“Please extinguish the candles.” She crossed her fingers in the hope he would allow her to get through what happened next in blessed darkness. He remained silent, but all the candles went dark.
She came from behind the screen and felt her way across the chamber to the bed where she quickly slid beneath the sheet. She lay silently on her back, waiting. Although she positioned herself as close to the edge of the bed as possible without flinging herself onto the floor, when she moved her left arm, she encountered a soft mass. After a few tentative prods, she determined the mass was definitely not the hard-muscled man breathing next to her.
He’d piled not only spare pillows, but anything soft he could find, from chair cushions to spare clothing, along the space between them. Willa stared up into the dark, perplexed. Was this some strange sexual ritual Scotsmen used to seduce unsuspecting women?
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw her new husband sitting up on the other side of the hastily assembled “wall.”
Cullen leaned forward, his heat magnifying the scent of linen sheets and lavender. “Willa MacCloud, I’ve taken an oath to love and cherish no other but ye until one of us is dead, but I’ll be damned if I’ll force an unwilling woman to lie with me.”
Willa trembled beneath her tightly fastened nightdress. She drew up her feet on her side of the “wall” and leaned her forehead against her knees. “Why not? I’m prepared to do my duty…” Her voice faltered.
“I’ll not be a ‘duty’ to any woman. Ye’ll have to come to me on yer own.”
“How will I know whether I’m ready or not?” She hated the squeak in her voice.
Cullen slammed back down and pounded his pillow a few times. “Ye’ll know if ye want me or not. But until then, stay on yer own side of the bed.”
Willa was unconvinced. She sat trembling for a long series of moments, afraid to lie down, in case he changed his mind and let the animal side of his personality take over. After a few moments, the only sounds emanating from the other side of the bed were deep breathing and occasional short, whuffing, snoring sounds.
She must have sat up for at least an hour, torn between fearing Cullen would force her into something she didn’t want and wondering why she hadn’t inspired the man’s natural, blind lust.
Finally, she fell back onto her pillow to stare into the darkness for another hour or two.
Cullen woke early and hastened to the wash basin in the corner behind the screen, hoping to finish his ablutions and dress before his “bride” awakened and started in again with her havey-cavey notions about overly sexed Highlanders. “And you’re no help,” he muttered, in the general direction of the cockstand making a tent out of his nightshirt.
He and Fergus had planned a small wedding breakfast at the inn as a surprise treat for Willa before they had to return to the ship. He’d sent invitations the night before to his old friend, Captain Arnaud Bellingham, and his wife Sophie; Sophie’s friend, Lady Lydia Howick; Lydia’s unofficial beloved, Marine Captain George Neville; and the ever-jaunty Irish bachelor, Marine Lieutenant Richard Bourne. And although Cullen had hesitated at first, he’d finally sent an invitation to Captain Still of the Arethusa. He’d hoped maybe the man’s presence would provide a familiar face for Willa.
He and his mates had all served together on various ships over the years and had survived the 1816 Battle of Algiers with Lord Exmouth, Admiral Pellew. All of his former comrades were still in Portsmouth, getting their prize ship, the Black Condor, ready to return to duty off the west coast of Africa.
Cullen quickly buttoned and buckled himself into the Royal Navy dress blues he’d been married in the night before. He stepped outside the screen and gazed down on the new Mrs. Cullen MacCloud asleep in their bed. He noticed a long, patrician nose he’d overlooked before, since he’d never managed to get past those glorious gray eyes, dark lashes and expressive, bird-like brows. Her eyes remained closed in deep sleep, the dark smudges below telltales of a night of little sleep.
He smiled a cat-like grin. So she’d suffered as much as he had? Good. Served her right. He’d lain awake early that morning a good two hours, painfully aware of the soap clean scent of the warm woman lying on the other side of their “wall.” He’d had a lengthy debate with his baser self, trying to rationalize a good reason to eliminate the barrier. He’d finally settled on just watching her sleep, leaning on one elbow, while the dawn gradually slipped through the lace-curtained window.
Now, he reached down and touched her shoulder, shook her a bit until her eyes opened and obliterated the memory of the carefully crafted speech he’d practiced. All he could manage was, “The innkeeper’s wife will be in soon to help you dress. You have a surprise waiting downstairs.” With that, he pulled on his Hessians, hurried out of the room, and clattered down the steps.
Willa had no idea what Dr. MacCloud’s idea of a “surprise” would entail, but she had to confess, she was curious. When she opened the door to the private dining room they’d been using, she faced a festive breakfast table surrounded by a sea of strangers in Royal Navy blues and two of their women, who were plying her with warm, smiling expressions.
And there at the head of the table was Captain Still, her former commanding officer on the Arethusa. The last words they’d exchanged, she’d resigned from the ship and bid him good-bye as Wills Morton. Now she stood before him as Willa MacCloud. Was there any rule of etiquette that could possibly apply to this situation? Captain Still solved her dilemma for her when he stood and advanced to her side, taking her in his arms for a long embrace.
“I am so grateful you’ve found a good man to take care of you, Willa.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “Your father would have been so proud and happy for the decision you’ve made.”
She suddenly felt as though she didn’t know what to do with her hands and feet and had no idea what she’d say to the two women still beaming encouraging smiles her way.
She was glad she’d let the seamstress talk her into taking several extra dresses that had been abandoned by other customers, including the fine pink striped dimity she’d chosen for her debut as Dr. MacCloud’s wife. She’d also given the woman instructions for several serviceable, plain dark work dresses she’d need for her shipboard duties.
All of the men rose and bowed toward her. When Cullen started formal introductions, she could tell from the tone of his voice what close friends the men were. Captain Bellingham’s wife, Sophie, a beautiful, pale young woman, came toward her with arms outstretched and enfolded her in a warm embrace. “You are a very lucky woman,” she whispered into her ear. “It looks like Dr. MacCloud solved the riddle of who you really are. You have nothing to fear. He is a good man who will love and protect you with his very life.”
“Thank you,” Willa mouthed, and must have had a look of a concern on her face for Sophie’s paleness.
“Incinta.” Sophie blushed and reverted to her father’s tongue.
Willa nodded. Over the many years at her father’s side in his travels with the Royal Navy, she’d learned a bit of the Italian tongue. Pregnancy, in the early stages, would explain Sophie’s wan appearance.
Sophie’s husband, Arnaud, must have been close enough to hear the whispered exchange. “If he gives you any trouble at all, send word to one of us, and we will thump him into submission.” The twinkle in his intensely blue eyes belied his stern warning and spoke of the affection among the men. The protective arm he wrapped around his wife’s shoulders before returning to the table said even more about the bond between them.
Willa had resented Cullen replacing her father and had stubbornly resisted his governance in the surgery aboard the Arethusa. After he and his family had pressured her into a marriage of convenience, she’d been prepared to hate him. But now, in the presence of his fellow crewmen who obviously loved and respected him, her feelings were harder to justify.
Sophie’s friend, Miss Lydia Howick, stepped forward and took both of her hands. “You are a very special lady to lead the charmed life
of belonging to one of the men of the squadron. And I am so envious of how much you know about medicine. Dr. MacCloud should be over the moon to have you as his partner.”
Willa bit back a smile when she contrasted Miss Howick’s breathy, non-stop chatter with the stoic young naval man at her side who had been introduced as Captain George Neville, head of the Royal Marine contingent aboard Captain Bellingham’s ship. Even though Lydia and Captain Neville were very different in temperament, the affection they shared warmed the air around them, like a bright brazier full of coals on a winter’s eve.
Willa reflected on the chasm between herself and the other women. She would be spending the next few years in service at the St. Helena station at her husband’s side. Would she and Cullen continue their formal, collegial relationship, or would they become something more to each other? She reached down into a well of conflicting emotions gnawing at her insides. Her own heart had become an infernal mystery.
Whereas, the other two women clearly were already dreading the day when their men would have to return to sea…without them.
Cullen sat next to his unbending bride and wondered. He wondered how his life could have been completely upended in the course of a few weeks. He wondered how the tall, slender creature next to him with the mesmerizing gray eyes had slept in the tiny surgeon’s cabin aboard the Arethusa without him ever suspecting what lay across the scant few feet between their bunks.
It was hard to grasp the idea that he was now married to a woman who might never share a bed with him, yet made it impossible for him to bed any other woman, either. His old devil-may-care life had come crashing down in the blink of an eye.
Chapter Nine
Captain Arnaud Bellingham sat across from Miss Lydia Howick and his Marine Captain George Neville in the comfort of the Howick family carriage. Miss Howick made frequent trips from London to Portsmouth laden with food and provisions for the newlywed Bellinghams, a flimsy ruse for also seeing more of Captain Neville before he left for a long tour of duty off the coast of West Africa.
Next to him, Sophie patted Arnaud’s arm and smiled at her old friend, Lydia. “What a lovely breakfast Dr. MacCloud’s kinsman managed for us in such a short period of time.”
“Does anyone know what happened to cause this sudden union in the middle of the night? I have to confess I always thought Dr. MacCloud was a confirmed, fusty old bachelor.” Lydia, as usual, was spilling everything in her head out through her mouth.
Arnaud coughed and found something intensely interesting outside the carriage windows. Captain Neville’s face and neck reddened to compete with his regimental uniform.
“George, breathe,” Lydia admonished, and gave him a smart thwack against his back.
Sophie gave Lydia a fond, indulgent smile. “Dr. MacCloud is definitely not a fusty, old anything. He’s been married to the Royal Navy, like these gentlemen.” She swept her hand around to encompass her husband and Captain Neville.
“But why in a rush, overnight?”
Arnaud wisely remained silent, curious as to how his wife would explain Cullen’s precipitous marriage.
“There were, ah, extenuating circumstances.”
“She’s with child?” Lydia sucked in a quick breath, her blue eyes wide.
Now it was Neville’s turn to choke, and Arnaud struggled to control the flame of embarrassment creeping up his own neck.
Sophie leaned across to the seats on the other side of the coach and placed her hand over Lydia’s. “We must not speak of this anywhere outside this carriage.”
“Of course. You know something.” Lydia paused a moment. “The cards. You saw something in the cards.”
“No, no.” Sophie shook her head hard.
“Then how do you know there were ‘extenuating circumstances’?”
“Cullen came to us a week ago to talk about problems he was having with the son of the dead surgeon he replaced.”
Lydia’s head quirked to the side like a small cat, momentarily sidetracked by the sight of a yarn toy. “But what does that have to do with his new wife?”
“Lydia, think. Think what you might do if you suddenly had no family and the only family you’d ever known was your father. Your father who had kept you by his side and taught you everything he knew about medicine. But your father was a physician aboard Royal Navy ships, where growing up as a woman would be a liability. I suspect the choices Willa and her father made were difficult, but seemed the only possible solution at the time.” Sophie leaned back heavily against the squabs. “Now, try to imagine what would happen when that carefully built world collapsed with your father’s death. You live in a world where women are neither allowed to train in, nor practice, medicine. What would you do?”
Lydia had nothing to say in reply, her mouth agape at Sophie’s words.
“But what does that have to do with Dr. MacCloud?” she finally managed.
Arnaud took over. “Cullen had never met Willa before his father used his influence to have him assigned aboard the Arethusa. However, both Willa’s deceased mother and her father were well known to his mother’s MacKenzie clan because of the work Dr. Morton and his late wife did twenty years ago during a measles epidemic. So…when Cullen wrote to his Aunt Elspeth complaining about Dr. Morton’s son, ‘Wills,’ she immediately ordered him to join her in London, claiming she was ill.”
“And they made Cullen marry her,” Lydia finished.
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened.” Arnaud sighed and settled back into the cushions next to his wife.
“But Willa is so pretty,” Lydia insisted. “How did Dr. MacCloud ever believe she was a man?”
“That is the mystery,” Neville agreed. Then both men broke out in laughter.
“Why are you laughing at poor Cullen?” Sophie gave Arnaud a sharp jab in the side with her elbow.
“That insufferable swab has left a trail of broken hearts from the Highlands to the west coast of Africa, and bragged about it. Now it’s his fate to face the wrath of one angry woman, in small quarters, for months at sea.”
Cullen had sent one of the young stable grooms back to Dr. Partlow’s home in Peterfield to retrieve Willa’s sea chest. The smile on her face when she saw the chest waiting for her in their dark, cramped cabin was more than enough compensation for all he’d been through to make the stubborn Miss Morton his wife.
He was so intent on absorbing the only joy she’d exhibited since he’d met her, he stumbled and had to catch himself when passing through the tight entry from the surgery.
She reflexively held out a hand to steady him and Cullen blushed furiously. The lass was treating him like a small child, or an old man, when all he wanted was to see that smile again, maybe directed at him. After all, they were well and truly wed, maybe not exactly “truly,” but who was to say they could not at least grow to enjoy each other’s company?
There was a small tap at the bulkhead outside their quarters followed by the ship’s cook leaning through the entry with a tray of tea things. “Thought the two of you could use a bit of tea and a cose.” The man studiously avoided staring at Willa before stuttering as if in afterthought, “Welcome to the ship, Mrs. MacCloud.”
Cullen’s previously cautious optimism thudded to the bottom of his gut. None of the crew would be the slightest bit convinced that the new Mrs. MacCloud was not some iteration of the previous Mr. Morton. What had he, and his family, expected? This woman had nursed most of these men through various illnesses and injuries through the years while she’d worked side-by-side with her father.
“Thank you so much. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.” His wife’s back was ramrod straight and her lips formed a tight smile when she took the tray from the man and placed it on top of her sea chest, now solidly in place at the foot of one of the two narrow bunks. When the man lingered a few minutes longer, she walked to him and patted the hand supporting his bulk against the entryway. “Poppy, those fingers look as though you may have a bit of pain at times,” she said. “I’ll have
some balm sent round to the galley.”
The man gave a quick nod, turned on his heel and left.
Cullen listened to the man head back toward the galley till his footsteps faded in the massive ship’s hold. When he turned back to Willa, a genuine tell-tale smile quirked at the corners of her mouth and her eyes sparkled.
“His real name is Melatiah Popham, and of course, everyone aboard the ship has trouble pronouncing his name in full, so…”
“Everyone calls him ‘Poppy.’ But won’t he think it odd you already know his ship name since you’ve never supposedly sailed on the Arethusa yourself?”
“I think he’s just grateful that he’s still going to get his salve, whether it comes from ‘Wills,’ or ‘Willa.’”
Cullen nodded in agreement. She was probably right.
Willa sat on her cot, awkwardly adjusting her skirts, and leaned over to pour a cup of tea for Cullen before helping herself. He produced an elegant container from his rough sea bag and placed it next to the teapot. At the question in her eyes, he explained, “The Howick cook in London and Arnaud’s mother’s cook at Bellingham House in Hampshire. They make sure all of us are kept well supplied with ginger biscuits while we’re in port.”
“Poppy probably isn’t fooled,” Willa admitted with a sigh.
“You don’t know that…”
Willa cut him short. “The man suffers terribly from pain in his hands and fingers. He always came to me, that is Wills, for a balm. That’s why he lingered. He suspects something, but just needed reassurance that nothing will change.”
Willa secretly studied her husband above the rim of her steaming teacup while he fumbled to pry open the lid of the tin containing the ginger biscuits. She’d had lots of practice hiding her true feelings and keeping secrets. Many sailors on the Arethusa over the years had smiled at her, or brushed their hands against hers while she tended them in the surgery.
Pride Of Duty: Men of the Squadron Series, Book 2 Page 7
