To Catch a Bride

by Anne Gracie

  “I told you not to make such a racket,” Rafe’s deep voice rumbled softly.

  Ayisha, confused, rubbed her eyes.

  He continued, “See? You’ve woken her up and that means banishment for such a heinous crime. Off you go.” He scooped the kitten up and set her gently on the floor.

  She smiled sleepily at the sight of him talking so earnestly to the tiny creature.

  “That smile’s a sight for sore eyes,” Rafe said. “Good morning, sweetheart.” He leaned over and kissed her, a long, leisurely, possessive kiss that stirred all the sensations of last night up in her.

  Still kissing her, he pulled her closer. She could feel him hot and hard against her stomach.

  “No.” She pressed her hands on his chest and pushed him back.

  He released her instantly, with a rueful smile. “Sorry, sweetheart, twice is a bit much when it’s your first time. You must be sore.”

  She felt herself blushing and pulled the blue coverlet around her. “No, it—it’s not that. It’s just—” She took a deep breath. “We can’t do that again.”

  His brows snapped together. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, but—”

  He relaxed. “Good, I thought not. You enjoyed it, didn’t you? You seemed to.” His gaze caressed her.

  She felt her skin heating even more and glanced away. It was hard to say anything when his eyes burned with that particular cold blue heat. It felt so very . . . personal. “Whether I enjoyed it or not is immaterial,” she said firmly.

  “I thought it was very material,” he murmured.

  “It’s not going to happen again.”

  He sat back against the paneling at the head of the bed, crossed his arms, and grinned at her, obviously feeling very pleased with himself. “Yes, it is.” The sheets ended just below his waist, only just keeping him in any way decent. Not that she was looking. Much.

  She averted her eyes, and her gaze fell on a small spot of blood on the bottom sheet. Her virgin’s blood, she thought and inconspicuously pulled a corner of blanket over it. Somehow, from the stories she’d heard, she’d expected a lot more. Such a lot of fuss over something so small.

  “It won’t happen again,” she insisted. “Not unless you force me.”

  “You know I’d never do that.” He gave her that sleepy look and immediately she recalled Laila saying his eyes made her think of rumpled beds and long, hot nights. Ayisha knew what she meant, now . . .

  She nodded, trying to keep her mind on the subject for discussion, not . . . rumpled beds. “That’s right. So.”

  “What about when we’re married?”

  He was so sure their marriage was inevitable. She gave an exasperated sigh. “We’ve been over this before. How often do I have to say it—we’re not getting married.”

  “It’s no longer up for debate,” he told her, his voice hardening. “You were a virgin. I don’t ruin virgins and walk away.”

  “Ruined?” She glared at him. “I’m not the least bit ruined. It hardly hurt at all and there was only the tiniest bit of blood.” She tried not to blush and added, “I’ve shed more blood peeling vegetables.”

  The hard expression faded. His eyes gleamed. “Peeling vegetables?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, embarrassed. “I’m in perfectly good condition. Apart from a few minor twinges, I feel wonderful, so let us have no more talk of being ruined.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it, but you’ve misunderstood,” he said, his voice, gentle, faintly amused, but implacable. “Ruined means I’ve taken an innocent girl’s virginity. And in my book, that means we’ll marry—whether you like it or not. This is no longer just a matter of gossip. There could be consequences from this night’s work.”

  She knew that. It was the reason she’d been trying to keep him at arm’s length. Until all her resolve had dissolved in one explosive moment of rage and fear and passion and the exultation of defeating death and embracing life.

  He continued, “I won’t force you to bed me, my dear, but I’ll have no compunction whatsoever about forcing you to the altar. And if you want to argue about it, I’ll send for Reverend Payne and the captain and instruct them both to marry us now, on the spot, quarantine or no.”

  Ayisha stared at him. There was a grim set to his jaw that dared him to call his bluff. Because it was no bluff at all.

  Last night’s events had changed everything, and they both knew it. It was time to come clean.

  “I’m not who you think I am,” she told him.

  “Not this again,” he said wearily. “Who are you then?”

  “My mother was not Lady Cleeve; her name was Kati, Kati Machabeli. She—she was my father’s mistress.”

  There was a long silence as he digested what she’d said. She tried to read his face, but she couldn’t.

  “Kati Machabeli does not sound like an Arab name.” His voice was calm and gave nothing away.

  “No, she was born in Georgia.”

  “I see. Who was your father?”

  “Sir Henry Cleeve, of course. I didn’t lie, precisely—just didn’t tell you the whole truth.” She bit her lip and added, “My father b—met Mama when he was on a visit to Damascus once. She was asked to interpret for him because her m—the man he was doing business with—did not speak English or French.”

  “And your mother did.” He recalled now that Ayisha claimed to speak a number of languages, too. “What business was this?”

  “Papa collected art and precious documents.”

  “And women, too, presumably.”

  “No! He wasn’t like that. Mama was his only mistress.”

  That she knew about, Rafe thought.

  “They fell in love. Papa brought her back to Cairo and set her up in a small house near the market. He came to visit every day, but she owned it, she kept the keys. It was her home.”

  “If she owned it, why did you have to live on the streets when she died?”

  “I didn’t mean own as in legally own, and anyway, I think Papa sold it when we came to live with him in his house—the one you rented. But he did love her and Mama adored him. They were very happy together, until the very end.”

  “I see.” He considered what she’d told him. “Where did Lady Cleeve come into this picture? Did she mind your father taking a beautiful mistress? She was beautiful, I assume.”

  She nodded. “He didn’t bring us into the house until after Lady Cleeve died. She never knew about Mama or me.

  He raised his brows. “How do you know?”

  Her forehead puckered. “I don’t . . . Nobody ever said . . .” She looked at him stricken. “I’ve only just thought about it. You don’t think of such things when you’re a child. Oh dear, I hope she never knew. That would be terrible, to know your husband did . . . that.”

  He was glad she didn’t try to justify it. He was even glad of her dismay at the thought that her father’s wife might know of his infidelity.

  It was common practice for men of his class to take their marriage vows lightly. From the Prince Regent down, gentlemen commonly took a mistress as well as a wife. Some even boasted of it.

  Not Rafe. He took his promises seriously—all his promises. He would be a faithful husband, and he expected the same in return.

  “So Alicia Cleeve was your half sister. What happened to her?”

  “She died at the same time as her mother, of the plague, when I was six.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Six. We were one month apart in age. I was the younger.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “No, I didn’t really understand any of it until we came to live with Papa. And even then I didn’t fully understand—I was just a child. I knew Papa’s previous wife and daughter had died, that’s all.”

  “After that your father moved you both from the house near the market into his principal residence?”

  “Yes.”

  Rafe raised his brows. Keeping a mistress he could understand; a lot of men
did it, married as well as unmarried. But to move a mistress and illegitimate child into your home, as bold as brass—that was the sort of thing that could cause scandal. And scandal caused gossip. And gossip traveled, yet Lady Cleeve senior had heard nothing of this.

  “What did your father’s friends make of that?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

  “Was there no scandal, no gossip?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. We didn’t have many visitors.”

  “How did people—I mean your father’s friends, not shopkeepers—treat your mother when she went out?”

  “Oh, Mama never went into company. She was very shy and Papa never pressed her.”

  I bet he didn’t, Rafe thought.

  “It wasn’t like you think. Mama had a scarred cheek,” she explained. “She’d been atta—in an accident. She didn’t like people to see it. Papa took me out with him, sometimes. He took me to music lessons with an English lady for a while.” She looked away and added quietly, “But if people called me Alicia, he never corrected them. And he told me not to as well.”

  She met his gaze and added, “I won’t do that anymore. I won’t live in a dead girl’s shadow, won’t take what belongs to Alicia.”

  Rafe nodded. He believed her. He thought of the number of times she’d told him she was Ayisha and that Alicia was dead. Not her fault he didn’t believe the literal truth when he heard it. She’d been as honest as she could; she’d lied to protect herself, not for gain. Nobody had forced this confession from her today, only her own sense of honor and self-worth.

  Another question occurred to him. “When your parents died, why didn’t you go to the British consulate?”

  “I didn’t know where to go.” Her gaze slid sideways and he knew at once there was something she wasn’t telling him.

  “But—”

  “They wouldn’t have helped.”

  “Why not?”

  She got up and walked to the window and stood staring out for a long time. For a moment, Rafe thought she wasn’t going to tell him, but she returned to the table, sat down, and continued. “Evil men broke into the house as my mother lay dying. Papa was dead by then.”

  “And the servants?”

  “They all fled when they first saw it was the plague.”

  “So you were alone with both your parents dying.”

  She gave a short nod.

  “I’d heard the house was robbed.”

  She traced intricate, invisible patterns on the table as she spoke. “They smashed their way in and took everything of value. And then they looked for me . . . They were looking for the white child-virgin.” She glanced up from the table. “I knew they meant me.”

  Rafe’s jaw tightened. She’d been just thirteen—a little girl. How the hell had her father left her in such circumstances? A decent man would have ensured his daughter was protected, provided for. “How did you escape?” he asked her quietly.

  A hint of mischief gleamed in her eyes. “You’ll never believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “I hid under my mother’s bed.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, it was so obvious a hiding place, it was amazing that they didn’t find me. But Mama was dying of plague, and she saved me. She opened her eyes and cursed them—up to that point they thought she was dead so they got a terrible shock. The curse of a dead white woman . . .” She smiled ruefully. “They were not inclined to search her room very thoroughly.”

  From the open window the sounds of a somber tune, played on fiddle, flute, and squeezebox, drifted in.

  “What’s that music?” she asked, turning her head.

  With difficulty Rafe concentrated on the moment. What she’d told him had knocked him endways. “The funeral ceremony, I imagine.”

  “So soon?”

  He shrugged. “Best to get it over with before the heat sets in.”

  “I want to listen,” she said, and with the sheet wrapped around her naked body she shuffled to the porthole.

  Rafe wanted to know more; he had a raft of questions to ask her, but they could wait. He swung his legs out of the bed, dragged on his buckskin breeches, buttoned them, and followed.

  The prayers were just a snatch of sound, swept away by the breeze. A hymn rose in a deep chorus: strong, male voices ringing across the waves. Oh God, our help in ages past.

  The names of the dead were read out, one by one. They could hear the splash as each body slipped into the sea. “And therefore we commit this body to the deep.”

  “Keith Carter, Gianni Astuto, Zaid ElMazri, Antonio Palermo.”

  Rafe had never heard of any of them—but Ayisha had and wept for them.

  The vicar’s voice droned on. “Sergio Candeloro.”

  “He was only married six months ago. His poor wife,” Ayisha whispered.

  “Tommy Price, Vince Cafari, George Zaloumis.”

  “Oh, George.” She sighed. “Remember? The young Greek boy, with the heartbreaking attempt at a mustache?”

  “No.” He’d been looking at her, not at boys with straggly mustaches.

  “The others used to tease him about it, and he would blush and turn his fists on them. Now he’ll never—” She stopped on a sob.

  Rafe slid his arms around her. He’d known many young boys trying to grow their first mustache. Too many had died in a foreign land . . .

  The trick was not to think about it.

  “Jem Blythe.”

  “The boy who made Cleo’s harness,” she told him brokenly.

  He tightened his hold on her.

  He’d seen her with those boys on deck, laughing and talking with them, as if common sailors weren’t beneath her notice. Of course she was used to hobnobbing with the riffraff of the streets . . .

  There’d been no sign of flirtation—not from her, at least. The sailors had clustered around her like bees to a honey pot, but she’d seemed unaware of the sexual undercurrents. Given her years of acting the boy, she’d probably never tested her feminine powers.

  And after last night, her innocence was unquestioned.

  The last prayer was said, then came the singing of the twenty-third Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .”

  Ayisha sang, her voice true and a little husky, cracking with emotion. She knew all the words by heart. Tears poured down her cheeks, and she sang with an intensity that made him wonder.

  “Did you attend your parents’ funeral?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head and her voice wobbled and cracked, but she sang on.

  Rafe held her tight against him. There was a lump in his throat, but not for the sailors killed by pirates. They’d died a clean and honorable death.

  But Ayisha . . . She was so full of life, so full of emotion it was frightening. How could she open herself to grief like this when she’d already suffered so much?

  The dead sailors were little more than chance-met strangers, but she wept for them, grieved for them and their families. And Laila and Ali, left behind in Cairo—and even that moth-eaten old cat—he’d witnessed the pain she’d felt at leaving them.

  She loved too easily, that was her problem. Love was the hostage to pain. The more you loved, the more pain you felt . . .

  She needed to learn to protect herself better, as he had.

  Ayisha stepped out of the washroom, dressed and feeling clean and fresher. The funeral had tired her out, but the weeping had loosened some of the knots inside her.

  She crossed the cabin and started stripping the bed. There was a certain stain on the bottom sheet she needed to get out.

  “Leave that,” he ordered. “Come and sit down. We did not finish our discussion.”

  His interrogation, he meant. Ayisha tried not to sigh. She was exhausted. Too much had happened in too short a time. What she really wanted to do was curl up in that bed and sleep for a week—but she couldn’t, not after what had happened, not with him there, watching her with those eyes, full of q
uestions.

  And echoes of heat from last night.

  He dressed swiftly, pulled on his boots, stepped into the washroom, and emerged a moment later looking as neat and elegant as if his valet had attended him. How did he do it? Ayisha wondered.

  The only thing that was the slightest bit out of place was his unshaven jaw, and privately she thought it looked even more attractive covered in dark stubble.

  Her skin prickled deliciously with the memory of how it felt against her skin; the abrasive caress of it against the soft skin of her breasts had made her want to purr like a cat.

  It won’t happen again, she reminded herself.

  She sat on the chair, folded her hands, and waited. Despite the cold water she’d splashed on them, her eyes still ached from all the weeping. She felt clean, but crumpled.

  He sat and regarded her a long time in silence. She willed herself not to fidget. She had no idea what he was thinking, what he was feeling. But, oh, she could guess.

  Anger, betrayal, contempt. She’d made a fool of him. She hadn’t meant to, but circumstances had given her no choice.

  None of those emotions showed in his voice when he asked her, “You said from the first that Alicia Cleeve was dead. You knew I didn’t believe you, so why did you wait until now to tell me the full story? Why not tell me at the time?”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “Confess my illegitimacy? Would you have taken me to England if I had?”

  He frowned. “You didn’t want to go to England.”

  She shook her head. “Papa told me so much about England, I’ve always wanted to go.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Then why did you refuse to come with me from the very beginning? I distinctly remember threatening to roll you in a carpet—kicking and screaming—and cart you onto a ship, if necessary. Not that you screamed,” he said with ironic emphasis.

  She blushed, remembering where she’d tried to kick him.

  He continued, “And why tell me then, that first night, that Alicia was dead and here there was only Ayisha?”

  “Because I didn’t want to go to England under false pretenses, as Alicia.”

  “You did anyway.”

  “Only because you forced me.”

  “I did not. You came aboard of your own free will, no carpet required.”