The Reckless Bride

by Stephanie Laurens

  Loretta, Rafe noticed on one of his frequent passes, wasalso writing, a frown tangling her brows, her concentration impressive. But the next time he crossed behind the bar, she’d set aside her correspondence and had picked up her embroidery.

  He walked into the salon, nodded to Esme, then halted before Loretta. When she looked up, he said, “It’s stopped raining for the moment. I wondered if you’d like to take a turn about the deck.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Esme grin and return to the novel she’d taken up again.

  Loretta studied him, then to his relief she set aside her hoop. “I would like some air.”

  She rose, shook out her skirts, settled her warm shawl more definitely about her shoulders. He stood back and she preceded him out of the room, past the bar and up the stairs.

  At the top, she paused, drew in a deep, deep breath, then stepped out onto the wet boards. He joined her. The air was cold and damp. Dismal gray mist cloaked the nearby mountains and hung eerily in the dark forests the boat was currently sliding past.

  He waved her on, then fell into step beside her on a slow perambulation around the deck. Hassan was on watch, tucked away in a corner protected by the overhang of the bridge’s roof.

  Ignoring his friend, Rafe fixed his gaze on the slow-moving gray ribbon of the river. “I’ve been thinking of what we discussed last night. My putative future. As you know, I’ve been away from England and out of society for a decade and more, so I’ve lost touch with what’s feasible. With what options are available to me. Especially in terms of"—he had to fight to get the words out—"marriageable young ladies.” Baldfaced, he continued, “I wondered if you could help me better define my requirements.”

  He felt her sharp glance like a lancet against his skin.

  “Your requirements? In a bride?”

  Gaze still on the river, still slowly pacing, he nodded. “Exactly. As our discussion last night demonstrated, I’m sadlylacking in plans for my future. If I accept your suggestions of a house, an estate with a village or two to manage, then I strongly suspect my next requirement should be a wife.” He risked a glance at her. “Am I right?”

  She looked a trifle bemused. She glanced up and caught his gaze, studied him for a moment, then nodded. “My reading of your situation suggests your supposition is correct.”

  “So?” He arched his brows. “What sort of young lady should I seek as a wife? What criteria should I look for?”

  Seeing her eyes start to narrow, he looked back at the river.

  “I’m sure your sisters, and your sisters-in-law, too, will be delighted to assist you.”

  He ignored the false sweetness in her tone. “I’m sure they would be, which is why I’m asking you. They know nothing of me—of the man I now am, let alone what I might need in terms of wifely support—but they will think they know me better than I know myself, and will enthusiastically fling themselves into lining up candidates none of whom will bear the remotest resemblance to the young lady I need.” Her. He glanced at her. “You can see my problem.”

  The look she cast him was suspicious, wary, but intrigued. She was, he felt certain, following him perfectly well. One of the reasons why he wondered if … “For instance, I don’t believe a conventional young lady would suit me.” He faced forward, ambled on. “After all I’ve seen and experienced, I find convention overrated.”

  “You reject adhering to convention for convention’s sake,” she said. “That’s something those who live by convention find difficult to accept.”

  “Exactly my point. So we’re agreed my lady needs to be unconventional.”

  “No—you want a lady who may or may not be unconventional herself, but who is not bound by convention, and therefore won’t expect you to be, either.”

  He smiled. “See? That’s why I asked for your advice. Isuppose I should also stipulate that she should not be too young.”

  “Define ‘too young.'”

  “Hmm … less than twenty-two? I mean that she shouldn’t be of the wide-eyed-innocent-who-has-never-experienced-anything-beyond-the-ballrooms-and-drawing-rooms type.” He glanced sidelong at her. “Perhaps a lady who has seen a little of the world. At least one with a wider experience.”

  “I believe that criterion can best be stated as ‘possessing a certain degree of maturity.'”

  He quashed a grin. “That sounds right. And no giddiness or giggling. She must be a lady I can have a sensible conversation with.”

  She glanced at him. “You’re asking rather a lot.”

  “Nonsense. I’m sure there are ladies capable of conducting intelligent discussions. Of course, I would expect her to behave intelligently, too, and not get herself into idiotic scrapes or create unnecessary fusses.”

  “I hesitate to ask, but what about the physical? What are your preferences there?”

  He frowned. “To be honest, I’m not all that set in my ways as to the specifics—as long as she’s the epitome of beauty in my eyes, the details won’t matter.”

  Her lips twitched; she inclined her head. “An estimable answer that adequately covers that aspect.”

  “So I think. So, what have we thus far? A lady unbound by convention, possessing a certain degree of maturity, intelligent, and of sufficient beauty to inspire my devotion.” He arched his brows. “That seems to cover it.”

  “I suspect we should add ‘with a temperament capable of dealing on a daily basis with you.'”

  “Do you think so?” He opened his eyes wide. “I wouldn’t have thought I was difficult to get on with.”

  “I’m beginning to suspect you have hidden depths and are by no means the charming, lackadaisical rogue you allow the world to see.”

  He hid a smile. A wolfish one that would have proved her point. He inclined his head. “Very well—we’ll add a calm and unflappable temper.”

  “Plus a managing disposition and a backbone of steel.”

  “What the deuce will she need those for?”

  “To manage you. Once back in England dealing with your house, your estate, and, as I understand it, your fortune, you’re going to need managing on the social and practical fronts. You’ve admitted you’re not socially adept. Being who you are, what you are, you won’t be able to simply avoid society—your presence, or lack of it, needs to be managed in such a way as to appear unremarkable.”

  “Just as you’ve managed your social absence over recent years?”

  “More or less.”

  He frowned. “I’ll take that—the disposition and backbone—under advisement.”

  Loretta snorted and strolled on. The exchange had held her attention, held her absorbed. Although she knew it was cold, that the wind had a biting edge, she hadn’t felt it. She felt energized, alert, her mind engaged, her nerves tense, tight, but pleasurably so. She felt challenged.

  “So now we’ve dealt with me. What about you?”

  She felt his gaze on her face.

  “What sort of husband do you want? Clearly that’s a question to which you’ll need the answer by the time you reach England’s fair shores.”

  He was right. He was also … engaging with her in a way she’d never imagined. A verbal foray of dizzying directness veiling a deeper purpose; she wasn’t foolish enough to miss his underlying objective.

  “The man I want as my husband …” She didn’t need to follow where he’d led, yet she couldn’t back away from the challenge, couldn’t not reply. However, like him, she’d never thought to put her requirements into words. To formulate them clearly. “He … would have to be a gentleman, and I mean in temperament, not just station. He would need tovalue women, ladies—me—need to acknowledge and appreciate my strengths and my achievements.”

  His gaze was on her face. “You have achievements?”

  “Several.” As A Young Lady About London she was one of the most popular columnists of the day. “As well as paying due deference to my worth, he should be able to provide all the usual, accepted things. I have no ambition to live in a
cottage.”

  The sound he made suggested he couldn’t imagine her doing so.

  “Other than that … he would need to be courageous, enough to let me be myself, and while he might be protective, he would need to be careful not to attempt to stifle me.”

  “Stifle you?”

  “He would need to learn not to get in my way.”

  “Hmm. It’s been my experience that to protect someone, one often needs to stand in front of them.”

  “True, but not in the sense of blocking the one protected unnecessarily. Protection should never become obsessive prohibition.”

  He frowned. “So—a gentleman of substance who worships at your feet, who will leap to protect you from any danger, but who will otherwise allow you free rein. Your hypothetical husband is not destined to have an easy life.”

  “No.” She glanced at him, took in the quality of his frown, managed to keep a straight face. “The position will be a challenge.”

  They reached the far side of the deck. In concert they turned, and, even more slowly, ambled back toward the stairs. Showers were threatening to close in once more.

  “You haven’t yet described your preferred physical attributes. Ladies always have preferences.”

  She was no exception, but how to avoid the obvious? “Tallish, well set up, strong and in good health, but as we all know that handsome is as handsome does, I would place greater emphasis on character and personality than on physical beauty.”

  “What traits in particular would you look for?”

  “Loyalty. Devotion. Courage. Intelligence. Slow to anger, quick to forgive. An active man. Someone who has lived, who has an appreciation of life.” She glanced his way, met his gaze levelly. “That’s sufficient definition to recognize him … should I find him.”

  The stairs lay ahead. They both slowed, halted. Eyes locked on his, she waited … but then he looked over her head, across the deck, and she remembered Hassan standing in the shadow of the bridge.

  Rafe’s gaze returned to her face and she smiled, adding, “Thank you for your escort and for sharing your views. It seems we both have matters to consider.”

  He held her gaze for a moment, his blue eyes unreadable, then his lips quirked, reluctant and wry. “Indeed. It seems we both have chances we might take, and decisions to make as to whether to seize them.”

  She squelched the urge to correct him. It was a chance. And whether to seize it. They were talking of one and the same thing.

  Imagining the prospect … made her feel faintly giddy.

  She inclined her head, stepped toward the stair. “I’ll leave you to your cogitations.” While she retired to face her own.

  In the early afternoon, Loretta sat in the salon and pretended to work at her embroidery. Esme had retired for a postprandial nap. Rose and Gibson had taken over the stateroom’s sitting room to sew and mend. Hassan and Rafe were up on deck, as far as she knew.

  Which left her free to return to her unfinished cogitations.

  Looking back on their amble about the deck and the singular conversation she and Rafe had shared, she was tempted on the one hand to think she couldn’t possibly have interpreted his words correctly, yet on the other hand she knew she had.

  They’d been talking of marriage. Between them. Her and him.

  There was no other explanation, no other motive for him to have taken such a curious conversational tack other than to test the waters. And his cast had worked. Not least because the possibility had surfaced in her mind, too.

  Interestingly, the one point she hadn’t revealed, the one subject he hadn’t inquired about—the attraction she felt for him, her hypothetical husband—was currently providing her strongest motivation. That attraction—the overwhelming need to learn much, much more of such physical interaction, to experience much more of the scintillating sensations, and even more of the strange connection she’d sensed flowing beneath—was pushing her to step forward and engage. Boldly, as a Michelmarsh would.

  She was, she was discovering, a Michelmarsh to her soul—wild and abandoned when in pursuit of a desired goal.

  The very fact she desired Rafe Carstairs was a wonder in itself. After all her years of feeling not the faintest compulsion to spend time with any male, she had started to believe she never would. But Rafe definitely made her want, and some elementally female part of her positively gloried in the discovery.

  Luncheon, taken in the salon with the others, had proved notable for the way in which he hadn’t met her eyes—or she his. If she weren’t so prosaic, she might have said the atmosphere between them had crackled, yet no one else had seemed to notice.

  Or at least had given any sign of noticing.

  She wasn’t entirely sure she believed them.

  She heard someone in the bar, looked up, and saw the object of her thoughts walking toward her, the pack of cards in one hand.

  His eyes met hers.

  She simply sat, her needle poised, and watched him draw near. That was something else he and she hadn’t touched on, the dangerous allure that hung about him, tangible as a cloak, a temptation to sin that had her Michelmarsh instinctsprodding and pricking to make her reach out and touch. Stroke.

  Provoke.

  She smiled, coolly arched a brow. “Piquet again?”

  As before, he shifted the table between them, swung one of the armchairs to face her and slouched into it. He dropped the cards on the table. “Possibly.” His eyes trapped hers. “Or you could tell me about London. You spend most of your year there, don’t you?”

  “In recent years, yes.” She hesitated, then looked down at her work, set her next stitch. “Not, however, entirely by choice.”

  “You don’t like town?”

  “I’m not averse to it in limited doses. However, over recent years, my sister-in-law Catherine has been determined to do her duty as she sees it and get me suitably wed, so we’ve spent all the Season, and all the Little Season, too, in town. That, to my mind, is rather too much.”

  Rafe was in wholehearted agreement. Yet … “I thought one of the principal occupations of ton females, married or not, was the observation of the marriage mart and all associated activities as pertaining to their relatives, connections, and general acquaintance.”

  Loretta grinned. “Both my sisters are already wed and my nieces are babes-in-arms.” She glanced up, met his eyes. “And as we discussed earlier, my requirements of a husband suggest that he would be wise enough to be engaged elsewhere through much of the year, so me spending so much time in the capital seems unnecessary. To my mind, I’m unlikely to meet him—my hypothetical husband—there.”

  He humphed. “So what does interest you when in London, and how do you occupy your time when in the country?”

  “In London, aside from all the balls, soirees, parties, and dinners Catherine ensures I attend, I spend my time viewing exhibitions, visiting and corresponding with friends, and I have, I’ve been told, a decidedly unladylike penchant for reading news sheets. I have also been known to engage inpolitical discussions, which, apparently, is behavior acceptable in an earnest older matron, but not in one of my tender years.”

  He snorted.

  She nodded. “Precisely my thoughts.”

  He watched her lips curve in a rather secretive smile. When she said nothing more, he prompted, “And in the country? How do you fill your time there?”

  Somewhat to his surprise, she hesitated, but then went on, “I correspond. A lot. And of course I still have the news sheets to read. But otherwise I ride, and walk, and do all the customary things ladies do in the country—visit nearby villages and neighbors. That sort of thing.”

  He couldn’t put his finger on what she was concealing. Before he could think of a way to probe, she looked up.

  “You must have spent some time in London before joining the army. What do you remember of the ton from then?”

  A deliberate distraction, or … He inwardly shrugged. “I only spent six months on the town. Other than friends, t
he only group I truly remember were the grandes dames. There was one, Lady Osbaldestone. She terrified me. At Waterloo, when the Cynsters rode with us, I learned she terrifed them, too.”

  Loretta grinned. “I know her. She’s not so terrifying.”

  “Perhaps not to you. Who are the others currently holding sway over the ton?”

  She told him, refreshing his memory of those he knew, painting vivid verbal vignettes of those he hadn’t previously met. From there their talk ranged more widely, covering topics—the Corn Laws, the Peterloo riots—that he’d heard about, but hadn’t paid attention to. Somewhat to his surprise, she had a remarkably deep and detailed knowledge of the social upheavals of recent times. If she hadn’t admitted to devouring news sheets and talking to peers and members of Parliament, he would have wondered.

  He decided she simply had an excellent memory for details. He already knew she was innately curious.

  Then Esme wandered in and joined them, and while all personal revelations came to an end, he remained and allowed Esme, aided by dry comments from Loretta, to entertain him with her opinion of the Prime Minister and his closest advisors.

  The minutes to dinnertime sped by.

  That night was the last they would spend on the Uray Princep. Ulm, their immediate destination, lay not far ahead.

  “We will reach there by noon tomorrow,” the captain informed them as they sat around the table in the dining room, ready to partake of a celebratory dinner organized by Esme.

  She had invited the captain, the first mate, and the purser to join them. All three had accepted, fascinated by her and her larger-than-life persona.

  Esme raised her glass, filled with the finest wine on board. “To journey’s end for you, and our thanks to you and your excellent crew, who have made our time on your vessel such a pleasant one.”

  They all raised their glasses and toasted the three sailors, all of whom blushed and disclaimed.

  The captain proposed another toast, one to undemanding passengers.

  They all laughed and drank, and then the cabin boys brought in the platters and the dinner began.