Rescued By The Viscount's Ring

Chapter Two

‘I, Madeline Claire Macooish,’ she groaned, while wrapping her arms about her belly, ‘being of sound mind—’

Or perhaps not. Had she been that she would be wed to the Earl of Fencroft and not huddled under a lifeboat tarp, dying.

‘Do bequeath all my worldly goods...’ Of which she had none since her small valise had vanished when she set it down in the steerage dining room while pretending that she had as much right to eat there as anyone else.

What she hadn’t known was that poorer-class passengers tended to bring meals with them. Not that she had a dime to purchase what leftovers they might have.

Luckily, a sweet young man, Edward, had shared his bread with her.

Oh, she had been more than grateful at the time for the food and for the company, but now twelve hours later she was certain she would not eat for the rest of her life, of which there was not much left.

Earlier today, she had thought herself lucky when the Captain of the ship told the ticket master that she be allowed to board.

In the moment she had decided it was more strange than lucky. Given that she was clearly a stowaway, it was beyond belief that he would spare her a word or a glance.

Once, when she and Clementine were young, Grandfather had taken them to Paris with him on one of his business trips. She clearly recalled dining with the Captain of the ship. Grandfather had warned them to be on their best behaviour because it was a great honour to dine with the Captain.

So why had this important personage permitted her to come aboard? It certainly was not because she had charmed him. Of course, she tried her best, but the fellow was adamant in his resentment of escorting her up the gangplank.

Indeed, he had left her standing at the rail, gripping it tight while the ship heaved up and down.

Better that she did not think of that motion now.

In the end, the Captain had given no answer to her question of where she was to stay. He’d simply grunted and walked away.

It was all too curious to consider in the moment.

Well, she had told herself she would do whatever it took to get to Grandfather and Clementine, even if it meant sleeping on deck. Of course, she had thought that before it began to rain and before the rolling waves tossed the ship in a way that made her stomach flip inside out.

When she first spotted the lifeboat covered by a tarp and hanging on a pair of hooks, it seemed a sweet haven. It took only an hour for her to feel the effects of the rocking which felt worse than standing on the deck had.

Looking for a new shelter would have been a brilliant idea, except that it was raining. And what a cold piercing rain it was.

On the brighter side of the situation—something she always strove to look for—the lifeboat was only feet from the ship’s rail. It made her frequent trips to vomit over the edge easier.

Of course, that had been hours ago when this journey was still an adventure. All this time later, no matter how she tried, she could not summon her venturesome spirit.

This was no way to die—curled in a wet, shivering ball—no longer having the strength of will or body to go to the rail. If only she had had the good sense not to cross the Atlantic in December.

How long did it take to expire from seasickness and exposure? Too long, no doubt.

But the worst of it was, if she died she would not have the chance to beg Grandfather’s forgiveness, or feel his great strong arms wrap her up and hear him tell her all was well. That nothing mattered except for her coming safely to him.

Instead of Grandfather slaughtering the fatted calf and calling for a great celebration, he would be arranging her funeral.

What she ought to do was get out of the lifeboat, seek help. The thought of the grief he and Clementine would suffer made her heart hurt worse than her belly.

She was the worst granddaughter ever born. She had been given so much, been loved so dearly, and what had she done?

Cast it away for some grand romantic lark, believed the lies of a man who assured her he adored her even without her fortune.

Truly, she had always believed she was smarter than that. She was not going to slip the veil like this. No! She was going to fight.

As she sat up, her stomach heaved. She was dizzy to the point that if she tried to stand she would surely faint. Even if she managed to make it to the rail and pull herself along seeking help, she would no doubt topple over the side. There would be no body for Grandfather to bury and he would wonder what had happened to her for the rest of his life.

Perhaps she would try again in a little while. She curled into herself, trying to imagine that her clothes were not wet, that she was not encrusted in an icicle. No, rather that she was wrapped in a blanket that had been warmed by a fire. That she held a cup of hot tea in her hand which warmed her from the inside out.

Perhaps if she could trick herself into being warm, she would wake in the morning to find the sun shining and her stomach adjusted to the rolling of the ship.

Yes, in the morning she would be stronger, things would be better—perhaps even adventurous. She would find Grandfather and Clementine and prove somehow how desperately sorry she was for betraying them.

Only a fool, or the owner of a ship that had been cursed with some incompetent employees, would leave his cabin at two in the morning during a bitterly cold Atlantic storm.

Rees doubted he would find anyone neglecting their work at this hour and in this weather, but it could not be discounted.

Which was why he was huddled into his heavy coat and walking the deck, looking for any little thing that might seem out of order.

Better a fool than remiss. Living with the knowledge that something had happened because of his negligence was not a thing he could bear. This was his ship. He was responsible for the lives entrusted to his care.

The problem was, being so new to owning a steamer, he didn’t know exactly what ‘something’ out of place might look like.

He’d simply have to go by his instincts on it. Ordinarily his instincts were reliable.

Rain pelted his face while he walked past the lifeboats, checking them one by one to make sure they were secure. At least he thought it was rain. It felt more like icy pinpricks assaulting his skin.

As wicked as this storm seemed, Captain Collier had assured him that the Edwina was secure, that she had been through worse and with ease.

Still, it could not hurt to make sure the lifeboats were intact.

He might own a ship whose reputation had taken a blow, but, because it had, the Edwina had been a great financial bargain.

In Rees’s opinion, it was important to invest Glenbrook’s wealth in various places. He knew some in society looked down upon ‘being in trade’, so to speak, but when it came to the welfare of those dependent upon the estate, it hardly mattered what society might think.

If hard times came, and they would, his people would be protected.

And as far as wagging tongues went, he was only a viscount. Gossip over him would not be nearly as ripe as for a duke or an earl.

He stopped suddenly, staring at the row of lifeboats. Something was not quite right here. All of the boats were swaying, but one of them in a different rhythm than the others. It appeared to be carrying a weight that the others did not.

This mysterious weight might shed some light on what he was seeking. Perhaps someone who would rather laze about than perform their duties was hiding inside.

He dashed towards the lifeboat, not an easy thing to do on a wet, rolling deck. Every instinct told him he would find someone whose employment would be terminated when he tossed back the tarp.

He gripped the canvas, yanked it open.

‘What—?’ His fist went slack, but his heart squeezed at the sight of a woman curled in the bottom of the boat.

Not just any woman, but the angelic beauty he had ordered the Captain to escort on board.

What could have happened to her since he last saw her going into the dining room?

‘Collier!’ he shouted, knowing he would not be heard, but needing a release for his anger. Had the Captain not found her proper shelter and left her to fend for herself?

‘Miss?’ He touched her shoulder, giving it a slight shake.

She did not do as much as twitch. Her skin looked thin and far too white, her lips tinged blue.

Reaching over the side of the lifeboat, he scooped his arms underneath her and lifted her out.

Her head rolled back. One arm fell limp at her side. She was heavy, but he suspected the weight had to do with yards of drenched cloth.

‘It’s all right,’ he whispered while easing her head up against his shoulder. ‘I’ve got you.’

The proper thing to do would be to rouse some woman from sleep and ask her assistance.

But then, proper hardly mattered in a life-and-death situation, and instinct warned him that her situation was desperate. His quarters were all the way up on the next deck, but the room would still be warm from the fire he had only recently banked. It would not take much to get a good blaze going.

‘Hold on, angel.’ Her lips were near enough to his ear that he ought to have felt warmth pulsing from them, but did not.

Without a second to be spent rousing a helpful woman or finding a proper room, he ran. His feet nearly slipped out from under him a time or two when the deck jerked unexpectedly.

It seemed an hour, but could only have been minutes before he carried her into his room and kicked the door closed behind him.

The space was warm, but not nearly warm enough.

What to do first? Building up the fire was urgent, but so was getting her out of her wet clothes. No matter how hot the flames, heat would not penetrate her icy garments.

Since he could not lay her down on the bed without soaking the mattress, he went down on his knees in front of the stove. He gathered her close with one arm, opened the stove door with the other. He stirred the coals with a poker. A few weak flames came to life. He added fuel, gave a great sigh of relief when the fire blazed.

If his fingers felt half-numb with cold, he did not want to imagine her condition. Her very bones must be chilled. He feared she was slipping away even as he held her.

This might well be the only gown she owned, but he ripped it from her without a care for the fabric. There was not a second to be lost in fumbling with buttons.

He stripped the clothes from her, then tossed them to the corner of the room—perhaps they could be mended, but he had not been careful, only fast.

Rising, he held her tight and brought her up with him. Carefully, he laid her down on the bed, then covered her with a sheet. Gathering the two blankets heaped at the foot of the bed, he laid them over the stove to warm them up.

‘Hurry up, damn you,’ he muttered to the flames and the wool, as if cursing at them would speed the heating.

There! One was hot, so he ripped away the sheet and tucked the blanket all around her.

If only she would moan or shiver, if only her eyes would move beneath her pale lids.

As soon as the second blanket was heated through, he traded it for the one he had just put on her.

On and on he went like this. He had no idea how long he repeated the process, but it seemed a very long time.

At last she made a tiny sound—a quiet groan.

‘Come on, angel. Listen to my voice, come towards it.’

What he ought to do was summon the physician he kept on staff, but it would mean leaving the lady alone.

It was still too risky for that. She needed warmth, constant and steady heat to bring her around.

Rees was warm. The exertion of caring for the lady had him sweating.

Body to body provided the best and most constant source of heat.

Because his clothing was still damp, he stripped down to his small clothes. He tucked a new warm blanket about and under her so that when they touched, it would not quite be skin to skin.

It wasn’t proper to be this close to her, but neither was it proper to let her die.

Easing on to the cot, he lay down beside her and hugged her close.

Even through the wool blanket the shock of her cold skin against his chest nearly made him recoil. Instead he hugged her tighter, briskly rubbing her arms.

While he did his best to protect her modesty, when it came down to it, they were sharing a bed with no vows spoken to sanctify it.

There would be repercussions for this, but with a life at stake, her life—for some reason, he had been drawn to her from the first when he spied her through the glass—he would deal with whatever came after.

‘Think about a blazing fire,’ he whispered close to her ear. ‘Summertime and warm breezes.’

Perhaps the suggestion of heat would somehow help. ‘Do you enjoy picnics in the sunshine? Walking in the park with it beating down on your head?’

After a time, he thought that her arm did not feel as icy as it had. Maybe her lips were losing the blue tint. He touched them with his thumb, hoping to add some heat and see them grow pinker.

There was not much he could do other than wait and see what happened. Hopefully by dawn he would be able to leave her long enough to bring tea and the doctor.

He did not allow himself to drift off to sleep in the event she woke, or in the event she did not.

The latter did not bear thinking.

This stranger in his arms was going to become his wife, just as soon as she was coherent enough to see the need and agree to it.

Honour dictated it to be so.

How would she react to the news? What kind of life would they have, for that matter?

He could not even imagine since he knew nothing about her other than that she was willing to give away her passage to a desperate mother. She must be selfless, or at the very least exceptionally kind.

There were men of his station who would know less of their brides than that.

And there was something he did know about her, knew quite intimately. Something he would not allow himself to dwell upon until they were properly wed.

All this was going to be a stunning surprise to her. One moment she had taken refuge in a lifeboat and the next—well, she would be wedding a man she’d never met.

Entering a marriage she had no choice in was bound to be distressing, but nothing about this could be helped. The pair of them were sharing his bed. The fact that she was not in any way consenting to it did not change the outcome for either of them.

He slid his open palm over the blanket, hoping to heat the wool even further. He was acquainted with the form of her limbs far better than he had a right to be.

When a man knew the shape of the arch of a woman’s foot and the curve of her calf—if he’d memorised the way her hip curved under the blanket—he was quite obliged to marry her.

By no misbehaviour on her part—or on his, to be honest—this lovely lady had been compromised even though his intention in lying down with her had not been seduction, but to save her life.

For all that it mattered.

The reality was, here they were. People were going to know it. Salacious tales had a life all their own. Rather mysteriously, Rees had always believed, gossip seemed to just know things.

He would not shirk his duty towards the woman sharing his bed.

And it could not be denied that marriage to this stranger would be a great boon to him.

When he returned home already wed, his engagement to Bethany Mosemore would be voided.

He would not be forced to ruin his brother’s life by marrying the woman Wilson loved. Of course, he would not have been put in the position of doing so had his brother and Bethany not kept their feelings for each other a secret.

There would be a great scandal over it all once he returned home, but better that than his family in despair.

For all that he knew nearly nothing about the woman he embraced, something—a gut feeling—told him she would be a better match for him than Miss Mosemore would be even if she were not in love with his brother.

And, of equal importance, a better mother to his twin daughters.

Had this angel not emerged from behind the crates holding that little girl’s hand? That had to mean she liked children.

It could mean nothing else.

Voices.

Madeline heard conversation that she did not believe was from her imagination. The vague, quiet voices coming to her in the moment were feminine.

But there had been another voice, one from her imagination that had been masculine. In her dreams it had spoken to her of heat—had described sunshine and roaring fires in great hearths. That voice, as she recalled the fantasy, had felt hot where it brushed her cheek.

As dreams went, it was quite—odd! Deliciously, scandalously odd.

The last lucid thought she could recall before this still-dreamlike moment was that she was dying and would never be able to tell Grandfather how bitterly sorry she was for betraying him as she had.

And now here she was, warm as toast while listening to voices whispering over her.

Soft flannel caressed her skin. Odd that, since she did not recall being in possession of soft flannel—or in possession of anything come to that.

‘It’s a wonder she survived,’ uttered a man’s voice. The speaker seemed to be sitting beside the bed. He was holding her hand.

She tried to open her eyes to see who it was, but her lids felt sealed.

Was he speaking of her? Probably, since she had not expected to and nothing was really making any sense in the moment.

‘I’d like to know how you pulled her through. What technique did you use?’

‘I simply warmed her as best I could. That’s the whole of it.’

Funny, that last voice sounded familiar even though there was no reason for it to. She knew no one aboard the ship except for the family using her ticket and the young man who had shared his lunch.

The thought of the bread she’d eaten made her stomach turn in an unpleasant way.

It was true that she’d met the Captain, but he hadn’t spoken to her enough that she would recognise his voice. And there was the man who had directed her to the dining room. His voice had been—