To Catch a Bride (37 page)

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.

 

 

 

 

A
yisha 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 questions.

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.”

“You didn’t force me intentionally, but you showed that picture to so many people, some people noticed the resemblance. Someone made a joke that they should dress me as a girl and sell me to you. And once that joke started to spread . . . well, the men who’d pursued me as a child put two and two together and came after me. Again.”

He gave her an intense look. “Those men at the riverbank?”

She nodded. “The leader, Gadi’s uncle, was one of the ones my mother cursed.” She gave a wry, mirthless smile. “I couldn’t stay in Egypt any longer.”

“You could have told me the truth then. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“And would you have taken me to my grandmother’s?”

“Of course. Why not?”

He hadn’t had as much time as she had to think things through, Ayisha saw. “Because she sent you to fetch her beloved granddaughter, Alicia Cleeve, not some illegitimate brat her son sired on his foreign mistress.”

She waited, but he remained silent, his face graven in its stillness.

“Forgive me if I’m wrong,” she said, “but aristocratic grandmothers don’t generally scour the world looking for any stray bastards their son has sired—or has the England of my father changed?”

There was a long silence. She wished she could tell what he was thinking but his eyes had gone that unreadable, opaque, ice blue.

“No,” he said slowly. “England hasn’t changed that much.”

 

 

 

 

T
he knock on the cabin door startled them both, mercifully breaking the silence. It was Higgins with breakfast. Rafe carried in the tray and uncovered it. Bacon and eggs, toast with marmalade or honey, and a large pot of fresh, hot Italian coffee. There was even a fish head for Cleo, who showed her approval of the treat by dragging it behind her basket and growling over it.

Ayisha felt hollow. He’d just confirmed all her fears. The illegitimate daughter of Sir Henry Cleeve would be of no interest to her grandmother. Or to him.

She took a deep breath. So be it. She had started a new life as a child on the streets. She could do it again in England.

“What would you like first?” Rafe asked her, “Food or coffee?” Gallant to the end. As if she hadn’t just confessed she’d deceived him.

The scent of the coffee teased Ayisha’s senses and suddenly she was starving. “Coffee to start with, please.”

He poured her a cup of steaming dark coffee, stirred in two lumps of sugar and some milk, and placed the cup in her hands. He knew exactly how she liked it. How did he know that?

She inhaled, then sipped it slowly. Ambrosial. The hot liquid flowed into her and she felt steadier. And hungrier.

He passed her a plate of bacon and eggs. “Eat up,” he told her. “You need food after all you’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours.”

He was right. Her mind, her heart felt bruised all over, so much had happened in the last day—and night. Pirates, death, her first experience with a man—probably the last with this one—funerals, and exposure of her deception.

And she hadn’t eaten since midday yesterday. No wonder she was starving.

She hoped to God she wasn’t with child.

“Bacon, at long last,” he said approvingly. He ate with a neat energy, tidily but with gusto. Throughout the meal, he politely ensured she had everything she needed: salt, more coffee. He even buttered her toast, then passed her the honey.

“Malta is famous for its honey,” he told her. “Its bees are black and fierce, but the honey is tangy and sweet. Try it.”

She spread some of the golden honey on the toast. It was indeed delicious. Wild thyme and citrus and something spicy.

It was good she’d told him now, she decided, as she ate the last of her toast. It would have been better if she’d told him before they made love. Better still if they’d never made love at all.

No. She couldn’t honestly regret that. To leave him, never having known what it was like to lie with him, feel him deep within her, part of her . . . Her body still throbbed with faint echoes of the night.

Magnificent, just as Laila had said.

She watched him as he crunched his way through the last piece of toast with strong, white, even teeth, and she knew that even though she was grieving deep inside for what might have been, even though sharp arrows of regret pierced her at odd moments, telling him the truth had been the right thing to do.

He was clean and straight and honorable.

If she hadn’t told him, the secret would slowly, inevitably have poisoned their marriage. Some people could bury their guilt and go on. Not Ayisha.

It would have been like an ax poised over her head the whole time, waiting to drop. Better a swift, clean amputation than a slow death by poison, she told herself.

It was the right thing to do: it didn’t make her feel any better.

She loved him. She’d lost him. But at least she’d had him for one night.

“Finished?” he asked.

She glanced at the table, puzzled. There was nothing left. He gently pried the empty coffee cup from her hand. She’d been clutching it to her breast like a child.

He packed the tray up, ready for when Higgins came back. Were all soldiers so neat? she wondered.

“I always knew there was something you weren’t telling me,” he said, almost conversationally. “I’m glad to know it at last—and before we get to England.”

It confirmed her worst fears. “What will you do when we get there?” she asked him.

“To England? It’ll depend on the weather. I’ll probably hire a carriage and postilion.”

A postilion was a man who rode carriage horses and steered the carriage, she knew. “I’ll travel alone then?”

“Alone? Of course not.” He frowned. “Why would you imagine I’d let you travel all that way alone?”

She just looked at him. “I wasn’t certain you’d even want to take me to Cleeveden.”

“Good God, what do you take me for? Did you think I’d just dump you at Southampton and let you fend for yourself?” His voice was cool.

She made an embarrassed gesture. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Well, I won’t.” He looked down his long nose at her and as always she wished she knew what he was thinking. “Are you worrying about how your grandmother is going to react when you tell her you’re not Alicia?”

“Of course I am, what do you think?”

He frowned. “I don’t know your grandmother very well, so I can’t give you any guarantees about how she will receive you, but she struck me as a warmhearted woman.”

“Is she?” she said politely. Meaning she didn’t believe it.”

“Yes, and if you want my opinion, I think she’ll love you on sight.”

She blinked at that. “You do?”

“I do. In any case, there’s no use worrying about something before it happens. All you can do is prepare yourself for the worst and get on with living in the present. Old soldier’s trick. Don’t look forward, don’t look back. Just live.”

“And wait until you’re shot,” she muttered under her breath.

“No, make alternative plans, just in case,” he said. “The thing is not to dwell on what you can’t change and to concentrate on what you can.”