“I’m the one you married.

“By proxy, I mean. I never deliberately set out to deceive you,” Rose said, “but what’s important is that I’d like to stay. That is, if you’ll have me.”

Matt steepled his hands before him, his eyes never leaving her face. He’d set grown men to trembling in their boots with just such a look. “Go on,” he prompted.

She caught her breath, prepared to plunge on. He had to admire the way she looked him straight in the eye, even knowing she’d been lying through her pretty teeth ever since she’d tumbled out of the wagon onto his doorstep.

“Well, the lawyer said I could behest my way out of it any time I wanted to as long as the marriage was never—that is, as long as we didn’t—And of course, we didn’t, so…”

We didn’t, but we will before this farce is ended, madam. We owe each other that much.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever been tempted to turn Mr. Wrong into Mr. Right? In each of our books this month, you’ll delight in the ways these least-likely-to-marry men change their tune for the right woman!

Mainstream historical author Bronwyn Williams returns to Harlequin Historicals—after nearly eight years—with a wonderful Americana book, The Paper Marriage. This is the second title in THE PASSIONATE POWERS miniseries, which begins and ends in Silhouette Desire. Here, you’ll meet sea captain Matthew Powers, the intrepid forefather to Jackson and Curt. After adopting an orphaned infant girl, Matt soon realizes he needs help—even if it means marrying. But the woman he weds by proxy—thanks to his matchmaking aunt Bess—never shows up. Instead, a friend of Bess’s arrives—a young widow who steals his daughter’s heart…and his own!

In Prince of Hearts, a medieval novel by debut author Katy Cooper, Edmund Tudor, the king of England’s youngest brother, must choose between the woman he has fallen in love with and his duty to his brother’s kingdom. Another talented first-time author is Julianne MacLean, who brings us Prairie Bride, a sexy Western about a recently jilted—and angry—Kansas farmer who advertises for a mail-order bride and finds himself falling in love with her despite her secretive past.

And don’t miss The Sea Witch, book one of Ruth Langan’s medieval miniseries SIRENS OF THE SEA. When a female privateer and a dashing sea captain team up to thwart a villain’s plot against the king, they must learn that their love can overcome even the greatest dangers….

Enjoy! And come back again next month for four more choices of the best in historical romance.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell,

Senior Editor

The Paper Marriage

Bronwyn Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Available from Harlequin Historicals and BRONWYN WILLIAMS

White Witch #3

Dandelion #23

Stormwalker #47

Gideon’s Fall #67

The Mariner’s Bride #99

*The Paper Marriage #524

*Passionate Powers

To Rebecca Burrus

and all her friends at Carolina Living.

You’ve added a whole new dimension to our lives.

Becky’s Brats

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Prologue

February 27, 1898

The Outer Banks of North Carolina

The sound of rain drumming on the roof almost drowned out the sound of the crying baby. Matt wished it could drown out the memory of this infamous day. Wipe it clean from all their minds. They were still stunned, speaking in whispers, staring in horror at the squalling mite bound up in a blanket in the middle of the bed.

Billy was dead. Handsome Billy, with a slew of sweethearts in every port. Billy, who could win at cards and leave the losers laughing. Billy, who had gone to sea as a cabin boy when his family had died of the influenza and worked his way up to chief mate.

As captain, Matt was responsible for his crew, whether on land or at sea. He had warned the lad, but without following him every time he rode into the village, how could he know the boy would dally with a married woman and get her with child?

Hadn’t he carefully explained to both Billy and Luther that the village women were to be treated with respect?

He should have found himself another ship immediately after he’d lost the Black Swan. At sea, or in any port in the world, a man might get himself knifed in a brawl, but he was unlikely to be murdered by a maddened seaman who had been away from home for eleven months, only to come home and find that his wife had just given birth to a daughter.

“Cap’n, we’ll have to shovel more sand on Billy’s grave once this rain stops. It’s sinking in.” Luther, the youngest member of his crew now that Billy was dead, was pale as raw dough, his eyes still dark with the shock of it all.

Matt nodded. Every one of them, even old Crank, whose rheumatism scarcely allowed him to get out of bed on days like this, had gone out again and again to stand in the rain and stare down at the fresh grave, as if to convince themselves that it had actually happened. That some poor, wretched creature had shot his unfaithful wife, then come storming after Billy to put a bullet in his chest and, before anyone could stop him, turned the gun on himself, leaving a screaming newborn infant lying on the ground between the two bodies.

Hearing the first shot, Matt had rushed outside in time to see Billy fall. He’d yelled for Crank, leaped off the porch and reached the boy just as the wild-haired stranger had flung down a bundle and turned the gun on himself.

Billy had struggled to lift his head. “Dammit, boy, lie still! Crank, get me a rag—get help from the village!”

Without waiting for a response he had torn Billy’s shirt open, muttering curses and prayers in the same breath. “Get the midwife, dammit! Luther, go!”

There was no doctor on the island. The midwife was the best they could do. “Hang on, son, help’s on the way,” he said, wanting to believe it was true. Wanting even more to make Billy believe it.

“Cap’n, promise me—”

“Hush, now, it’ll be all right. Just lie still.”

“You gotta promise me—my baby—it—it—”

“Shh, the baby’ll be just fine, it’s you we’ve got to take care of now.”

But he knew even as he said the words that it was too late. They both knew it, yet Billy still struggled to get the words out, his blue eyes pleading desperately. “My baby—you gotta promise me, Cap’n—”

“Anything, boy, just hang on.”

“Didn’t mean no harm—her man couldn’t—he weren’t—able…”

“Ah, Billy, don’t die on me, dammit. Don’t do it, son!” Matt swore because he couldn’t weep. A moment later he stood and turned away until he got himself under control. Then, kneeling again, he examined both bodies and pronounced them dead.

It was Crank who rescued the squalling babe, wrapped it in one of his own shirts and carried it inside as gingerly as if it had been a basket of eggs. Luther brought the midwife, who did what was necessary for the infant with angry old eyes and a pinched, disapproving mouth.

“She’ll likely not live out the night. If she’s still here by sunup, you can sop a rag in water and give her a suck.”

It was all the advice the old woman offered before she climbed up into her cart and headed back to the village. The four remaining men stood helplessly and watched her ride off. Matt swore. Crank misquoted a Bible verse about the sins of the fathers. Peg, the ship’s carpenter, got to work on a casket while Luther rode back to the village, this time to fetch the magistrate.

It had taken the rest of day to untangle the wreckage. To cart the man’s body back to the village, to bury poor Billy, and to learn that the unfaithful wife had been from “away”—the native’s way of calling anyone not island-born.

“Not to put too fine a point on it,” Dick Dixon, the lawman, had said, “but she weren’t one of ours, so don’t look for help from that quarter.”

“What about the husband’s family? Surely one of them—”

“The poor bastard weren’t his. They’ll not take it.”

“Don’t call her that, none of this is her fault.” Even before the midwife had come, they’d discovered that the tiny thing wrapped in Crank’s shirt was a newborn baby girl.

“If I was you, I’d write to the boy’s family. Might be one o’ them’ll take it off your hands.”

“No help there. Billy is—was an orphan.”

“Well, I don’t know where the woman came from. Like I said, she was from away, been here about two years, I believe.” He stood, settled his hat on his bald head and turned to go. “Looks like you just became a father, Powers.”

“No, sir, that I did not.” Matt said quickly. He had promised Billy to take care of the baby, but he hadn’t promised to do it personally…had he?

On the other hand, until he could find someone to take the child off his hands, he was responsible for its—for her welfare. She was Billy’s, and Billy had been a member of his crew.

Before he left, the magistrate had sympathized but warned him again not to look for help from the village. “Meaning no disrespect, Powers, but after what happened, none of our women are going to come anywhere near your men.”

Which struck Matt as grossly unfair, but then, when had life ever been fair? Come a hard blow, a smart man trimmed sail, headed into the wind and rode it out.

Matt did the only thing he could think of to do: he reluctantly began a letter to his only remaining relative. Bess Powers was a meddlesome busybody who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve as well, but she’d always been honest in their dealings.

So far as he knew, he amended.

Chapter One

March 3, 1898

Norfolk, Virginia

Most of the mourners had already left. A raw, wet northeast wind whipped the black skirts of the lone woman who lingered, her veiled head bowed, beside the open grave. Nearby, the preacher eyed the lowering clouds as he waited patiently for Rose Magruder to pay her last respects to her grandmother’s mortal remains. He took out his pocket watch, glanced down quickly, then looked up at the sky again, and at the grave diggers waiting to finish their work.

Some distance away, a handful of servants huddled uncertainly, hoping the rain would hold off for another few minutes. Hoping Miss Rose would land on her feet, because the poor girl deserved better than she’d had these past few years.

Hoping even more that Mrs. Littlefield had left them the back wages she’d died owing.

On the other side of the plot, under the shelter of a massive magnolia, an elderly couple lingered, their heads close together as they carried on a low-voiced conversation. Bess Powers had been Augusta Little-field’s friend for more than forty years. Horace Bagby had been her lawyer for at least that long.

“Gussy would’ve told us all to get inside before we catch our deaths,” murmured the plump woman with the suspiciously red hair. “Poor Gussy, she was a tartar, but I loved her like a sister.”

“Gussy was always proud of what you’ve accomplished, you know. Used to read me every one of your letters while you were off on one of your travels.” The two longtime friends were among the few who had been allowed to call the late Mrs. Littlefield “Gussy.”

“Well, I’m home for a few weeks, at any rate. Horace, what are we going to do about that poor child?” She nodded toward the deceased’s only relative. “I suppose I could invite her to move in with me as a sort of secretary-companion, but you know how small my cottage is.”

Horace removed his derby, smoothed the few strands of hair laid carefully across his dome, and carefully replaced his hat. They both studied the lone figure dressed in black. Tall as a beanpole, Bess was thinking.

Slender as a willow, Horace mused, a romantic in spite of his elderly bachelor status. “Bess, I just don’t know. Right now all I can think of is how I’m going to break the news to her. I’d rather take a licking, and that’s a fact.”

“Poor child, you’d think she’d have earned a little peace after all she’s had to put up with. Never had a beau in her life, far as anybody knows. Gussy said she married the first jack out of the box after her folks died. Nobody had ever heard of the fellow. Then, less than two years later, the fellow up and died on her.

“Drowned, I believe Gussy said.” They stood in silent sympathy for the tall, plain woman who lingered beside the grave.

The handful of acquaintances who had braved the weather to attend the funeral had already left, eager to exchange this dismal place for a warm, food-laden parlor where they could enjoy a good meal while they speculated on how much the old girl had left her only granddaughter.

Not until the preacher finally led the chief mourner away did Horace tuck Bess’s hand under his arm and steer her toward the one remaining carriage. “Waiting hand and foot on Gussy couldn’t have been any picnic, either,” Bess remarked as she picked her way carefully around the puddles. “By the time Rose came to live with her, Gussy’s mind was already addled. Never was much to brag about, poor soul.”

Horace nodded. “Came on her so gradually, I kept telling myself she was just having another bad spell, but you’re right. She never was what you might call quick-witted. I tried to warn her about those funds, but by the time I found out what she was up to, it was already too late.” He sighed heavily. “And now there’s that poor girl yonder….”

“I know. I didn’t want to believe it, either.”

They followed the lead carriage, bearing the preacher and Augusta Rose Littlefield Magruder, granddaughter and sole heir to the late Augusta Littlefield, back to the Littlefield mansion.

Bess patted Horace’s black-gloved hand. “Never mind, we’ll think of something.”

The house was overheated. It smelled of wet wool. There’d be an enormous coal bill to pay once Rose had time to tackle her grandmother’s messy desk. Right to the end Gussy had insisted on keeping her own accounts. She’d allowed no one in what she called her office, a converted sitting room off the master bedroom that was kept locked, with the key hidden in one of Gussy’s bedroom slippers.

Rose had known where it was, of course, but neither she nor any of the few remaining servants would have dreamed of using it. A calm and contented Gussy had been difficult enough to deal with; an angry Gussy utterly impossible.

Now Rose sat numbly, half hidden behind a Chinese screen, waiting for this endless day to end. She would have given anything she possessed, which wasn’t all that much, to be able to close her eyes and sleep for a solid week.

Unfortunately, even if she’d had the chance, her mind would have refused to cooperate. She had grown up in a house nearly as grand as this one, but the thought of being solely responsible for her grand-mother’s entire estate was overwhelming.

Gradually, she became aware of a whispered conversation on the other side of the screen. She honestly didn’t mean to listen, but without revealing her presence it was impossible not to hear.

“…finally gone, I guess her granddaughter’s set for life, the lucky woman.”

“Lucky? If you ask me, the poor thing’s earned every dollar the old biddy hoarded all these years. Didn’t pay her servants worth diddly. Her upstairs maid came to work for me last fall, and she said—”

“Yes, but they say the granddaughter’s had a hard row to hoe. I heard her folks were killed in that awful train wreck near Suffolk, and a few years later her husband was murdered.”

“He wasn’t murdered, silly, he drowned. The way I heard it, he—”

“Black don’t become her at all, does it? If I was her, I’d use a touch of rouge.”

“For shame, Ida Lee, she’s a decent woman, for all she’s plain as a fence post.”

“The poor thing, they say she’s still grieving for her husband, too.”

What was that old saying about eavesdroppers? Rose wondered, amused in spite of herself. Black did indeed make her look sallow, but then so did everything else. Some kind soul had once called her un-fashionable complexion “olive,” and she’d latched onto it because it sounded better than sallow—even faintly exotic—but fancy words couldn’t change the truth.

And she was grieving. She would grieve for the rest of her life, but not for the lout she had married.

Rose Magruder had never been one to display her emotions. She had come to her grandmother a penniless widow. Since then she had been far too busy trying to keep up with the constant, confusing and often conflicting demands of her only remaining relative to do more than fall into bed each night, exhausted.

Of the staff required to maintain an eighteen-room mansion and the acres surrounding it, only three had stayed on until the end.

Rose fully intended to see that those three were amply rewarded for their faithfulness.

But first she had to find time to go through the mountain of papers her grandmother had left crammed into shoeboxes, hatboxes and goodness knows where else. She knew for a fact that the household accounts were in arrears, because several of the merchants with whom they did business had brought it to her attention.

Thank goodness for Horace Bagby. She didn’t know the man well, but he seemed both kind and competent. With the help of an accountant, which Mr. Bagby could probably recommend, they should be able to sort things out. Sallow or not, she had always had a good head for figures.

Not until the last of the mourners had gone did Rose discover that she might have saved herself the worry. Horace Bagby had stayed behind when the others left. He wished he’d thought to ask Bess to stay and help him with the unpleasant task. He hated tears, never had learned how to deal with them.

“As to the, ah—the will, I’m afraid the news is not good, my dear. Your grandmother’s estate is…well, the truth is, it’s mortgaged to the hilt and will have to be sold immediately to pay off creditors.”

He braced himself to deal with anything up to and including an outburst of hysteria. Mrs. Magruder fooled him. She shed not so much as a single tear. There in the gloomy front parlor, its windows shrouded in respect for the deceased, she sat quietly, her hands folded on her lap, her eyes somewhat swollen, somewhat pink, but quite dry.

“There now, we’ll come through this, my dear,” he said without the least notion of how he would bring about such a miracle. As the poor girl didn’t seem inclined to question him, he hurried to fill the silence with all the information he had at hand.

Rose sat quietly as the words droned on and on and on. Now and then a phrase would snag her attention.

Nothing left?

“—gambled away—risky investments—warned her, but you know Gussy, she was headstrong right to the end.”

Sold immediately?

“—lock, stock and barrel, I’m afraid. I’m sure we can think of something. That is, there’s bound to be a way—”

Rose took a deep, steadying breath. “Would it be possible,” she asked, her voice unnaturally composed, “to sell several pieces of my own jewelry? They were given to me by my grandmother, but legally, I believe they’re mine to do with as I wish.”

“Of course, of course, my dear, you’re quite right. I’ll handle it this very day, if you’d like.”

Technically, the jewelry, especially if it consisted of family pieces, could be considered a part of the estate, but Horace wasn’t about to let this young lady suffer for the mistakes of a weak-minded old woman. After asking her once again if she wouldn’t prefer to go and stay with friends, he reluctantly took his leave. Rose saw him to the door. Mentally she was numb. Physically, she was too exhausted to think about dragging her trunks down from the attic to begin the arduous task of packing. After a night’s sleep, she might be better able to think clearly.

Horace drove directly to Granby Street, where he sold the five pieces of jewelry, none of them particularly valuable. “It should keep her for at least a month, providing she’s frugal,” he confided to Bess that evening over teacups of fine, aged brandy. “Seems a sensible sort, but you never know. At least now she’ll be able to set herself up in a decent rooming house until she can find herself another husband. Shouldn’t take too long, even with mourning and all. She’s a bit long in the shank, but a widower with children might not be so particular.”

“If marriage was the answer to every maiden’s prayer,” his companion observed dryly, “the two of us wouldn’t be sitting here drinking brandy and smoking cigars.”

Horace lifted his teacup in silent acknowledgement.

Unable to sleep after all, Rose dragged her trunk down from the attic and began emptying the wardrobe, folding and packing layers on top of the layers she’d never even got around to unpacking. Most were black, except for a few old summer things and the wedding gown she’d saved as a bitter reminder of what could happen when a woman made the wrong choice. She’d been in mourning for so long, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to wear colors.

The next afternoon she divided the proceeds from the sale of her jewelry among the three remaining servants, thanking them again for their support. “I’m sorry it isn’t more. Goodness knows you deserve far more, this hardly even covers your salary, but it’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.”

They seemed to understand, to appreciate her appreciation, and they wished each other well.

Not until the last one had left did Rose allow her guard to drop. And then the tears came. She wept until her eyes were swollen, her throat clogged, her handkerchief a sodden lump. “Oh, Lord, this is a waste of time,” she muttered, and then cried some more. On the rare occasions when she allowed herself the luxury of tears, she made a fine job of it, weeping noisily until every last dreg of emotion was spent.

She cried for her parents—the charming rascal of a father she’d adored, her dainty, beautiful mother who had never quite known what to make of her gawky misfit of a daughter—and for the grandmother who had changed so drastically from the woman she dimly remembered from her childhood.

But most of all, she wept for her baby, who had never even had a chance to live.

Eventually she mopped her face, smoothed her skirt and stood before the heavy hall mirror, recalling the words her grandmother’s housekeeper had spoken when she’d tucked her share of the money in her purse. “There now, you’ll land on your feet, Miss Rose, you see if you don’t. You might not be much to look at, but you’ve got backbone aplenty.”

Not much to look at, she thought ruefully. Never have been. Never would be. At least she would never have to worry about aging and losing her beauty, which had been her mother’s greatest fear.

At thirteen Rose had been tall and painfully shy. At eighteen she’d still been shy, and even taller, but she could walk without tripping over her feet. She’d even learned to dance so that on those rare occasions when some poor boy had been forced to do his duty, she wouldn’t disgrace herself.

“No, you’re not much to look at,” she told her mirror image. Given the choice between beauty and backbone, she would have chosen beauty, which just went to show she still hadn’t learned anything.

Fortunately, the choice wasn’t hers to make. She’d been stuck with backbone, which was a good thing, because backbone was just what she would need until she could find a position and establish herself in a decent neighborhood.

With the house empty and her luggage stacked beside her, Rose sat on one of the delicate chairs that flanked the inlaid hall table and waited for her grand-mother’s friend, Bess Powers, who had located a suitable rooming house and offered to drive her there, as her grandmother’s horse and buggy had already been claimed by a creditor.

Limp with exhaustion, she was afraid to relax for fear she might fall asleep. Afraid the few dollars in her purse would not be enough. Perhaps she should have kept back part of the proceeds from the sale of her jewelry in case the landlord insisted on being paid in advance.

What if she couldn’t find a position right away?

And even if she could, it would be weeks, perhaps months, before she could expect to be paid.

Choices. It came down to making the right one. Unfortunately, women were rarely given a chance to learn, their choices being made for them, first by parents and then by husbands. The first time she’d had to make a choice, she’d made a disastrous one. After suffering the consequences, she’d had no choice but to turn to her grandmother.

This time she was fresh out of relatives. It was a criminal shame, she told herself, that well-bred young women were never trained to be self-supporting.

Bess arrived on the dot of four. “There you are,” she declared, as if she’d been searching everywhere. Parking her umbrella in the stand, she stood before the mirror and re-skewered her hat atop her freshly hennaed hair with a lethal-looking hatpin. “Shame about the house, but I’ve been telling Gussy for years that this was too much house for one lone woman. Don’t be possessed by your possessions, I always say.”

Which was all very well, Rose thought, as long as one possessed a roof over one’s head. A bed in hand was worth two in the bush.

Giddy, that’s what you are. Good thing your feet are as long as they are, my girl, because you’re going to have to stand on them from now on. “Grand-mother’s housekeeper gave me the name of a reliable agency where I might look for work.”

“What kind of work can you do?” Bess didn’t believe in mincing words. As a woman who supported herself with words, she valued them too highly. “Can you take shorthand? Can you cook? Not that I’d recommend it, but better to lord it over a kitchen than to have to wait on every oaf with the price of a meal.”

Rose had never even considered serving as a waitress, but it might well come to that. “I’ve never tried it, but I’m sure I could learn. I’m good with invalids, too.”

“You want to be a doormat all your life? I haven’t known you long, child, because I’ve been away so much these past few years, but we both know Gussy was no invalid. What she was, poor soul, was crazy as a bedbug, not to put too fine a point on it. Now, don’t tell me you want to go to work in one of those asylums, you wouldn’t last out a day.”

Rose knew the woman meant well. And after all, she was one of those rare creatures, a truly independent woman. “All right, then what do you suggest? Governess? Companion? Surely I could qualify for either of those positions.”

“I thought about hiring you as a secretary-companion.”

Rose waited for the catch. She was certain there would be one.

“Trouble is, I couldn’t afford to pay you enough to live on. My publisher pays my expenses when I’m traveling, but I doubt if he’d pay for a secretary.”

On her good days, her grandmother used to talk about her friend, Bess Powers, who was considered a minor celebrity after the diaries she had written while growing up aboard her father’s ship had been published. Rose envied Miss Powers her freedom and independence but, celebrity or not, she wasn’t at all sure she could abide the woman for any length of time.

“I’m afraid I don’t take shorthand. I’m sure I could learn, though, and my penmanship is excellent.”

“’T’wouldn’t work. I’ve traveled in single harness too long. As it happens, though, I have another problem on my hands. You might be just the one to tackle it. I don’t suppose you’ve got a drop of brandy in the house, do you? This miserable weather goes right to my knees.”

“I’m sorry. Knowing I’d be leaving today, I let the servants take home all the food and drink, but I’m sure there’s some tea left in the caddy.”

“Never mind. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Matt. My nephew. Poor boy, he was desperate enough to write to me for help, which means he’s at his wit’s end. Last time I saw him he called me a meddling old busybody.” She chuckled. “I’ll not deny it, either.”

Rose murmured a polite disclaimer. She scarcely knew the woman, after all, but if she had indeed spent her formative years at sea in a man’s world, as she claimed to have done, then it was no wonder she tended to be outspoken.

Rose appreciated plain speaking. It saved time in the long run, even if the truth did happen to tread on a few tender toes.

“Well anyhow, as I told Horace, you’re a tad on the scrawny side, but then Gussy was always frail, too. Still, it takes a strong woman to look after a child.”

“A child?” Rose repeated, frowning. Perhaps she was more like her grandmother than she’d thought, for she was having trouble following the conversation. “I’m sorry—did I miss something?”

“Child, baby, I’m not sure of her age, but I do know I’m too old to tackle the job, even if I had the time. Still, I expect you’re stronger than you look, else you’d never have been able to put up with Gussy. I know, I know, she was my dearest friend, even though we didn’t see much of one another once I started traveling professionally, so to speak. But Gussy was always a bit light under the bonnet, if you take my meaning. Old age struck me in the knees. It struck Gussy’s head. I guess it hits us all in our weakest parts.”

Rose couldn’t think of a single word to say. If this tale had a logical conclusion, she couldn’t imagine what it would be.

“Still, it’d be killing two birds with one stone, wouldn’t it?”

That night, as was their habit, Bess and Horace shared tea, brandy, cigars and an assessment of the day’s events. They’d lived for years in the same neighborhood, three blocks apart. “So you see,” Bess was saying, “if Rose agrees to it, Matt won’t have much choice, he’ll have to go along. By this time he’ll be too desperate to stand on his high horse.”

“What if he’s found someone from the village to take the baby off his hands?”

“If he could’ve, he would’ve by now.”

“Speaking of Rose, how is she settling in?”

“I put her in that women’s boarding place just off Dominion. The rooms are small, but it’s clean, decent and cheap.”

“She’ll be out first thing tomorrow looking for work,” Horace reminded her. “If she finds it, what happens to your plan to pair her up with your nephew?”

“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?”

Chapter Two

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.

He hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. If Gloria had asked him, he would have crawled over a bed of live coals.

The night before he’d sailed she had allowed him to kiss her. Scared stiff he would break her, or at the very least, terrify her by either his size or his tightly leashed passion, he’d been shaking too hard to do the job justice.

“If only you didn’t have to leave,” she’d whispered after that brief hard, dry kiss. “I could never marry a man who would go off and leave me by myself for months at a time. I would simply die of loneliness.”

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but she’d hit him in the one place where he was vulnerable. It had been years since he’d last seen his mother. As an adult, he’d seldom even thought about her. The last time they’d met had been at his father’s funeral where, like the strangers they were, they had made polite conversation. She’d told him she would be marrying again and moving to Chicago; he’d told her he was off to Honduras at week’s end and they’d parted still strangers. Since then she had rarely crossed his mind, but evidently the old scars were still there.

Oh, yeah, he’d been broadsided, all right. By the time he’d left Gloria that last night in port he had promised to finish one last run, then put his ship up for sale and invest the proceeds in her father’s ship-building firm in exchange for a seat on the board of directors.

In the end, he got exactly what he deserved. After delivering a cargo of dyewood, mahogany and bananas to Boston only three days behind schedule, he had contracted with a broker to sell the Black Swan. With his head still in the clouds, he had bought the biggest diamond ring he could find and headed south with marriage on his mind, only to be informed that Miss Timmons was visiting a friend in West Virginia. Five days later, having partially regained his senses, he’d taken a train to Boston, intent on pulling his ship off the market.

He’d been three days too late. She’d just been sold.

So he’d headed south again, determined to make the best of a bad situation. If he could no longer be captain of the finest three-masted schooner afloat, he would be the finest husband, and make a stab at being a damned good director of Timmons Shipbuilding. He was not without business experience, after all.

That was when he’d discovered that the woman who had stolen his heart was too busy reeling in another poor sucker to spare him more than a rueful smile. “But darling, I never actually said I’d marry you, did I? I’m sure I didn’t. I’m having far too much fun to settle down yet, but Daddy’s still saving you that seat on the board as soon as you’ve sold your ship.”

For the first time in years he had gone out and gotten howling drunk. Two and a half days later he’d wakened up in a Newport News flophouse with a fistful of busted knuckles and a head the size of New Zealand, both his pockets and his belly turned wrong-side out.

Dammit, he wanted her back.

The Black Swan, not Gloria. God knows, any romantic nonsense had been purged from his heart.

After four years, the broker was still working on getting his ship back. The new owner, a consortium of dry-land sailors, was intent on playing games with him, their latest demand, relayed by the broker, being a five-percent cut of the captain’s share of the profits for five years and a sale price well above the original purchase price.

He’d been in the process of negotiating for a two-year split and a lower sale price when all hell had broken loose and he’d found himself with a problem no broker could solve.

Annie.

With the tip of his big, booted foot, Matt rocked the cradle Peg had fashioned from a rum barrel and padded with goose down. If Bess didn’t soon come through for him, he was going to have to broaden his search. He could hardly take an infant to sea with him.

If she’d been a boy, he might have considered it, but she wasn’t. All he had to do was look at Bess to see what that kind of a life would do to a girl. Bossy, meddlesome, conniving, his aunt drank like a man and cursed like a man, and got all huffy when a man did the same thing in her presence.

He sighed and then he swore. He’d done more of both in the short time since he’d become a surrogate father than in all his thirty-one years put together.

Yeah, Annie needed a woman. And so, unfortunately, did he. The trouble with a small, insular village was that everyone knew everything that went on. Without a decent whorehouse, a man could get into serious trouble, a tragic lesson they’d all learned the hard way.

Crank, in his Bible-quoting mode, claimed it was better to marry than to burn, but Matt wasn’t about to commit that particular folly. He was old enough that he could wait until he went to the mainland.

It wasn’t so easy for a younger man. The first time Luther had ridden in for supplies after the shooting he had come back with his jaw dragging. “Hell sakes, Cap’n, all the girls has disappeared.”

They hadn’t disappeared, they’d been hidden away, forbidden to associate with the men from Powers Point. Considering what had happened, Matt couldn’t much blame any man for trying to protect his womenfolk, but dammit, Annie wasn’t at fault. She’d come into this world an innocent victim. Matt refused to allow her to suffer for the sins of her parents, if he had to give up the sea forever.

But it might not come to that. Things were gradually beginning to thaw. The first time Crank had ridden in to lay in a supply of tinned milk, one or two of the older women had offered advice about bringing up a baby’s wind in the middle of her dinner, and using lard to clean her tail instead of lye soap.

Another woman had offered them the loan of one of her milk goats, but for the most part, the men of Powers Point had been left alone with a task not a one of them was equipped to handle.

“Bess, you’re going to have to help me with this,” Matt muttered to the cold, damp night. Unable to sleep, he stood on a wooded ridge overlooking the Pamlico Sound, watching the moon sink behind a cloud bank. “God knows, you’re not my idea of a nursemaid, but I don’t know where else to turn.” He didn’t consider it praying, but the same heartfelt sentiment was there.

Watching a shooting star arc across the sky, he wondered how the death of anything in the universe could be so beautiful. So far he’d seen only the ugliness of death. If he’d been of a mystical turn of mind, he might have taken the shooting star for an omen, but Matt was a realist. Always had been. The second generation of Powers men to have been raised at sea, he’d learned from his father, who had learned from his own father, that a fair wind, a sound ship and a good crew were all a man needed to make his own luck.

Rose watched as Bess Powers poured two cups of tea, then added a dose of medicinal brandy to her own. She’d been invited for the afternoon to discuss her plans for the future, a future that was beginning to look increasingly dismal.

She stirred sugar into her tea, which was stronger than she liked, but hot and fortifying. “I should have worked harder on my art and music. Mama warned me I’d live to regret it. The trouble is, I have no sense of rhythm, and as for my watercolors—well, the less said, the better. Bess, how can I even teach a girl to walk properly when I’m apt to trip over my own feet?” Extending her limbs, she gazed dolefully down at her long, narrow kid slippers.

Bess snorted. “Woman your height would look damned silly with feet no bigger than mine.”

“Who wants a governess who can’t dance, can’t play the piano, can’t paint and—”

“I heard from Matt again today. Poor boy, he’s in sad shape. That’s the third letter in two weeks.”

“Did you know that no one will even consider hiring a woman accountant? I’m smart as a whip when it comes to figures.”

“Didn’t do poor Gussy much good, did it?”

Rose looked up quickly, a stricken expression on her face. “I’m afraid not,” she admitted. Given a chance, she might have been able to salvage something, but before she could even go through the accounts, it was already far too late.

“Sorry, child, you didn’t deserve that.”

Perhaps she did, but this was no time to pile guilt onto a feeling of inadequacy. If she could just keep her head level, her feet on the ground and her spirits high, she would come through this just fine.

“I interviewed for a companion’s position yesterday. The pay is barely enough to keep a mouse in cheese, and I’d be expected to sleep in an attic room. The ceiling slopes so that I can’t even stand up, but there’s a lovely view of the garden.”

“Like I said, poor Matt’s in desperate straits.”

Rose surrendered gracefully. She had gone on and on about her own slender prospects while Bess listened; it was only fair that she return the favor.

“You remember I told you about my nephew?”

Rose knew all about Captain Powers, his land-locked crew and his inherited baby. Bess was a gifted storyteller who never missed an opportunity to practice her art. “Can’t he send off to one of the employment agencies? I’m sure they can find someone suitable, there are so many women looking for respectable work.”

“And some not so respectable, I shouldn’t wonder. Would you take the job if it was offered?”

As tempting as it might sound, Rose wasn’t about to leap out of the frying pan into the fire. One thing she’d learned was that she was no good at making quick choices. Another was that positions that sounded lovely on paper weren’t always so lovely in fact.

Besides, while her heart might ache for any motherless infant, she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to get involved with one of Bess’s relatives. “I haven’t given up. Just because the ideal opening hasn’t presented itself yet, that doesn’t mean something won’t turn up tomorrow.”

“Thought I’d ask. If it’d been a married couple needing help with a baby, I’d have talked you into it, but I can’t see sending a decent young woman into an all-male household. ’T’wouldn’t be seemly.”

“He’s your nephew. Couldn’t you do your writing there as well as here, and look after the baby, too?”

The older woman emptied her teacup and refilled it from the decanter, not bothering to add fresh tea. “I’m a spinster, a traveler and a writer. I have neither the time nor the desire to be a nursemaid. Still, the poor little wretch deserves better than a handful of rough seamen to look after her. Know ’em all, and they’re as fine a lot as you’d want to meet, but still…”

Bess had relayed the tale to Rose as it had been told to her by her nephew, about a shooting that had involved three adults. She’d lay odds there was more to it than she’d been told. “Tragic, tragic,” she murmured, now frowning at her teacup, which was empty again. She fully intended to sniff out every juicy detail of the whole sordid mess, but that could wait. When it came to plotting a story, she never liked to be hampered by too many facts. Not all the travel pieces she wrote were entirely factual, although most had a basis of truth.

“And there’s no family at all on either side?” Rose persisted.

“Not a speck. Matt said he beat the bushes without flushing out so much as a shirttail cousin. Poor Billy. Sweetest boy you’d ever hope to meet, but then, you never know….” She shrugged her plump, silk-clad shoulders. “Billy begged on his deathbed for Matt to look after his daughter, and Matt, bless his tender heart, gave his word. Takes after me, Matt does. My own brother’s child, don’t you know?”

Rose sighed. “Oh. Well, I guess that settles it, then.”

Bess stroked her knee and cursed the weather, which was wet and cold, even for early March. “Settles nothing. Being a man of his word is all very well, but it don’t do that poor helpless infant much good.”

Now why do I have the feeling I’m being manipulated?

Rose answered her own unspoken question. Because she’d been blindly running in circles for so long.

Bess wouldn’t do that…would she?

During all the months she’d been burdened with the constant care of her demanding tyrant of a grand-mother, Rose’s grief for her own lost child had been pushed aside. Now it was back, as fresh and painful as if it had happened only two days ago instead of two years. Was it better, she wondered now, to have held a child in one’s arms and then lost it, or never to have held it at all?

There were no answers, only the familiar aching emptiness.

“I’ve been thinking,” Bess announced, a glint in her eye that Rose was beginning to recognize. “Now, if you were to—”

Suddenly wary for no real reason unless exhaustion and discouragement could be blamed, Rose stood and began collecting her purse and gloves. “Bess, could it possibly wait? If you don’t mind, I believe I’d better be getting back to my room. I’ve an early interview tomorrow.”

“Not the housekeeping job?”

“Well, yes. It doesn’t pay very well, but it’s either that or the attic. I understand the housekeeping position includes a lovely set of rooms off the kitchen.”

“Bed in the pantry, no doubt, complete with lecherous butler lurking outside the door.”

There were times, Rose told herself, when Bess’s creative mind went too far. “I’m sure no respectable butler would dream of—”

“Butlers are male, aren’t they? Like I said, I’ve been thinking of a possible solution. Let me talk it over with Horace and see if it’s legal.”

See if it’s legal?

Rose closed her eyes. She didn’t even want to know, she really didn’t. It was late and she was tired, and she still had her best black twill to sponge and press before she went to bed.

That evening, Bess presented her case to her long-time friend over brandy and cigars. If they’d been half a century younger, she might have thought of him as a beau, but they weren’t, and so she didn’t.

“Here’s the problem as I see it. It started with the boy’s mother, a flighty female if ever there was one. The Powers men have all been steady as a rock, but not a one of them ever had a lick of sense when it came to women. First the useless bit of fluff my brother married, then that hussy who trolled her bait in front of Matt, set her hook, landed her fish and then left him there high and dry.”

“I take it you mean the young lady who talked your nephew into selling his ship. Shady dealings, if you ask me, her and her father alike. I believe questions are being raised in certain circles about the source of their funding.”

“That’s as may be, but right now what that boy needs is a decent, respectable woman with some grit in her craw. Strikes me, Gussy’s girl just might fill the bill. Don’t have much to say for herself, but she took good care of Gussy. I’ll lay you odds she’d do the same thing for Matt’s baby. Might not look like much, but buried underneath those meek manners of hers, the girl’s got grit.”

“Oh, she’s not bad to look at, just not in the usual style. Five men, you say?” Horace savored his cigar, his gaze resting gently on the small, plump woman seated across from him.

“Four, now that Billy’s gone.”

“Still, an older woman might be better.”

“Don’t look at me, Horace Bagby, baby-tending is a full time job. I’ve got commitments. Papa’s crew spent half their time keeping me from climbing the ratlines, and me barely out of the cradle. Many’s the time he had to send a man overboard to fish me out. I liked to walk the pinrail, to prove I could do it. Tripped on a pin or two and went over the side more times than I can remember.”

Horace’s smile was indulgent. He had known Bess for half a century. “Still proving yourself, too, aren’t you? You’ve not changed all that much, Bessy my girl.”

“Ballocks. Now, back to what I was saying—a woman with my responsibilities don’t have time, and a young one, leastwise a decent one, can’t be expected to go live among a houseful of men. ’T’wouldn’t be seemly. So here’s what I have in mind.”

Five minutes later, Horace shook his head admiringly. “It’s legal, all right, but I doubt if your nephew would agree to it.”

“You leave Matt to me. If a man’s drowning, he’ll grab aholt of the first thing that floats past.”

It took three weeks and any number of wires and letters. In the first letter, Bess laid out the bare bones of her plan. She knew of a young widow, a hard worker, clean, decent, sound of limb and meek of disposition, who stood in desperate need of a home. And while Bess couldn’t very well send a respectable young woman to live in an all-male household, if Matt would be willing to marry her for the sake of the baby, his troubles would be over.

Matt would not, he wrote back immediately, with appropriate emphasis.

To which Bess replied that in that case, neither she nor her friend Horace Bagby, the lawyer who represented the young woman in question, could recommend the position to her, which was a shame as she was capable, trustworthy, honest as the day is long, and an excellent hand with children and infants.

“If you can’t take over Annie’s care yourself, try to find me someone else,” Matt wrote back. “I’m not taking on a wife.”

Meanwhile, nearing the age of three months, Annie was given her first taste of solid food against the advice of the goat owner, who said a child couldn’t take real food until it was at least a year old.

Annie took to what Crank called burgoo, a thin oatmeal mush, like a cat to raw fish. She had a few wisps of colorless hair and had learned to smile. Luther took credit for the smile, said he’d taught her how, but to Matt’s way of thinking, her smile was Billy, all over again.

It made him sad. Which was some better than being angry and frustrated, but not a great deal.

Bess wrote that the only women she’d found willing to move so far from civilization were either too decrepit to get a job on the mainland or else they were running away from trouble. She added that she was sorry not to be of any more help.

“Dammit, Bess,” Matt wrote back. They had long since dispensed with the formalities, as Bess didn’t fit anyone’s notion of a maiden aunt, and he detested being called “boy.” “Help me out here. It’s on your conscience that Annie’s stuck here with no proper care.”

“Don’t see what I can do. You say you don’t want a wife. My friend don’t want another husband, either, so a proxy wedding would satisfy propriety without committing either of you to more than you’re wanting to take on.”

Reading Matt’s answer to Horace, Bess broke into a broad grin. “There, I told you it’d work. Sneak up on ’em, one step at a time, then spring the trap.”

“Bess Powers, you’re a wicked woman,” Horace said admiringly. “You should’ve been a lawyer.”

“All it takes is a creative mind to come up with the plot and a lawyer to work out the details.”

“We’re a pair, all right. Now, all we have to do is convince Rose.”

Convincing Rose wasn’t as difficult as it might’ve been a month earlier, when Bess had first told her about the motherless infant left in the care of four rough seamen. Rose had been able to see it all too clearly—the barren island, the weathered shack, a helpless infant left to the tender mercies of four rough men who cursed and scratched and bathed once a year, if at all.

Although Bess had mentioned visiting the place a few times….

But then, Bess had also written about crocodile-infested rivers and dugout canoes paddled by men dressed in feather headdresses and small straw baskets to cover their private parts.

Still, the place wasn’t all that far away. She’d heard of a few fishermen who lived there with their families. Presumably, they fared well enough.

Probably better than she did at the moment, here in civilized Virginia. Of her two most recent situations, neither had lasted more than a few days. First she had found a position as assistant housekeeper in a girls’ boarding school. After wheezing and sneezing for two days she’d discovered she was highly allergic to chalk dust.

Her luck seemed to have changed when she had taken the job of governess to seven children between the ages of five months and eleven years, until the night the children’s father had come to her room wearing a silk bathrobe and suggested it was time they had a quiet conference.

Rose had shut the door in his face, packed her bags and left.

After that, she’d been forced to lower her expectations. Hunger did that to a body. Even so, her last job—she no longer thought of them as positions—had lasted less than four hours. Having had her bottom pinched black and blue and her bosom, modest as it was, loudly admired by an oaf who called himself a chef, she had finally whipped off her apron and marched out of the town’s finest dining establishment.

She was getting better at making choices.

And now, having reluctantly been forced to borrow funds for her room and board from Bess, she had no choice but to sit quietly and listen as Bess and Mr. Bagby presented their proposal.

She had heard it before. Her answer the first time had been a flat refusal. “Thank you, but I’m not looking for another husband. Things may be a bit discouraging at the moment, but that’s only because so many people are looking for work at the same time. I read that in a newspaper recently.”

That was yesterday. Today she had agreed to hear the proposition again. Not that she expected to change her mind, because one husband had been more than enough, but Bess had been kind, and she owed her more than she could easily repay.

“It’s merely a business arrangement for your own protection,” Horace explained. Rose sensed that Bess had the poor man twisted around her little finger.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Bess broke in. “You see, Matt doesn’t want marriage any more than you do, but by now, he’s desperate enough to wed the devil. That’s what makes it so perfect.”

Rose, wondering if she’d just been insulted, tried again. This time it was Horace who shut off her objections before she could voice them. “Happens all the time, this kind of arrangement. Just a convenience, like I said before, done by proxy and properly witnessed, it’s as legal as any other contract, which is not to say the whole thing can’t be dissolved at the behest of either party.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Rose said hesitantly.

Bess carefully avoided looking at Horace, but they both knew the battle was won.

And what a story it would make, Bess thought gleefully. Of course, she would have to allow a decent interval to pass before she could set it to paper. By then she’d have learned all the gory details of that so-called accident. And naturally she would change the names of all parties involved.

Rose’s courage held up until nearly the end. It was when she looked down and saw her own shaky signature, Augusta R. L. Magruder, on the marriage certificate, that her knees threatened to buckle and her breakfast threatened to return on her.

Except that she hadn’t had any breakfast. She’d been too nervous to eat a bite.

“Oh, my, this is a mistake,” she whispered.

“You look lovely, my dear,” Horace said, beaming as if it had been a real marriage instead of the mockery it was.

She didn’t look lovely, she looked green. Given a choice, she’d prefer even sallow to green.

“Captain Powers will be pleased, I’m sure. You’ve made a good choice, for Bess assures me that your husband is a man of some substance. I’ve, uh—taken the liberty of looking into his—”

“No.” As they went right on talking, she said it again. “No!”

Three people in the room turned to stare at her. Bess, who had already started celebrating, Horace, who’d worn a rosebud in his lapel in honor of the occasion; and the dentist from the office down the hall, who had stood proxy for her absent bridegroom.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. You said I could behest myself out of it. How do I start?”

“Now, Rose,” Bess soothed.

“He won’t like me. I have a sour disposition, no social graces whatsoever, I’m too tall, and I don’t know the first thing about babies.”

“Matt’s built like a lodgepole pine, he wouldn’t know a social grace if it reared up and bit him on the behind, and everybody’s tall to a baby. As to your disposition, that’s just worry. It’ll sweeten up once you quit fretting, and he’ll like you just fine. If he don’t, he’s a fool.”

“What if I don’t like him?”

“’T’wont make a speck of difference, he’ll be gone soon’s he sees you settled. Boy’s been chafing at the bit to get back to sea ever since he sold his ship.”

Seeing the determined glint in Rose’s eye, Bess spoke up quickly. “As it happens, however, I just had another excellent idea.”

Rose wasn’t sure she could survive another of Bess’s excellent ideas, but at the moment she was too weak to do more than sit and listen.

Chapter Three

The last piece of trim had been nailed onto Annie’s room just that morning. As Peg had been determined to build it for her, Matt had directed him to add it onto the bedroom at the far end of the hall, privately designating that as Mrs. Powers’s room. He had no intention of sharing his own quarters with the woman.

Bess and her companion could work it out between them. Bess had her own favorite room with a corner exposure. He seriously doubted she’d do him much good with Annie. As for her friend, if the woman would fill in until his wife showed up, he’d be forever grateful.

Wife. Some helpmeet she’d turned out to be, Matt told himself bitterly. He’d had her for nearly two weeks now, and had yet to set eyes on the woman, much less benefit from the alliance. According to Bess, she’d been called out of town just after the wedding to look after a sick relative.

And now, instead of one, he had two women to contend with. Bess hadn’t come right out and said so, but if he knew his aunt, it would be the Widow Littlefield who got stuck with the job of playing nursemaid. Fancying herself a famous writer, Bess could twist words until plain old black and white might mean any of a hundred shades of gray.

“Mailboat’s headed into the channel, Cap’n, want me to hitch up the cart?” Crank had been baking all morning. One thing about it, with company on board, they’d all eat better. Matt, for one, had had his fill of beans, fish and cornbread.

“Tell Luther to see to it.” The crew had long since stood down from shipboard protocol, but they still looked to the captain for direction.

Matt returned to the reports he’d been studying all morning. The Swan was losing money with every haul. The captain signed on by the consortium that had bought her was obviously an incompetent fool with no more business sense than a slab of bacon. According to Matt’s source at the Port Authority’s office, the Swan had lost cargo from improper stowage, lost money by being consistently late delivering consignments, and suffered considerable damage in a hard blow off Barbados. Damage that hadn’t been properly repaired before the turnaround.

Matt swore. The first ship he’d ever owned, the Black Swan had been his pride and joy. At the rate she was going, by the time he reclaimed her she’d be fit for little more than hauling coal. He’d be damned before he’d do that to her. He’d give her a decent sea burial himself before he would lower her pride any further.

Briefly, he had even considered buying one of the small, fast schooners and taking up the coastal trade. It would ease the tedium of waiting to get his own ship back. With any luck, on a regular run from Maine to Savannah, he’d not have to see his wife—when and if she ever showed up—more than once or twice a year.

But the proceeds of selling the Swan were earmarked for buying her back. As long as he kept his focus on that end, he could wait as long as it took. For better or worse, the Black Swan was the one true love of his life, and by damn, he was going to have her back.

“And then you, Mrs. Powers, wherever you are,” he said softly, “can have Powers Point with my blessing.”

Rose lay on her side on a filthy pad on a bunk that had obviously been built for someone half her length, her eyes tightly shut as she fought down a fresh surge of nausea. Bess had given her gingerroot to chew on, which had helped somewhat, but by the time the miserable little mailboat had wallowed her way in and out of every tiny village with so much as a two-plank wharf, she was praying only to die quickly.

As for Matthew Powers and his baby, she fervently wished she had never heard of either of them.

Bess popped her head through the doorway. “Time to spruce up,” she announced cheerfully. A seasoned traveler, she had spent the entire journey in the pilothouse, swapping tales and taking notes.

“Just leave me to die in peace,” Rose begged without opening her eyes. She was as spruced as she would ever be. They could dig a hole and bury her at the next stop for all she cared, just so long as she never had to set foot on a boat again.

“Folks don’t die of the seasickness.”

“They only wish they could,” Rose said. Bracing herself against the constant rolling motion, she waited a moment to see if she would need the bucket again, then struggled to her feet. “You might as well know, I’m never going back. Not unless someone discovers a land route to the Outer Banks.”

“Here, chew on this, it’ll make you feel fresher.” Bess handed her a sprig of wilted mint. “Now, pinch your cheeks and do something with your hair, you don’t want your bridegroom to see you looking like the scarecrow’s ghost.”

“He’s not my bridegroom until I say he’s my bridegroom,” Rose grumbled.

“That can wait. You’re here to get the lay of the land before you commit to anything more permanent, remember?”

How could she forget? She didn’t know which was more preposterous, marrying a man she’d never met or pretending now that she hadn’t. For years she had railed at not being allowed to make her own choices, yet every time she’d been given a choice, she’d made the wrong one. This time she intended to be patient, to look at the situation from all angles and think carefully before reaching a decision.

Using a sliver of her favorite lilac soap, she washed her face, then smoothed her damp palms over her hair. She had taken down her braids because it hurt to sleep on them. Now her hair resembled old, unraveled rope. Her mother had once lamented the fact that everything about her was the color of dead grass, from her hair that was too dark to be called blond and too fair to be called brown, to her eyes that were the color of unpolished brass, to her sallow complexion.

Thank goodness, she rationalized, he won’t know who I am. He couldn’t possibly care what his aunt’s secretary-companion looked like.

Anonymity was small comfort, however, as she stood on the deck a short while later, still rocking and reeling. Warily, she gazed out over the small crowd, searching for someone who looked like Bess—someone short, stout and redheaded, with a stubborn jaw and snapping dark eyes. No matter how unattractive the poor man appeared at first glance, she vowed to withhold judgment. To be thoughtful and deliberate before making a final choice. She could only hope he would be as forbearing.

Bess bustled about cheerfully, gathering up her hand luggage, which consisted mostly of books, notebooks and writing material, while the young mate toted their trunks ashore. If it hadn’t required too much energy, Rose could have hated anyone who looked so chipper after enduring an endless journey through the bowels of hell.

“There’s Luther come to drive us to the Point.” Waving her furled umbrella, Bess marched surefootedly down the narrow bouncing plank. Rose followed cautiously, trying not to look down at the expanse of dark, choppy water between wharf and deck.

The wind caught her hat, which had been anchored, with the only hatpin she could find, onto hastily reconstructed braids. She slapped one hand on top of her head and with the other held down her blowing skirts.

Luther, a handsome young man whose eyes belied his obvious youth, offered her a shy smile as he handed her up onto a crude bench seat. “Welcome, Miss Bess, ma’am.”

“Poor Billy. I know you miss him.” And without pausing for breath, Bess went on to say, “I thought Matt was going to get a proper cart horse. Don’t he know the difference between a mare and a mule?”

“Yes’m, this here’s Angel. She swum ashore off’n a barge that went aground back in January. Nobody else wanted her, so we kept her. Even for a mule, she’s not real smart, but she took to the harness right off.” He turned to grin at Rose. “We got some nice horses if you like to ride.”

Rose had never ridden a horse in her life. She’d driven her own gig and ridden behind any number of coachmen, but a mule cart was a new experience.

I can’t believe I agreed to this mad scheme, she thought again as they set out along a deeply rutted sand trail for a place called Powers Point. She should’ve applied for a position at the asylum, it was obviously where she belonged.

Luther asked Bess if there was any news of the captain’s bride, and Rose felt her face grow warm.

“She’ll turn up directly,” Bess replied calmly. “How’s Peg mending?” Briefly, she explained to Rose that the ship’s carpenter had broken several bones when the jolly boat had fallen on him in the storm of ’91, and still suffered for it whenever the weather changed.

“Same’s always. Don’t slow him down much. He built on a new room for Annie, so you and Miz Littlefield can take your pick of the rest.”

Mrs. Littlefield. Merciful heavens, that’s me. Not Augusta Rose, not Mrs. Robert Magruder, I’m Rose Littlefield again.

The young driver made a noise with tongue and teeth and slapped the reins across the mule’s thick hide. “Git on home, Angel, we’ve not got all day. I reckon maybe Miz Powers’ll have some say in who sleeps where, but so far, she’s not showed up.”

“Oh, we’ll leave as soon as Matt’s bride shows up. One woman in a household is aplenty, I always say,” Bess chirped.

Do you? I’ve never heard you say that, but then you say so many things….

Rose knew she was being uncharitable and promised to think kinder thoughts if she ever recovered from this awful journey. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her own knotted fingers, she waited cautiously to see if mule travel would affect her the same way boat travel did.

Evidently not. Her head was still reeling, but her stomach no longer threatened rebellion.

Gradually she began to take more notice of her surroundings, reminding herself that she was stuck here until she made up her mind whether or not to accept her paper marriage. Or until she could bring herself to board that awful little mailboat for the journey back home.

Wherever home was.

Her sole impression, once they left the wooded village, was emptiness. Sand, a strip of marsh grass to the left, a single rutted cart track, and a few wind-twisted, vine-covered shrubs.

And water. With the Atlantic on one side, Pamlico Sound on the other and, according to Bess, an inlet on either end, she was completely surrounded, held captive, by water.

She was familiar with Cape Cod and Cape May, having vacationed at both places with her parents. Robert had wanted to build on Cape Cod, but the best he’d been able to do was a small cottage on Smith Creek, on the outskirts of Norfolk.

This barren place had nothing whatsoever in common with either of those fashionable watering holes except for the water. Even the village consisted only of a few unpainted houses scattered haphazardly under enormous, moss-hung live oak trees. No streets, no shops, only the weathered cottages, a few tomb-stones, a few boats at various stages of repair, and nets strung between sprawling live oaks like giant spiderwebs.

Oh, Lord, you’ve done it again, haven’t you? Leaped before you looked.

As they bumped along over the rutted road along a stretch of open beach, she hung on to her bonnet and wondered why any woman in her right mind would choose to live in such a desolate place. Evidently, she wasn’t alone in making bad choices and being forced to live with them.

Powers Point, which according to Bess, had been family land for generations, came into view slowly. My husband’s estate, Rose thought as she gazed over the backside of the mule at the scattered assortment of buildings, none particularly impressive so far as she could determine.

“You remember Jericho, Miss Bess? Matt’s got him to where he can ride him and not even get throwed more’n once or twice a day,” Luther said proudly.

“That so? They make a pair, all right. One stubborn as the other.” To Rose she explained that Jericho was a wild stallion her nephew had bought in a moment of weakness.

Taking some small comfort in knowing that even men could occasionally make unfortunate choices, Rose gaped at the only thing resembling a residence. Unpainted, it seemed to have come together by accident. Although it might once have been an ordinary two-story frame house, rooms had been added on with no thought as to style or balance. There were random gables, mismatched bay windows, even a widow’s walk.

“Humph! Whose idea was that?” Bess pointed to the small railed platform on the highest part of the roof.

“Peg thought now that the captain’s married, his wife might want to keep watch for when he passes offshore. He can fly a flag or something when he rounds the Cape so she’ll be able to tell the Swan from the other ships.”

Oh, my mercy, he means me, Rose mused, picturing herself standing high on the rooftop, frantically waving her scarf at every ship that sailed past.

As far as she was concerned, the sole appeal of her husband’s estate was that it stood high and dry on solid ground, each gaunt, weathered building telling the world, “What you see is what I am. Accept me or not, I’m here to stay.”

Which was more or less her own position. Here I am, she announced silently. This is what I am and who I am, and you can take me or leave me, I’m sure it won’t matter to me in the least as long as someone will direct me to a bed and a bucket and leave me alone for the next few years.

The mule meandered to a halt. Several speckled chickens ran squawking to greet them. Luther reached into one of the sacks in the back of the cart and tossed down a handful of grain. “Go on inside, ma’am—you, too, Miz Littlefield. I’ll fetch in your bags as soon’s I feed up and unhitch.”

Bess hopped down as nimbly as someone half her age. Rose followed more cautiously, willing her knees not to buckle. It was bad enough that she was here under false pretenses without landing in an ungainly heap at her husband’s feet.

“Matt, we’re here! Now where’s this baby of yours?”

Trudging through the sand behind the older woman, Rose heard a door open and glanced warily past Bess’s portly frame. Her eyes widened.

This was Bess’s nephew? This giant of a man?

This was her paper husband?

She swallowed a fresh surge of nausea and wondered if it was too late to catch the mailboat. Being seasick was utterly miserable, but physical violence was far worse. She still had nightmares, especially on stormy nights.

If this man ever lost his temper and struck her, she might not survive. His arms were as thick as tree limbs.

“Rose, come here and meet Matthew. Matt, this is Mrs. Littlefield. She’s my secretary and companion, but I’m lending her to you for a spell.”

When Bess had said the Powers men bred true, Rose had taken it to mean they were all short, stout and redheaded. This man had hair black as pitch. He stood more than six feet tall, even without the boots. If there was an ounce of spare flesh anywhere on his muscular body, it wasn’t evident from this distance. Rose had been around men all her life. Her father, the sons of her parents’ friends who had teased her as a child and ignored her thereafter.

And Robert, of course.

Not a one of them had been so utterly, blatantly male as the man who stood on the porch, his belt buckle level with her eyes, his close-fitting trousers practically flaunting his masculinity.

Oh, my mercy…

“Rose? What’s the matter, are you still sick to your belly?” Bess inquired, and, in an aside to her nephew, added, “She don’t travel well. We’re working on it, but she’ll likely be glad to stay in one place for a spell.”

It took every vestige of courage she possessed, but Rose forced herself to climb the five sandy wooden steps and follow Bess inside, even though it meant brushing past the man who held the door. She was careful not to breathe, but she could feel the heat of his body. The weather outside was cold and damp, yet he was wearing only black serge trousers and a white shirt, open at the throat, with the sleeves turned back to reveal corded, hair-roughened forearms.

“You’ll want to freshen up,” he said. “I’ll tell Crank to boil up some tea. There’s cold biscuits left over from dinner if you’re hungry. You can have ’em with preserved figs or mustard and ham. They’ll hold you off till supper.” He looked directly at Rose. “Miz Littlefield? Did you hear me?”

Rose’s stomach gave a small lurch, but she managed to nod. Bess said, “Tell that old seacook to fix my tea the usual way, will you? Come on, Rose, I’ll show you where to hang your hat.”

Rose didn’t even try to take in her surroundings, other than to give thanks that the rooms smelled clean and fresh and the floor felt steady underfoot.

“Annie’s back here in the new room. I’ve put you in the room next to it, Miz Littlefield. Bess, Crank aired out your usual.”

His voice was like the man himself. Deep, dark and dangerous, his accent impossible to pin down. It was neither southern nor northern, the single identifiable element being the ring of authority. Matthew Powers was obviously a man accustomed to being obeyed.

He held the paneled door for her to enter, his hand, she couldn’t help but notice, the size of a ham for all it was nicely shaped.

Get out while you still can, the voice of caution urged.

But of course, she didn’t. That would have required initiative, something she’d never possessed in abundance, but she was working on it.

“Now, isn’t this lovely?” Bess inquired of no one in particular.

Lovely was hardly the word Rose would have chosen to describe bare floors, an enormous iron bed, a varnished cane rocking chair and the plain, unpainted washstand. There was a bowl and pitcher, both of undecorated white crockery. The bed was spread with a simple white coverlet, the feather mattress plumped up high as a cloud.

“There’s quilts in the locker. Lamp’s filled, wick’s trimmed, door there leads to Annie’s room and the head’s through the door at the end of the hall.”

“The head?” Rose echoed, her voice weak with horror.

“Means the privy.” Bess planted her hands on her hips and addressed her nephew. “You ever hear of indoor plumbing? What about little Annie, you expect her to grow up like a heathen?”

“Now, don’t tell me you didn’t squat in the bushes out in that Amazon jungle you wrote about last winter.”

The man’s grin was surprisingly infectious. Fortunately, Rose was immune. She’d traveled that road once before.

Bess snorted. “I’ll send you a catalog soon’s I get back.”

“You do that.”

Rose gripped the doorframe, willing them to leave her alone. If only she could sleep for a few weeks she might be ready to deal with that dark, enigmatic gaze, the deep drawl that hinted at amusement, exasperation, and a few other things not so easily identified. Nausea alone was bad enough. Nausea, fear and a guilty conscience was too much. She wasn’t sure she could carry out the charade.

“Come meet Annie,” the captain commanded.

“Who, me?” Rose inquired inelegantly.

“You.”

Swaying only slightly, she followed him, once more pinning her eyes to the horizon. Bess had said it helped to maintain one’s equilibrium, only in this case the horizon happened to be the captain’s backside, which was even more impressive than his front side. Shoulders broad as an ox, a long back that tapered down to narrow hips and long limbs, both of which functioned with an economy of motion that threatened to unsettle her belly all over again. To think she’d been married for nearly two years without ever noticing how differently men and women walked.

“I had Peg build her quarters through here to make it handy for the woman I sent for.”

“The woman you sent for? Matthew Powers, is that any way to speak of your wife?”

“What wife?” he growled, turning so that the late-afternoon sun caught his profile, illuminating a jaw that could have been cast from bronze and a high-arched nose that could only be called proud.

Brushing past him, Rose entered the small room, drawn by the sound of a baby’s whimper. Her throat constricted. Tears dimmed her eyes as she stared down at the tiny infant swathed in an unadorned gown of coarse muslin.

“That’s Annie.” The man had come up silently to stand beside her. The unexpected note of tenderness in his voice threatened to undo her completely. Kneeling, he lifted the tiny bundle from the cradle, growled softly as he rocked her in his arms and said, “Annie, this is Miz Littlefield. She’s going to be taking care of you for a spell. She’s not much to look at, but at least she’s got hair now.”

Rose blinked in disbelief. She knew very well she wasn’t much to look at, she’d been hearing it all her life, but she had hardly expected to hear it from a stranger. And she certainly did have hair, yards and yards of it, even if it was the color of dead grass.

“She eats most anything you give her, but so far we’ve held her to tinned milk and burgoo. We tried goat’s milk, but it didn’t set right.”

And then, of course, Rose realized that he’d been describing Annie to her, not her to Annie, which made her feel almost charitable. “I’m sure we’ll get along just fine, but you might as well know, I haven’t had much experience with babies.”

“None of us has, but Annie’s a right fair teacher.”

Bess took one quick look, sniffed dismissively and disappeared down the hall. Peering down at the wide-eyed infant cradled so tenderly in those massive arms, Rose forgot her misgivings and said softly, “Oh, she’s beautiful. Do you think she’d mind if I held her?”

“Annie’s not particular, long’s she gets to call the shots.”

She laughed, but it was a shaky effort. When the captain carefully transferred the small bundle into her waiting arms she felt her eyes film over. Knowing she had to take control of her emotions or risk having to endure all over again the devastating pain that came with the loss of a child, Rose did her best to seal off her heart. In case Captain Powers didn’t like her, or she didn’t like him, she couldn’t afford to let herself get too attached to his baby.

“She feels damp.” She glanced up questioningly.

“We’ve not been able to housebreak her yet,” the captain said gravely. “You’ll find napkins in the locker over by the window. I’ll set Crank to heating her some milk. Um…welcome to Powers Point, Miz Littlefield.”

Back in his office, Matt tried and failed to concentrate on the shipping news that had come out on the same boat as the two women. He gave it up, tilted back his chair, clasped his arms behind his head and gazed out the window, to where Venus gleamed like a diamond in a bed of purple velvet.

Bess’s Mrs. Littlefield was something of a surprise. He didn’t know what he’d expected—maybe another pouter pigeon like Bess, short, bosomy and bossy. The woman didn’t have a lot to say for herself, which was all to the good. Bess could talk the hind legs off a jackass.

She wasn’t much to look at except for her eyes. Funny color, he mused. Still, they were steady. The kind of eyes that looked directly back at a man.

Matt was admittedly no expert when it came to women. Having been deserted by one and made a fool of by another, he was unable to form any but the most fleeting commercial relationship with any woman. Since moving to Powers Point, he had done without even that brief convenience.

Which reminded him that he was going to have to tackle Bess about the Magruder female. Bess had described her as down on her luck, plain, but sound of limb and meek of disposition. He should’ve held out for reliable, but by the time he’d given in, he’d been so damned desperate he wouldn’t have cared if she howled at the moon as long as she took good care of Annie.

So far, she hadn’t even bothered to show up.

Flexing his shoulders to ease the tension that always seemed to collect there, he settled back in his chair and picked up the shipping reports again.

By the end of the first week, one thing was plain. Bess knew nothing about babies and had no interest in learning. Commandeering his mule and cart, she spent every day in the village collecting stories of early island lore, all the way back, as she informed the table at large, to the first English settlers and the Hattorask Indians who’d been there to meet them.

“Hell, I could’ve told you that,” Matt said. “Pass the biscuits. Please,” he added as an afterthought.

“Don’t swear,” Bess said primly, as if she couldn’t cut loose like a stevedore when it suited her purpose. “Mrs. Littlefield don’t like it.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Matt muttered. Rising abruptly, he begged to be excused and stalked out. “Damned house’s too small,” he grumbled to Peg, who’d chosen to eat with Crank in the kitchen instead of in the seldom-used dining room.

The two old men glanced up, then went back to their fried oysters. Matt stood in the open back door for a long time, letting the chilly air flow past him into the warm kitchen.

Ignoring him, the other men picked up their desultory conversation. “Don’t talk much, do she?” Crank observed. He speared another oyster off the platter.

“Good with the young’un, though,” the carpenter said after he’d split another biscuit and drowned it in molasses.

“Aye, she is that.”

“Peculiar eyes. Seen a cat once with eyes like that.” Peg loosened the rope at his waist that held up his canvas trousers.

“Yeller, I’d call ’em, wouldn’t you, Cap’n?”

Matt flexed his shoulders, but didn’t reply. He was tired of hearing about Mrs. Littlefield. Bess sang her praises enough, without his men jumping on the bandwagon.

“I’ll be riding south in the morning,” he announced abruptly.

The two old men went on eating. When Matt stepped off the back porch and strode down to the three-plank wharf where the shadboat was tied up, Crank grinned. Peg shook his head. “All I can say is, that wife o’ his better hightail it on down here. Last time the boy had that look about him, he went and sold his ship.”

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