Stephanie Laurens - The Elusive Bride

He was being deliberately off-putting. Just having her near…but the more he replayed their earlier conversation, the more he dwelled on the soft light he’d glimpsed in her eyes, the more he was certain she was carrying a torch for MacFarlane, and he had no intention of trying to compete with that. With his friend’s ghost.

“I seem to have been sleeping too much, if truth be told. And it’s such a lovely morning.”

She settled against the railing beside him.

The warm softness of her body called to his, a siren song weakening his defenses. He told himself he should push back and move away-seize the excuse of being on guard to do a circuit of the barge.

Instead, he stayed exactly where he was, from the corner of his eyes watching the breeze playing with her hair, teasing out tendrils to lie alongside her porcelain cheeks.

After a moment, he forced his attention back to the waves. “I…gather you come from a large family.”

Emily laughed. “That’s an understatement. I have three sisters and four brothers. I’m the second youngest-only Rufus is younger than me.”

“So you’re the baby of the girls?”

“Yes, but that’s something of an advantage. We’re all very close, although of course the other three are all married and have their own households. Nevertheless, we still see each other often.” She was perfectly willing to discuss her family, as it allowed her to turn his way and ask, “What about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?”

He stiffened, straightened. “No.” He glanced down at her, then softened the single syllable with, “I was an only child.”

She noted the past tense. “Your parents…have they passed on?”

Eyes back on the waves, he nodded. “There’s no one waiting for me in England.” He shot another swift glance her way. Half smiled. “Not like you.”

“Ah, yes-there’ll be a fattened calf and all manner of celebrations when I get back.” And if matters unfolded as she hoped, he’d be there to share them. Her delighted smile as she looked out across the waves was entirely genuine. She’d had a sudden disconcerting thought that he might have someone waiting for him in England-some lady, even a fiancée-but his statement had been a blanket one. A species of relief slid through her veins, and left her almost giddy.

He was prickly and stiff, but she wasn’t going to let that deter her. According to her sisters, men-strange beasts-were often that way when they were attracted to a lady but trying to hide it. As for the rest, she’d realized that “Protective” was his middle name, at least as far as women were concerned. However, she’d yet to see any clear indication that with respect to her, that protectiveness had moved beyond the general to the specific.

But they had plenty of journey ahead of them, plenty of time for her to watch and see.

She was still at the stage of mentally ticking items off the list of characteristics her “one” should possess. Her ideal was fairly clear in her mind, but matching the reality to her list was proving more challenging than she’d expected. There were all sorts of issues one had to take into account.

But at this moment, she was content. She fully intended to work on him, on encouraging him to allow his attitude to her to grow less stilted. A moment’s consideration had her stating, “I believe I’ll take an amble about the deck.”

That brought an instant frown-as she’d expected.

“It would be safer to go back inside the main cabin.” He stepped back from the railing, frowning down at her.

She smiled sunnily back. “If you’re on watch, perhaps you should walk with me-you can view the rest of the barge as we go.” She didn’t give him a chance to refuse, but turned and started to stroll down the walkway between the cabins and the barge’s rail.

Then she turned and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Come on.”

Gareth couldn’t resist. Feeling inwardly grim, he found himself following in her wake-responding all too definitely to that alluring smile.

To his inner self she was far too attractive, and with every passing day, with each new fact he learned about her, grew only more so. She was distraction, and fixation, and potential obsession, and he knew he should back away, but…unlike the men under his command, she was elusive and difficult to manage, and-as she was demonstrating-their journey was going to make keeping his distance close to impossible.

He joined her as, holding back her waving hair, she excitedly pointed to a cormorant diving in the waves. And he wondered why, instead of feeling weighed down, his heart felt light-lighter than it had in a long, long time.

5th October, 1822

Before dinner

My cabin on our barge heading for the Red Sea

Dear Diary,

Matters are progressing as I’d hoped. It’s said that one learns the truth about people by observing them under stressful conditions. Our journey looks set to provide such conditions, and I have great hopes of learning all I need to know of Gareth-enough to be absolutely certain that he is the one and only gentleman for me.

My hopes are high.

E.

L ate that evening, while strolling the deck, eyes scanning the waves-increasingly choppy as they passed through the straits, the Bab el Mandeh , as the crew called them, that led into the Red Sea-Gareth found Bister in the stern, seated on a coil of rope polishing his knives.

His batman looked up, nodded, and continued to buff. “No sign of any of those idiot fiends.”

Gareth lounged on the railing nearby. “Why idiot? They nearly did for Miss Ensworth in Aden.”

“Which proves my point. They should have laid low and taken us out first, then Miss Ensworth would have been a sitting duck. Only Mullins has a clue how to fight, and they separated him from her easily enough.” Bister held up a knife, examined its edge.

“Not everyone has had the experiences we’ve had, but it would be unwise to treat the cultists too lightly.”

Bister nodded sagely. “Never underestimate the enemy.”

“Indeed.” Gareth looked away to hide his twitching lips. Bister was barely five and twenty. He’d joined Gareth when he’d been all of seventeen-just as gullible and inexperienced as Jimmy.

“Meant to mention.”

Gareth turned back, brows rising.

Bister kept his gaze locked on his blade, kept rubbing. “Miss Ensworth. Jimmy said as she was supposed to go home via the usual route-booked on a ship of the line to Southampton via the Cape. But a day or so before, she up and changed her mind, and decided she should go via Aden.”

Gareth let a few seconds go by. “Did she give any reason for the change in route?”

“Nope-just that she’d taken it into her head to go this way, rather than the other.”

“When, exactly, did she change her mind? Did Jimmy know?”

Bister nodded, still absorbed with his blade. “His uncle heard first, as you might imagine. Jimmy said it was a bare two days before they set out-they left on the seventeenth.”

Gareth and his household had departed on the fifteenth-the day Emily Ensworth had decided to change her plans.

The facts lined up, but…

Coincidence. It had to be. Aside from all else, she couldn’t have known about his leaving…could she?

Even if she had known, why would she bother changing her plans to follow him? It made no sense.

A niggle of a suggestion tapped his mental shoulder, but that was self-important arrogance if ever he’d heard it.

“Let me know if you learn anything more.” Pushing away from the railing, he continued on his rounds.

7th October, 1822