Rebecca (6 page)

Nicholas turned and said, “Darling, Drew has asked us to join him up on the bridge for a while. Would you like to see the
Prize
set sail, or do you want to rest after our long trip?”

“Go ahead without me,” she said softly. She was aware that he had become tired of her lack of cooperation. She did not feel like fighting with him any longer. “I'll stay here for a while.”

He bent to kiss the top of her head. “Rest, Rebecca. I will be back later.” She was sure his kindness was only show for his friend.

The door did not close quickly enough to mask the captain's words. A flush heated her skin as she heard him say, “Nicholas, my friend, you had better let your young bride have some sleep. She looks positively peaked. I can understand your desire for such a woman, but don't forget you have your whole lives together.” His chuckle sent a wave of shame over her. Whatever her husband replied was muffled as they walked away.

She hid her face in the pillows, which reeked of the mildew that inhabited everything on the ship. The only thing interesting these men was the marital relationship she did not share with Nicholas. She no longer had any identity of her own. Rebecca North had ceased to exist. She was Lady Foxbridge, wife of Lord Foxbridge. Mrs. Nicholas Wythe. Simply an extension of her husband and seemingly of value solely for the entertainment she could give her husband and the children she would bear to inherit his estate.

In misery, Rebecca huddled on the bed. Her arms wrapped lightly around her anguished abdomen. All thoughts but of her own abject feelings fled from her mind. Time passed with eternal slowness. She was afraid to move, for she knew that she would be sick as soon as she did.

When the ship left the harbor for the open sea, she had no idea. The movement adding to her discomfort only became augmented as the
Prize
raised her white sails and sought deeper water and a port thousands of miles to the east. Occasionally bits of conversation and the sound of footsteps came through the open window or along the beams over her head. She could pay them no mind.

She had heard tales of seasickness from her aunt, who had crossed the ocean as a child. In her wretchedness, she understood how it could kill its victims by wrenching their insides into knots. All she wanted was an end to this sickness and to this horrible life that had broken her heart into so many pieces she did not know if she ever would be able to mend it.

Nicholas was smiling as he walked along the passageway. He loved being at sea. At one time, when he was a youngster of about eleven, he seriously had considered running away to sign aboard a ship as a cabin boy. His father had gotten wind of the project and vetoed it. Living in Foxbridge Cloister overlooking the western coast of England had whetted his appetite for the salt smell of the sea winds and the pulsating sound of the waves bashing themselves against the wooden bow of a ship.

His hair was damp with sea spray and his clothes stained with the brine that covered everything and everyone on the ship. He did not care that his fine suit was ruined. When he returned home, he intended to rid himself of everything that he had obtained in America, except for sweet Rebecca. He wondered what was wrong with her. She was quieter than usual. Perhaps her hatred for him was growing, although he did not think that was possible. He had no idea of how to change her opinion of him. The truth she ignored, and his kindness she treated as a new form of sadism.

When he opened the door to the tiny quarters they would have to share, for they were the only passenger accommodations on the ship, all thoughts of changing Rebecca left his mind. His eyes went directly to the bunk where she moaned in obvious agony as she clutched her midsection. In two long steps, he had crossed the room. “Sweetheart, what is wrong?”

At the sound of his voice, her anguished eyes turned to him. “I'm so sick, Nicholas. Help me, please.” In her desperation, her antipathy had dissolved. He was the only one she had to depend on.

“Let me take off your jacket, so you will be more comfortable.” He slipped his arm under her shoulders to help her sit.

While she was pulling her coat off, her trembling fingers paused. She moaned as her face turned the same green-grey as the sea. He took one glance at her face and reached for a bucket holding water. Tossing the water out of the window, he placed the wooden pail on the floor. He held her head while she was ill. When her retching ceased, he rolled her gently so she rested on the pillows once more. He placed a dampened cloth on her forehead, and she groaned.

“Feeling any better, Rebecca?”

“No,” she whispered. “Take me home. Tell them to turn around and take me back to shore. I shall die if this continues.”

He chuckled lightly. “Seasick?”

“What else could it be?” she snapped with sudden heat. His humor irritated her so much that she would have slapped his face if her hands had had the strength.

With a shrug, he said reasonably, “It could be several things. Morning sickness, for example. You have been looking very pale since morning.”

“It can't be morning sickness!” She put the back of her hand on her forehead as she fought to breathe without irritating the pain in her stomach. She struggled to keep from moaning in the unrelenting distress of her middle. “I cannot be pregnant!”

“No?” His eyes glowed with the fire she knew was smouldering directly behind his courteous exterior. He had never made any efforts to hide it. “So your wonderful Keith Bennett never bedded you to be sure that you were worth what your brother owed him?” He caressed her cheek. “I'm surprised, but delighted that you are as untouched as the day we wed.”

She started to retort but only groaned as her stomach revolted again. As he had before, Nicholas held her while she was sick and aided her back onto the bunk. She shook with the strength of the nausea ravaging her. For that reason alone, she clung to him. “Don't be cruel to me now, Nicholas,” she murmured. “I can't fight both you and this sickness inside me. If you must be mean to me, do it later.”

He replaced the damp cloth on her forehead. “I don't want to be cruel to you ever. I would far rather be kind to you, but you make it impossible.”

Her eyes creaked open as she looked up into his blurred features. “Damn you, Nicholas Wythe. All you care about is the fact that you can be the first to bed me. You don't care one bit that I am so miserable I wish I was dead. I wish I had not come out to the barn to discover you that day until you were beyond help.”

“Rebecca, that's enough!” he retorted sternly.

“What?” she asked in a sharp voice that cracked on the single word. “Does his high and mighty lordship dislike hearing the truth?” Her words faded into a moan of torment. She turned her back on him to face the wall.

He did not dare to touch her to bring her to face him so that he could force her to see the reality she continued to disbelieve. If she was moved, she could become ill again. He hoped she would recover quickly. Although he had never suffered from seasickness, he had seen its debilitating effects. Such a long voyage as the one ahead could be fatal to someone who was ill before they had left behind them the land visible on the horizon as a low, grey cloud.

As he saw her shoulders shake, he knew that in the weakness of her tortured body she had lost the strong will to hide her tears from him. Except for the one time she had cried in the carriage, he had not seen her shed a tear, although too often he had seen them gleaming in her eyes. He had expected her to be unhappy to leave her familiar world, but she was trying to hold it all inside her. With no one was she sharing her sorrow.

He put his hands on her arms to stroke her softly through the coarse material of her shirt. Soon he would have her dressed in the satins and silk that her loveliness demanded. If she could believe that he longed to make her happy, she might be able to see past her sorrow.

“Leave me alone!” she pleaded through her sobs. “I know I will have to endure sleeping in your bed, but can't you have the decency to leave me alone now?”

Wounded by the loathing in her voice when he had only been trying to comfort her, he stood and walked away from the bunk. He wondered if this could be the same woman he had remembered with such fondness from their last meeting. Then Rebecca had been a delightful child, more interested in his well-being than her own life—which could have been forfeit for harboring the last surviving man of a mission that had turned into a suicide assignment. He had been one of the despised English soldiers who represented the overlord upon whom these proud, independent yeomen had turned their backs in derision.

He sat in the chair by the table and was silent. Rebecca did not want his sympathy, but he could not leave her alone in her misery. Whether she could accept the fact or not, she needed him as he had depended on her so long ago. As she could not have left him to die, he could not abandon her.

When she was asleep, Nicholas opened her bag to search for a clean nightdress for her to redress in when she awoke. As he pulled one out, a piece of paper floated to the floor. He bent to pick up it and could not contain his curiosity as he unfolded the time-yellowed paper. His eyes widened in shock as he saw it was a letter dated “July 1777.”

Dear Rebecca
,

The hour is late, but I wanted you to know that I am doing better every day. My recovery is mostly because of you. The doctor says by next week, I will be able to resume my command. Although that is good news, it means going back to fight this war which seems so endless. I am tired of the war, but I will have to do as I have vowed when I became a captain in service to the king you despise so deeply.

I hope you are well, little wife. Have you kept the promise that you would tell no one of our wedding? Be brave, Rebecca. If I survive this conflict, I will set this whole thing right for you. I know it would not be easy for you to be married to a man you do not know. If it is meant that I should come back to you, we will work it out as you want. I just did not want to die without thanking you for your sweet compassion for a wounded stranger.

The candle burns low, so I will stop now. As I fall asleep, I am thinking of a little lass with long, dark braids and a laugh that teases starlight from the sky to twinkle merrily in her eyes. Take care, Rebecca. I wish I could hear how you and your family are doing, but I have no address I can give you to write to me. Somehow, I will find a way to get this to you. You know that I am thinking of you with fondness and gratitude.

I remain your devoted friend and

Your husband,

Captain Nicholas Wythe

Nicholas looked from the letter to the pale face of the woman. When he had written that note, it had been a scant two weeks before the battle where his commander had surrendered their unit to the Continentals. He had given the letter to one of their scouts to post secretly so it would reach Rebecca. After his capture, he had been unable to write for fear of compromising Rebecca and her family. At the height of the conflict, it would have been dangerous to be known to have a friend on the wrong side.

All these years, she had kept his letters. She even had planned to take them with her to Bennett's house. He wondered how she would have explained to her second husband about her first marriage. Bennett would have never believed that it had been a totally platonic relationship. If he had discovered these letters or their marriage lines, he would have made her suffer.

Carefully, he refolded the letter and put it back in the case. Perhaps Rebecca had not changed that much. It would have been characteristic of the young girl who had aided him to treasure the letters sent to her by her husband who was a stranger. He recalled she had said she anxiously had waited for a year to hear from him. When he had asked her to be his wife, he had not given any thought to the sorrow she would suffer if he died. He was sure there was no one else who would have waited so patiently and mourned so deeply for him.

As Rebecca slumbered, he walked over to gaze down into her face. She was incredibly lovely. From the second she had walked into the church on her brother's arm, he had known no man would convince him to release her from their marriage. When she had turned to look into his eyes as she went to marry another man, he had seen the fiery spirit of Rebecca North Wythe was unchanged. At that moment, he had known he must have her as his own. In sleep, her face had softened to the sweetness which had been on her features that morning.

If anything had altered Rebecca, it had been his interruption of her wedding. In that moment, the gentle child had been shoved aside to enable her to become hard to deal with her broken heart. Yet he knew the gentleness remained. On the trip, he had seen her talking sweetly to everyone but him. When she thought he did not see, she had gone to admire wildflowers by the side of the road while their horses were exchanged for fresh ones. She had charmed their coach driver so much that the drab man had unbent enough to smile at her whenever she spoke to him.

Only to her husband was she cold. He wondered if she would ever forgive him for taking her away from what she saw as the realization of her dreams. If she did not learn on the trip, she would learn after their arrival at Foxbridge Cloister that she would need an ally to help her face what awaited her there. It would not be easy for Rebecca Wythe to become Lady Foxbridge, and there would be some eager to see her fail.

With a smile, he bent to kiss her forehead. His happy expression faded as he placed his palm where his lips had been. He cursed under his breath. Rebecca was not seasick. She was ill with a fever. After he had tucked the blankets around her, he went to the door. Although he did not think he would wake her, he closed it quietly.

“Jake!” he called to a youngster he recognized as the cabin boy of the
Prize
. “Go to Captain Jennings, and tell him Lord Foxbridge requires his presence immediately. It's an emergency, but speak to no one but the captain about this. Understand?”