To Catch a Bride (39 page)

He wanted it settled and tidy and clear.

He seriously considered getting the captain or that parson to marry them here and now—the day the quarantine was up. But there would be scandal and gossip and people would whisper behind her back that she’d trapped him into marriage.

He wouldn’t allow that, wouldn’t allow anyone cause to speak about her like that. If anyone had trapped anyone, it was he. He’d trapped from the very outset, using Ali as bait. And any number of times since. He’d used her friends, her loyalty, even threats; he had given her no choice but to come with him.

And if he had his time over, he’d do it all again. Looking back, all he could see was a job well done. She needed to be rescued from her appalling situation.

What would Lady Cleeve make of the tale? Of Ayisha? He wished he knew her better, but he had no idea.

People turned a blind eye to children born in wedlock but sired by someone else. Those children were invariably the result of an aristocratic affair, a baron slipping a cuckoo into the nest of a duke. Some, like the Devonshire brood, were an open secret. But legally they were not bastards, and in any case they were of equal blood.

Let a lady give birth to a stable boy’s brat, however, and the child would be discreetly got rid of, raised in obscurity, never knowing who his mother was. And as for a lord siring a child on a lowborn mistress, that was as common as dirt. As long as the fellow was a gentleman and ensured the child was provided for, nobody thought twice about it.

He could only think of one
ton
family where a bastard of low blood was acknowledged, and that was Harry Morant and the Renfrews. But it had taken years. And if Harry hadn’t been picked out of the gutter and raised to be a gentleman by his eccentric great-aunt, it would have been a different story. Harry would still be in the gutter now.

Even so, had he not been raised with his half brother, Gabriel Renfrew, who stood up beside him, demanding everyone treat Harry with respect, Harry would still be an outsider, unacknowledged by his closest relatives.

Harry’s aunt, Lady Gosforth, adored him now, but it had taken a long time for her to accept him.

Harry’s mother was a maidservant. Ayisha’s had been a foreign mistress.

It wouldn’t be as socially damning now that he’d got Ayisha’s promise to marry him. Being married to the heir of Axebridge counted for something in society. Once they were married he could fix everything. He’d be able to look after her properly then.

He turned and watched her penning her thank-you notes. His wife-to-be. He’d never thought of marriage as anything except a duty.

But now, looking at her, he felt . . . as if a heavy stone was lodged in his chest, aching, and yet somehow . . . proud.

He must have made some sort of sound because she turned her head and glanced at him, then smiled, a swift, fleeting smile that dazzled him all the same. The weight in his chest thickened.

 

 

 

 

T
hat evening when they went up on deck for their usual walk while the other passengers were at dinner, Ayisha hesitated at the foot of the companionway.

“What’s the matter?” Rafe asked. Usually she was eager to escape the cramped cabin and get into the fresh air.

“Nothing,” she said brightly and moved forward. But when they reached the deck she hesitated again, then stepped out in a move that brought back to him the way she’d stepped onto a deck full of pirates and fighting, braced for something she dreaded.

“It’s all clean,” she exclaimed in astonishment as she looked around the deck. “No stains at all.”

“No, they’ve been scrubbed and sanded away,” Rafe told her, realizing she’d expected to be taking her evening walk on a bloodstained deck. “Captain Gallagher would have had the crew wielding holystones almost immediately. He runs a tight ship.”

“What’s a holystone?”

“A block of sandstone. They use it like a scrubbing brush and it sands as well as cleans. Sailors call it a holystone because they kneel to use it, and it’s big and square and heavy enough to be a Bible,” he explained. “Have you noticed what’s ahead of us?”

The sun was setting and the ship was approaching two headlands, silhouetted starkly against the golden brilliance of the sun. The one on the right was a massive dark chunk of rock rising from the sea like a giant pyramid.

“Is it—is that the Rock of Gibraltar?” she breathed. “It’s so much bigger than I’d imagined.”

Rafe nodded. “Amazing, isn’t it? On the other side is Morocco, and out there—” He pointed ahead. “Out there is the Atlantic Ocean. My guess is we’ll get some rough weather then. It was very rough on the voyage from England.” He’d been sick as a dog, in fact.

Just then they heard a shrill whistle from above. They glanced up and saw one of the sailors waving to them. He pointed to the port side of the ship, so they crossed over to look.

“Dolphins!” Ayisha exclaimed. “I’ve only ever seen a picture of one.” There were a dozen of them, racing along beside the boat, arching out of the water and diving.

She watched entranced as they leapt and dived, racing the ship, weaving in and out. Rafe watched her as much as the dolphins. Her zest for life enthralled him, and today it was as if a bubble of joy was inside her. Those presents, no doubt.

She leaned over the gunwale, smiling, laughing, and exclaiming when she saw a little puff of water spurted from one of their heads, her hand held out as though she could touch a dolphin.

“My mother told me a story once about a young man who fell overboard and would have drowned,” she told him. “But instead dolphins came and flipped him up to the air with their snouts. And they let him hold on to them and they took him back to the island where he lived. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Amazing.”

She turned a laughing face to him. “You don’t believe it, do you? I didn’t when Mama told me, but now, looking at these dolphins, seeing their smiling faces and their eyes . . . I think maybe it is true, after all.”

“Smiling faces? They’re fish,” Rafe said.

“No, they’re not. They’re special,” she said. “People say they’re magical creatures and now that I’ve seen them, I believe it.”

After a few minutes the dolphins suddenly veered off to the side and disappeared. “Oh, that was lovely,” she said. “I suppose it is time to return to the cabin again.”

Rafe pulled out his watch. “A moment or two more. We’ll wait until the watch bells sound as usual.” When the sailor’s evening watch sounded two bells, a pause then one bell, they usually went belowdecks.

They stood on the starboard side of the boat, sailing into the sunset, watching the enormous Rock of Gibraltar slip by.

Ahead the Atlantic Ocean gleamed molten gold and rose as the sun dropped gently into it. They watched until the sun had disappeared completely. The ocean slowly silvered, then grew dark. Overhead, the sails snapped, and gulls wheeled and shrieked, their unearthly cries echoing into the falling night.

She shivered.

“Cold?” Rafe asked, and without waiting for her response he drew her closer, wrapping her in his coat, warming her with his body. “It will be colder in England,” he said. They both knew he wasn’t only talking about weather.

 

 

 

 

D
inner that evening was something of a celebration, with fresh lobster, followed by a rabbit pie, a chicken fricassee with mushrooms, fresh fruit and a rum syllabub, and to go with the feast, a bottle of champagne.

“I took the liberty of tellin’ the captain of your betrothal, sir,” Higgins confessed. “And he sent this down with his congratulations, thinking Miss Ayisha might prefer it.”

 

 

 

 

T
hey were disturbed early the following morning by a knock on the door. Rafe, who was in the middle of making love to Ayisha with slow, devastating intensity, growled, “If that’s Higgins, I’ll kill him. I told him to go away.”

From the other side of the door came, “It’s me, sir, Higgins.”

“You told him that yesterday,” Ayisha said, laughing. She gave him a little push. “Go on, you know he won’t go away.”

He gave her a dark look. “As long as you don’t go away, that’s all that matters.” He slid out of the bed, dragged on his breeches, fastened them, and flung open the door. “What?”

“I—I do beg pardon, sir.” Higgins sounded a bit rattled by Rafe answering the door in nothing but a pair of buckskin breeches and a lot of bare skin. The open door shielded Ayisha from his sight, but Rafe’s dishabille would reveal more to Higgins than just skin.

Ayisha didn’t care. She’d never been so happy. She’d never known such happiness was possible. It bubbled through her veins like the champagne the captain had sent them, lapped against her consciousness like the waves lapping constantly at the ship, and filled her with a warm glow; sunshine from within.

She didn’t care that no words of love had been spoken. He’d said nothing, and she’d been too shy to offer them herself. Her heart was so full of love for him, it threatened to boil over and scald them both. So she kept the words to herself, silent and precious in her breast, until he was ready to hear them.

What were words, anyway? During the last two warm, dark nights of lovemaking with Rafe Ramsey such a precious bond had been forged between them . . . At least she felt it, and if he didn’t—no, he must. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes darkened in that come-to-bed expression . . .

It didn’t matter, now, what faced them in England. She and Rafe would survive it. She believed it with all her heart.

She sat up in bed, the blue coverlet pulled up to her chin, and admired the lean, muscular physique of the man, his broad, powerful shoulders divided by the long furrow of his spine, the two shallow dimples angling into the base of his spine. His ribs were visible. He hadn’t regained enough flesh since the fever, but he was a magnificent sight, hard and sleek and powerful.

The breeches hugged his body, curving tight against his backside and down his long, hard thighs.

Her eyes devoured him, her body remembered how he felt against her, around her, inside her, and without warning a shudder reverberated deep within her, passing through her body like a whiplash, causing her to arch and then subside.

He must have caught the movement from the corner of his eye, for he half turned, his eyes bored into her and darkened, knowingly.

Higgins went on, “Message from the captain, sir. Since the quarantine period is up today, he’d like you and Miss Ayisha to take breakfast with him this morning. Eight o’clock, sir, is when he’d like you there. That’s about half an hour.” He paused and added, “You will want to shave, of course, so I’ve ordered hot water for you and also for Miss Ayisha to bathe in. It’ll be here in a moment.”

“Blast,” Rafe muttered, glancing at Ayisha. She gave him a rueful shrug. There was no way out of it without giving offense, and neither of them would wish to do that.

“Very well,” he told Higgins. “Thank the captain and bring on your hot water. We’ll be there at eight.”

 

 

 

 

I
congratulate you both on surviving your incarceration; I know it must have been difficult,” Captain Gallagher said. Breakfast was a private affair, served in his quarters. “I must say you look well on it. Miss Cleeve, you look positively radiant.”

She smiled. “The time passed surprisingly fast.”

“Mainly because she’s a born cardsharp,” Rafe interrupted. “Captain, you see before you a man in debt to the tune of millions.”

She laughed. “Don’t believe a word of it, Captain, it’s all nonsense. I did become quite skilled at a number of card games, but it was self-defense, the way Mr. Ramsey plays. Still”—she gave Rafe an airy look—“I must be grateful to him. If ever I need to earn my living, I can always take to playing cards.”

They all laughed.

She added, “It will be lovely, though, to be able to go anywhere I please and to talk to other people.”

“Yes, the walks on deck made it much easier to bear,” Rafe said. “Thanks for allowing it.”

The captain shook his head. “As long as you had no contact with others, I could see no harm in it. My orders are to quarantine possible infection, but the conditions are left to my discretion. Though the medical fraternity cannot agree how the wretched thing spreads, both contagionists and anti-contagionists seem to agree that clean, fresh air is beneficial—or at least cannot hurt.”

Ayisha said nothing. Left to his discretion, eh? She addressed herself to her breakfast. She didn’t mind being shut in a cabin for ten days, but she would never forget that the captain had planned to set Rafe ashore, not knowing or caring what became of him.

The captain continued, “And I’m delighted you’ve agreed to make a match of it—not that you had much choice, but—”

“We are both well content with the outcome,” Rafe interrupted, and to drive home his point he picked up Ayisha’s hand and kissed it.

A ripple of pleasure passed through her. Her face warmed, and she could not help but smile at him.

The captain looked from one to the other and a broad smile spread across his face. “Like that, is it? Excellent, excellent. And do you want me to perform the ceremony, or perhaps Reverend Payne?”

Rafe shook his head. “Thank you, but no. Miss Cleeve wishes to be married in her grandmother’s presence, and I must respect her wishes. We shall marry there, or in the church near my brother’s home.”

“Excellent,” the captain nodded. “Mrs. Ferris’s maid will see to your things, Miss Cleeve.”

“My things?” she asked, puzzled.

“Since you are not married, you will, of course, be returning to share a cabin with Mrs. Ferris.”

“There is no necessity—” Rafe began.