Emily French - Bogus Bride

Samuel was now convinced Caitlin’s sprain had been all pretense, but at the time he had been a gullible fool and believed her fabrication. Unfortunately, he did not even have the consolation that time had taught him wisdom. He might be that much older, but he had still fallen for another of Caitlin’s falsehoods. The letter…

Samuel settled on the situation at hand.

Caitlin. She was a part of that life he had pushed into the dark recesses of his mind, that life that included the mortification of the anguished secret that gnawed at him.

Caitlin. She had become like a many-armed octopus, her tentacles weaving themselves into every crevice of his life Yet he saw no remedy. Now he was married to her.

He should not have waited this long to fetch Caitryn. It had been a shock to him when recently he calculated her age and realized that by now she might already have married, and be nursing children. He could not picture it. He had not wanted to picture it. He had not wanted Caitryr changed.

For the first time in years, he’d felt the desolation of the exile, the poignant ache for home; thus, he had penned a letter to Sir Richard. It had been a long letter, the scrawling script telling them of all that had happened to him since leaving Cornwall, explaining how successful he had be come, and that he wanted to wed their daughter, Caitryn.

Only the wrong sister had come. It was Caitlin to who he was now married.

Samuel looked at the whiskey at the bottom of his glass What was it about the woman that made him so vulnerable? Was it the brain that was too quick and hard and brillian for her sex? Or was it that small, indomitable chin, or those firm lips that were the physical evidence of a passionate temper?

Samuel took another long swallow. The memory of the day he had realized Caitryn was the eternal Madonna and that Caitlin was the true daughter of Eve was crystal-clear. It had been one of those magical summer days.

He could recall the querulous sound of gulls calling overhead, the sounds of the sea surging and retreating, and Caitryn, his gentle Caitryn, sitting in the shallow crescent of the stony cove, diligently painting. She had turned her shoulders just enough so she could see both him and the sea.

Light had spilled out over the bay, chopped by the waves into splinters. The air had been strange, as if it had been combined with mist or syrup, and Samuel had watched Caitryn, transfixed. He had been young, and he had been susceptible.

She was like an angel, all pale skin and hair, her soft, harebell-blue eyes staring at something on the other side of the bay that Samuel could not see. Her eyelids fluttered, but her gaze never wavered.

Samuel, rapt as he was, longed to see what she saw, to know what she was thinking, to understand the nature of her spirit. At thirteen, Caitryn had a sweet, generous nature and a cherub’s smile.

“Stop dreaming, Samuel! Come and explore!”

Caitlin positively beamed. Her open mouth showed perfect white teeth. She seemed to mock him. The magic spell was broken. The sun seemed less warm now.

Samuel felt himself flushing at Caitlin’s evident amusement. He stared straight ahead, ignoring her.

Caitlin was not a beauty like her sister, although, she was arresting, in an exotic way. There might have been beauty in her green eyes, had they not been so needle-sharp.

Abruptly as a shark’s dorsal fin rising from water, there was the sound of a scream. That scream vibrated in his gut like a hard-driven blade, tearing into his mind, his heart, making him rush off to be the hero.

It had been Caitlin. Caitlin and her devious ways. A sham, a cheap trick—and Samuel had fallen for it! Lord, his stupidity, his utter gullible imbecility, to have been taken in by the green-eyed witch.

And she was his bride. His bogus bride.

Now, Samuel stared at the back of her head, with its heavy knot of midnight hair, at her slender back, at the graceful curve of her waist, and the sweet flare of her hips. Deep inside him, something rippled. He tingled with the force flooding through him, which caused Samuel to groan inwardly. Have you no shame?

His lips set hard. “Canvass an extra team tonight, Liam. The new crew can join us on the trip upriver tomorrow.” He placed a hand on Murphy’s shoulder to brace himself as he struggled to his feet. “It’s more simple and more effective to be ready for any trouble.”

Marshaling courage, Samuel pushed himself away from the table with one knuckled fist. He needed time to deal with the problem. Time he didn’t have. Heart pòunding, he moved to claim his bride. He put out a hand, clasped hers. Caitlin flashed him a brilliant smile. Her eyes behind their sooty lashes shone intensely green.

He took a deep breath to keep the quiver of emotion from his voice. “My dance, I believe?”

She accepted with a shade of restraint In Samuel’s arms, Caitlin lost all sense of time and space, as if the music had thrown her free, displaced and rushing with the wind.

“The last time we danced together was on my sixteenth birthday. You trod on my gown. Remember?”

Samuel closed his eyes to the memory. The hotel ballroom seemed to ebb and recede, a surging in his ears wreaking havoc with his balance. He stumbled, and Caitlin took his arm.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Samuel looked at her. She stared into his face, her eyes huge and liquid, their green turned dark as the forest. Her long lashes threw tiny shadows into the soft hollows of her face. He merely nodded.

“You’re an imprudent man, Samuel Jardine.”

Her tone managed to convey both a solicitous care for his well-being and a repressed anger. His expression darkened. She was probably riled both about his neglect and his inebriated state, but it couldn’t be helped. Samuel skated swiftly over the thin ice.

“It’s late. We should turn in.”

“You’re right.” Caitlin slid her arms around him, leaning her cheek against his chest. “You’re always right.” That was a lie, but no one wants to make a false start, she thought.

“Right.” He took a breath that momentarily lifted his chest. “Let’s go,” he said, the words a thick, hot jumble in his mouth.

A silence heavy with significance stretched between them as they slowly made their way to their room. Caitlin felt his fingers moving across her flesh, saw that languid, lustful look in his eyes that made her melt inside. A burst of happiness exploded inside her. She would tell him that she cared, and how much.

At the door, going up on tiptoe, she began to kiss him. Her lips parted as he angled his mouth to hers. His kiss was wide, wet and demanding. He tasted of whiskey, not a bad taste. One arm came up, enfolded his head, stroking.

Samuel felt her body, strong and supple against his, the ripple of her breathing, the warmth of her breasts and belly. He touched her cheek, the side of her neck, the hollow of her collarbone, the flat planes of her shoulder. He put his lips against her neck.

Everything should have been rosy. He was young and strong. His blood howled and leaped through anguished veins. A liquid heat rushed up his body. Trouble was, the world kept sliding out from under him on an oblique tangent, away from now, toward what he couldn’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t, remember, so that he was no longer sure of anything. Except that she was his wife. Completely, unequivocally.

The usual confusion prior to departure from the wharf at Saint John was in full swing. There came a clang of a bell from the shallow-draft riverboat. The sound ricocheted under the iron roof of the pilothouse and echoed across the poop deck and along the quay.

People descended the gangway to the squat and powerful craft in a rapid stream, and a flood of mingled French and English reached Caitlin’s ears. From her vantage point on the poop deck, she watched a dozen men stringing in from the road, bearing bundles and bags and rolls of blankets.