Ryan's Bride (20 page)

Puzzled, Ryan looked past him to where a crowd was gathered at the railing. They were staring down and pointing, babbling excitedly.

“What’s going on?” He started toward them.

“There’s been an accident. Don’t go over there.”

“Why not? I want to see.” He tried to sidestep around Corbett but he quickly moved to block him. Ryan scowled, annoyed. “What is wrong with you?”

Corbett put his hands on Ryan’s shoulders.

He was having a very hard time not dancing a jig across the deck.

In fact, he had to speak through clenched teeth to keep from grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s Angele.” He made his voice quiver. “She’s fallen overboard, Ryan. I’m afraid she’s dead.”

Chapter Thirteen

Ryan’s legs felt as though they were made of wood as he walked toward the railing.

Imperiously, Corbett shouted, “Get out of the way! Let him through. That’s his wife down there.”

A chorus of gasps erupted as people leaped back to watch Ryan in sympathy. They were also curious as to how he would react to seeing his wife floating facedown in the water.

Ryan froze, thinking it couldn’t be happening. He had left her only a little while ago. It had to be a mistake.

Corbett touched his arm. “Come on. Let’s go back inside. You don’t need to see her like that.”

Ryan’s chest was heaving. “How come they haven’t pulled her out? How come they’re leaving her down there for everybody to stare at?”

“They just found her a few minutes before you came out on deck. One of the hands saw her when he was on the pier, tying up the ship. He started yelling, and everybody waiting to go ashore went running over there. Me, included. Nobody knew who she was, but then I saw the dress she was wearing.”

Hope was a rosebud, about to burst forth into radiant blossom. “Which dress are you talking about? When was she wearing it?”

“At dinner tonight. The peach gown…” Corbett’s words were lost in the thunder of Ryan’s footsteps as he ran to the railing.

Gripping it tightly, he looked down into the cold black water. The only light came from the men on the pier holding lanterns. But it was enough. And he knew then why Angele had been leaning out the porthole when he went back to the cabin. She was getting rid of the gown so he wouldn’t see how she’d ruined it taking care of the mare.

Ryan started laughing.

Corbett tried to pull him back from the railing and leaned very close to whisper, “Listen, I know it’s a shock, seeing her like that, but you have to tell yourself it might be for the best. I mean, we both know you were impulsive, but we can forget it ever happened…forget you ever met her, much less married her. Denise won’t know. I won’t even tell Clarice. We’ll just forget it. Now come on. You’re scaring everybody by how you’re laughing.”

Ryan shook his head from side to side and slapped his hands up and down on the railing as though he were beating a drum. He continued to chuckle as he watched Angele’s gown bobbing up and down. In the scant light, it did look like a body, head and limbs shadowed and dangling below the surface. It was easy to understand why, at first horrified glance, Corbett had thought it was her.

“Sir, I think you’d better let your friend take you back to your cabin.”

Ryan felt another hand on his other arm. It was the captain, grim-faced and stern.

“We’ll get her out, and when you feel like it, you can go ashore and make whatever arrangements you’d like.” He looked at Corbett. “Or we can bury her at sea. But we can talk about that after he’s had a chance to get hold of himself.”

Ryan thought about just letting them find out for themselves when they fished a soaked—and very empty—gown from the water. But there was no need to prolong the unpleasant situation. “I’m laughing because that’s not my wife down there.”

The captain leaned over the railing to take another look. “But your cousin identified her by her clothing.”

Ryan explained. “That’s just it. That’s only her gown floating down there. Not her. Look closer, and you’ll see.”

The captain, believing Ryan didn’t want to accept the reality of the tragedy, yelled down to the man on the pier, “What’s taking so long? Can’t you get a dock hook out there and pull her in? This poor man up here is losing his mind while everybody stands around watching his wife float, for God’s sake.”

The crewman set the lantern down as someone handed him a long pole with a hook on the end. Holding on to a piling with one hand, he stretched until he was able to snag the gown. Immediately, he yelped, “Well, I’ll be boiled in rum, it’s not a body. Just a gown spread out in the water looking like one.”

Ryan simultaneously slapped his hands on the captain’s and Corbett’s backs. “Close your mouths, gentlemen, before a flying fish sails right in. I told you it wasn’t my wife down there.”

As soon as Ryan and Corbett stepped off the gangplank, Corbett declared that he needed a drink. He also offered an apology in case Ryan thought he’d been callous when he said that Angele’s drowning might have been for the best.

Ryan told him not to worry about it. “You were just trying to help me cope. I know you still have your misgivings about me marrying her, but I appreciate how you’ve accepted her. And I’ll always be grateful for how you saved her life last night.”

Corbett said he was glad he had been there to do it, then added to further smooth things between them, “To tell the truth, when I saw that gown down there, I thought the rowdies had probably been waiting for the chance to finish what they started.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about them, anymore, but I still don’t want her out at night by herself.”

“Have you told her that?”

“Yes, I have.”

Corbett snorted. “Like you told her I’d be taking her about in Paris? A lot of good that did. She sneaked off to meet a man and spent the better part of the day with him. I still can’t get over—”

Ryan cut him off. “There was nothing to it. The man was a stone cutter. She met him to discuss having a marker made for her mother’s grave.

“You didn’t tell me that she met him in a cemetery,” he ended on a slightly accusing note.

So, Corbett thought, it was her mother’s grave. And when the investigator he had hired discovered that, he would gather other information about her, as well. Hopefully, it would be terrible enough that Ryan would have second thoughts about her daughter bearing his children.

Corbett had used what money he had left to pay the investigator, so he had not bought Clarice a gift in Paris. But he didn’t think she would care, because when she found out about Ryan getting married, she was going to be so angry nothing else would matter.

Cherbourg was a busy seaport, and Ryan enjoyed looking around even if Corbett seemed preoccupied. He figured he was either tired, still worried over what had happened—or both. So after a few drinks at a waterfront bar frequented by sun-wrinkled old fishermen, Corbett looked relieved when Ryan said they might as well return to the ship.

Corbett headed for his accommodations in steerage that he constantly complained about, but Ryan lingered on deck to watch the new passengers come on board. They looked harried, as though they’d had to rush to get there.

He stepped forward to introduce himself, speaking French.

The woman looked at her husband with such dismay it was as though she was wondering what else could happen to make her miserable. “I told you no one would speak English on this dreadful boat. That’s why I wanted to sail from Southampton.”

The man had a long, thin nose, and he stared down it in censure. His accent was deeply British, like hers. “You were the one who insisted we spend spring in Paris and then visit your sister in Cherbourg. I wasn’t about to go all the way back to England to take another line, and this isn’t a boat, by the way. It’s a ship, and I wish you’d remember that and not embarrass yourself.”

They were surprised when Ryan spoke next in his native tongue. “Well, you’ll have two people on board you can talk to. My cousin is traveling with me, and he’s American.”

“Thank heavens.” The woman seemed to melt with relief. “This has been such an ordeal. We were supposed to leave days ago, and then they wake us at an ungodly hour to tell us that if we’re still going we have to dress and be at the dock in minutes.

“Forgive me,” she added, embarrassed. “My name is Ramona Wright, and this is my husband, Nicholas.”

The two men shook hands, and Ryan offered to show them the way to their cabin. “I know where it is, because my cousin has been lusting after it. The ship was full, and he’s in steerage and hates it.”

Ramona cooed sympathetically, “What a shame. The poor man. But tell me, can we dine together? I can’t stand the thought of being around a bunch of foreigners all the way.”

Nicholas gave a sigh of disgust. “
They
aren’t foreigners, my dear.
We
are. And you must be tolerant.”

She waved a gloved hand in dismissal. “The only thing I
must
do is get some sleep.” She told Ryan she would probably sleep all day and would look forward to seeing him at dinner.

Ryan thought it would be nice to converse in English for a change. It might also be good for Angele. It bothered him that she seemed so shy around other people, but if she really felt left out due to not understanding what was being said, then she might talk more to the Marceaus, since they only spoke French.

She was asleep when he entered the cabin. He stood looking down at her face, bathed in the lantern’s glow, and thought again how beautiful she truly was. Her ebony hair fanned the pillow, and her long, silky lashes seemed dusted with flecks of gold as they brushed her cheeks.

The sheet had slipped from her shoulder, and as he pulled it back up, his breath caught in his throat to see that she was still naked. Probably she’d been too tired to put on a nightgown.

He felt himself grow hard but would not force himself on her again tonight.

Force.

He shook his head to think of it that way. The only thing he had done—or
tried
to do—was make her accept the fact she was a woman, and that it was perfectly all right for her to enjoy her body and his, as well.

He stripped off his clothes, then spread a blanket on the floor. He was not about to get in bed with her and startle her as he had before.

He was uncomfortable as hell, but there wasn’t much left of the night, anyway, and, after a long time tossing and turning, he fell asleep.

Angele opened first one eye, then the other, saw Ryan lying on the floor, and promptly sat up in bed. “What are you doing down there?” The sheet fell away, and she snatched it back.

He shook himself awake. “I didn’t want to scare you by getting in bed. I was afraid you’d start screaming again.”

She could have told him that would not have happened, because the nightmare hadn’t returned. In fact, she had slept quite well.

“Besides,” he went on to say, “you did a good job of scaring everybody last night yourself.”

She saw something in his gaze. What? Anger? Amusement? She couldn’t be sure. “What did I do?”

He yawned and stretched. “You fell overboard.”

“I did
what
?” He wasn’t making sense. Maybe he wasn’t fully awake yet.

He had rolled himself up in the blanket, and when he pushed it away, she saw he was naked.

She also saw that he was erect and quickly turned her head.

“It’s all right for you to see me this way, Angele,” he said with a touch of annoyance as he got to his feet and reached for his trousers.

“I…I’m still not used to…to any of this,” she managed to say.

“Back to what I said…”

She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Go on. I don’t think I heard you right.”

“You were throwing the gown you tore out the porthole when I came in last night, Weren’t you?”

She gulped, glad she had an excuse not to have to face him. “Why, no.” She managed a nervous giggle, as though it were the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“Because it was torn and dirty. You didn’t want me to see it.”

She felt a ripple of panic. How on earth could he know? It must have floated instead of sinking. They hadn’t been out at sea. The ship had been coming into port at Cherbourg. Someone had probably recognized it as being the gown she’d had on at dinner. Why hadn’t she just stuffed it in the bottom of her trunk?

Finally, she offered the lie, “I fibbed when I said I mended it. The truth is—I don’t know the first thing about sewing, and I was ashamed for you to find out. But I wanted to try, and when I failed, I was embarrassed and wanted to get rid of it.”

Once he had his trousers on and fastened, he walked over to the bed. “How did you tear it?”

“It snagged on something. That’s all.”

“Where?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do. You went down to the horse pens and took a bee stinger out of the mare. Then you tore a strip of doth off your gown, soaked it in vinegar, and wrapped it around her leg. You probably got filthy down there and didn’t want to have to explain to me why, so you decided to just get rid of the dress. Only it didn’t sink. It was so light it floated right up to the pier. Corbett saw it, and since it was too dark to tell there wasn’t a body in it, he came screaming to me that you were dead.”