Moonwitch (14 page)

Selena felt somewhat self-conscious herself, especially when she realized she’d been considering a solution that she couldn’t support with much enthusiasm. “I expect you could sell to Drew,” she said after further thought. “He would see it was well cared for.”

“Would he be interested?”

“He might have difficulty coming up with that much capital, but yes, his holdings march with ours, and I’ve heard him express interest in increasing the size of his plantation.”

“I find that a much more palatable alternative. Very well, I’ll speak to Drew when we return. The capital shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll offer him reasonable terms.”

“Thank you… Kyle.”

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug before he glanced toward her parents’ graves. “Then if you’re finished here…?”

“Yes,” Selena replied, realizing he was uncomfortable with her gratitude.

“Can you be ready to leave by seven?” Kyle asked as he escorted her back to the gig. “I’ll need to go aboard the
Tagus
shortly, but you should be at the docks by eight if we’re to sail this evening.”

“I will be ready.”

“Good. I’ll send a carriage to fetch you and your trunks.”

“You needn’t put yourself to so much trouble. Beth and Drew will drive me.”

“It is no trouble,” he insisted with somber courtesy.

Selena wasn’t surprised to find that concerning the fate of her plantation, Kyle was as good as his word. As soon as they returned to the celebration, he took Drew aside and put forth their plan. And since Drew was pleased to more than double the size of his estate, they were able to announce to Selena’s people an agreement on the sale of the Markham plantation and to consult with her factor about the transition of ownership.

Neither her slaves nor factor were overly surprised or unhappy about the arrangement, for Andrew Thorpe was known far and wide as a just and honest man and master. And although, her people said, they would miss her, it was to be expected that she would leave the island, for was not a woman’s place with her husband?

Only Edith was not content with the arrangement. She held her tongue in public, however, and followed when Selena went up to the house to complete her packing.

“You should have sold the plantation to Avery,” Edith said at once as she entered her stepdaughter’s bedroom.

Selena glanced up briefly as she bent over one of her trunks. “You forget, Edith, that decision is for my husband to make.”

“But you could have persuaded him! What will I do now? How am I going to live?”

“I’m sure the estate will continue to provide you the allowance Papa designated in his will.”

Edith laughed harshly. “How can I possibly survive on such a mere pittance?”

“We have been over this before, Edith, time and again. Your allowance is no ‘mere pittance.’ Most people would consider themselves wealthy to receive such a regular income. You will simply have to learn to live within that limit.”

“But I
can’t
!”

Losing patience, Selena stuffed a protruding ruffle within the trunk and closed the lid with more force than necessary. “Perhaps you should sell some of your jewelry then, starting with the emeralds you purchased last week. The proceeds should keep you in style for quite some time.”

“Sell my jewelry! Why, that’s absurd.”

“Then I suggest,” Selena said, giving her stepmother a hard look, “that you marry Avery. You deserve each other, I think.”

“You are acting out of spite! You are angry with me for taking Avery from you.”

“On the contrary. I am quite grateful. I am also,” Selena added more quietly, “grateful that you were discreet in your affaire with him. You could have caused a scandal to my father’s memory, and for that I don’t think I could have forgiven you.”

“Is that your last word?” Edith demanded.

Selena glanced around the room, her gaze falling on the carefully wrapped portraits of her parents; Beth had been quite thorough in her packing. “Yes, it is,” Selena answered softly. She felt a keen measure of satisfaction; it was only poetic justice that Edith would never have the plantation she’d coveted.

“You know,” Selena added, meeting Edith’s furious gaze once more, “it used to distress me that we were never able to become friends. I always wondered if there was something I could have done, could have said, to make you hate me less. Now I see how misplaced my worry was. You’re so filled with greed and hatred, Edith, that I truly pity you.”

Edith’s jaw clenched. “Keep your pity for your new husband. He’s the one who will need it, being married to you. You’ll never be able to satisfy a man like the captain. Never!”

Selena winced. When Edith had turned and flounced from the room, she gave a sigh. It was a relief to know she would never have to deal with her stepmother again, but their discussion had left a sour taste in her mouth.

She closed the remaining trunks and went down the corridor to the morning room, where she was greeted with a loud squawk.

“Hello! Hello! Will you dance?”

Selena smiled at the vivid green-and-yellow parrot in the cane-constructed cage. “No, my fine fellow. I’ve had enough dancing for one day, thank you. I’ve come to take you with me. At least I shall have one familiar face to accompany me on my new venture.”

Horatio tilted his head to one side, giving her what looked like a sympathetic look. But he couldn’t understand, not really, Selena reflected as he set up a new chatter.

“Dance! Awk! Dance!” he cried, ruffling his feathers, and only became silent when she covered the cage with a dark blue cloth.

When she could delay no longer, she carried Horatio’s cage out to the carriage where Beth and Drew Thorpe waited. They had insisted on accompanying her to the docks, for which she was grateful. She needed their comforting presence as she gazed for the last time on her beloved home. Even so, tears blurred her vision as she gave the gracious, galleried house one last, long look.

A boat was waiting to take her to the
Tagus,
her husband’s large, schooner-rigged merchant vessel. She could see it lying in the harbor, looking sleek and fast with its tall, raking masts and graceful, billowing sails.

Her solicitor was at the docks, as well, and so was the governor. With a twinkling smile, Governor Ramsay bestowed his blessing on Selena and presented her with the proper authorization papers to give to Kyle, releasing the
Tagus
from the harbor.

Homesick already, Selena felt tears well in her eyes as she said goodbye to her dearest friends. But as she stepped into the six-oared pinnace, she made a determined effort to brush away her tears, and she fixed her gaze on the distant schooner that would carry her away from her island.

Kyle wasn’t there to greet her when she awkwardly negotiated the rope ladder and stepped on deck, but his first mate immediately came forward with a welcoming smile. Selena remembered meeting Mr. Nathan Hardwick earlier that day at her wedding celebration. She had danced with him, too, she thought, recalling now his handsome features and dark hair. Tall and lean, he was several years older than she, yet he had a boyish look about him.

There was an unmistakable look of admiration in Hardwick’s eyes as he gave her a gallant bow. “Good evening, Mrs. Ramsey. The captain ordered me to escort you below.”

“Below?” Selena asked hesitantly, extremely reluctant to enter the bowels of the schooner. With her dread of ships, it was bad enough being on deck in the fresh air and fading sunlight.

“Yes, madam, to your cabin.”

“May I not stay here?” She would feel more secure where she could still see land.

“Well…” The first officer looked uncomfortable. “The captain gave direct orders.”

“Where is he? Perhaps I could speak to him and ask permission to stay.”

“On the quarterdeck, ma’am, but I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment. There was a problem with a tackle…”

Wondering where the quarterdeck was, Selena glanced about the schooner. Only the scents of tar and brine were familiar to her. She was standing at the bottom of a seemingly confused tangle of ropes, cables and spars, while far above her head the great masts swayed in gentle rhythm against the clouds. The ship creaked and groaned alarmingly at the motion, and Selena was hard-pressed to refrain from turning around and fleeing back to shore.

She didn’t see Kyle, but it was not, Selena decided, noting the intense activity on board, an appropriate time to importune him. All around her, men scurried purposefully over the polished decks, seeing to the provisions—crates filled with chickens and barrels of salt beef and fish. Above, among the forest of masts and canvas, sailors swung from yard to yard, checking lines and raising sails.

At any event, her request to stay here would surely seem like cowardice to Kyle. He wouldn’t understand her fear of ships.

So she allowed Mr. Hardwick to escort below. As they negotiated a steep flight of steps he called the companionway stairs, Hardwick offered to take the parrot’s cage. Selena declined, though, feeling the need to cling to something familiar, even if it was only a bird.

She was given Hardwick’s own cabin. When she asked in surprise if she wouldn’t be displacing him, Hardwick, looking uncomfortable again, informed her that he would be bunking with the captain. The flush on his cheeks told Selena quite well that he thought the arrangements strange. Although it was quite common for married couples of means to sleep apart, this was stretching matters too far.

Yet Hardwick was obviously too well-bred to comment on it and too experienced a seaman to question his captain’s orders. At his awkward explanation, Selena felt a flush rise to her own cheeks. It was mortifying, this public acknowledgment of their troubled marriage.

But she stiffened her spine and handed Mr. Hardwick the governor’s documents. “Will you please give these to Captain Ramsey? And would you… ask him if I might speak to him—when it is convenient?”

Hardwick murmured an agreement and, with another brief bow, hastened from the cabin, closing the door behind him. Alone, Selena glanced about her warily.

There was a bed, she saw, built against one paneled wall, as well as a line of pegs for hanging clothes. Along another wall was a washstand with a commode and basin and a shelf that held a large lantern.

Selena hung Horatio’s cage on a peg and pulled off the covering. He blinked and ruffled his feathers. “How do you do? How do you do? Awk!”

“Not very well, I fear,” she answered with a rueful smile.

It was quite warm in the cabin, so she shrugged out of her pelisse. She glanced into the dark companionway, then went to the porthole window. From there, she could at least view part of the island. For a moment she watched a tern that was scooping up small fish from the bay. She tensed when there was a quick rap on the door.

It wasn’t Kyle. Swallowing disappointment and frustration, Selena stood aside as her trunks were delivered by the giant she recognized as Tiny, then returned to the window seat. A few minutes later, she heard the creak of timber and mooring cables and the snapping of sails as they caught the wind. Selena tensed again as she felt the ship begin to move, clenching her fingers around the edge of the porthole.

She wanted Kyle, she realized with a vague sense of surprise. She wanted him to put his arms around her and calm her fears. Yet he was unlikely to offer her the comfort she yearned for. Or even companionship. This was her wedding night, but she would spend it alone.

It seemed like an eternity before Kyle finally came. He had changed out of his formal attire, she saw when she opened the door at his knock. He wore breeches and knee-high boots and a collarless shirt that was open at the neck, showing the corded muscles of his throat and a glimpse of his powerful chest. His sheer size and vitality made the cabin appear even smaller as he strode in.

“What are you doing down here in the dark?” he asked at once. “You should have had Hardwick light the lantern. I’ll do it—”

“No, please…I would prefer not to stay here.”

Kyle’s grim expression as he met her gaze boded ill. There was no trace of the momentary warmth or amusement she had observed earlier in the afternoon. “I would prefer not to have women on board my ship, either, yet I had little choice in the matter.”

Selena’s heart sank at his uncompromising antagonism.

When she remained silent, Kyle took the offensive. “I expect you aren’t satisfied with the sleeping arrangements, but this is not a passenger vessel. I conduct most of my business in my cabin, and I don’t see a reason to change it for the short time it will take us to make New Orleans.” He had a much more pressing reason, of course; there was no way he could share a cabin with his lovely bride and still keep to his vow to maintain his distance. But he wasn’t going to explain that to Selena.

Even in the dim light, though, Kyle could see the wounded look in her eyes. His jaw hardened in annoyance at the guilt he felt. “Don’t you have anything to say, Miss Markham?”

Selena took a deep breath. “I don’t… care for ships.”

Kyle raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he asked in a sardonic undertone. “We’ve yet to agree on much.”

“They frighten me, if you must know. My father’s ship went down in a storm.”

That made him pause. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“So did Edward’s,” Selena added, her voice a mere whisper.

“Who is Edward?”

“He was my betrothed.”

“I thought Warner was your betrothed.”

“Edward was my first.”

“What do you do, collect men for sport?”

Even for a man with justification for being angry at the circumstances, it was a nasty remark. Kyle immediately opened his mouth to apologize.

But Selena drew herself to her full height, her tone edged with frost as she retorted, “There was one major difference. I
loved
Edward.”

“Horatio loves you, awk! Will you dance?”

Looking startled by the squawked interruption, Kyle dragged his gaze from Selena and peered at the deepening shadows. “What is that?”

Selena hesitated, reluctant to disclose that she had brought another unwanted dependent on board. But she was grateful the bird had relieved some of the tension of the moment. She moved past Kyle to stand by Horatio’s cage, as if to protect him. “‘That’ is a parrot.”