The Bartered Bride (15 page)

"You seem to love the East deeply. Might you return some day?"

"Perhaps to visit, but not to live." He tried unsuccessfully to skip a flat shell across the water. "I've spent most of the last dozen years at my house in Macao, or living on a narrow slice of waterfront in Canton, or sailing among the islands. It's been exciting and demanding and rewarding, but I feel as if ... as if this phase of my life is over. It's time for a change. There will be no shortage of challenges in England."

"You seem to regard England as a grim trial rather than a longed-for destination." She sidestepped an aggressive wave. "What draws you to a place that makes you uncomfortable?" He hesitated, wondering how much to say. There was no need to mention the score he needed to settle with a man who'd tried to ruin him for no good reason, but she deserved to know the family reasons.

"My father left England in disgrace. His family was infuriated when he 'married beneath him,' even though my mother's birth was perfectly respectable. He was disowned by his father."

"That's why you hate the English class system so much?"

"Yes, and there's also more to my father's story. He was in the navy, and after a disastrous battle with the French his superiors put the blame on him because he no longer had any family support. He barely escaped court martial. In recognition of past service, he was allowed to resign his commission, and we sailed for America."

"So the lure of the sea was bred into you," she said thoughtfully. "Did your father ever make peace with his family?"

"No. I look forward to arriving in London, walking into the family home, and announcing to my grandfather that I'm the black sheep's son."

She glanced at him, eyes worried under the shadow of the hat brim. "If you want to be accepted by your father's family, belligerence might not be the best way to do it."

"I have no desire to be accepted by a pack of intolerant bigots. I just want to show them that I exist. My grandfather's condemnation didn't destroy my father's life, and matters nothing to me." He smiled at the vision he'd held for years. "I look forward to planting myself in London as a rich, vulgar American, and explaining to anyone who's interested that I'm a bent twig of the tree of Elliott." She laughed. "That's rather wicked of you. I should think the pleasures of revenge would soon grow old, though."

"Revenge is too strong a word-justice would be more accurate. But most of my reasons for settling in England are good, practical business ones. Elliott House needs a London office, and I have enough friends and rivals there to make the city interesting." Friends, rivals, and one genuine enemy. Katie came racing back with her hands full of shells. "Look, Mama!"

"How pretty these shells are!" Alex knotted them into a comer of her sarong. "I suppose you're going to collect more?"

Laughter floating behind her, Katie ran off to do exactly that. Gazing on her daughter, Alex said softly, "I would be very saddened if my family disowned me. Did your father really shrug off his family's disapproval so easily? "

"To be honest, no," Gtivin admitted. "There was a sadness in him after we left England. He never spoke of the past, except once when he told me that the navy charges against him were nonsense. A few years ago I hired someone to look into the battle that destroyed his career. The investigator confirmed that my father was not to blame-in fact, his actions probably prevented the disaster from being even worse. But truth doesn't much matter when the authorities want a scapegoat."

"How did your mother feel about being forced to leave her homeland? "

"She regretted leaving friends and family, but she had an adventurous spirit, and America appealed to her."

"You're obviously your mother's son." Alex hesitated. "You said they're both dead."

"My mother always sailed with my father-she said they'd been separated too often when he was in the navy." Gavin swallowed, not immune to the pain even now. "They were on their way home from the Caribbean when a hurricane drove the ship onto an offshore reef. There were ... no survivors." Alex touched his hand. "I'm so sorry, Gavin."

"The sea is a dangerous mistress. She gives, and she takes." The words were stoic, but he clasped her hand for a moment before releasing it.

Ahead of them, a wave knocked Katie from her feet and rolled her along the sloping sand. Though she didn't seem endangered, Alex caught up her skirts and skipped off to retrieve her daughter. Katie emerged from the water sputtering and totally soaked, but beaming. After pulling her above the water line, Alex enfolded Katie in a hug even though the embrace soaked her clothing. Sunshine and sand shimmered around the pair, creating an image Gavin would never forget. Madonna and child. Unconditional love and youthful innocence. He was struck with a paralyzing burst of longing. He wanted to be part of that circle of love and acceptance. For too much of his life he'd been alone.

Building Elliott House had absorbed him-that and the desire to prove himself to the faceless family who'd cast off his father. He'd accomplished much through unrelenting hard work, but when he looked back at his life, it wasn't wealth and success that gave him satisfaction, but memories of Helena and the happiness they'd shared. He wanted that kind of happiness again.

He wanted Alex. He wanted her strength and loyalty, and Katie's sunny sweetness, and the chance of other children. He wanted to be part of a family. He had a mental image of Alex's parents-a bluff, hearty colonel stepfather, the loving mother whose only flaw was being too perfect. Half brothers and sister. A real family, bound by love and laughter and arguments. He wanted desperately to be one of them.

Giggling, Alex and Katie turned to walk toward him, arms around each other's waists. They were damp and draggled and so beautiful they made him ache. Trying not to notice the way Alex's damp garments clung to her lithe form, he met them with a smile. "Time we head back, before Katie is burned by the sun."

They ambled back to the prau, Katie collecting still more shells, while he reminded himself that Alex had not yet recovered from her months of captivity. Probably there would always be emotional scars. If he was to win her, he'd have to be patient, because making an advance too soon might drive her away forever.

Luckily, he was very good at patience.

Skin pinkened by the sun and tired from the day's adventure, Alex and Katie retired early that night. Katie fell asleep with the ease of childhood. Alex didn't, but tonight she didn't mind wakefulness. Gavin was such good company. Every inch a man, he was so sure of himself that he could be comfortable with women. Though she guessed that he was still haunted by their forced intimacy, he wasn't allowing it to cripple him. Time healed, and the farther they sailed from Maduri, the more unreal the Lion Game seemed.

She had a swift vision of him laughing, his gray eyes as intimate as a kiss. The memory brought a stirring of desire, a feeling she'd thought was gone forever. Immediately she quashed it. She wasn't going to fall in love again, especially not with Gavin. If he decided to remarry, London had plenty of lovely young women for him to choose from.

She rolled onto her side, quelling that disturbing image, but she couldn't fully suppress that unwelcome pulse of desire, and no wonder-Gavin was the most attractive man she'd ever met, and they knew each other in ways most people never experienced. Unfortunately, desire was intertwined with fear and pain and hatred. With suffocating weight and an unwanted invasion of her most intimate self ... Her breathing quickened with anxiety, and her stomach began to roil. Swearing under her breath, she rose and opened a window so she could breathe fresh sea air.

The full moon poured silver over the waves, a primal image of peace and tranquility. Even if praus full of pirates showed up, she'd feel safe with Gavin in charge of the ship. He'd never have allowed the post-storm laxness that had led to the capture of the Amstel.

Feeling better, she said goodnight to the moon and started to turn away. Then she stopped. A full moon.

How long had it been since her courses? She tried to calculate, but it wasn't necessary. She knew in her bones why she'd been ill so often, felt so fatigued and emotional. The horror of Maduri had reached out to snare her once more.

She was pregnant.

A storm was moving in, so Gavin went aloft to help take in most of the sails. When the work was done, he lingered in the rigging to enjoy the view and the pleasant burn of well-used muscles. At this height there was an exhilarating swing as the ship cut through the swells of the Indian Ocean. They'd seen no other sails for days. The world was reduced to wide sea and wider sky and the secure creak of the ship's timbers.

Seven bells struck. Eleven thirty in the morning, time to get his sextant and shoot the sun to check their position. They'd been making good time. If the winds held, they'd be in England by early summer. He swung his way down to the deck, and found Katie watching with big eyes. "I didn't know that the captain went aloft," she said.

"The master of a ship doesn't have to, but he can if he wants to," Gavin explained. "I rather enjoy working the sails when I have the time."

Katie eyed the crisscrossed lines of the main rigging. "Can I learn how to do it? "

"No," Alex said as she joined her daughter. Her glance fell upon Gavin's casual, open-throated shirt and slid away. "It takes a great deal of strength to climb the rigging, doesn't it, Captain?"

"Yes, boys don't usually start working on shipboard until they're at least twelve. But I can show you how to shoot the sun with a sextant," he added when Katie looked disappointed. Perking up, she asked her mother, "May I?"

"By all means-it's educational." Though Alex smiled at her daughter, her face was strained and there were dark smudges under her eyes.

Gavin had thought their picnic on the beach marked a breakthrough for Alex, but ever since that day she'd been getting thinner and quieter. Perhaps that was the effect of recurrent seasickness, or perhaps the closer they came to England, the more she worried about her reception. A deep sense of shame, even if it was undeserved, would make it hard to face family and friends. On Maduri he might have asked her what was wrong and received a straight answer, but the closeness they'd shared was gone. He missed having Alex as a friend. It was also damned difficult to gently woo a woman who kept him at a distance despite the close quarters on the Helena. Katie enjoyed her lesson on the sextant. "You'd make a fine sailor," he remarked after she correctly read the angle.

She smiled at the compliment but shook her head. "I like being on land, Captain Elliott. Days are too much alike on shipboard."

"Today will be different because we're sailing into a storm. Once the wind comes up and it starts to rain, you'll need to go below." Seeing worry in Alex's eyes, he added, "It's nothing the Helena can't weather easily."

"The ship will do well. I'm not so sure about my stomach."

She was right to be concerned-the storm would give her an uncomfortable night. "Try not to lie down-that usually increases the vertigo."

"Fresh air helps, too." She gave him a wry smile. "Don't worry about me. I've survived worse." So she had, but that didn't mean he wouldn't worry about her.

Flashing lightning, pounding thunder, lashing rain. Alex's stomach hated the storm even more than the rest of her did. Though she'd spent enough time at sea to know the ship was in no danger, this was the worst weather she'd endured since the disastrous tempest that led to the capture of the Amstel. Even as she chatted and played games with Katie, her mind obsessively remembered that storm and its aftermath. Since the galley fire had been extinguished for safety's sake, the evening meal was dry biscuits and cold tea. Bored and sleepy, Katie retired early. Alex tucked blankets and pillows tightly around her daughter to keep her secure in the bed, but she wasn't ready for sleep herself. Not only would lying down turn her nausea into full, roiling sickness, but she was drained by the effort of staying cheerful in front of Katie.

The hours passed slowly as she sat in Gavin's heavy chair, which was secured to the floor with bars to hold it steady against the ship's pitching. The drumming rain and howling wind were occasionally punctuated by the indignant squawking of poultry, whose cages had been taken below before the storm. She didn't blame them for complaining; she felt the same way.

Finally, in the hours past midnight, the storm began to abate. Craving fresh air, she pulled on the cloak she'd made out of ship's cloth and peered out the door. The silent passage lined with officer's cabins was empty, so she slipped out and climbed up to the deck. In the darkness, her navy cloak shielded her from the gaze of solicitous sailors who would tell her to return to her cabin. Though the storm had diminished, enough savage energy remained to suit her mood. She scanned the deck. Usually members of the watch who weren't actively working gathered on the forecastle, but with rain still slashing across the deck, they'd taken shelter in the lee of the galley, so she was unlikely to be noticed if she passed on the windward side of the ship.

Hanging onto the railing, she made her way through the pelting rain to the privacy of the bow, occasionally getting splashed as water rolled over the deck. Everything loose had been secured or taken below like the chickens, and the ship carried only enough sail to keep it steady. When she reached the bow, she braced both hands on the railing as the Helena slid into the troughs of waves, then rose triumphantly again. It was almost like riding a spirited horse, but on horseback, she always felt powerful and in control. Now she was a mere passenger, dependent on the skill of the Helena's crew.

Underneath her was the ship's figurehead. Instead of the usual buxom female, the carving showed a blond, angelic woman modeled on the real Helena Elliott. A lady to respect and cherish and adore, not a bawdy tavern wench.

Despairingly Alex realized that she had neither the purity of the beloved wife nor the honest sensuality of the tavern wench. She was returning home a ruined woman, shamefully pregnant far too long after her husband had died. Without the traitorous testimony of her body, the missing months in the Indies could have been quietly ignored, with no one having to know what had happened to her. Now she would be revealed to the world as a slut or a victim. She wasn't sure which thought she hated more. She studied the dark, churning waves, mesmerized by their angry grandeur. Would she even survive to return home? She'd been buoyantly healthy when carrying Katie, but now she was constantly unwell. How much of her illness was from the sea voyage, how much from the pregnancy, and how much her fear of the future? She was at the limit of her strength, tired every minute of every day, exhausted by the effort to be the mother Katie deserved.