A True Lady Page 3

  “In a pig’s eye,” she said. “I mean…not at all. We’re not really married, after all—unless…Could they be saying you’ve married me to yer brother by proxy?” she asked in sudden horror, her accent slipping as her fear grew.

  “No, no,” he assured her, “it’s not so simple, otherwise anyone could marry anybody to his brother or father or uncle, or whatever, or claim they themselves were married to anyone they chose, and say it was by proxy. No, it’s rare and difficult. You’ve got to have sworn statements and letters of consent with everything clearly stated, witnesses of high repute, and a lot more honored clergymen present than just the drunken old wreck that performed our ceremony. It’s only the prerogative of royalty now, I believe, because I remember we had a wild young cousin whose father wanted to marry her off to a duke in Spain…but that’s neither here nor there. Trust me. You’re not married to anyone. If you are, then I’m a bigamist. And that, at least, I am not!”

  His young face grew faintly flushed. “Yes,” he said, lowering his eyes, “I was doubly sure to be sly about what I did. I even signed a false name to the document, and scribbled it so badly, no one could read it, anyhow. Even if they could, my own handwriting is particularly neat and clear and so it will never be taken for mine. It may have been cowardly, but it was safely done, I promise you.

  “They didn’t want me anyway,” he said bleakly, “they wanted Magnus. He’d have been a great catch…Great? Ha,” he said with no humor, “every woman in England has tried for him. He’s never been caught yet—heart or hand. I’ll bet he’d have found a way to wriggle out of what I got into, but without dishonor—unlike me,” he said wretchedly, hanging his head in his hands.

  “Well, I don’t know how his feet don’t hurt from walking on all that water,” Cristabel snapped.

  When he looked up at her, she continued angrily, “You did the best you could. I think you did quite well-splendidly, as a matter of fact. Really. And if my papa and the others find out, I think they’ll admire you for it—after they get through cursing and snarling, that is. But they’ll be impressed by you. Beaten at their own game. I don’t know this Magnus, but I’m very glad they didn’t catch him. I don’t think I could bear being married to such a paragon—or being really married to anyone, for that matter. And now, thanks to you, I’m not!”

  She rose and began to pace about the cabin again. “I’m far past my prime and I know it,” she said, her eyes on the carpet as she walked. “Aye, twenty-one and never married. A scandal anywhere, but unheard of on Pirate Cove, where a girl can be a granny by the time she reaches thirty. But I didn’t wed because I didn’t want to. I only said I wanted an English lord because it was the most impossible thing I could think of. Now I have the best of everything. My father thinks I’ve married a lord, and I know I have not. All I need to do is to set up my own establishment and I’ll never ask for anything more. So, as far as I’m concerned, Martin, you did very well, believe me.”

  “But I’m responsible for you…” he began.

  “Fiddle! You are not,” she said briskly, stopping and glaring at him. In that moment Martin saw that, though she didn’t resemble her father at all physically, her voice had all the command his had when he’d held that knife beneath his captive’s throat.

  “Well, we’ll discuss it later,” he said, glancing away. That was when he remembered the bed. “Er, but now we’ve sleeping arrangements to make,” he said nervously. “Perhaps I should tell the captain of this vessel—”

  “You’ll tell him nothing,” she snapped, “nary a word! He and me father be thick as thieves.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she continued in more cultured tones but with the same determination. “Look you, Mr. Snow. We’ll stay locked up in here and pretend we’re making the best of it. Now,” she went on decisively, “I’ll take the bed. You’ll take covers and blankets and make a nice little bed for yourself on the floor. We’ll muddle through this voyage, and then we’ll both be free. And that’s the end of it.”

  *

  The sea rocked her as if in a wooden cradle, and her false bridegroom’s light snores were like a lullaby. Cristabel smiled, stretching luxuriously, too content to sleep. She was sailing over the sea to freedom, and her bridegroom lay half the room away from her and would never lie nearer.

  Free! Cristabel repeated to herself, completely free! All the walks around the deck and the brisk sea air couldn’t put her to sleep these nights. In fact, she fought to stay awake in order to savor it. She lay in the dark, gloating. She was leaving that hell of heat and noise, lush flowers, gaudy colors, strong drink and hot spices, and was on her way to that dear little isle of cool breezes and mists and rich history, that bastion of manners where men ate with knives and forks, and spoke softly.

  She was going to that wonderful world of proper ladies and educated children—the world all her homesick governesses had never stopped speaking about and remembering with tears. In truth, those poor women had so many things to cry about: being torn from their ships, ravished, and then sold on the block. That was enough to make anyone cry. But they wept more for the lost world of England than for all the other terrible insults they’d endured. That had impressed Cristabel even more than their tales of that vanished world—the world her own beautiful mother had come from; the world from which her father was forever barred. The place where she could live out the rest of her life quietly, coaxing shy blossoms from the soil, making polite conversation, reading good books and sipping tea. A world as far removed from the one she knew as was the moon.

  And most important of all, this world was a place in which she’d never, ever, have to take a husband. Never have to tie herself to a cheating, blustering, drunken, domineering, violent, lustful man for life. Never have to brawl all night with him, or put up with his infidelity and cruelties, never have to tolerate blows or amorous advances or sudden rages when he came home shouting drunk to steal from her or give her more babies to care for—like all the married women she’d ever known. No, never. She was actually going to that other world now. And no man would ever dominate her.

  Smiling, Cristabel finally fell asleep to dream of mist and cool green grass, and freedom, eternal freedom.

  *

  They fought about it all the way across the blue Caribbean and into the wild Atlantic. Cristabel was thrilled.

  It was the way he fought. Just the way she’d always believed a gentleman from his blessed isle would fight—with reasoned argument, not shouting, with patient denials, not knives or knuckles. And when he became truly frustrated, he’d only run his hand through his hair or stalk away from her. Martin would never run his fist into her mouth, or his boot into her stomach. They were locked up together for most of the day and all of the night, and they fought like puppies in a box—not the way the men and women she knew did. He was a gentleman, and she was ecstatic. She won every encounter, every time.

  She had only to shout, and he fell silent, appalled, or astonished at her fluency with curses. If all else failed, she’d weep. Then he’d redden and look shattered. Of course, they had to promenade on deck beneath watchful eyes each day. The sailors knew their situation, and though they watched her with hot eyes, and priced Martin’s clothing enviously, neither of them was ever molested by word or deed, because everyone was afraid of her father. But, all the same, the men watched the newlyweds very closely.

  Martin’s gentlemanliness made the voyage bearable for her. He was quiet and well spoken, neat and clean. Although being neat and clean was a decided plus, looks didn’t matter to Cristabel. She had grown up among men, many with splendid bodies and handsome faces, and hadn’t cared for any of them. Martin’s kindness and considerateness were astonishing to her. He was nothing like the men she had known on the island. Still, she supposed women might find him attractive. She found him interesting but never thought of him as a man; he simply wasn’t a threat.

  Martin treated her honorably, respecting her privacy as best he could in such close quarters, turning
his back or leaving the cabin when the need arose. Cristabel knew he looked at her as a woman from time to time, though, because sometimes she saw that look creeping into his usually candid eyes as he watched her, and he’d blush as if she knew what he was thinking. He amazed her.

  They got into the habit of chatting together before they slept each night. Not about her freedom, of course, because that would only lead to a fight. Instead they spoke about neutral things. He was as curious about piracy as she was about England. They seldom spoke of personal things.

  “What’s your wife like?” she asked him idly one night, as they lay in their separate places, waiting for the ship to finish rocking them to sleep.

  “Sophia?” he asked as drowsily as she had. “You’d like her. She’s very clever.”

  “Is she beautiful?”

  “Oh, yes. Fair hair, skin. Blue eyes.”

  “She sounds like you.”

  “I suppose she does, but she’s not. She’s tiny. Really little. Got a little nose, too, points up. Always makes me laugh. She’s got dimples when she laughs. She laughs a lot. She loves practical joking. She’s great fun to be with.”

  “Such enthusiasm,” Cristabel commented with a sleepy giggle. “I ask if she’s beautiful and you tell me about her sense of humor.”

  “Well, we’ve known each other forever,” he said defensively. “It’s hard to go into raptures about someone’s looks when you know them so well.”

  “I see,” Cristabel said, but she didn’t.

  “We met as toddlers. Everyone always knew we’d marry, and we did,” he explained.

  “Oh,” she said, digesting this latest piece of information.

  “So you were in the same situation I was. So why aren’t you more sympathetic to me?”

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked thunderously.

  “I mean,” she said, yawning, “they made you marry when you didn’t want to, didn’t they?”

  “They did not!” he declared, sitting straight up in his nest on the floor. “I wanted to marry her. Very much, as a matter of fact; we’ve cared for each other forever.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said, drawing her sheets up over her ears. “Good night.”

  But she could still hear him sulking long after the conversation had ended.

  *

  Martin mentioned his brother often. Far more often than Cristabel liked. When he wasn’t fretting about what Magnus would say, he was remembering what Magnus had said. Magnus was the oldest of seven children, only four of whom survived to adulthood. They all looked up to him, and with reason. Magnus was wise, as well as tall, handsome, and elegant. In the gospel according to Martin, Cristabel thought sourly, his brother Magnus was worshiped by his family and adored by all right-thinking Englishmen. Cristabel, however, was the daughter of an aggressive man in a world of petty tyrants, and she didn’t believe in small gods. She hadn’t set foot in England yet, but so far, Magnus Titus, Viscount Snow, was the one thing about it she didn’t like.

  “Give over,” she finally said one day as they stood at the rail and looked out over the wide ocean. They reckoned they were halfway between his home and hers now, and had become quite accustomed to each other. Cristabel knew what she was going to do when they landed, and he violently disapproved of her plans. Outside of this small area of discord, they got along quite well.

  He was educated, and she wanted to learn more about her future home from him. She didn’t want him as a man, but she did need him as a friend. He was only a few years older than she, although she often thought of him as much younger.

  Cristabel had never had male friends because the men she met were too impressed with her father, one way or the other, to take that risk. The only man her father approved of was his protégé Black Jack, who was so like him that she’d never desired his friendship. As for female companionship, her governesses had hated their situations and her father so much that few ever tried to be friends. Girls her age had little in common with her, and less when they were married off—which they always were. She had about as much in common with the prostitutes on the island as she did with the pirates’ wives. Both classes of women were ill used, and used to it.

  No, she wasn’t attracted to young Martin, but she did need a friend.

  “He doesn’t have to find out, you know,” she finally said in exasperation. “Yes, yes, yes, your brother Magnus is brave and bold and brilliant, but he can’t read minds, can he? Just…don’t tell him. Don’t stare at me like that. It’s the only answer, if you just think about it. Why should he think you married again—and a pirate’s daughter at that? Would anyone expect you to? No. Of course not. It’s absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it? So forget it. I shall. Look. You went abroad on family business. Your ship was overtaken. You were taken captive and then released. That’s why you’re home later than planned. Who could possibly imagine that strange wedding by moonlight? Who ever heard of such a thing?

  “It’s perfect,” she said as she saw him mulling over her plan. “Why, in years to come, even you’ll wonder if it ever really happened or if it was some strange vision brought on by too much rum one night—like seeing a mermaid. You don’t have to lie to your brother. All you need to do is nothing and he won’t be able to disapprove, will he?”

  Martin’s young face grew fretful, and she saw real sorrow in his eyes as he gazed out to sea.

  “I’ve never lied to my brother,” he said softly. “No one does; it’s impossible to do.”

  “There is a difference between not telling and lying,” she said in exasperation. “My goodness, do you tell him everything? I hope not; you’re a married man now, after all.”

  She saw a slow flush start on his neck and climb to his cheeks.

  “Of course I don’t tell him everything,” he muttered, growing redder.

  She knew Martin loved his brother, but in her experience, no man wanted to always feel inferior to another, no matter how qualified he felt that other to be—or else there’d never be the possibility of mutiny.

  “And so,” she said slowly, sweetly, twining a strand of her copper gold hair around her finger, trying to look innocent and only succeeding in making him feel guilty, “why tell him about this?”

  “But you’re my responsibility,” he said.

  “Never,” she said.

  She nagged him for the rest of the day, and he kept walking away. But late that night, when he lay on the threshold of sleep, there was no place left for him to walk to.

  “Martin?” she asked, and by his silence, knew he wasn’t sleeping. “Martin,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow and looking in his general direction in the dark, “have you ever gone fishing?”

  It seemed a safe enough topic to discuss, and so he gave up pretending sleep, and said cautiously, “Of course.”

  “Why, then,” she went on, “you must have one time or another caught yourself a fish you didn’t want. One too small, or one too many?”

  “I suppose so,” he answered warily.

  “Why, so have I,” she said with encouragement. “I knew you had too. There are some cruel men who leave the poor things out to die, or slice them through and throw them to the gulls, but I knew you weren’t that sort. So then. You know how, when you put the fish back in the shallows, they seem so helpless, almost dead? But then after a second or two, they shake themselves, and right themselves, and then with one slither, they’re gone—snaking into the deep water in a wink—as though they’d never been inconvenienced in the least?”

  He smiled in the darkness, remembering sun-flecked trout streams, and just what she described. It was as though she heard his silent nod.

  “That,” she said eagerly, “is exactly how I shall be. Put me down in London town, see me on my way if you must, and then—forget me forever. I’ll vanish. You’ll never have to see me again, I promise. You don’t have to worry about me. There are decent rooming houses in London, are there not? And good places to live outside of London? Of course. If it makes you feel better
, you can tell me which districts are respectable and which are not—although I promise you I can trust my own eyes.

  “Then I’ll take a new name, live out of the common way, and become a new person altogether. I have money enough to do anything I like—and that is what I want. It’s my fondest wish. No one will ever have to know. Except us. And you’ll know that I’ll be forever grateful—a fish put back into the water, to live again. Say yes, Martin, and be done with it. You know very well you don’t want me. You don’t want all the explanations and excuses, not to mention the responsibility and trouble of sheltering someone who only wants to be free. Of course you don’t.”

  She paused, and then went on in an urgent, breathless voice, “That would be like kidnapping—like what my father did to you. If it was wrong of him, why do the same? Set me free. Say yes, my friend, and do a good deed and the right thing.”

  She held her breath. Bait the hook, cast the line, and then stay very still—that was a thing her father had taught her about both fish and men.

  Martin thought about what she said. How nice it would be to pretend that none of this had ever happened—avoiding explanations to Magnus, and Sophia. And himself. He wouldn’t dream of agreeing to such a thing with any other woman, but she was like no other woman he’d ever met. She was lovely enough to make a man’s eyes water, but he had no doubt she could be lethal if she chose. She was as resourceful and strong as she looked fragile and vulnerable. And he seriously wondered, could he hold her if she didn’t want to stay? Maybe she was right—why should he worry so? Say yes, and it will all be over.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She sighed with relief and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Martin. This was a good night’s work.”

  *

  It was a tall ship and a stout one, but however many tons it was and however many brave sails it sported, it was still only like a teacup bobbing in the wild Atlantic. Most nights Cristabel could hear the creaking of the great ship, the snapping of the sails, the washing of the sea against the hull, and the occasional gruff voices of sailors. But toward dawn a new sound woke her. A wild keening sound. Mewling, screeching cries. She sat bolt upright in bed. Gulls. She couldn’t mistake the sound. The thrilling noise told her she was nearing land. She pried the tiny round window above her bed open a crack. It was pitch black outside, but she didn’t need to see. Her nose, tuned over a lifetime to the shallows of seaports, told her the rest. They’d be landing soon—she knew it. Her heart soared. Freedom was near.