Hope was a rosebud, about to burst forth into radiant blossom. “Which dress are you talking about? When was she wearing it?”
“At dinner tonight. The peach gown…” Corbett’s words were lost in the thunder of Ryan’s footsteps as he ran to the railing.
Gripping it tightly, he looked down into the cold black water. The only light came from the men on the pier holding lanterns. But it was enough. And he knew then why Angele had been leaning out the porthole when he went back to the cabin. She was getting rid of the gown so he wouldn’t see how she’d ruined it taking care of the mare.
Ryan started laughing.
Corbett tried to pull him back from the railing and leaned very close to whisper, “Listen, I know it’s a shock, seeing her like that, but you have to tell yourself it might be for the best. I mean, we both know you were impulsive, but we can forget it ever happened…forget you ever met her, much less married her. Denise won’t know. I won’t even tell Clarice. We’ll just forget it. Now come on. You’re scaring everybody by how you’re laughing.”
Ryan shook his head from side to side and slapped his hands up and down on the railing as though he were beating a drum. He continued to chuckle as he watched Angele’s gown bobbing up and down. In the scant light, it did look like a body, head and limbs shadowed and dangling below the surface. It was easy to understand why, at first horrified glance, Corbett had thought it was her.
“Sir, I think you’d better let your friend take you back to your cabin.”
Ryan felt another hand on his other arm. It was the captain, grim-faced and stern.
“We’ll get her out, and when you feel like it, you can go ashore and make whatever arrangements you’d like.” He looked at Corbett. “Or we can bury her at sea. But we can talk about that after he’s had a chance to get hold of himself.”
Ryan thought about just letting them find out for themselves when they fished a soaked—and very empty—gown from the water. But there was no need to prolong the unpleasant situation. “I’m laughing because that’s not my wife down there.”
The captain leaned over the railing to take another look. “But your cousin identified her by her clothing.”
Ryan explained. “That’s just it. That’s only her gown floating down there. Not her. Look closer, and you’ll see.”
The captain, believing Ryan didn’t want to accept the reality of the tragedy, yelled down to the man on the pier, “What’s taking so long? Can’t you get a dock hook out there and pull her in? This poor man up here is losing his mind while everybody stands around watching his wife float, for God’s sake.”
The crewman set the lantern down as someone handed him a long pole with a hook on the end. Holding on to a piling with one hand, he stretched until he was able to snag the gown. Immediately, he yelped, “Well, I’ll be boiled in rum, it’s not a body. Just a gown spread out in the water looking like one.”
Ryan simultaneously slapped his hands on the captain’s and Corbett’s backs. “Close your mouths, gentlemen, before a flying fish sails right in. I told you it wasn’t my wife down there.”
As soon as Ryan and Corbett stepped off the gangplank, Corbett declared that he needed a drink. He also offered an apology in case Ryan thought he’d been callous when he said that Angele’s drowning might have been for the best.
Ryan told him not to worry about it. “You were just trying to help me cope. I know you still have your misgivings about me marrying her, but I appreciate how you’ve accepted her. And I’ll always be grateful for how you saved her life last night.”
Corbett said he was glad he had been there to do it, then added to further smooth things between them, “To tell the truth, when I saw that gown down there, I thought the rowdies had probably been waiting for the chance to finish what they started.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about them, anymore, but I still don’t want her out at night by herself.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Yes, I have.”
Corbett snorted. “Like you told her I’d be taking her about in Paris? A lot of good that did. She sneaked off to meet a man and spent the better part of the day with him. I still can’t get over—”
Ryan cut him off. “There was nothing to it. The man was a stone cutter. She met him to discuss having a marker made for her mother’s grave.
“You didn’t tell me that she met him in a cemetery,” he ended on a slightly accusing note.
So, Corbett thought, it was her mother’s grave. And when the investigator he had hired discovered that, he would gather other information about her, as well. Hopefully, it would be terrible enough that Ryan would have second thoughts about her daughter bearing his children.
Corbett had used what money he had left to pay the investigator, so he had not bought Clarice a gift in Paris. But he didn’t think she would care, because when she found out about Ryan getting married, she was going to be so angry nothing else would matter.
Cherbourg was a busy seaport, and Ryan enjoyed looking around even if Corbett seemed preoccupied. He figured he was either tired, still worried over what had happened—or both. So after a few drinks at a waterfront bar frequented by sun-wrinkled old fishermen, Corbett looked relieved when Ryan said they might as well return to the ship.
Corbett headed for his accommodations in steerage that he constantly complained about, but Ryan lingered on deck to watch the new passengers come on board. They looked harried, as though they’d had to rush to get there.
He stepped forward to introduce himself, speaking French.
The woman looked at her husband with such dismay it was as though she was wondering what else could happen to make her miserable. “I told you no one would speak English on this dreadful boat. That’s why I wanted to sail from Southampton.”
The man had a long, thin nose, and he stared down it in censure. His accent was deeply British, like hers. “You were the one who insisted we spend spring in Paris and then visit your sister in Cherbourg. I wasn’t about to go all the way back to England to take another line, and this isn’t a boat, by the way. It’s a ship, and I wish you’d remember that and not embarrass yourself.”
They were surprised when Ryan spoke next in his native tongue. “Well, you’ll have two people on board you can talk to. My cousin is traveling with me, and he’s American.”
“Thank heavens.” The woman seemed to melt with relief. “This has been such an ordeal. We were supposed to leave days ago, and then they wake us at an ungodly hour to tell us that if we’re still going we have to dress and be at the dock in minutes.
“Forgive me,” she added, embarrassed. “My name is Ramona Wright, and this is my husband, Nicholas.”
The two men shook hands, and Ryan offered to show them the way to their cabin. “I know where it is, because my cousin has been lusting after it. The ship was full, and he’s in steerage and hates it.”
Ramona cooed sympathetically, “What a shame. The poor man. But tell me, can we dine together? I can’t stand the thought of being around a bunch of foreigners all the way.”
Nicholas gave a sigh of disgust. “They aren’t foreigners, my dear. We are. And you must be tolerant.”
She waved a gloved hand in dismissal. “The only thing I must do is get some sleep.” She told Ryan she would probably sleep all day and would look forward to seeing him at dinner.
Ryan thought it would be nice to converse in English for a change. It might also be good for Angele. It bothered him that she seemed so shy around other people, but if she really felt left out due to not understanding what was being said, then she might talk more to the Marceaus, since they only spoke French.
She was asleep when he entered the cabin. He stood looking down at her face, bathed in the lantern’s glow, and thought again how beautiful she truly was. Her ebony hair fanned the pillow, and her long, silky lashes seemed dusted with flecks of gold as they brushed her cheeks.
The sheet had slipped from her shoulder, and as he pulled it back up, h
is breath caught in his throat to see that she was still naked. Probably she’d been too tired to put on a nightgown.
He felt himself grow hard but would not force himself on her again tonight.
Force.
He shook his head to think of it that way. The only thing he had done—or tried to do—was make her accept the fact she was a woman, and that it was perfectly all right for her to enjoy her body and his, as well.
He stripped off his clothes, then spread a blanket on the floor. He was not about to get in bed with her and startle her as he had before.
He was uncomfortable as hell, but there wasn’t much left of the night, anyway, and, after a long time tossing and turning, he fell asleep.
Angele opened first one eye, then the other, saw Ryan lying on the floor, and promptly sat up in bed. “What are you doing down there?” The sheet fell away, and she snatched it back.
He shook himself awake. “I didn’t want to scare you by getting in bed. I was afraid you’d start screaming again.”
She could have told him that would not have happened, because the nightmare hadn’t returned. In fact, she had slept quite well.
“Besides,” he went on to say, “you did a good job of scaring everybody last night yourself.”
She saw something in his gaze. What? Anger? Amusement? She couldn’t be sure. “What did I do?”
He yawned and stretched. “You fell overboard.”
“I did what?” He wasn’t making sense. Maybe he wasn’t fully awake yet.
He had rolled himself up in the blanket, and when he pushed it away, she saw he was naked.
She also saw that he was erect and quickly turned her head.
“It’s all right for you to see me this way, Angele,” he said with a touch of annoyance as he got to his feet and reached for his trousers.
“I…I’m still not used to…to any of this,” she managed to say.
“Back to what I said…”
She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Go on. I don’t think I heard you right.”
“You were throwing the gown you tore out the porthole when I came in last night, Weren’t you?”
She gulped, glad she had an excuse not to have to face him. “Why, no.” She managed a nervous giggle, as though it were the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because it was torn and dirty. You didn’t want me to see it.”
She felt a ripple of panic. How on earth could he know? It must have floated instead of sinking. They hadn’t been out at sea. The ship had been coming into port at Cherbourg. Someone had probably recognized it as being the gown she’d had on at dinner. Why hadn’t she just stuffed it in the bottom of her trunk?
Finally, she offered the lie, “I fibbed when I said I mended it. The truth is—I don’t know the first thing about sewing, and I was ashamed for you to find out. But I wanted to try, and when I failed, I was embarrassed and wanted to get rid of it.”
Once he had his trousers on and fastened, he walked over to the bed. “How did you tear it?”
“It snagged on something. That’s all.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do. You went down to the horse pens and took a bee stinger out of the mare. Then you tore a strip of doth off your gown, soaked it in vinegar, and wrapped it around her leg. You probably got filthy down there and didn’t want to have to explain to me why, so you decided to just get rid of the dress. Only it didn’t sink. It was so light it floated right up to the pier. Corbett saw it, and since it was too dark to tell there wasn’t a body in it, he came screaming to me that you were dead.”
Angele couldn’t help it.
She giggled.
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
She knew he did, because he had a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Corbett shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions.”
“It’s easy to see why he did. Everybody was upset and excited. But that’s beside the point. What I want to know is how you knew what was wrong with the mare.”
“I just guessed.”
“You just guessed,” he repeated dully.
“That’s right. I’ve heard about bees stinging horses around vineyards. Blois has a lot of vineyards. So I just assumed that’s what it was, and I was right.”
Sarcastically, he said, “And, naturally, you knew exactly what to do for it, because, once upon a time, you heard somebody talking about it.”
She nodded in affirmation. The explanation sounded good to her.
He sat down on the side of the bed and reached to cup her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Why is it that I get the feeling you’re lying?”
She didn’t like being so close to him. His bare chest brought back heated memories of how the thick mat of hair had deliciously tickled her breasts. And as he shifted to turn and face her, his shoulder muscles rippled, and she flamed to see the marks left by her nails as she had raked his back in the throes of passion.
“I…I don’t know,” she managed to say finally, squirming beneath his touch. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
He let his hand drop. “You might try the truth.”
She blinked as though she had no idea what he meant. “About what?”
“Your past. All of it. Look—” He made to touch her again, but she shrank back against the pillows. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair then shook his head in frustration. “Don’t you understand that regardless of the circumstances of how we met, I’d like for this marriage to be a good one? And it would help if you weren’t so damned mysterious about your past…your family.”
Angele supposed it would do no harm to confide a little—tell him how she’d been raped, since he knew she wasn’t a virgin. And she could also tell him something about her mother. Just a little. Enough so that he wouldn’t feel she was hiding something. The rest, about her father being British, and how she’d lived In England and was only half French, well, she would have to think long and hard about that.
“Well?” he prodded.
She needed time to think about it and decide exactly what she wanted to confide and what had to be left for later. And she had tube careful not to say the wrong thing, which might whet his curiosity all the more.
She also wanted a more appropriate setting, when both of them were fully clothed.
Finally, she conceded. “Maybe we can talk tonight after dinner. You can ask me questions, and I’ll try my best to answer.” Maybe by then, she would have her thoughts sorted out.
“Besides…” She gave him a gentle push, “I’m starved.”
“We both missed breakfast. And it’s time for you to meet the ladies for your sewing lessons. I’d say after having to throw away an expensive gown, you need them, too.” Blue eyes turned to stone. “As for our talk, we’ll have it tonight, for sure.”
She hated the thought of having to sit with the women and endure mindless chatter till lunch but saw no way out.
“And another thing…”
She saw he still wore a stern expression.
“You are not to go back to the horse pens. It’s not a fitting place for a lady.”
“Then see to it that the mare is properly taken care of, and I won’t have to.”
They locked gazes in challenge. Angele was determined not to be the first to look away, no matter how harshly he glared.
But Ryan solved the problem by appearing to make it a draw. Surprising her with a quick kiss, he bolted to his feet, ending the tense moment.
He finished dressing, then paused on his way out to cut her a sideways glance and warn, “There’s something you need to know about me, Angele. I despise scheming women. So don’t ever let me catch you in a lie again. Now, you’d better hurry up and get dressed. You’re late.”
Wanting to end the discussion on a light note, he smiled to add, “The ladies probably think you actually did drown.”
After he left, she stared at
the closed door and thought how, from their first meeting, she had sensed there was a dark, dangerous side to Ryan Tremayne. She knew she should tread softly, but it had never been her nature to do so when she felt strongly about something.
So he would learn, sooner or later, that he had a wife with mettle.
And then she would worry about that dark, dangerous, side of him.
Corbett tensed as Ryan walked into the men’s smoking room. Damn it, he looked happy, and that was the last thing he wanted him to be till he got rid of the sewer rat. He greeted him by asking, “Well, did you find out why your bride threw her gown in the ocean?”
“I sure did.” He told him the whole story.
Corbett was shocked that Ryan seemed to find it all so amusing. “Well, by damn, if it were me, I don’t know which I’d be the angriest over—her throwing away an expensive gown or going down to the horse pens after she’d been told not to.”
“I can’t be angry over either when I think about it. I mean, she did help the mare. For all I know she might have kept her from going permanently lame. I’ve never had a horse become infected by a bee sting before. Besides, Angele is different from other women, Corbett. She’s spirited, and she thinks for herself. That’s one of the things that attracted me to her.”
Corbett snickered. “It could prove to be a very bad thing, Ryan. Do I have to keep reminding you that she’s not like us even if she is French? She has absolutely no class. And you could have some serious problems in the future, because I don’t think she’ll ever fit in. Richmond society will never accept her.”
“But I thought you had accepted her,” Ryan said pointedly. “You don’t sound like it now.”
Corbett was quick to amend, “Oh, I have. Really. But it’s different with me. I’m your family. Your blood. I’ll stick by you, no matter what. Other people won’t have to.”
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