Bronwyn Williams - The Paper Marriage

“Finding work won’t be easy. She’s feeling her way right now, but she’s got pride and backbone. Women wanting a maid or a governess won’t like it, it throws off the natural pecking order.”

“What makes you think your nephew will hire her?”

“Like I said, the boy’s got no choice. If he did, he’d never have asked for my help.” She chuckled. Lifting her left foot to the ottoman, she gently massaged her knee through layers of serge, taffeta and muslin. “Can you picture me with a leaky, squalling babe in my lap? The good Lord knew what He was doing when He gave babies to young folks. We old folks don’t have the patience, much less the energy.”

Horace nursed his brandy and stared into the fireplace. “Now why,” he mused, “do I get the feeling you’re up to something more than just finding a nursemaid for young Captain Powers?”

They called her Annie, after Billy’s mother. At the moment she was shrieking, stinking and kicking. For all of ten seconds Matt stood in the doorway and thought about walking away. Walking until he could no longer smell the stench or hear the ear-splitting wails.

“You write to that aunt of yours again?” Crankshaw Higgins, the eldest member of the unorthodox household, set down the half-empty nursing bottle. With a harried look, he handed over the baby, along with a clean huck towel.

“Third letter went out last week,” Matt replied.

“She going to take her off your hands?”

“Hasn’t said yet.”

Crank swore. A ship’s cook by trade, he had better things to do, but like the rest, he valiantly stood his watch.

Could the captain do any less?

Resigned to his fate, Matt poured water from the kettle into a basin, dropped in a bar of lye soap and prepared to do his duty.

Some thirty minutes later, his sleeves and the front of his shirt soaked, he stood back and admired his handiwork. “There now, you’re all squared away, mate. You know, you’re not all that homely with your mouth shut.”

The infant gazed up at him, her large blue eyes slightly unfocused. She was bald as an egg, but at least she had some heft to her now. She’d been little more than skin and bones when he’d inherited her, but these last few weeks, thanks largely to Crank’s efforts, she had begun to flesh out.

“Yeah, you heard me right,” he murmured softly in a voice that none of his men would have recognized. The cords of tension that recently had tightened his shoulders until he could scarce turn his head from east to west were beginning to ease off now that he was getting used to handling something this fragile.

Luther poked his head into the room, his beardless cheeks reddened by the cold northwest wind. He’d been out fishing the net, dressing the catch and salting down those fish not needed for the day’s meals. “Let me clean up first and I’ll stand the next watch. Think she’ll be sleeping by then?”

“More likely she’ll be squalling again.”

Because his grandfather had been one of them, Matt had been guardedly accepted by the villagers when, along with the two youngest and the two eldest members of his crew, he had returned to Powers Point, the land his grandfather had purchased soon after he’d sold his ship and retired. After standing empty for years, most of the buildings had been storm-damaged, a few of them washed clean away, but the main house was still sound. With the help of Peg, his ship’s carpenter, and a few of the local builders, they had brought it up to standard, adding on whatever rooms were deemed necessary.

In Matt’s estimation, it was as fine a place as any man could want, still he counted the days until he could leave. Crank and Peg would stay on as caretakers once he got his ship back. Neither of them was young or nimble enough to return to their old way of life.

The five men had quickly settled into a comfortable routine, fishing, repairing the outbuildings, working with the half-wild horses they’d bought on the mainland and had shipped across the sound—riding into the village for supplies or to meet the mail-boat.

Billy and Luther had quickly made friends, especially among the young women. The first few times they’d ridden south, Matt had cautioned them as a matter of course against drinking, gambling, fighting and fornicating. “A village like this is different from a port city. If either one of you oversteps the boundaries here, we’ll all pay the price.”

“I ain’t heard no complaints, have you, Lute?” Billy had grinned in the infectious way that had made him a favorite of all, male and female, young and old. Remembering what it had been like to be young and full of juice, Matt hadn’t kept too tight a line on them.

Now Billy was lying under six feet of sand.

Not a one of them doubted he’d done what he’d been accused of doing. Luther had as much as admitted he’d suspected what was going on. Evidently, half the village had suspected, but as the woman in question was from away and her much older husband had a reputation for meanness, they had chosen to mind their own affairs.

Hearing the sound of Peg’s hammer as he nailed another rafter in place, Matt slowly shook his head. Using wrack collected along the shore, the old man had insisted on building another room for Annie, as if they didn’t have rooms going unused in the old two-story frame house.

But then, it made as much sense as Luther’s wanting to buy and train a pony for her, and her not even two months old. Crank had even mentioned getting her a puppy.

It amused Matt to watch his crew vie for Annie’s favor. If she preferred one over the other, she didn’t let on. Bess could sort it all out, if she ever showed up. He had lost his temper and called her a meddling old busybody the last time she’d poked her nose into his personal affairs, but sooner or later she’d be back. Out of curiosity, if nothing else. And once she was here, he could concentrate all his efforts on regaining his ship.

His ship…

Looking back, Matt marveled at the depths of stupidity to which an otherwise intelligent man could sink. Four years ago, at the behest of an old friend of his father’s, he’d reluctantly agreed to attend a ball being held to raise funds for the Old Seamen’s Retirement Home.

It was there that he’d met Gloria Timmons, daughter of one of the sponsors. She had stood in the receiving line looking like one of those Christmas-tree angels, all white and gold and sparkling.

A large man, used to towering over all women and most men, Matt had been flat-out terror-stricken when she’d placed her small, soft hand in his, gazed up at him with eyes the color of a summer sky, and fanned her eyelashes. With his free hand he’d tugged at his collar. He’d had to clear his throat several times, and she must’ve felt sorry for him because she’d given him a smile that would melt a cannonball.

Matt could readily hold his own in the company of men, but he was a fish out of water when it came to women. The truth was, he’d never really trusted one, not since his mother had decided she’d rather live ashore than aboard her husband’s ship, even if it meant leaving her eight-year-old son behind with his father.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed his share of doxies, but respectable women—especially young, beautiful, dainty, respectable women with soft voices, soft faces and soft hands—those were his downfall.

It had all started that night. Matt had never bothered to learn how to dance. With Gloria, he’d scarcely been able to string two words together without stuttering, but somehow she had made him feel like a regular Prince Charming. By the time that first evening was over, he’d been heart-stricken in the worst way.

They’d spent every day together the entire time his ship was in port. Neglecting appointments with custom officers, shipping agents, brokers and consigners, over the course of seven days he had listened to more music, drunk more tea and sat through more dull lectures than any man should have to endure in one lifetime.