Emigrating with an Earl

by Murdoch, Emily

  As the vows began to wash over him as no one had objected, his stomach turned as the thought flashed through his mind that Margaret Berry may have objected if she had any idea that she was marrying an accused murderer.

  Margaret swallowed as she carefully closed the cabin door as quietly as possible. Even after the latch had slotted into place, she paused for a moment, head bowed over the door. Not afraid to turn around, exactly, but knowing that once she did, there was no turning back.

  She turned around. Samuel Brown’s cabin – now her cabin – filled her vision.

  It was largely empty: a large double bed took up most of it, with two trunks now sat at the end. On the right was a tattered chaise longue, evidently placed here after the captain’s wife grew tired of it, and in the centre was Samuel Brown, sitting on the bed, smiling at her gently, watching her gaze flicker about the room.

  Margaret swallowed again. There was fear in her heart and she could taste it on her tongue. As her hands fell to her sides after closing the door, she could feel them shaking gently against her gown.

  “There will be no…no marital expectations, you understand? Just two people who have realised that they have mutual aims.”

  That is what he had said – but how could she be certain? Many a man would say anything, promise anything, to get a young girl into marriage or what she thought was marriage. It was why she had made the captain complete the wedding certificate there and then, placing it in his safe for security while they completed the voyage.

  Mr Brown – Samuel – had laughed, but she had not. She wanted to make absolutely sure. After all, she was to sleep here now, was she not? She would not lose her reputation by slanders that their wedding was not valid.

  “Mrs Brown.”

  Margaret jumped, startled at the unfamiliar name, but relaxed slightly as she saw Mr Brown – Samuel, it really was ridiculous that she did not think of him as Samuel – incline his head to her.

  Her heart began to quicken. Surely, he could not expect from her…

  She curtseyed obediently. “Mr Brown.”

  He laughed, and leaned back nonchalantly on his elbows while still looking at her. “I know that look, Margaret, even now. You do not have anything to fear from me. I am not one of those men to beat his wife, or to force her to do his bidding.”

  Margaret raised an eyebrow, despite herself. “Ah, so I am to have free reign, am I?”

  “Not entirely,” admitted Samuel, his hazel eyes scanning her face as though looking for a secret. “But I meant what I said.”

  She felt stupid standing here still, by the door, but in her nervousness she could not think where else to go – the chaise longue? The bed, surely, would be too much for her. But she could not stand here like an imbecile, as though guarding the door!

  “I offered a marriage of convenience, without any of the marital duties,” he said quietly, observing her closely. “And although we shall keep up the charade for appearances, as one would expect, you do not even have to share a bed with me.”

  Margaret’s shoulders slumped with relief. “I must admit, I was worried that I had…well, not entirely known what I had managed to get myself into. At the front of the ship, when we were saying our vows, I-I almost…”

  There – there was a flicker, a flicker of something but she could not tell what, it was gone before she could really look at it. But something that looked an awful lot like regret seemed to dance across his face.

  Samuel jumped up from the bed, and bowed. “You, of course, will have the bed, oh wife of mine, and I will make a little bed for myself on the chaise longue.” He dropped onto it, and winced slightly at the toughness of the springs. “An additional blanket may be necessary, though.”

  Margaret suppressed a little smile at his buoyancy, and a dart of guilt penetrated her heart. This was his cabin, and he was giving up the bed – but then, she reminded herself, it is our cabin now. Our chamber. Our space. Our bed.

  Just two steps were enough to bring her to it, and as she sat down and placed her hands on the blanket, she felt the softness, the warmth of where he had been. The thought of sharing it with him, of having such an intimate space with another human being, and not anyone, Samuel Brown, dashing, handsome, confident, everything that she was not, was enough to tinge her face a little.

  “Ah, now then,” said Samuel suddenly, his eyes now more serious. “I want to learn your ways, Margaret Brown, and you have a half a dozen blushes that I need to educate myself on. What were you thinking just now, hmmm?”

  A little smile grew on her face. “Would it not be more fun if I did not tell you, and you had to learn?”

  She had not intended to be defiant, had never been defiant in her entire life, and any time she had veered close to it, she had been severely reprimanded by her Great Aunt.

  But not this time.

  “I suppose that would show me!” Samuel chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “My word, Margaret, you do surprise me.”

  “And you me,” she said shakily, taking in the room with wide eyes. “I-I never expected anything like this for a wedding night.”

  His smile faded slightly as he leaned back on the chaise longue, but Samuel did not take his eyes from her. “I never thought that I would have one at all.”

  Margaret felt her mouth fall open. “You…you never thought about marriage?”

  Samuel shrugged. “Not especially. It was one of those things that happened to other people, you know. I always thought that my brother would continue the…the family business. But he died. He left my…our mother’s wedding ring, which you now wear, as it happens.”

  Curiosity was welling up inside her. He had been about to say something different, but then changed his mind – what was this man hiding?

  “Family business?”

  Yes, he was definitely hiding something. It was there, in the flicker of the eyes to the door, as though he was considering just running and hoping that he could make it out before he had to answer the question.

  “Trade,” he said briefly. “And what exactly did you think your wedding night would be like?”

  Margaret hesitated for a moment, but it was not a battle that she wanted to enter too quickly. “Well, I…I suppose that I always hoped that I would fall in love, and the gentleman with me, but I was considered plain by my parents and not encouraged to socialise. I have a cousin, Adena Garland, who was a playmate of mine, but that was all.”

  “I thought I did not recognise you.” Samuel leaned forward slightly from the chaise longue. “Did you come out, then, in London?”

  Margaret shook her head, but gazed at him curiously. “Did you, Samuel? I did not think…I mean, forgive me, but I was not aware that gentlemen in trade frequented Almack’s?”

  For an instant she thought she had gone too far, been too forward, too rude, indecently curious, unbecoming of a young lady. The same out criticisms poured out of her mind into her heart and it panged, but he did not shout at her.

  He shrugged. “Oh, I meant that I kept a close eye through the papers, you know. I liked to see the pretty young women enter into society, trying to catch their men like flies on a rod.”

  “Well, perhaps ‘tis a blessing that I never did enter society,” said Margaret with a wry smile. “I have no beauty to speak of, and my parents spoke truly when they called me plain.”

  Samuel stared at her with such an intensity that it brought a little pink to her cheeks. In a low voice, he finally said, “I cannot comprehend anyone who calls you plain.”

  Her cheeks darkened and her eyes dropped to her hands, folded neatly in her lap, but when she raised them up he was still looking at her.

  She laughed nervously. “You must forgive me, S-Samuel. I am not accustomed to being such a centre of attention. Usually my Great Aunt gave me an order, and then she moved on. ‘Tis fortunate that Mrs Goodwin’s maid was available to tend to her.”

  “Well that will certainly be a change for you.” He leaned back finally, drawing away the intensi
ty of his gaze, but Margaret could still feel it all over her body, like she had been plunged into hot water. “There will be a few…let us call them suggestions in this marriage, just the obvious ones to keep people thinking that we are truly in love.”

  “That should not be too arduous,” Margaret said lightly, though her stomach twisted at the thought of it. “I am well practised in the art of acting as though I am happy when I am not.”

  She could never have predicted what he did next. Samuel rose from the chaise longue and sat beside her on the bed in one swift movement, taking her hands in his large, strong ones.

  It all happened so quickly that she gasped, her hands enclosed in his, her breathing fluttering against her chest.

  “You will never have to pretend to be happy again,” Samuel said in a low, deep voice, his face mere inches from hers and such an expression of seriousness on it that Margaret almost forgot to breath. “Do you hear me, Margaret? If you are ever unhappy, you must tell me. At once.”

  “I-I d-don’t know what t-to…to say,” she stammered, her eyes dropping down away from the fierceness of his eyes but that only brought into view the sight of their hands clasped in her lap. She felt warm, hot, and it was centred just below her stomach and she did not understand it and it felt overwhelming and wonderful. “Such kindness, I am…I am not used to – ”

  “You must have had a very hard life indeed,” murmured Samuel, “if you consider that to be kindness.”

  Margaret knew that it would engulf her but she could not help herself. She raised her eyes to Samuel’s and gasped aloud at the intensity of their look. He wanted something from her, wanted something desperately, but he was holding himself back, despite his desire, and he was tempted, tempted right now to kiss her, she could see it in his eyes.

  For a wild moment, she hoped that he would. The feeling of his lips on hers, his hands on her waist, in her hair, around her –

  “You must be tired,” Samuel breathed, and he released her hands and rose from the bed. “I will look away while you change, though I will admit that I am tempted to watch – for a bachelor never intending to marry, I have certainly found myself a pretty wife.”

  Almost breathless with the shock of his moving away from her, Margaret tried to smile winningly, like she had seen other ladies do.

  “You had better not look around,” she retorted with an element of strength that did not come from herself, and she smiled as Samuel laughed, his face to the wall.

  What she did not tell him was the wonderful thrill that ricocheted through her body at the thought of him sitting on the chaise longue, watching her slowly remove borrowed garment after borrowed garment until he was staring at her, completely nude, glorifying in her body.

  Margaret shivered. It was not that kind of marriage – and she did not want it to be. Did she?

  5

  Margaret sighed. It was all she could do not to breathe out too loudly. Her mother had always decried her ability to make noise in a room, and had raised her to be quiet. Silent, even. Unheard.

  But it did not matter here, in her favourite chair, on the deserted deck of the Adelaide. Since she had been the only one there for nigh on an hour, her eyelids closed gradually, basking in the warmth of the sun. A salty warm breeze blew across her face, tugging gently at her hair, carefully pinned underneath her bonnet.

  She opened her eyes lazily and shifted in her seat, the wedding ring on her finger clinking quietly against the chair. The sun had gone down mere minutes ago, and liquid light seemed to be pooled on the horizon.

  “And then I told him…”

  A door just to her left opened briefly, allowing the laughter and merriment of the dining hall to seep out onto the deck. The captain had offered her his arm for the meal, but Margaret had found herself quite content on the deck, and relished the time that she could now spend with herself – not at the beck and call of another, not critiqued and criticised for imagined slights. Just herself.

  Her eyes closed against the shimmering light on the ocean, and Margaret sighed happily.

  “And why is my beautiful wife not displaying herself downstairs?”

  An indulgent smile broke out on Margaret’s lips, and as she opened her eyes once more she saw a dashing figure in a closely fitted jacket standing in the shadows. Samuel’s head was slightly tilted, and there was a knowing smile on his face – as though he had known her for years, had memorised her ways, instead of marrying her just the day before.

  “I have no wish to adorn every room that you are in,” she replied with a flicker of bravery, and was almost astonished at the saucy words that she had spoken. She could feel heat rise to her cheeks, but she did not look away from him. He was her husband now. There was no place for shyness, even if they had agreed not to share a bed.

  Samuel did not seem to take her words amiss. Instead, laughing and taking a step towards her, he said, “That is more like it. Margaret, I would hear you speak like that every day, each day with a little more of yourself.”

  He dropped languidly into the seat beside her, and Margaret saw with a wry smile that everything he did seemed to reek of elegance. How was it that some people were so much more comfortable in their own skin? She had always found herself to be plain, awkward, and uncomfortable, but Samuel…he radiated confidence.

  She would have said that it was something that one was born with, one saw it so often in the nobility, but then Samuel was just a common man.

  His hand reached out to hers and squeezed it, and Margaret almost gasped aloud as she felt the sensation all over her body.

  “Th-thank you,” she said awkwardly, trying to cover up the moment of astonishing warmth that he had caused. “I must thank you, Samuel, for…well, everything that you have done for me these last two days.”

  Her gaze fluttered upwards towards his face, a little hesitantly, and she blushed to see his startled expression.

  “That I have done?” Samuel shrugged as he leaned back in the seat, and Margaret marvelled again at his cheekbones, the sardonic smile that never seemed too far from his face that cast his features in such a handsome light. “Do tell, wife dearest, for I am afraid I do not follow you at all.”

  Margaret swallowed. She had undoubtedly spoken more in the last twenty four hours than in her entire life combined, and yet still she was not accustomed to being listened to.

  “I have…well, I have never known such comfort as you have given me,” she tried to explain awkwardly, finding it far easier to turn her attention to the fading light rippling on the sea than at the hazel eyes that seemed to be piercing her as she spoke. “To wake up and rise when I want, to eat when I want – or not at all – to do what I wish with my time…it is truly a joy to have been gifted with such freedom.”

  Margaret chanced a glance back at Samuel, and blushed to see that his eyes had not wavered from her for a moment. She swallowed. “Thank you. I-I am grateful.”

  For a moment, she thought she had gone too far in attempting to express herself, so rarely had she done it. Samuel did not move, did not speak, but simply stared at her.

  A prickling heat of discomfort started in the pit of her stomach, and started to radiate up to her neck when Mr Brown – Samuel, she must remember to think of him as Samuel – started to shake his head slowly.

  “My dear lady, ‘tis I who should be thanking you,” he said quietly, his deep voice filled with…what was that emotion? “Here you are, safe under the protection of your Great Aunt, on a journey to the delights of the Continent, and what did you do?”

  Margaret smiled nervously, unsure what he meant. “What did I do?”

  Samuel laughed again, and waved his hands expressively. “Maggie, you agreed to marry a man that you barely knew! You accepted as your husband a man that you knew nothing about! Do you not think that I should be the one on bended knee thank you, Maggie?”

  There was something wonderful about the way that he said ‘Maggie’, and it made her blush once more, thankfully hidden in the darkness of
falling evening. It sent a shiver up her spine and made her stomach twist in a way that was not unpleasant. No one had ever called her Maggie before, and if it had been anyone else she would have shied away, asked politely but coldly that they desist. But not Samuel. She had the feeling that somehow, if Samuel asked her to lie down and close her eyes, not knowing what was going to happen next, she would do it.

  A brilliantly hot sensation hit her. Samuel had taken her hand, but instead of squeezing it, he was holding it. Almost caressing it.

  It made her want to tear all her clothes off and go dancing in the rain.

  “And yet,” Margaret said delicately, her eyes flickering to his own and trying to bite down her desire to lean forward and kiss him, to see whether he would kiss her back, “I still know very little about you, Samuel Brown. Even after a full day of marriage.”

  She had hoped that the jest, if you could call it a jest, would lighten his heart, even make him smile. She so desperately wanted to make him smile, but his reaction was quite the opposite.

  Samuel dropped her hand and turned away from her, crossing his arms and gazing silently out to sea.

  The silence seemed to grow between them as the night fell darker, and Margaret could only just see the outline of his face now in the murky gloom – but she did not need to see any more to know his reaction. Berating herself silently as she did was not enough to bring joy back between them.

  Why should someone not have their own secrets? Why was she so desperate to pry into Samuel’s past? True, if they had been truly in love…Margaret had to swallow and try to prevent her heart from fluttering, it would be different. She would expect to know all, but they? They were just two people who needed another option, an alternative.

  She would certainly not like to spill all her secrets, share all that she was with someone that she had just met.

  Her fingers found the thin band of gold that encircled the fourth finger of her left hand, and twisted it round. An unbidden smile graced her lips.