The Accidental Bride

by Jane Feather

  Emboldened, Phoebe wormed her way out of the shelter of the bush. She had lost the cabin boy’s cap in her first dive beneath the thorns, and her braids were uncoiling onto her shoulders, but her appearance was the least of her concerns now. Her anxious gaze sought Cato.

  There was blood on the lane, which was now empty of all but the seven men and Phoebe. The inhabitants of the street of the cobblers had made themselves scarce at the first pistol shot.

  The man Phoebe had pulled down scrambled to his feet and saw her. He leaped for her. Phoebe jumped sideways. Cato’s sword slashed, catching the man’s forearm. Phoebe saw Cato’s eyes, dark, brilliant, utterly intimidating as they seemed to look straight through her. She ducked and raced for the far side of the alley.

  A hand grabbed her, dragged her back hurtfully, yanking her arm up behind her back so that she bit back a scream of pain.

  And then everything stopped.

  Cato dropped his swordpoint. Walter Strickland remained where he was, his own swordpoint poised.

  Brian Morse hauled Phoebe closer against him, and her bent arm shrieked in agony. She closed her lips and stared at the ground, fighting the welling tears.

  “Well, well,” Brian murmured, his free hand twisting into her loosened braids. This wasn’t what he would have chosen, but a man accepted opportunities as they arose. There were other women as enticing as the ramshackle Phoebe. Plenty of them, ready and willing to lie down for the new marquis of Granville.

  He gave a short laugh. “Talk about where angels fear to tread! Really, Phoebe, one can’t help but pity your husband.”

  He raised his eyes and looked with naked triumph at Cato “Drop your sword, my lord.” His voice was soft and smooth as he brought up his dagger, laying its edge against Phoebe’s throat. “And yours, Mr. Strickland.” He smiled at the agent. “I’m certain Lord Granville will accede to my request.”

  Walter Strickland glanced at Cato. Lord Granville’s expression was carved in ice. Strickland’s glance asked a question, but it received no answer and the agent remained with his swordpoint raised.

  “Come, sir,” Brian cajoled as the edge of his dagger pressed against Phoebe’s throat. “Lay down your weapons or she dies . . . right now.” He turned the dagger slightly so that she could feel the cutting edge rasp against the tender underside of her chin.

  Phoebe raised her eyes and met Cato’s bleak gaze. Fear shivered down her spine, crawled over her scalp. The knife at her throat pressed harder and she knew with chill, despairing certainty that she was going to die . . . that Cato was not going to save her. She had forced herself into the middle of his mission, and Cato would permit nothing and no one to come between himself and his duty. She had always known it.

  Brian repeated, “Lay down your arms, my lord.”

  Cato regarded Phoebe with a blank stare. It seemed he was looking right through her.

  “You’re more of a fool than I thought you, Brian,” Cato said harshly. “I’ve no time for sentiment. I hadn’t with your mother. Why should I have with this meddlesome chit?” He spun around, his sword catching the light as it cut, breaking the momentary spell of inaction.

  The movement was so sudden, the sentiment so harshly surprising that Brian’s attention wavered for an instant. Phoebe kicked up and back at the same moment she drove her free elbow into the pit of Brian’s belly. As he bent forward, gasping with the nauseating pain wrenching his groin and stomach, she sank her teeth into the hand that now wavered at her throat.

  His hold slackened and she spun away from him, delivering an almighty kick to his thigh as she went.

  Cato caught her, threw her sideways out of the fray, and went for Brian. He was filled with a cold fury that had only one target. There was no room in Cato’s soul now for compassion, for remorse, for family ties. He would kill the man who had come within a breath of killing Phoebe.

  Phoebe had been thrown to her knees by the side of the lane. She dragged herself to her feet, her eyes taking in the scene. Cato was fighting Brian. Cato’s friend was hard pressed by the others. A knife lay in the gutter. Phoebe picked it up, closed her eyes, and plunged it downward in the general direction of one of Walter Strickland’s assailants. It met the resistance of clothing and the flesh beneath, before penetrating the man’s shoulder.

  He dropped his sword to the cobbles with a vile curse and Phoebe jumped back, leaving the knife sticking up from his back. She bent and picked up the dropped sword, holding the heavy blade effortfully with two hands clasped around the hilt. She had no idea whether she could wield it to any purpose, but she felt more useful holding it. Behind her she could hear the clash of swords as Cato’s advance inexorably forced Brian back towards the wall of the house.

  Cato was a better swordsman than Brian, and on an even field the younger man had not a chance. Brian knew it. His eyes grew wild as he searched for an advantage that would overcome his stepfather’s greater skill. Only his accomplices could give it to him, but his bellows for assistance fell on deaf ears. He saw Cato’s eyes. Black as agate. Pitiless as they’d never been before. And Brian knew he was lost.

  When Cato’s sword slid beneath his arm as easily as a knife through butter, Brian sighed almost with relief that it was over. He fell to one knee and then slowly dropped in a fetal curl to the ground.

  The two men left standing took one glance and then with an almost comical gesture of resignation backed off and melted into the passage alongside the house, leaving their wounded comrades to fend for themselves. Unseen eyes from every window along the street watched the battleground.

  Cato, his gaze unreadable, stood looking down at Brian Morse.

  “Is he dead?” Phoebe asked, breathless, still hefting the great sword between both hands.

  “Not quite.” Cato sheathed his bloody sword. He looked her over, a swift appraising glance. He tilted her chin and examined the skin where Brian’s knife had pressed, then he nodded as if satisfied.

  “Give me that.” He took the weapon from her and walked over to the other wounded men. He regarded them unspeaking for a moment, then turned to Strickland, who was sheathing his own sword. “All well?”

  “Aye,” Strickland said. “But I didn’t fancy the odds, I have to say.” He looked curiously at Phoebe, who still stood beside Brian, unsure what to say or do next. A faint grin quirked Strickland’s firm mouth. “Although they seemed to even up a little,” he added.

  Cato offered no comment. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ll have the entire town around our ears soon.” He crooked a commanding finger in Phoebe’s direction. “Come.”

  Phoebe came slowly. “Will you leave Brian?”

  “I’ll not kill him if I haven’t already done so,” Cato replied. “Now come.”

  The curt tone was not reassuring but Phoebe could not imagine ever being reassured by Cato again. She glanced once more at the wounded men. The street was still deserted. She could see no one but she could sense many eyes upon them.

  Cato put a hand in the small of her back, urging her forward, and Phoebe, bewildered and unhappy, obeyed the pressure because she could see no alternative.

  “So, who’s this?” Walter Strickland inquired, wiping his dagger on the side of his thigh. He regarded Phoebe with a degree of fascination.

  “Would you believe—my wife?” Cato inquired, removing a thorn sticking out from the back of Phoebe’s jerkin.

  “No,” Strickland said frankly. He examined her closely and Phoebe felt her color mount.

  “Then believe it, my friend.” Cato took a fold of the jerkin between finger and thumb. “This is the most disgusting article. Where did you get it?”

  “I have to give it back,” Phoebe said dully. “I only gave him a sovereign for it. And I seem to have lost the cap.”

  “That wasn’t an answer to my question,” Cato commented aridly, “but I suppose I’ll make sense of it all at some point.” He shook his head with an air of mock dismay. “Is that one of my shirts you’re wearing under that r
evolting jerkin?”

  Phoebe was too confused by this sudden change of tone to reply. He sounded amused, the curtness of a moment ago vanished. She could detect no anger in his expression, but no gratitude for her intervention either. She could make no sense of anything except the simple fact of Cato’s safety; it was all that mattered.

  And yet in the aftermath of that burst of intense physical and emotional activity came a deep trough of depression. She couldn’t lose the memory of his eyes: cold, bleak, utterly rejecting. He had turned from her. He’d told Brian only his duty mattered. She had saved herself. Cato had done nothing to save her. He’d turned from her.

  “Your wife,. Granville?” Walter Strickland was finally shaken out of his customary composure.

  “Lady Granville . . . Walter Strickland,” Cato said with a ceremonious gesture.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, sir,” Phoebe responded numbly. Then a flicker of spirit came to her aid. She added with a lift of her chin, “But you shouldn’t judge by appearances.”

  “Oh, believe me, Strickland, in this case you should,” Cato declared.

  “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Granville.” Walter Strickland offered a bow, an amused gleam in his eye as he responded to the odd formality of the introduction. “You’ve done us good service this morning.”

  Phoebe waited for some acknowledgment from Cato, but all he said, in a voice as dry as sere leaves, was “My wife is a woman of many parts. All of them as eccentric as her present disreputable costume.”

  They had reached the quay where the decks of the White Lady were now quiet, the unloading over, the crew taking liberty in the town under the warm rays of the noon sun. Phoebe felt tears pricking behind her eyes. Cato was making fun of her. First he abandoned her, then he made mock of her. Maybe he was punishing her; maybe he thought she deserved it; it was unjust and unkind.

  She took a step away from him, towards the gangway to the ship, longing for the privacy of the little cabin.

  “You’ll want to negotiate your passage with Captain Allan, Strickland,” Cato said putting a firm hand on Phoebe’s shoulder, wordlessly bringing her back beside him. “I imagine you’ll find him in the Seagull. He told me this morning he’d be spending most of the day there.”

  Strickland looked over at the tavern in question, then cast a sidelong glance at Phoebe, who stood stiff and silent under Cato’s hand. “Reckon I’ll find him, then. I daresay it’s safe to show my face about town now. Unless there are more bands of mischief makers after my blood.” He gave an easy chuckle as if the idea were absurd, and loped off to the Seagull.

  “I wish to go to the cabin,” Phoebe said, trying once more to move away from Cato’s restraining hand.

  “That is precisely where we’re going,” Cato responded imperturbably. “We have a great deal to discuss, you and I.” His hand slid to her arm and he urged her forward onto the White Lady.

  “I wish to go to the cabin alone,” Phoebe protested. “I don’t feel very well.”

  “That’s perhaps not surprising after such an adventure,” he returned with a calm nod and without releasing his hold. “Let us see what we can do to improve matters.”

  It seemed she had no choice. He was going to accompany her whether she wished it or not.

  “Just who does that vile jerkin belong to?” he asked when they had reached the privacy of the cabin. He closed the door and stood against it, his hands resting on his hips, an unmistakable glimmer of amusement in his eye.

  “The cabin boy,” Phoebe said, shrugging out of the garment with a jerky movement. She was beginning to feel angry now. His mockery was the last straw, and she welcomed this clean emotion spurting through the mire of her wretched confusion. “I gave him a sovereign, but now I’ve lost his cap, so I’ll have to pay him more for it.”

  “You enlisted the help of this cabin boy to get off the ship?”

  Phoebe glared at him. “He helped me to get on it at Harwich.”

  Cato whistled softly. “I never did ask how you managed that. How stupidly remiss of me. If I’d known, I daresay I could have prevented this morning’s little escapade. What inducements did you use to persuade this hapless boy?”

  “Guineas,” Phoebe snapped. “Four of them in all.”

  Cato was astounded. “Where in hell did you get such a sum, Phoebe?”

  She turned her back to him as she unbuttoned his shirt. “The pawnbroker in Witney.”

  There was silence. Then Cato said in conversational tones, “Forgive me, but I thought I had forbidden you to visit the pawnbroker again. Alas, my imperfect memory.”

  Phoebe closed her lips firmly and cast aside his shirt. She reached for her own, which still lay across the stool.

  “Of course,” Cato continued in the same affable tone, “that was in the days when I was still laboring under the delusion that I had some husbandly authority over your actions. I can’t imagine how I could have been so foolishly mistaken.”

  Anger took hold, burning away the last wretched vestige of self-pity. Phoebe turned on him, holding the shirt in her hands, her eyes blazing in her now pale face.

  “Must you mock me as well? What difference does it make to you what I do so long as I keep out of your way?” she cried bitterly. “I know full well how I stand with you, my lord.”

  Cato was taken aback. The amusement died out of his eyes. “What are you talking about, Phoebe?” His voice was suddenly very quiet.

  “You needn’t worry,” she said in the same low bitter tone. “I’ll not step between you and your work again. I know my place, sir. It’s taken me a long time, I admit, but I’m obviously rather slow-witted. It took a hammer to knock it into my thick skull, but believe me, I have finally taken the point.”

  She raised a hand as if to ward him off as she fumbled with the sleeves of her shirt, which somehow seemed to have turned themselves inside out.

  Cato twisted the garment from her grasp and threw it onto the bunk. He took her by the shoulders, his fingers sliding beneath the thin straps of her chemise to close warmly on the bare skin beneath.

  “I’m not certain what you’re talking about, Phoebe, but I think you had better make it crystal clear to me without delay.”

  Tears of anger, disappointment, the deepest hurt stood out in the speedwell blue eyes as she met his gaze. “Isn’t it obvious?” she demanded, her voice thick but steady. “I know I’ve never been more than a convenience to you . . . or rather, most of the time an inconvenience,” she added caustically.

  “I tried to show you that I could be more to you than that, that I was worthy of your confidence, that I could take part in your work, in everything that concerns you, but you won’t see it, you won’t listen . . . you just won’t open your mind!”

  She dashed a hand across her eyes, but the flood of angry words continued. “And now I really know what I’m worth! Nothing! Isn’t that so?”

  “Hey . . . hey!” Cato shook her in an attempt to stop the raging, tear-drenched tirade. “What in hell’s teeth are you talking about, woman! I realize you’ve had a nasty experience, but you can’t hold me responsible for that! You’ve made it clear countless times that you’ll plow your own furrow, Phoebe, and the consequences of your own decisions are yours to bear.”

  “Yes,” Phoebe said, her voice now dull. “That’s true. But I didn’t think I meant so little to you that you’d . . . you’d . . .” Her voice faltered. Somehow she couldn’t say it.

  “That I would what?” Cato inquired in a tone suddenly as soft as silk.

  “That you would have abandoned me,” Phoebe said. “If I hadn’t saved myself, you would have left me to Brian’s knife.”

  Cato stared, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You think I would have done what?”

  Phoebe tried to shrug out of his hold. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I should have known. You’ve always made it clear that your duty comes first. I got in the way. Of course you couldn’t sacrifice your mission because of my
stupid mistake.”

  Slowly Cato began to understand what she was talking about. But it was incomprehensible. Impossible that she should imagine him capable of such a barbarity. “Let me understand this. Because I really want to be sure I have this right.”

  His fingers curled into her shoulders with bruising pressure. “You’re accusing me of being ready to leave you to Brian? Is that really what you’re saying, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe felt the bright glaze of her righteous conviction dim somewhat. “But you did,” she said. “You told him you didn’t care about me. You turned away. I don’t know how you could do that, but you did.”

  “Dear God! How could you even imagine such a thing? What the devil have I ever done that you would believe such a thing of me?” Cato demanded.

  “You said it.”

  “And what happened when I said it?” he inquired, a muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth.

  There was something dangerous about that muscle. Phoebe thought back, looking for the right answer. She could still feel the knife at her throat. She could still see Cato’s eyes, so black, so blank, looking straight through her. She made no reply, but her hand went unconsciously to her throat.

  “Brian was thrown off balance by the unexpected.” Cato answered his own question. “If you hadn’t been quick enough to take advantage of his momentary surprise, I would have done so myself.”

  Had she been mistaken? Had she in the rush of hurt and uncertainty drawn the wrong conclusion?

  “Come!” he commanded, clicking finger and thumb imperatively. Phoebe could see in the hard set of his mouth, the dark blaze in his eyes how he struggled to contain his own anger. “You owe me an explanation for such an accusation. And I would hear it now.”

  Why had he suddenly managed to put her in the wrong? It was so unfair. All the months of frustrated hopes came rushing to the fore, and she faced him now with a wild outpouring of her deepest emotion, the truth tumbling from her lips in a passionate cascade.

  “You don’t love me. I love you so much and you don’t feel anything much for me. Oh, I’m an amusing toy, sometimes. Good for bedsport. You said once you liked me, and I daresay you do, most of the time, except when I get in the way. I know I’m not important to you, not truly important. You’ve made that clear many times. Your own world is the only thing that matters to you, so why would you make such a sacrifice for me?”