To Catch a Bride (40 page)

The captain simply looked at him. “Mr. Ramsey, among the passengers are three rather vocal and strong-minded Christian ladies, a parson, and a parson’s wife. They might accept—reluctantly—the necessity of you two sharing a cabin while you were sick and under quarantine—Miss Cleeve’s actions gave us no choice in that. But now the quarantine period is completed. You either marry this day, or Miss Cleeve must return to Mrs. Ferris’s cabin.”

“Miss Cleeve will not be married in haste on a ship to appease the sensitivities of a handful of impudent busybodies,” Rafe snapped. “She’ll be properly married in a church, as she wishes, with her grandmother present.

Ayisha pushed aside the remains of her breakfast. It was delicious, but she wasn’t hungry anymore. She rose. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll go and pack.”

If she didn’t know from Rafe that a shipboard marriage would be socially frowned upon, she wouldn’t have minded being married by the captain. But a church wedding with her grandmother present was truly a lovely prospect, so a short separation was not too much to bear.

She would miss their lovely evening walks on a deserted deck, watching the sun go down, and the afternoons spent playing cards and talking or reading in quiet, companionable silence. Most of all she would miss the long nights of slow, blissful lovemaking.

But they would be in England soon. And then they would be married, and they’d spend the rest of their lives together. It would be all right once they got to England.

 

 

 

 

T
hey sailed into Portsmouth with the ship’s bell clanging, steered by a pilot who’d climbed aboard from a small boat as fog rolled in around them. Soon all Ayisha could see were the skeletal shapes of other ships riding slowly at anchor, a cluster of masts rocking gently, ghostly in the silken, swirling fog.

They were piped ashore—an honor indeed—with the ship’s company lined up to farewell them.

“I’m sorry it’s not better weather for your first day in England,” Rafe said, taking her hand to steady her as she stepped into the jolly boat.

“But the fog is beautiful,” Ayisha told him, looking around with wonder in her eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s so deliciously fresh against my skin.” She held her face up to the caress of the moist air and inhaled deeply.

“Don’t tell me the smell is as delicious,” he said dryly.

She laughed. The port reeked of rotting fish, seaweed, and acrid mud. “It’s odd that it smells more fishy and sea-like here than it does at sea. But it’s interesting.”

Two sailors rowed them toward the landing. Seabirds called from invisible locations and muffled sounds floated across the water. “Sounds echo so mysteriously in fog,” she commented as they were rowed ashore. “It’s like another world.”

“It’s also blasted inconvenient. Mind how you go,” he said, helping her ashore. “The steps will be wet and slippery.”

He walked them into town at a cracking pace. Ayisha had almost to run to keep up with him. She was given no time to explore Portsmouth, had barely enough time to get her land legs back before they were heading out of town in a carriage that he called a yellow bounder.

In a matter of minutes he’d arranged everything; hired the carriage and postilion, sent Higgins off to collect his curricle from Harry’s place and meet them at Cleeveden, and collected English money from the bank.

The only thing that slowed him for a moment was the sight of Ayisha shivering in her cotton dress and shawl. He’d whirled her into a shop and five minutes later whirled her out, now wearing a soft woolen cloak in a deep rose color, lined with green silk, trimmed with white swansdown around the hood, and with a swansdown muff to match. Ayisha loved it.

“Your grandmother will no doubt enjoy buying you clothes more suitable for the climate,” he told her as he helped her into the carriage.

Ayisha nodded. She was looking forward to it. There were so many beautiful things in that small shop.

“Is there some reason for your hurry?” she asked as they trotted out of Portsmouth. She could see no reason for haste; the ship had taken more than four weeks to sail from Alexandria, nobody could possibly be expecting them.

“I want to make it to Winchester tonight. If this fog extends far inland it’ll slow us considerably.”

“What’s at Winchester?”

He gave her a slow-burning look. “A very good inn.”

 

 

 

 

A
very good inn.
She felt her cheeks warming and could not help but smile. He’d missed her. Joy bubbled up in her. She’d missed him, too, missed sleeping beside him, entwined with him, breathing in the scent of his skin, feeling the warm, relaxed power of his big body. She missed waking up to be greeted with that quiet, deep, “Good morning, sweetheart” and the kiss that invariably followed. And the lovemaking that followed that.

She understood now why Laila missed being married so badly. In those last weeks on the ship, Ayisha had tossed and turned in the narrow bunk in Mrs. Ferris’s cabin, warring with herself; her body warring with her mind. Her body ached for him. Just one thought or glimpse of him was enough to cause her body to tingle and clench deep inside. She lay awake for hours, thinking how easy it would be to slip down from her bunk and run the short distance to Rafe’s cabin . . .

Now, in one terse phrase, with one burning look, he’d conveyed that he’d felt the same. He’d missed her.

The carriage hit a pothole and Ayisha bounced, nearly sliding off the seat. He steadied her, drawing her against him.

“That’s why they call these things ‘yellow bounders,’ ” he told her. “I would have preferred a larger vehicle, but there were none to be hired.”

“I don’t mind the bouncing,” she said. “And I especially like this window.” She gestured to the wide glass window that ran across the entire front of the carriage. “It lets me see where we are going and all the wonderful sights.”

“What wonderful sights?” he asked. “There’s nothing but fields.”

She laughed. “English fields,” she reminded him. “So tidy in green and brown and yellow—all in patchwork, with lovely hedges, and all so much greener than I expected—I cannot wait for spring and all the flowers. And the villages are so tidy and pretty and so very different—look at that house with its neat, black wig.”

His lips twitched. “Thatched roof.”

“It looks like a wig. It’s all so English, you see, and fascinating to me.”

“I’m more fascinated by what’s inside the carriage,” he said and brushed his lips over hers. But then they slowed to pass through a village and a number of people peered curiously in at them. “No privacy at all,” he grumbled, straightening, but he kept his firm, possessive hold on her. The care he took of her warmed her almost as much as the feel of his magnificent body. She pressed closer.

They stayed like that for most of the journey, Rafe sprawled, relaxed, his long legs crossed in front of him, explaining the various things that caught her attention, and sneaking kisses when he could.

Ayisha snuggled against his side, encircled by his arm, marveling at the greenness and dampness of England and basked privately in the good fortune that had brought this beloved man to her and made him want her. She watched the lush green countryside of England flash past her and counted the hours to Winchester with the very good inn.

But twenty miles before Winchester, the carriage broke an axle and they were forced to put up instead in a small, wayside inn, where there was no private accommodation: only two rooms containing several beds, one for men, one for women.

T
he axle was replaced overnight, enabling them to make a good start the next morning. It was a cold day and they traveled in companionable silence. Rafe stared out of the window with a grim expression; taciturn, no doubt because his plans for the previous evening had been ruined. Ayisha watched the passing countryside with Cleo on her lap, stroking the little creature absently. While also regretting the lost opportunity for making love, she was growing increasingly nervous about meeting her grandmother for the first time.

She wouldn’t tell her grandmother the truth until tomorrow, she thought. Allow herself a day of being simply a granddaughter, without the complications.

Rafe was confident the circumstances of her birth would make little difference to her grandmother; he’d said so several times. He was sure her grandmother would love her. She hoped he was right.

He was so strong and self-sufficient himself that he couldn’t understand how important it was to her that her grandmother liked her, how much Ayisha needed to belong. This country was very beautiful, and she’d grown up hearing stories and dreaming of England, but it was also very strange to a girl who’d grown up in heat and dust and bright, pitiless sunshine.

They reached the small town of Andover by mid-morning, where they stopped for a short time to change horses and refresh themselves.

Shortly after they left Andover, Ayisha saw a signpost flash by. “Foxcotte!” she exclaimed.

“What?”

“I just saw a sign to Foxcotte. Wasn’t that where you used to live?”

“My grandmother’s house, yes. The village of Foxcotte is close by,” he said in a bored voice. “I haven’t been there since I was a boy.”

“But I thought you said—don’t you own it?”

“Yes.”

“Then why haven’t you been back?”

He shrugged. “Not interested.”

“Who lives there now?”

“Nobody.”

“You didn’t rent it out?”

He gave her a cool look. “No, why should I?”

“No reason,” she said, amazed that anyone could own a house they didn’t visit and didn’t use. It seemed very wasteful to her, but it wasn’t her business. “Will we live there after we’re married?”

“No, we’ll live in my London house,” he said curtly.

She nodded, a little disappointed. She rather thought she’d enjoy living among all this lush green countryside, but of course, if he hated Foxcotte, there was nothing more to be said. It seemed very strange. She’d gained the impression he’d been very happy living with his grandmother. That he hadn’t gone back there since he was fourteen augured strong feelings.

“We’ll be at Penton Mewsey soon,” he commented. “Cleeveden is just beyond it.”

The two houses must be very close,” she said, to cover the tumult of butterflies that had started leaping in her stomach at his words. “Cleeveden and Foxcotte, I mean.”

“Yes, about five miles apart. That’s how my grandmother and yours knew each other so well as girls.” The carriage slowed, the postilion turned his head and made a gesture to Rafe, who nodded. The carriage turned into a gateway and bowled briskly up a smooth gravel drive.

“Welcome to Cleeveden,” said Rafe. “Your family home.”

C
leeveden was a large, elegant stone house with an impressive portico, flanked by a dozen or more Doric-style pillars. It was set on a smooth rise of lawn in the middle of an elegant park. It looked like a house from a painting, not one in which real people lived.

“It’s a new house,” Rafe told her. “They demolished the old one and built this one when they came back from India. Only the park remained, but even that was redesigned.”

Ayisha barely took in what he was saying. It was much bigger and much grander than she’d expected. She’d imagined her grandmother in one of those pretty cottages they’d passed, not in a large, stone . . . temple. She bundled Cleo back into her basket with suddenly nerveless hands.

“Does my hair look all right?” she asked Rafe, brushing the short, dark locks with her fingers. “She’ll think I’m a boy, some sort of uncivilized savage. I wish it had grown more.” She straightened her clothes, trying to smooth the travel creases from her dress.

“Stop worrying, you look beautiful,” he said and gave her a swift kiss. “She’s going to love you.”