The Perfect Stranger (17 page)

Faith huddled down in the bedclothes, smelling the faint scent of his body on the sheets. For years she had been like the child in the story, pressing her cold nose against the glass; only she gazed hungrily not at food, but at the glowing private worlds of lovers. Words that echoed with hidden intimate meanings, glances that caressed and made private promises. She had been waiting years for her turn to love and be loved.

She had a choice to make, here and now: live in the ruins of her past or make a new future. Yearn pointlessly for what could not be or try to build something practical and real.

She hadn’t married a dream; she’d married Nicholas Blacklock, a stern, hard, honorable man. And if he had depths that alarmed her, other aspects of him touched her.

Nicholas Blacklock might have no feelings for her, but he desired her. And though it embarrassed her to admit it, his desire was not unwelcome. She swallowed. She would never forget the feeling of waking up pressed to his big, hard, aroused body. And the blaze of desire that had lit his eyes, before he sternly banked it down.

Desire.
Many marriages started with less.

“Women are apt to spin fantasies out of moonbeams.”

Was she spinning another fantasy? It was her weakness, she knew. She’d spun them all her life. Yet, without fantasy, without hope that things could get better, life would be just a matter of grim endurance.

The more Faith thought about it, the more Faith believed that if they tried—really tried—she and Nicholas Blacklock could make a life together; not a foolish golden fantasy, but something solid and workable. Something real.

And perhaps…She closed her eyes and, hugging her knees, sent up a silent prayer for a child. She longed for a child. She needed so desperately to love.

They reached the wharf before Faith plucked enough courage to tell him. “I’m not going back to England.”

He came to a sudden halt. “Nonsense!”

“I’m coming with you.”

He looked taken aback. “You can’t come with me. Now get on that ship at once.”

Faith said nervously, “If it’s money you’re worried about, I—I come into some money on marriage. I will send a copy of our marriage lines to England and my, um, trustee will send some money to wherever I am. So you see, it will not cost you very much extra.”

He said stiffly, “Money is not the issue!”

“Then what is?”

He gave her a look of frustration, then glanced at the people crowding onto the wharf. “Madam, I will not stand here and bandy words with you. Remember what I said to you this morning about the purpose of our arrangement. You can’t come, and that’s that.”

“I will not be returned to England like an unwanted piece of baggage.”

“It’s what we agreed! You are to make your home with my mother.”

“You agreed. I didn’t.” She laid an arm on his sleeve and said earnestly, “I can’t take everything from you and give back nothing.”

He said in his deadly quiet, officer whiplash voice, “You will board that vessel now, Mrs. Blacklock!”

Faith lifted her chin, screwed her courage to the sticking point, and said, “I refuse to go.” She braced herself. For such a piece of impertinence, Grandpapa would have knocked her flat.

Nicholas Blacklock gave her one look and picked her up. Ignoring her struggles, he marched up the gangway and onto the deck. “Blacklock. Private cabin,” he snapped to a seaman watching goggle-eyed. He followed the man to a cabin, apparently oblivious of Faith’s fists pounding his back and her toes kicking at him.

He dumped her unceremoniously onto a narrow bunk and said, “Your fare is paid. Your baggage will follow.” Before she could get her breath back he tossed a leather pouch onto the bunk beside her and said, “There should be enough money here to hire a private coach to take you to Blacklock, for any accommodation you may require on the way, and for any other needs you may have. Here also is a letter that contains a draft on my bank for whatever you may need. I have left all the necessary letters of introduction with the captain. I have also made arrangements for him to assist you in Dover with the hiring of a coach, a chaperone, and outriders.”

“But I don’t want to go to England. I want to stay with you. Oh why can’t—”

“You are spinning nonsensical fantasies, madam.”

“I’m not!” Faith declared passionately. “I want to build a future with you. I’m sure we can if we tr—”

“We have
no future
, madam!” His voice was hard, cold, and implacable, his eyes bleak and empty. “Get that through your head;
you and I have no future
. It is quite impossible!”

“How do you know if you don’t try?”

“I know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at her, his gray eyes boring into her, silently bending her to his will. He moderated his tone. “Now, let us not make this a parting of hard words and futile argument.”

“But—” Faith tossed her head, frustrated.

“You know what we agreed, madam. Let us kiss and part with dignity and goodwill. You will regret it if you don’t.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. He was absolutely right. She would regret it. “Very well,” she said at last. “Kiss me then.”

He kissed her, hard and briefly, as if it meant nothing to him. But it shivered through her as it had each time, and she couldn’t help but weep.

It was better this way, Nick told himself for the twentieth time, trying to banish from his memory the picture of a pair of big blue eyes awash with tears and a mouth soft and trembling with emotion. When he’d finished kissing her, he’d used his handkerchief to dry her cheeks, knowing he was prolonging the moment.

Her tears had dried easily, he reminded himself. He would soon be nothing but a memory to her, a chance-met stranger who’d helped her and sent her home to safety. She could build her future without him.

“Do you want to make camp tonight, Cap’n, or will ye stay in an inn?”

Mac had cheered right up once they’d left Calais. Nick hadn’t waited to watch Faith sailing away. He’d marched down the gangway without a backward look, fetched the men and horses from the inn, paid his shot to the landlord and, ignoring the questions about the whereabouts of his bride, had ridden out of town. His journey had finally begun.

“Camp, I think,” Nick responded. “It looks as if it’s going to be a fine and mild night.” They’d passed through Boulogne, and the glitter of the sea was visible between the curves of the horizon. Tomorrow they’d turn inland and head south, toward Spain. It was longer this way, but Nick had a fondness for the sea. It was so fresh and clean, and in some mysterious way he felt it renewed his spirit.

Mac threw him a glance. “Ye did the right thing, Cap’n, freein’ yeself o’ that wee entanglement. Women tie a man in knots. It’s best to be shed o’ them.”

Nick didn’t respond.

“I don’t know; I miss her,” chimed in Stevens. “She had some mighty sweet and pretty ways about her, Miss Faith did.”

“Aye, all women have sweet ways, and it’s best for a mon tae stay clear o’ the whole pack o’ them,” Mac said sourly.

“Miss Faith was one of the good ones,” Stevens insisted. “Mr. Nick couldn’t have picked himself a better girl, not out of the whole of London, I reckon.”

Mac made a rude sound.

“Precious few young ladies would’ve faced up to that old griffin lady, let alone to defend someone like me the way Miss Faith did.” Stevens’s voice sounded a bit thick. He was touched.

As well he might, thought Nick. She’d been more willing to defend Stevens than she was to defend herself. As if she thought Stevens didn’t deserve the treatment Lady Brinckat had dealt him, but she somehow did. Nick’s fists tightened around the reins. That Bulgarian bastard had a great deal to account for.

“Aye, it was good she stood up for ye, and I honor her for it,” Mac said in a begrudging voice. “But that doesn’t mean the Cap’n had to marry—”

“Enough, both of you!” Nick snapped. “My marriage is behind me now, and that’s where it will remain. The subject is closed, for now and the future.”

The men rode on in silence, but after about five minutes Stevens, his voice rich with amusement, said, “Mr. Nick, your marriage may be behind you, and your bride is, too—only not quite as far as you thought. Look.”

“What?”
Nick slewed around in his saddle, following the direction of Stevens’s pointing finger. To his stupefaction, he saw his bride of a day, not more than a few hundred yards away, mounted on a bay horse and wearing a slate-gray riding habit. She was cantering toward them.

He swore. “Stay here,” he ordered his men. “I will deal with this.” He galloped to meet her.

“Where the devil do you think you’re going?” he roared the moment he’d reached her. And regretted it instantly.

His shout, combined with the way he’d thundered down to meet them, frightened her horse. It reared and plunged in alarm. Nick reached out to try to grab its rein and control it, but it danced out of reach. It reared again. His heart was in his mouth. Good God, he might have killed her. He watched helplessly.

He was furious, Faith saw as she fought to control her mount. With himself now, as well as her. She hadn’t expected any different. Her heart was pounding, and it wasn’t because of her horse. Men did not take well to outright defiance.

By the time she’d brought her horse under control, they’d both calmed. The moment her horse stood trembling, all four feet on the ground, Nicholas dismounted and pulled her from the saddle. In silence he tied the reins of both horses to a bush, then stalked over to Faith and grabbed her by the upper arms.

He repeated his question, only this time in a lower voice. He sounded shaken but still furious. “What the devil do you think you’re doing here? I left you on that blasted ship! You should be nearly in England by now!”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to go. I told you.”

He swore and gave her a small shake. “For God’s sake why not?”

Faith chose her words deliberately. She’d rehearsed them all the way. “I married you yesterday. I am your wife, and ‘whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou—’”

He cut her off angrily. “Don’t spout that nonsense at me—”

“It is not nonsense! You are my husband and—”

“Only on paper.”

She shook off his hand and declared passionately, “Not only. I experienced a false marriage once, and I don’t intend to live a second one. Yesterday in that beautiful little church I made my vows before God and our friends. And I intend to honor them.”

“We are traveling overland on a rough journey, woman!”

She nodded. “I know. You plan to travel through Spain and Portugal, sleeping on beaches and in stables. And I will travel with you.” Her voice softened, “‘Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou—’”

“Will you stop quoting that at me, damn-dash it all!” Nicholas clenched his fists in frustration. The catch in her voice was most unsettling. That, and the incipient sheen of tears in those big blue eyes as she stood there, shaking like a little leaf, defying him with biblical quotes. Damn, damn, damn! He’d never been any good with women. Men and animals, that’s what he understood.

“It will be a very hard life. You have no conception of how hard.”

“I am tougher than I look,” she said, and he recalled that she had walked all the way from Montreuil to Calais. He also recalled the state of her delicate little feet at the end of that journey, and he hardened his heart.

“We will travel long hours on horseback, without the comfort of a carriage.”

She gestured to her horse. “As you see, I can ride. I will do my best not to slow you down.”

He ground his teeth. He knew she could ride—damn well as it happened. But it wasn’t about slowing people down, it was about her having to endure discomfort and hardship. When she did not need to. “We will travel in all weathers, sun and rain, and there may even be snow in the mountains. We’ll be living as soldiers do: sleeping out of doors, in all sorts of weather.”

She nodded. “I understand. I can be a soldier’s wife.”

“It will be dangerous. Risky. Perilous.”

“Yes, I realize that.”

Nick shook his head. The stubborn little wretch. She’d barely survived one appallingly dangerous journey. And he didn’t want her to risk herself again, dammit!

“What you experienced was
nothing
compared to what awaits us on this journey! If you have any sort of a brain you’ll take yourself back to safety! I’ll send Stevens to escort you.”

“No, thank you.” She said it as if he’d offered her a piece of cake.

Nick threw up his hands in disgust. “Dammit, Faith, you’d have a very much safer, more pleasant time of it if you went to my mother.” And he would be a lot happier. Well, if not happier, less—less
bothered.

She shook her head. “I didn’t marry your mother. I married you.” She took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it. “Please let me come with you.”

Nick stared at her, frustrated. Now she’d got the bit of a blasted biblical heroine between her teeth, there was going to be no stopping her, he saw. Blasted women and their blasted fantasies, spun out of the veriest blasted nothing. He should never have kissed her!

“Let me try, at least. If I cannot keep up, then you can send me away.” She hesitated, then added, “You spoke before about regrets; if I went home now, I would always regret it.”

“Why? There is no point in you coming. We have no future together, you and I.”

She said nothing, but he could see she didn’t believe him.

“I feel nothing for you!” he insisted.

“I wouldn’t want you to feel obliged to feel anything,” she responded. “I’m not asking you to love me. I’m telling you I’m coming with you.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes at her stubbornness, noting the change from asking to telling. Defeat stared him in the face. Why would any woman willingly take a long, uncomfortable, dangerous journey, sleeping on the ground and facing all sorts of perils when she could live in comfort—luxury!—with his mother?

He recalled the bolster in the bed last night and the way she’d trembled in his arms. In desperation he played his final trump card. “If you insist on traveling with me, my promise of a
mariage blanc
will be null and void. I would fully expect you to share my bed, madam. As a true wife does.”