Ryan's Bride (21 page)

Angele couldn’t help it.

She giggled.

“I don’t think it’s funny.”

She knew he did, because he had a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Corbett shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions.”

“It’s easy to see why he did. Everybody was upset and excited. But that’s beside the point. What I want to know is how you knew what was wrong with the mare.”

“I just guessed.”

“You just guessed,” he repeated dully.

“That’s right. I’ve heard about bees stinging horses around vineyards. Blois has a lot of vineyards. So I just assumed that’s what it was, and I was right.”

Sarcastically, he said, “And, naturally, you knew exactly what to do for it, because, once upon a time, you heard somebody talking about it.”

She nodded in affirmation. The explanation sounded good to her.

He sat down on the side of the bed and reached to cup her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Why is it that I get the feeling you’re lying?”

She didn’t like being so close to him. His bare chest brought back heated memories of how the thick mat of hair had deliciously tickled her breasts. And as he shifted to turn and face her, his shoulder muscles rippled, and she flamed to see the marks left by her nails as she had raked his back in the throes of passion.

“I…I don’t know,” she managed to say finally, squirming beneath his touch. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

He let his hand drop. “You might try the truth.”

She blinked as though she had no idea what he meant. “About what?”

“Your past. All of it. Look—” He made to touch her again, but she shrank back against the pillows. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair then shook his head in frustration. “Don’t you understand that regardless of the circumstances of how we met, I’d like for this marriage to be a good one? And it would help if you weren’t so damned mysterious about your past…your family.”

Angele supposed it would do no harm to confide a little—tell him how she’d been raped, since he knew she wasn’t a virgin. And she could also tell him something about her mother. Just a little. Enough so that he wouldn’t feel she was hiding something. The rest, about her father being British, and how she’d lived In England and was only half French, well, she would have to think long and hard about that.

“Well?” he prodded.

She needed time to think about it and decide exactly what she wanted to confide and what had to be left for later. And she had tube careful not to say the wrong thing, which might whet his curiosity all the more.

She also wanted a more appropriate setting, when both of them were fully clothed.

Finally, she conceded. “Maybe we can talk tonight after dinner. You can ask me questions, and I’ll try my best to answer.” Maybe by then, she would have her thoughts sorted out.

“Besides…” She gave him a gentle push, “I’m starved.”

“We both missed breakfast. And it’s time for you to meet the ladies for your sewing lessons. I’d say after having to throw away an expensive gown, you need them, too.” Blue eyes turned to stone. “As for our talk, we’ll have it tonight, for sure.”

She hated the thought of having to sit with the women and endure mindless chatter till lunch but saw no way out.

“And another thing…”

She saw he still wore a stern expression.

“You are not to go back to the horse pens. It’s not a fitting place for a lady.”

“Then see to it that the mare is properly taken care of, and I won’t have to.”

They locked gazes in challenge. Angele was determined not to be the first to look away, no matter how harshly he glared.

But Ryan solved the problem by appearing to make it a draw. Surprising her with a quick kiss, he bolted to his feet, ending the tense moment.

He finished dressing, then paused on his way out to cut her a sideways glance and warn, “There’s something you need to know about me, Angele. I despise scheming women. So don’t ever let me catch you in a lie again. Now, you’d better hurry up and get dressed. You’re late.”

Wanting to end the discussion on a light note, he smiled to add, “The ladies probably think you actually
did
drown.”

After he left, she stared at the closed door and thought how, from their first meeting, she had sensed there was a dark, dangerous side to Ryan Tremayne. She knew she should tread softly, but it had never been her nature to do so when she felt strongly about something.

So he would learn, sooner or later, that he had a wife with mettle.

And then she would worry about that dark, dangerous, side of him.

Corbett tensed as Ryan walked into the men’s smoking room. Damn it, he looked happy, and that was the last thing he wanted him to be till he got rid of the sewer rat. He greeted him by asking, “Well, did you find out why your bride threw her gown in the ocean?”

“I sure did.” He told him the whole story.

Corbett was shocked that Ryan seemed to find it all so amusing. “Well, by damn, if it were me, I don’t know which I’d be the angriest over—her throwing away an expensive gown or going down to the horse pens after she’d been told not to.”

“I can’t be angry over either when I think about it. I mean, she did help the mare. For all I know she might have kept her from going permanently lame. I’ve never had a horse become infected by a bee sting before. Besides, Angele is different from other women, Corbett. She’s spirited, and she thinks for herself. That’s one of the things that attracted me to her.”

Corbett snickered. “It could prove to be a very bad thing, Ryan. Do I have to keep reminding you that she’s not like us even if she is French? She has absolutely no class. And you could have some serious problems in the future, because I don’t think she’ll ever fit in. Richmond society will never accept her.”

“But I thought
you
had accepted her,” Ryan said pointedly. “You don’t sound like it now.”

Corbett was quick to amend, “Oh, I have. Really. But it’s different with me. I’m your family. Your blood. I’ll stick by you, no matter what. Other people won’t have to.”

“Aren’t you forgetting one little thing?” Ryan asked with a smile that bordered on being sinister. “The Tremaynes have always been one of the most prominent families in Virginia. Invitations to balls, parties, and barbecues at BelleRose are as coveted as the highest bid for cotton. People won’t dare snub my wife.”

The way he said it, Corbett knew he meant it, and he wouldn’t have dared to contradict him, anyway.

Ryan slapped him on the shoulder. “I want you to know I appreciate how nice you’ve been to Angele, and I’m sure I can count on Clarice to do the same.”

“Of course, of course.”

He watched as Ryan went to talk to the new passenger from England.

He could count on him and Clarice, all right.

They would be more than glad to take care of his problem.

Chapter Fourteen

At dinner, Ryan made the introductions, explaining that Nicholas and Ramona Wright didn’t speak French, then inquired, “Does anyone know English besides me and my cousin?”

“I’m afraid we don’t.” Annette Marceau answered for her husband, as well. “But don’t mind us. We can talk with your wife.”

“Good,” he said, relieved. “By the way, Angele didn’t have much to say about her sewing today. How did she do?”

Annette smiled indulgently. “All thumbs, I’m afraid. I don’t think the poor child has ever been around a needle in her life.”

Ryan gave Angele a wink no one else saw. “I think she has.”

Annette reached across the table to pat Angele’s hand. “Don’t worry, dear. You’re coming along nicely, and by the time the trip is over, you’ll be able to tat and crochet like the rest of us. You’ll need top practicing, of course.”

Ryan said she would have all the time she needed. “She won’t have anything else to do.”

Inwardly, Angele groaned. The last thing she wanted to do with the rest of her life was sit around all day sewing. Ryan was going to learn she had a mind and a will of her own—and soon.

Annette continued. “It’s a shame you dropped your dress overboard, dear.”

Ryan gave Angele a sharp look, and she quickly repeated the story she’d told to the ladies that morning. “I explained how I had fallen and got the gown dirty and was trying to shake it out the porthole to get some of the dirt off, but the wind tore it from my hands.”

“I see.” He turned to the Wrights and began speaking in English.

Angele tried to listen, pretending, of course, not to understand what was being said. Annette tried to get a conversation going with her, but soon gave up, used to Angele not having much to say.

“What’s this about her dropping her gown?” Ramona wanted to know.

Corbett spoke before Ryan had a chance. “Well, that’s what she says happened, and I can tell you, it gave everybody a fright. The gown floated, and it was dark, and when I saw it I recognized it as being Angele’s and thought she’d fallen overboard and drowned. I told Ryan and it gave him quite a scare till we all realized no one was
in
the dress. But it was hard to tell in the dark water.”

Ramona cast a querulous glance at Angele. “But wasn’t it quite late? Didn’t you wonder why she would have been out on deck at such an hour?”

Angele could tell by how the nerves tensed in Ryan’s jaw that he was annoyed with Corbett for revealing so much. “Sometimes Angele enjoys taking walks by herself late at night.”

Corbett further exasperated Ryan by bragging, “I had to save her life the first night we sailed. Some drunken rowdies from steerage shoved her, and she fell over the railing but managed to hang on till I got there and pulled her up.”

Ramona looked at Angele again, this time in wonder, then gushed to Corbett, “Well, that’s wonderful. Thank heavens you were nearby.”

Angele saw how Corbett’s chest puffed out a little as he proudly exclaimed, “I have to say it feels good to know I actually saved a life.”

Saved a life.

After getting over the shock, Angele had found herself wondering, more than once, if the incident had actually happened as Corbett claimed. She hadn’t heard anyone walking either toward her or away from her. And she hadn’t been aware of anyone being around her at all till she felt hands on her back, lifting…shoving…pushing. Then she heard Ryan shout, and suddenly Corbett was there to pull her up and declare he had saved her life. But she refused to dwell on it, because surely Corbett wouldn’t have tried to kill her.

Would he?

She lifted her glass of wine to take a sip as Corbett asked Nicholas Wright where they lived in England.

And when she heard his reply, her hands trembled uncontrollably and she was barely able to set her glass down to keep the contents from sloshing over.

“Grayton. It’s south of London.”

She noticed Annette was looking at her and she swallowed hard, forced a smile in her direction, then busied herself slathering butter on a roll as her blood turned to ice.

Grayton was where
she
had lived…and where Uncle Henry still did.

Nicholas went on to explain, “Actually, we’ve only been there a little over a month. We barely had time to move in before we were to leave on this trip, and since we’d planned it for some time, we decided to go ahead with it.”

Ramona spoke up. “But it was long enough to know we are going to love it there. The region is quite popular for hunting and raising horses. We’ll probably get involved, ourselves, when we return.”

“Ryan raises horses on his plantation,” Corbett interjected.

“Really?” She smiled at Ryan. “And how large is your plantation?”

“A thousand acres, more or less.”

She seemed impressed and turned to her husband.

“Lord Mooring said that was the size of his estate, remember, dear?”

Angele felt her heart stop, then start to beat so fast and furious she feared it would burst from her chest.

Ramona addressed Ryan again. “Lord Mooring is one of the wealthiest and most respected men in the Grayton region,” she explained. “His estate is called Foxwood, and his manor house is enormous and quite impressive. He was kind enough to invite us to a fox hunt the weekend before we left.”

Angele bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood.

Ramona Wright was wrong.

Foxwood was much larger than the thousand acres Ryan claimed for BelleRose. It was over two thousand, her father had told her.

And how was Uncle Henry able to claim the title of
Lord
. Her father had been the rightful Lord Mooring. It was a title bestowed upon the original landowner, handed down from eldest son to eldest son. Her uncle had no right, even after he took over the land when her father had been stripped of it and sent to prison. The title was not something that could merely be asserted.

Annette noticed how Angele had paled and reached across the table to pat her hand again. “Are you all right, dear? You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured, aware that Ryan had heard Annette and was watching—but only momentarily. He immediately turned back to the Wrights, apparently enjoying chatting in his native language, as well as interested to hear about their life in south England.