Ryan's Bride (15 page)

So here she was, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, married to a man who doubtless wished he’d never laid eyes on her. She was just going to have to try to please him, no matter how it sickened her. He wanted more than submission, and she shuddered to wonder what that meant. Now she wished she had dared to ask intimate questions of the girls at school who seemed to know more than they should. Then she would know what her husband expected of her but doubted even then she would be able to perform to his satisfaction.

She was almost to the stern when two men came stumbling along. From the glow of a boxed lantern hanging nearby, she saw they were sharing a bottle of whiskey, passing it back and forth between them. She tried to shrink back in the shadows, but one of them spotted her.

“Eh. Leon.” He spoke in French to his companion. “What do we have here?”

The one named Leon squinted. “A lady,” he said. “A pretty little lady in a pretty little dress.” He hiccupped. “Something tells me we’re not in steerage. Something tells me, Benny, my friend, that we have strayed into the forbidden territory of the rich, and, my, my, aren’t they lovely?”

They laughed together and staggered toward her.

Angele mustered all her bravado. “That’s right. You
are
somewhere you don’t belong, and if you don’t leave this instant, I’m going to scream. Then you’ll be caught and beaten and put in a dungeon.” She had no idea if that were true, but the men believed it. They exchanged frantic looks, then turned and ran back the way they’d come.

She moved faster, wanting to reach the bulkhead before she ran into anyone else. Maybe there, shielded from the wind, she could sit down and fall asleep. In the morning, everything would be better.

Or so she hoped.

Corbett had suspected something was wrong when Ryan appeared in the smoking salon. After growling that he wanted to be left alone, he had gone to a table in a far corner and sipped moodily on a glass of brandy.

Finally, curiosity gnawing, Corbett decided to pay Angele a visit. By pretending to be concerned because Ryan was upset, maybe he could find out from her what had happened. She probably wouldn’t tell him about anything so personal, but there was always the chance she might need a shoulder to cry on. And, if she and Ryan were seriously at odds with each other, maybe then Ryan would be ready to admit he’d made a big mistake. They were due to dock at the port of Cherbourg the next day, and Ryan could put her off there. As for the legality of the marriage, Corbett reasoned Ryan could go on as though it had never happened. He could tear up the papers, and no one would ever know. Simple. Easy. And when they got home, he could propose to Denise. She would accept. And they would have a lavish wedding and live happily ever after.

Corbett chuckled. Maybe not
happily
, but what difference did it make? He wasn’t really happy with Clarice, but she served a purpose.

And another reason he would like to see Ryan get rid of Angele was so he could share the cabin with his cousin the rest of the way. It didn’t matter if he did have the run of the ship. He still had to sleep in steerage.

He rounded a corner just in time to see Angele leaving her cabin. She didn’t notice him as she turned in the opposite direction. He decided to let her go and follow to see where she was going. Maybe she had a man on board she was off to rendezvous with. Nothing she did would surprise him.

When she had encountered the steerage rowdies on deck, Corbett hung back in the shadows to watch. Maliciously, he was hoping they would throw her overboard, which would solve everything. Ryan, noble bastard that he could be sometimes, wouldn’t have to feel guilty over sending her back. She just disappeared at sea, that was all. Life would go on according to plan—
his
plan.

But Corbett was stunned to see how she had stood up to the men. They slunk away like scolded puppies, and he realized she had more spunk than he’d thought. She might even be able to stand up to Clarice—or anyone else who got in the way of her good fortune in marrying well. She could cause all kinds of trouble, and he realized he might just have a formidable foe on his hands.

He moved slowly. The wind was really too strong to be out on deck. He saw how Angele reached out to steady herself, sometimes staggering backward a few steps. For her to be out meant she was also upset over whatever had happened between her and Ryan.

Corbett was not sure exactly when the idea struck. Perhaps it had been there all the time, or maybe it had germinated when he’d had the wild hope the two rowdies would take care of the problem for him. But suddenly it blossomed and rapidly bloomed.

He
would push her overboard.

And it looked as though she was going to make it very easy for him to do.

As she drew closer to the stern, she fought the wind to cross the deck to the railing. Sliding her hands along it, Corbett could see she was heading for the bulkhead. It was probably her plan to hide there, unseen, and worry everybody. Well, he would just help her along with wanting to cause distress…
all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Ryan told the waiter he didn’t want another drink. Sometimes he did imbibe too much when he was worried about something, but not when it was important. Like tonight. He wanted a clear head so he could try to figure out what had gone wrong and how he might make it right.

It would be so easy to just say to hell with her, he mused not for the first time. She was a liar, a sneak, a thief, and maybe immoral, to boot. And though she didn’t want to talk about her past, it was obvious she was uneducated and had no culture and little refinement. So why in hell, then, did he think he could take her home to Virginia and pass her off as a well-born, well-bred French lady, worthy of having offspring to carry on the respected name of Tremayne? He had to be the world’s biggest fool.

He could have bought Denise an expensive gift, proposed to her when he got home, and she would have said yes this time. But now, thanks to a moment of temporary insanity, he felt he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and didn’t know what in hell to do about it.

But there was one harsh fact he had to accept—Angele was his wife now. Regardless of her past, she was his responsibility. He had no one to blame for his predicament but himself, and it was up to him to make the best of it. For starters, he needed to resolve to be more patient and tolerant, as well as apologize to her for the way he’d acted earlier and give her a chance to explain herself.

The smoking salon was almost empty. A glance at the clock on the wall told him why. It was nearly one a.m. He paid for his brandy and left, wondering where Corbett had disappeared to. It wouldn’t have surprised him if he had bedded down in the salon to keep from sleeping in steerage.

All was quiet and still as he walked toward the cabin. If Angele were asleep, he would not wake her up. They could talk in the morning. He would bed down in a chair with a blanket. He didn’t want to chance frightening her again by crawling in bed with her.

The steward had given them two keys, and he and Angele each had one. He just hoped she hadn’t thrown the bolt inside or he would have to wake her whether he wanted to or not. But the key turned, and the door opened easily. Stepping inside, he moved to close it, then did a quick double take.

The bed was empty.

With rising panic, Ryan rushed out, looking right and left as though expecting to see her innocently appear from a night stroll on deck.

The ship gave a sudden, sharp lurch, and he caught the hand railing to steady himself. It was too rough for her to be out, and he cursed himself for having left her when she was so upset.

He thought about sounding an alarm but decided to take one quick look on deck to see if he could find her himself.

Pushing against the heavy door to the outside, he saw that the wind was much worse than he’d thought. He remembered her comment about the stern being a perfect place to go if somebody wanted to be alone, and, no doubt, that’s where he would find her. But if he didn’t, he would wake the whole damn ship to help search for her.

Reminding himself once more that she was his responsibility, he brushed aside the thought that his concern might be motivated by another reason—that he cared for her more than he wanted to admit.

He ducked his head against the heavy gusts and was swallowed up by the night.

Angele could hear waves washing behind the ship as it cut through the water. Staring down, she was looking into a black abyss and could see nothing but imagined she was gazing into the past she seemed unable to escape.

She would have to put it all behind her, she vowed for probably the hundredth time. Her future was as bright as the dawn that would eventually rip away the night. She would make it happen by trying very, very hard—to please her husband, to make her new family like her. And she wanted children. Lord, yes, she wanted to be a mother, to love and be loved in return. Ryan would make a good father. She sensed that somehow. And everything was going to turn out all right, because she would not allow it to be any other way.

First, she would settle down by the bulkhead and try to sleep. Then, when she awoke, she would return to the cabin and tell Ryan as much as she dared—taking the money she had saved on the luggage to pay for her mother’s marker, meeting Mr. Montague—all of it. And she would also manage to offer some kind of explanation as to why she was not the virgin he had obviously hoped she would be.

Now, she needed to rest, so she could think clearly, frame her words for the best possible understanding, and she was so terribly, terribly tired…

Corbett could barely make her out as she stood at the railing, a dark figure against a blackened sky.

He knew it was now or never.

Lunging from the shadows, he ran at her, placed his palms flat on her back and shoved.

She screamed and toppled over but managed to hook her arm about the middle rail and fight to hold on.

A loud voice rang out from somewhere close by. “What’s wrong? Who’s that screaming?”

Corbett’s blood ran cold.

It was Ryan.

“Angele, was that you? Where are you? Answer me, damn it…”

Corbett thought fast. He saw that Angele was hanging on, but there was no time to make her let go and fall to her death as he wanted. Neither was there time for him to escape without Ryan seeing him. There was only one thing to do, and he did it.

Grabbing her, he pulled her up as he cried, “Thank God I was nearby and saw those rowdies bump into somebody. I didn’t know it was you.” He set her on her feet, his voice all kind, all caring. “Goodness, Angele, are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I—”

But her words were cut off by Ryan whipping around the bulkhead. “Who’s there? I can’t see—”

“It’s Angele,” Corbett was quick to tell him, appearing properly upset. “Some rowdies from steerage bumped into her, nearly knocked her overboard. I got worried about her when I saw you in the salon and went to check on her. When she didn’t answer my knock I went looking for her. That’s when I saw them and heard her scream. I’m going after them! They went that way.” He pointed. “You see to her. I don’t think she’s hurt.”

Thrusting her into Ryan’s arms, he hurried away as though chasing the men responsible for the evil deed. Actually, he was heading back to steerage to find the bottle he had stashed under his bunk, because he had never needed a drink more in his life than he did right then.

Ryan gripped Angele’s shoulders, trying to see her in the dark. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“I’m fine, just scared. And I don’t know what happened. Someone bumped into me, and I fell over the railing. I didn’t hear a sound. If not for Corbett, I’d be…” Her voice trailed off as she shuddered with horror.

“It must have been one of the two men I frightened away earlier,” she added.

“What are you talking about?”

She told him about the brief encounter, remarking that she hadn’t thought she made them angry enough to want to harm her.

“You never know when men are drunk what they’re thinking, or what they’ll do. But you’re safe, and that’s all that matters. Now, let’s get you inside. You’re cold.”

Back in the cabin, over her protests, he rang for the steward and asked him to bring a glass of warm Cognac. “It will help you relax,” he told her. “You’ve had a bad experience.”

She undressed behind the screen, put on her nightgown, and got into bed.

When the Cognac arrived, she sipped it propped against the pillows. “You were right. It is relaxing me. Thank you for being so thoughtful.”

Pulling up a chair, he sat beside the bed and looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have treated you like I did. I had no right to expect—”

“Yes, you did,” she disputed. “Especially after I lied to you. But I couldn’t help it. Something happened to me once that I’d rather not talk about. I know you probably don’t believe me, and I can’t blame you, but that’s how it is. I’m not immoral. I never have been and never will be.”

He so wanted to believe her. “Well, you don’t have to talk about it. And now I’m just grateful Corbett was there to save you.”