To Catch a Bride (32 page)

She climbed into bed each night, a stiff little prickle of propriety, insisting on sleeping on the outer edge of the bed, threatening to sleep on the floor if he so much as moved an inch toward her.

But in sleep, her body sang another song. In sleep her body sought him, snuggling closer until she was curled against his length, her hand resting over his heart, her cheek nestled against his shoulder, her limbs twined around his. In sleep, she was warm and soft, separated from him only by a promise—and it was driving him mad. He slept badly, and woke each morning rock hard with desire.

“I beg your pardon, I was woolgathering,” he said. “What did you ask me?”

“You said you were going to give your firstborn son to your brother to raise.”

“I said Lavinia and my brother had agreed on it. I was never even consulted.”

“Well, would you?”

“Give away my child?” He stared out to sea a long time. “Never,” he said quietly. “Not while there was breath in my body to protect him.”

She slipped her arm through his. “Then why did they think you’d agree to such a thing?”

He shook his head. “I think they—well, George, thought he’d be doing me a favor. Perhaps he thought because I’d never settled, a son would get in my way.” George’s exact words.

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He thought a son would slow me down, stop me having fun.” After eight years at war, Rafe and the others had indeed broken out and kicked up their heels a little. But in the last year the “fun” had palled and become something almost . . . desperate.

Eight years as an officer got a man used to responsibilities, to having a purpose in life, and being cut loose from that was . . . difficult. Rafe hadn’t thought a great deal about the future—in the army he’d been almost superstitious about it. Many soldiers believed that if you planned for the future, you’d be sure to be killed, so he’d lived in the here and now.

But when the fighting was all over and he’d decided to sell out—he couldn’t stand the endless drilling of a Hyde Park soldier—he’d thought he’d take up some sort of position on one of the family estates. When he was a boy, several of his uncles had run various family businesses, and he rather thought he’d be good at that.

Learning that all that your family wanted of you—for the rest of your life—was a brief period of stud service, that was a slap in the face.

And if it had been done with the least bit of hostility or scorn, Rafe would have slapped back—hard. But George had thought he was doing Rafe a favor. George had worked hard to find what he considered the perfect bride for Rafe: one who wouldn’t trouble him in the slightest.

The trouble was, Rafe liked trouble.

And pathetic as it was, Rafe couldn’t rebuff the first friendly overture from his brother since their father had died. So he’d cut and run—to Egypt.

“I didn’t mean about the son,” Ayisha interrupted his thoughts. “I meant what did he mean, you’d never settled?”

“It’s true. I haven’t had a permanent home since . . . I don’t know when actually. Not since I was a small boy.” He frowned, only just realizing it. Had it really been so long?

“When your father sent you away.” She said it in such a way that showed she understood why he’d never, ever send a child of his away. It wasn’t that he’d minded living with Granny—he’d loved living at Foxcotte and he loved her. But to know how little he’d mattered to his own father. . . .

No child of his would ever be in doubt that they mattered.

“No, I lived with my grandmother, and that was my home then. It was after she died . . .” Good God, had it really been so long since he’d had anywhere permanent?

She gaped at him. “But your family is rich,” she said, sounding quite distressed. “How could you not have a home?”

She was imagining he’d had to live on the streets, like she had, he realized. He laughed and slipped an arm around her waist. “No, you’re imagining something dreadful. I’ve had a delightful time, I assure you. After Granny died, I never went to Axebridge—my father’s home, now George’s—if I could help it. On school holidays I stayed with Gabe and Harry, or Luke. And then the army was my home. And since then, well, I stay with friends, and when in London, I have lodgings.”

“Can’t you buy a house?”

He shrugged. “What for? Besides, I do own a house—my grandmother left me hers when she died.” He hadn’t found that out until he was one and twenty and the family solicitor had written to him in Spain. His father had appointed an estate manager and the house was rented out. Rafe wasn’t needed.

“So you have a home.”

“No, I own a house. There’s a difference.”

“If you own a house, you can have a home,” she insisted. “Getting the house is the hard part. Making it into a home is easy.”

“Is it?” he said. “Good, when we’re married, you will enjoy making us a home.”

She pulled herself away. “They say we’ll be in Malta tomorrow.” It was a warning. “I’ll go down first,” she said briskly and moved toward the companionway.

 

 

 

 

M
alta was beautiful, a small jewel of an island set in brilliant azure waters, and like a jewel, it was tough at heart, with enormous fortifications rising from the sea.

Of course, being in quarantine, they were not allowed ashore, but in exchange for gold and several fine large turtles caught by the seamen, fresh provisions came aboard, including several large baskets full of fresh fruit.

Ayisha and Rafe strolled on deck while below, the ship’s passengers were treated to turtle soup, various roasted game meats, and fresh vegetables and fruit, with local cheeses to follow. The smells that floated up from the galley were enticing, and Rafe was hungry, but they had to be patient. They received their dinner after the others, but Higgins would ensure they didn’t just get leftovers.

On the shore they could hear music playing. Some kind of festival or celebration. Ayisha leaned over the gunwales, listening avidly, one foot raised.

“You’ll fall overboard if you’re not careful,” Rafe told her. She was all grace and lissome beauty.

She laughed. “Isn’t the music wonderful?” She closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the sounds floating across the smooth water of the harbor. “Oh—oh! I know that song,” she exclaimed in excitement. “It’s ‘Highland Laddie,’ and I used to be able to play it on the pianoforte.” And humming along with the tune, she played silent notes on the smooth surface of the gunwale.

Her open enjoyment of such a small pleasure touched him.

“So, you can play the pianoforte,” he prompted, hoping to encourage her to open up a little. She so rarely talked about her past.

“No, I wish I could,” she said, still earnestly fingering soundless notes, with a kind of delight over something she thought long forgotten. “I started lessons, and I loved it; it was the best thing . . .” And she sang a line and smiled. “So lovely to hear this song after so many years.”

“You seem very proficient to me.”

“Yes, but only on a ship’s rail,” she admitted. “I only attended lessons for a year and then . . .”

“Then what?”

“They stopped.” Her fingering faltered, and she snatched them back self-consciously and, as if looking for something to do with them, brushed her hair back.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the soft lapping of the waves and the sounds from the town drifting across the water.

“What happened? Did your teacher leave? Or die?”

“Mrs. Whittacker? No, as far as I know she’s still living there and giving lessons.” She shrugged. “She used to give lessons to many of the Fran—the English and other children living there, not for the money, but because she loved chil—” She broke off, frowning. “No, she
said
it was because she loved children, but now that I think back, I don’t think that was true at all.”

She glanced up at him. “She made such a fuss of me, and I felt so welcome and so wanted . . .” She sighed. “When you’re a child you believe everything adults tell you,” she said in a tired-sounding voice. “It’s only much later you understand that there was something very different going on . . .”

“What was going on with Mrs. Whittacker?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“Indulge my curiosity. I want to know why the lessons you so enjoyed stopped.”

She shrugged again. “I think now she had a
tendre
for Papa. Perhaps she hoped to marry him . . . I don’t know.”

“Your father didn’t return her sentiments?”

“No, of cour—” She broke off. “No, he didn’t. Can you hear what this one is?” She leaned out over the side, craning to hear the next song floating on the balmy night breeze, but he knew it was an excuse to change the subject. Something had happened about those lessons, not just the disappointment of a widow’s hopes. Something more personal to Ayisha.

“You sound upset.”

“I don’t know this one, but it’s pretty, isn’t it?” She swayed to the music.

She was obviously determined not to discuss it further. But the music and her movements had given him an idea.

“It’s Strauss,” he said and held out a hand to her. “Do you waltz, Miss Cleeve?”

She looked at his hand and shook her head. “You mean dance? No, I’ve seen people dance—they were the other part of Mrs. Whittacker’s lessons, but I never got to that part.”

“Then I’ll teach you.” He took her hands in his.

She tried to pull back. “No, I don’t know how.” She looked around, embarrassed.

There were, as usual at the time they took their walks, no sailors on the main deck. He could see a couple of them at work in the riggings, dark silhouettes against the evening sky and several more going about their tasks on the fo’c’sle and the poop deck. The ship would sail on the evening tide and soon there would be sailors everywhere, but for now . . .

“There’s nobody to see you,” he assured her. “Now, like this—one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three . . .” She stumbled a little at first, but Rafe was an excellent dancer with many years of practice—he’d served on Wellington’s staff and the Beau was known for his fondness for balls—and she soon picked up the steps.

She was very light on her feet and followed his guidance almost instinctively. He watched as slowly her expression changed from scowling concentration to an I-think-I-can-do-this expression, and finally she looked up and gave him a dazzling smile. “I’m dancing,” she exclaimed. “I’m dancing and it’s wonderf—oops!” She trod on his foot, and laughing, returned to intent concentration.

He didn’t think he could ever tire of watching her. The guarded expression she’d worn when he first met her had mostly disappeared. It came back whenever they were talking about her past—there was something dark and disturbing that she was hiding—but the rest of the time . . . she was breathtaking.

They whirled around and around the deck until the song finished and they were both breathless.

He released her and bowed, panting. “I must be getting old,” he joked. “I’m blowing like a fish. Time was I could ride all day, dance the night away, then ride all the next day.”

“It’s the fever,” she told him seriously. “You’re only just off your sickbed; you mustn’t overdo things. Fever can come back.”

He listened for the next tune. It was something he didn’t recognize. “Then, shall we sit this one out, my lady?” They returned to the rail.

“When were you talking about?” she asked. “Riding all day and dancing all night.”

“The army. Anyone on the Peer’s staff is—or soon learns to be—an accomplished dancer.”

“The Peer? Do you mean your father?”

The question surprised a crack of laughter out of him. “Good Lord, no, I wouldn’t know what sort of a dancer my father is. I can’t imagine him stooping to anything so human. The Peer is what we called Wellington when they made him a lord. That or the Beau. To his face, of course, we called him sir or my lord.”

“You mean you danced in the war? When you were a soldier?”

He laughed at her expression. “You can’t fight all the time, and you’d be surprised how much more can be achieved at a ball instead of in a meeting. Some of our most important supporters were first introduced to the Beau at a ball. Their wives dragged them—they would never have come to a meeting.”

“I see. I knew you’d done a lot of fighting, I hadn’t thought about anything else. I suppose the dancing is where diplomacy comes in.”

“That’s right. But Egypt was involved in the war as well. Were your parents much affected by Napoleon’s occupation?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was too small, and Papa never talked about it.”

“I’m surprised he stayed. With a wife and daughter . . .”

She shrugged. “Tell me about your own father. Would he really not dance?”

“I hardly knew him at all. He handed me a pair of colors the day I got home from school and—”

“Colors?”

“It means he’d purchased me a commission in the army.”

“The day you got home from school?” She gave him a troubled look.

He shrugged. “It’s common for younger sons to join the church, the diplomatic corps, or the army.”

“And you chose the army?”

He hesitated. He hadn’t actually been consulted. It had, in fact, come as quite a shock to be told to leave the very day he’d come home.

But as it turned out, he’d been happier in the army than he’d ever been at Axebridge. He’d liked being a soldier. He enjoyed having a clear purpose, a role that mattered, and he was good at it: good at fighting, good at organizing, and good at leading men, he’d been surprised to discover. The army had become his home.

And since his four closest friends had also followed him into the army, it had cemented his schoolboy friendships into a kind of family—one that would last a lifetime.

“Yes, the army suited me,” he told her. “Now unless I’m mistaken, that’s another waltz. I think we have time for just one more dance before you should go down to change.”