Smuggler's Kiss by Marie-Louise Jensen Read Free Book Online Page A

recognized him. I wondered why he had disguised himself. Perhaps it had something to do with the haunting.
    ‘Just hurry, will you?’ he ordered. ‘Or the building will be haunted by the body of a girl in breeches and not a bride at all.’
    Ignoring his threat, I followed him in silence past a small village church built of grey stone and up a lane to a tumbledown old house. It was clearly abandoned. Weeds ran riot in the neglected garden and there were gaping holes where windows had once been. It looked like a face with empty eyes, staring at me in the dusk.
    Will forced open a creaking, broken door into what must have once been the kitchen. Pieces of broken furniture lay scattered about. The room was dirty and smelled of mice.
    Will abstracted my gown from the sack he’d been carrying and threw it to me. ‘Time to transform yourself,’ he whispered. I caught it and glared at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ he taunted. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of being your maid!’
    He left and I began to pull the gown out of the sack, dreading the task ahead. I struggled out of the repulsive breeches I’d been wearing for the past few days and into the bride gown. Patches of it were still damp and it clung clammily to my skin. Putting it on once more, this time alone in the dirt and squalor of a ruin, raised all sorts of strange emotions in me. I remembered how I’d felt last time. Not overjoyed precisely. But excited, hopeful. And now? I was helping to protect a gang of thugs engaged in an illegal trade. My fortunes had fallen below what I could have believed possible.
    I’d tied on my hoops and my petticoats as best I could and donned my gown before Will appeared. I looked over my shoulder at him, half afraid to ask him to hook up my gown behind. Luckily, he stepped up behind me without a word and began to fasten it. When it was done, I turned and found he was offering me a small bag. ‘What is it?’ I asked.
    ‘Chalk, to whiten your face. At the moment, you look to be in excellent health. We need you to look dead.’
    I accorded his joke a small smile. Tentatively, I dipped my fingers in the chalk and smeared the dust onto my face. It felt slightly greasy and unpleasant. Will shook the bag a little. ‘We don’t have all night,’ he said.
    I took a handful and rubbed it all over my face, working it into the skin, rubbing it down across the portion of my chest that was exposed too. I even rubbed it over my hands and forearms.
    Will looked at me critically. He produced another small bag and dipped finger and thumb into it. ‘Soot,’ he explained in answer to my puzzled look. ‘To make you look really scary if they get up close.’
    With a few deft touches of his thumb, he smoothed the soot under my eyes. He was gentle for the first time since I’d met him, and the action brought unwanted tears to my eyes. I blinked them away, reminding myself he hated me. His touch might be gentle but it certainly wasn’t tender. He stepped back and looked critically at me again. ‘Good. You’ll do now. Do you have the veil?’
    Veil in place, arranged over my tumbled, cut-about hair that most definitely did not resemble a bride, I clumped outside after Will. ‘No one who catches a glimpse of these boots will believe I’m a genuine ghost for one instant,’ I muttered. ‘Or at least not a ghost with the slightest fashion sense.’
    Will chuckled. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh in a way that wasn’t mocking. ‘They’re hidden by the gown and the long grass,’ he said after watching me walk. ‘If you’re really concerned about it, you could take them off. A barefoot bride would be quite poignant, you know.’
    I remembered walking into the sea just a few nights ago, all hope gone, my shoes left behind me on the beach, and swallowed hard. ‘No, I thank you,’ I retorted, trying to shake off the powerful memory. ‘It’s freezing cold, the grass is wet and probably full of slugs.’
    Will merely shrugged.