famous White Cliffs, shining in the afternoon sun, the ship’s boy scampering amidst the rigging like a monkey, the gulls following their wake.

      It made it all too easy to think and to remember.

      She had been fourteen, a woman for only a few months, still awkward with her changing body and her strange shifting moods. Rhys had just turned twenty and for two years he had spent most of the summers with his male friends. Still, when he came back he treated her just the same, as a younger friend, not as a little girl or a nuisance. Looking back, she supposed that was because he simply did not think of her as female, a lowering conclusion.

      She could recall thinking with relief that he hadn’t changed at all in the five months since she had last seen him. And then Serena Halstow had walked into the room, seventeen, blonde and pretty, and Rhys was looking at her in a way she had never seen him look at anyone before. Thea had not quite understood what was happening, but she did recognise her own feelings. She’d been violently jealous. In fact, she could have slapped Serena simply for lowering that sweep of dark lashes over her big blue eyes and then biting her lower lip as she peeped up at Rhys, who was looking, Thea had thought viciously, like a stunned cod.

      They had taken no notice when she’d stamped off to sulk in the summerhouse, but when she’d calmed down a little she’d applied her brain to the situation and realised that Rhys was besotted with Serena and Serena was by no means averse to that. It had also become clear that her perception of Rhys as her best friend had shifted into something else entirely. She loved him. She was not sure what that meant, she simply knew that she had given her heart. When you are fourteen, love is for ever. She knew better now.

      The butterfly-fluttering, pulse-quickening wonder of that feeling had lasted until supper when she’d stood next to Serena and saw them both reflected in the long glass. Her emotions might have decided they wanted to grow up, her body had started the uncomfortable, embarrassing process of doing so, but she was still a girl while Serena, there was no doubt, was already a young lady.

      Thea had resented the approach of womanhood. She’d dug her heels in and fought every step, hating her changing shape, the monthly misery of her courses, the restrictions and the rules. But Serena had run towards it, arms wide, thrilled with her transformation into a beautiful young woman.

      Looks had never mattered to Thea, who was far more interested in character. Her stepmother was constantly lecturing. ‘Stand up straight. Rinse your hair in vinegar, it might make it shine. Put this cream on those freckles.’ But most of the time she would just stare at Thea and sigh.

      Gazing into the mirror beside Serena, she’d realised why. She was ordinary. Not ugly, not even interestingly plain. Just run-of-the-mill ordinary. Dull. Men were not attracted to ordinary—not that she wanted men in general, just her Rhys. And her Rhys had eyes only for Serena.

      In one evening Thea came to terms with the truth: that she was not fit for the handsome, eligible young man she wanted because handsome, eligible men deserved beautiful wives. She was a disappointment to Papa, which was why he did not love her and she was invisible as a female to Rhys—and so he did not want her, either.

      She’d stayed very quiet all that summer and even Godmama, usually so perceptive, put it down to her being at an awkward stage. By the time she’d met Rhys again she had conquered that foolish puppy love and had learned to live with reality. It was better in the end—daydreams only led to hurt.

      ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Rhys bent to her ear, his breath hot on her wind-chilled skin.

      ‘Only one penny?’ Her laugh sounded as shrill as the gulls’ cries to her, but he did not appear to notice. ‘Ten guineas at the very least, my lord. They are very deep thoughts about ancient history.’

      ‘Are you a bluestocking, Thea?’ he teased.

      ‘I fear I am not serious enough.’

      ‘Thank goodness,’ Rhys said. ‘That’s what I always loved about you, Thea. You are so bright and yet such fun to be with.’

      Her stomach swooped with a sensation that had nothing to do with the waves beneath the hull. ‘Is that what it was? And I had always assumed it was because I would tell the most outrageous fibs to get you out of scrapes.’

      Love me? As a friend, there was no doubt. Rhys had always been a loyal friend. What would it be like to hear him say those words and mean them, as he must have said them to Serena?

      He had fallen in love with Serena Halstow, had wooed and won her, so everyone thought. And then Serena had run away on her wedding day with Paul Weston, Rhys’s best friend, leaving Rhys to receive a note on the altar steps. In one shocked moment both Thea and Rhys had realised that Serena had been using Rhys’s courtship as a disguise for her love affair with the other man, who had little money and smaller prospects.

      Paul, Thea had thought as she stood clutching the bride’s useless bouquet until the stems bent in her fingers. Of course. Paul, who Lord Halstow had been so vocal in dismissing as a rake and a wastrel.

      For a second, a shameful second, her heart had leapt. Rhys was free. Then she realised he might be free, but he was also broken-hearted, however well he covered it up. The last thing he needed was his gawky little friend. Thea had bitten her lip and slammed the door firmly on the silly, romantic girl she had been.

      She