A Reluctant Bride

by Jody Hedlund

  “What else can I do?” she asked. “Maybe I should sterilize the washbasin and pitcher.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t say anything.

  She dropped her attention to Sarah’s ring and began twisting it on her finger.

  “She said you’re like her mum,” Joseph whispered.

  Mercy nodded.

  “That’s because you loved her so unconditionally and so thoroughly.”

  She slipped the ring off and held it out toward him. “I don’t want it.”

  “You should have it, even if you don’t wear it. It will keep her memory alive.”

  “Take it.” She thrust it into his hand, but he pushed it back. With a jerk, she grabbed it and threw it with such force it bounced against the far wall above his desk. It landed on the floor, and the sway of the ship sent it rolling underneath the bed.

  For a moment, she stared under the bed. She then looked at him and cupped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and radiating disbelief and embarrassment at her outburst.

  Had she ever allowed herself to feel the pain of her losses? Or had she repressed everything for so long, she didn’t know how to grieve?

  “I’m sorry, Joseph. I shouldn’t have thrown it.” She began to feel around under the bed.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” he replied.

  She groped under the bed farther. “I don’t know what came over me. I right promise I won’t do that again.”

  He started to reach for her, wanting to make her understand that she needn’t fear him, that she had every right to be angry, but then he hesitated, his fingers hovering over her shoulder. Did he dare touch her? He shouldn’t do anything that might undermine his integrity, and yet it seemed the situation with Sarah’s death permitted him some leeway.

  She released a small cry of frustration. Far within that cry, he heard the echoes of her heartbreak.

  “Mercy,” he said softly, touching her shoulder and gently squeezing.

  Her frantic movements ceased, but she didn’t lift herself. Instead, her body slumped as if she’d given up her will to fight.

  He ought to remove his hand and put space between them. But even as he willed himself to be noble and honorable, his desire to comfort her was stronger. He let his fingers linger, then slide slowly down her back before returning again to her shoulder.

  She shuddered.

  He closed his eyes and fought the battle against his flesh for an agonizing moment. He needed to hold and console her as much as he needed to breathe. Without hesitating any longer, he brought his hands to her waist, lifted her into his arms, and wrapped her close just as he’d done that night in steerage.

  She came willingly, pressing her face into his chest. Her arms slid around him, and her fingers clung to his back, digging in as if she were drowning and he was her only hope.

  “What’s wrong with me, Joseph?” Her voice was ragged. “I don’t want the ring. I don’t want to remember Sarah. I don’t want to keep her memory alive.”

  He stroked the length of her braid. “Maybe it’s easier to forget.” Was that what he’d been doing? Trying to forget about his family? He’d shoved and kicked his pain aside for years too. How could he offer advice to Mercy when he’d been running from his grief for so long that he’d nearly lost himself in the process?

  “If you ignore your pain, you can go on,” he whispered. “But it’s still there, buried deep.”

  “I don’t want to think on it. I can’t.” She sucked in a trembling breath.

  He wanted to soothe her, to tell her she didn’t have to remember, that it was all right to forget. Yet he sensed what the forgetting had already cost her, for she too had lost some of herself.

  “Maybe unearthing the sorrow allows it to finally surface and then dissipate.” He didn’t know. Perhaps the sorrow would always be keen. Even so, if they never brought it up, he suspected the grief would only fester and hurt them all the more.

  “I don’t want to unearth my own grief,” he admitted, “but maybe we can help each other to do so.”

  She pulled back and studied his face. “Will you tell me of your grief, Joseph? The pain you feel deep down?”

  He hesitated. Could he really do it? Could he dig up the past and lay it bare? To Mercy?

  She lifted a hand to his face and gently cupped his cheek as he’d seen her do oft to Sarah. “I’d bear your pain if I could.”

  His chest swelled with need—the need to know her, body and soul, the need to have and to hold her. “You already bear the sorrows of too many,” he said quietly. “I would take yours instead.”

  While comforting her, she’d ended up almost sitting in his lap, her face mere inches from his, her lips so near, beckoning him.

  A warning clanged within him like the ship’s bell.

  He knew he should put a healthy distance between them, but as he shifted his hands to her hips to move her away, her eyes widened as if she’d suddenly realized their predicament as well and didn’t know what to think of the closeness. She dropped her sights to his mouth. As she did, desire darkened her pupils.

  That was his undoing. His fingers tightened and drew her forward and not away, giving her little choice but to lean into him. As she pressed herself against his chest, he nearly groaned. Before the sound could escape, he caught her mouth and let his lips fuse with hers.

  The meshing was warm—soft and pliant and passionate. She was timid but moved in a way that gave him all the permission he needed to deepen the kiss. Thirsty for her beyond anything he’d ever known, he gave way to the longing that had built within him for days, perhaps weeks.

  twenty-one

  Mercy was adrift in a sea of pleasure that swelled with greater intensity with each passing moment. Joseph’s mouth moved like an unending current against hers. One hand claimed her waist, the other slid up her back to her neck.

  This was where she could forget about her pain, forget about Sarah’s death, and about everything else that was wrong in the world. This was where she wanted to be, the place she never wanted to leave.

  What she couldn’t understand was why she hadn’t come to this place before? Why had she resisted the pleasure? Why had she resisted him?

  His mouth broke from hers, and a small cry of protest slipped from her swollen lips. Before she could think of a way to draw him back, the warmth of his lips connected with her neck.

  Another involuntary gasp slid out, her breathless ecstasy. Her escape. Losing herself to reality. No matter the cost.

  Her mind spun back to the garret room, to the time she’d accidentally opened the door to find Twiggy gasping out her pleasure in the arms of her boss from the rag factory.

  Mercy froze.

  Had it been the same for Twiggy? What if the affairs and the resulting gifts had been more than just a way to help her family survive? Had her mum given herself over to carnal pleasures, perhaps to dull the pain and brokenness of her life? Or was it the one place in her life that Twiggy felt wanted and needed and in control?

  At her stillness, Joseph broke his kiss again. His breathing was hot against her neck, his chest rising and falling against hers.

  Mercy had believed she was so much stronger than Twiggy, that she was better, that she’d be different. But maybe she was more like her mother than she realized.

  She closed her eyes tightly to ward off the unwelcome thoughts. She didn’t want to think about Twiggy right now. She wanted to think about Joseph. Their relationship was special, wasn’t it? It was different from her mother’s illicit relationships. Joseph cared about her, desired her, treated her with such tenderness. They’d even become friends.

  Yet the more she tried to justify the passion of the kisses she’d shared with Joseph, the more the reality of their stations—their very different stations—rose like a thick fortress wall that couldn’t be scaled.

  All she’d ever be to Joseph was a shipboard diversion. Perhaps he hadn’t set out to kiss her any more than she had him. She wanted to believe he’d meant wh
at he said about saving himself for his future wife. But she supposed their close proximity, their shared sorrow, their budding friendship had all led to this moment.

  “Mercy.” His whisper was strained. “You have my highest regard and affection—”

  She stopped his declaration by pressing her fingers against his lips. “Don’t say it.”

  His eyes were the rich velvety brown she loved, made darker with a flood of his desire. It would be so easy to lose herself in them, to lose herself to him.

  He started to speak again, but she cut him off by pushing away and scrambling to her feet. “We’ve got no future together beyond this voyage. We both know it.”

  He stood and braced his feet apart to keep his balance against the swaying ship. She grabbed on to the top bunk beam to prevent herself from toppling against him. Next time she ended up in his arms, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make herself break away.

  “Tell me you don’t feel something too,” he demanded hoarsely.

  She wanted to deny him, deny her feelings, but his eyes begged for honesty. “Aye, you’re right easy to like. Too easy. But we can’t—I can’t—that is, I won’t be giving you favors.”

  “Devil be cursed.” He thrust his fingers into his hair. “I meant what I told you. I don’t want favors. I’d sooner be hung from a gibbet.”

  “Then what do you want from me, Joseph?” The question was a daring one for a woman like her. But she couldn’t hold it back. She needed to know what he really wanted. Why did he bother with her at all?

  He gripped the back of his neck, kneading his muscles.

  She found herself holding her breath.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said and dropped his arms in a posture of defeat.

  Her breath slowly eased from her, along with a low burn of disappointment. She shouldn’t be feeling let down, not in the least. She ought to be satisfied with friendship, which was more than anything she deserved from a gentleman like Joseph.

  Besides, she’d made her decision long ago not to get involved with any man. There had been plenty who’d made offers. Plenty who’d wanted her. But she’d never paid them any heed. And she couldn’t start now.

  Against her will, her attention drifted to Joseph’s mouth. And her thoughts shifted to the taste of his lips upon hers, the dizzying sensation of the connection. An exhilaration and a passion she never knew existed, one she craved again. With him. Only him.

  Mercy wrestled to free herself from the pull of desire, dragging her sights up to his eyes only to find herself drowning in them, drowning in whatever this was between them.

  She released her hold on the bunk. “I’m a-going back to my cabin now.” She took several unsteady steps in the direction of the door.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop her.

  The lurching of the ship propelled her in long stilted steps, giving her no choice but to grab on to the door handle. She knew she should be grateful the ship had pushed her away from Joseph instead of directly into his arms. She sensed he was as weak in this moment as she was, that he would have swept her close again, and he’d be as powerless to let go of her as she would him.

  Her fingers tightened around the handle. She took a deep breath and forced the door open.

  A cold sea wind threatened to shove her back inside the room. She fought against it, stepped onto the deck, and wrestled the door closed behind her.

  The rushing of the ship as it cut through the sea, the spraying of the waves, and the splattering of rain pushed her against the outer wall of Joseph’s cabin. She clutched the paneling as though she could somehow hang on to him.

  Then the ship tilted and urged her away, and she let the motion carry her stumbling down the deck. Her ship and journey were different from Twiggy’s. She was different. She had to be.

  No matter how difficult it might be, she would prove to herself that she could chart a new way forward. That was all she’d ever wanted. And now that she was so close, she wouldn’t let herself be thrown off course because of one stolen moment of pleasure.

  She’d forget it ever happened. She’d forget about Joseph. And she’d forge ahead.

  twenty-two

  Joseph stared out into the thick fog and tried to focus on Captain Hellyer’s prayers.

  “‘Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.’” The captain’s voice rang out over the assembly.

  Overhead, the ropes creaked and the sails whined as though mourning with them. The sailors stood at the railing, Sarah’s body wrapped in canvas on a plank held between them.

  “‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts,’” the captain went on, reading aloud in his strong baritone from the Book of Common Prayer. “‘Shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, thou most worthy Judge eternal. Suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.’”

  The Lord knew the secrets of their hearts.

  Joseph shifted, his suit coat and cravat constricting him. He had half a mind to unbutton his coat, but what good would that do? He’d be just as uncomfortable. His secrets would still strangle him, the secrets that were bare before the Judge eternal.

  Joseph had certainly done his best to conceal his indiscretion with Mercy from two days ago when he’d kissed her so shamelessly in his cabin. Hiding the deed from the other passengers had been easy enough. Even now, Mercy, standing on the main deck below with her arms around the girls from her cabin, hadn’t looked up at him as he stood next to the captain on the quarterdeck. They could be strangers to each other for all the interaction they’d had since she’d walked away from his cabin—since he’d let her walk away.

  He could conceal the kiss and their shared passion from the rest of the ship, but he couldn’t hide it from himself. No matter how hard he tried not to think about kissing her, the moment of holding her and tasting her and wanting her refused to fade from his mind. If anything, his remembrance only fueled his need for her, the need to be with her again and kiss her without ceasing.

  Even as he longed for her, he loathed his weak will, loathed the heat that speared him and the way his body betrayed him. He’d prided himself on being strong, a man of virtue and integrity, on possessing more self-control than other men.

  And yet in the end he’d proven he wasn’t any stronger. He’d allowed his passion to overrule his good judgment. He’d given of his affection and his ardor when he should have saved it.

  “‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God,’” said the captain, “‘in His wise providence to take out of this world the soul of our deceased sister, we therefore commit her body to the deep.’”

  Joseph fingered the silver band in his coat pocket. He’d retrieved Sarah’s ring from under the bed and was determined to give it back to Mercy. But he needed to find a way to speak with her privately, not only to give her the ring but also to beg for her forgiveness. He didn’t deserve it, but he was cut to the quick to think that she now regarded him poorly for ill-using her when he’d vowed he wouldn’t.

  He’d rehearsed his apology on a dozen occasions. Guilt had a way of making a man into a poet.

  The sailors began to tilt the plank. Sarah’s body, weighted with a lead beam, slid quietly away and, an instant later, splashed into the sea. The waves then rose up to swallow her, and she sank out of sight.

  Somberly the passengers watched, some crossing themselves, others dabbing at their eyes.

  The captain spoke the last words of the service. “‘Through our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead. The corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed and made like unto His glorious body.’”

  “Amen,” Joseph whispered along with the others gathered there.

  As the crowd began to disperse, Joseph watched Mercy and the remaini
ng girls from her cabin amble away.

  “I know you tried valiantly to save her, Lord Colville,” Captain Hellyer said. “I hate to lose anyone, but we can be grateful that whatever ailed her wasn’t contagious.”

  In his navy coat, military trousers, and sharp black hat, the captain remained dignified and impeccable even after weeks at sea. His graying beard and mustache were neatly trimmed and his keen eyes kind.

  “Yes, Captain,” Joseph replied. “We most certainly can be grateful we lost no one else.”

  Mercy had been spared, and yet somehow he felt as though he’d lost her anyway.

  Joseph couldn’t stop from seeking her out again, surrounded by the other brides, as she returned to her portion of the ship. He considered going directly to her cabin and asking to have a word with her. But he suspected she wouldn’t leave her room, and he certainly didn’t want the young women in her charge to hear what he had to say.

  “A word, Lord Colville?” the captain said.

  Something in the man’s tone brought Joseph’s head around.

  “I may speak to you freely, may I not?” Captain Hellyer asked. At their spot on the quarterdeck, they were alone except for the helmsman at the wheel.

  “Of course.”

  “The woman. Do you love her?”

  The captain’s question took Joseph aback so that he nearly stumbled. “The woman?”

  “The one you can’t take your eyes from.” The captain nodded in Mercy’s direction. “Do you love her?”

  “Come now, Captain. That’s rather personal.”

  “It’s clear she has turned your head.”

  Joseph peered off into the thick fog, struggling to maintain his composure. He assumed he’d hidden his attraction toward Mercy. But if the captain had noticed, how many others had as well?

  “May I give you a piece of advice?” Captain Hellyer asked.

  Already he knew what the captain would tell him, that a man of his station might love a woman like Mercy, but that nothing could come of it, that he must eventually let her go.