As of course he was. Protective custody.
From the corner of his eye he saw Bellfort up on his private balcony, watching silently as they set off down the wharf. They’d never got around to agreeing on a price for the Queen, but it could wait. Another few days wasn’t going to make or break him.
Katy was moving stiffly, as if she hurt all over. If he thought she’d allow it he would have carried her all the way in his arms, but knowing that prickly pride of hers, he didn’t even offer. Besides, he didn’t want her feeling any more helpless and vulnerable than necessary.
Tara didn’t even try to conceal her excitement. There was a certain I-told-you-so smugness in her expression as she skipped along beside them, swinging a protesting Heather in the covered basket.
“Hold her still, you’re making her seasick,” Katy warned.
Galen said, “Remind me to have one of the boys fill a dirt box for you, I don’t want you going off alone.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t bring her old one, it smells bad.” Then, without even batting an eye, Tara dropped her bombshell. “When you two are married, we won’t need dirt boxes, we’ll have a yard. And then we won’t have to keep moving around.”
Katy stopped dead in her tracks and stared, aghast, her face so pale the bruise on her cheek resembled a smear of coal dust. Galen was only marginally better at hiding his own reaction.
With highly suspect innocence, Tara looked from one to the other. “But—but, Katy, I saw—”
Color flooding her face, Katy said harshly, “Tara, I’ve had enough of your foolishness, and so has Captain McKnight!”
Galen didn’t know what to say and so he said nothing. The most important thing now was to get them below, out of sight, until he could figure out just where the greatest risk lay and how to deal with it.
Looking somewhat less assured, Tara shrugged. “All I meant was that once we’re all married we can live in a house with a dog and a fence and neighbors, and then we won’t have to worry about people getting strangled and thrown overboard.”
Galen went cold. So far as he knew, the details of the murder hadn’t yet been released. As the body had been fished from the river, it was generally assumed that he’d drowned. How could she possibly have known that the poor devil had been garroted first?
She was only guessing. She had to be, otherwise . . .
“Come along, Tara, your sister’s tired. Ila has your room all ready, and Oscar’s standing by to walk you to school in the morning.”
“Oh, good. He tells the best stories. He said if l tell him how I can see cards without even looking, he’ll tell me about the time he spent three days in jail when he was only nine years old. He said there was this great big rat that was—”
“Tara, that’s enough,” Katy said repressively. “I’m not entirely sure a gambling boat is the most wholesome atmosphere for an impressionable child,” she said to Galen.
“You’re right. Maybe a house with a yard and a fence and a dog would be better.” He was teasing Tara, only it didn’t quite come off that way.
“I never meant that at all,” she whispered.
She was embarrassed. Oh, hell. “Katy, I was only joking, of course you didn’t mean anything by it.”
Another woman might have hinted at a commitment, but never Katy. If she had anything to say, she came right out and said it with no beating around the bush.
Which made it all the more surprising that he found himself dwelling on the notion long after he’d turned the pair of them over to Ila.
Ila started clucking like a broody hen reclaiming a couple of straying chicks. “Go on about your business, Galen, they’ll come to no harm as long as there’s breath left in this old carcass.” She took the cat basket, scooped out the miserable, squalling animal, and managed to dodge sharp claws while she set her on the floor. While Galen hovered uncertainly in the doorway, she muttered words to the effect that what Katy needed was a husband, and that a dress shop was all fine and good, but no job ever took the place of a good man.
Which was quite an admission coming from a woman whose husband had been a notorious philanderer.
All the same, having heard more or less the same sentiment twice in less than an hour, the words stayed with him. That evening, while Katy slept and Tara regaled Willy and the kitchen staff with all the gory details of her dream, plus all that had happened since, Galen sat out on his balcony, a cigar in one hand, a drink in the other, and let his mind range free, visualizing a hawk on the hunt. It was a trick he’d picked up back when he’d been trying to help Brand figure out who’d been robbing McKnight Shipping, and how it was being accomplished. He had learned from experience that while the conscious mind might be hampered by inhibitions and expectations, the subconscious mind had no such limitations.
So he allowed his mind to soar, and it homed in on its prey.
A husband, he mused. If they were married he could get her out of town, take her on a world cruise if necessary, away from the scene of the crime until all danger was past.
But they weren’t married. And a lady didn’t go off with a gentleman not her husband, not even with a twelve-year-old sister in tow.
Of course, there were different types of marriages. All but a few of the ones he was most familiar with were what was euphemistically called marriages of convenience. Brand and Ana were the rare exception. Even now they were disgustingly in love.
Most of his friends had married either for money or position, or to fulfill a family’s fondest wish. Most of them now lived in a state of armed neutrality, at best—war, at worst.
Worst of all had been the case of Liam and Fallon. He would go to his grave bearing part of the guilt for that tragedy. He’d met Fallon a few weeks before he’d moved to Mystic. It hadn’t taken long to see through her surface beauty to the shallowness, selfishness, and complete lack of scruples.
It had simply never occurred to him to issue a warning. Fallon had been staying with some cousins in another town. There was no reason to believe they’d ever meet. Liam, handsome and popular. had run with a younger crowd. lie was a fine young man, a bit naive, perhaps, but sound as a dollar.
Only once Galen and Brand had signed over their shares in the family business, assuring each other that it would be the making of him, he’d been a sitting duck.
As marriages went, Liam and Fallon’s had never even stood a chance. Not until much later had they learned that before the ink was even dry on the wedding papers, she’d spent every cent she could lay her hands on and started selling off everything of value.
Blindly in love, Liam hadn’t even seen what was happening. Brand and Galen had been too wrapped up in rebuilding the shipyard and working out the problems to notice. By the time Fallon had tricked him into risking his neck on a foolish, drunken horse race, the marriage was already in ruins.
Liam had been drunk, the horse nearly blind. The result had been inevitable. By that time, Galen was supposedly lost at sea, and Brand had been out of touch. Neither of them had known what was happening back in Litchfield.
With Liam critically injured, Fallon had sold off everything the two of them hadn’t already sold off to pay for their wild way of life. Before anyone realized what was happening, she had disappeared, leaving her injured and embittered husband to take his own life.
So much for living happily ever after.
Sighing, Galen sipped his whiskey and brooded. Admittedly, not all marriages were doomed to failure, otherwise, civilization would have long since come to a screeching halt.
But he’d made up his mind years ago that that particular form of bondage was not for him. He valued his freedom too much. The freedom to take on a leaky old tub, milk it for all it was worth, and then trade it for a down payment on something he really wanted, without having to justify his decisions to anyone.
He’d been doing very well before Katy and Tara had erupted into his well-ordered life. Since then, nothing had gone according to plan.
Galen finished off his whi
skey, tossed his cigar over the side, and massaged his aching thigh bone. More than most men, he knew the feeling of going under for the third time.
*
Because there was only space for one bed in the room Tara and Katy were to share, Ila had insisted on taking the child into her own cabin. “The last thing Katy needs,” she told Galen when he stopped by to inquire, “is a wigglesome young’un hogging the bed. I made Katy take a hot tub soak with a good handful of salts, and then, since she’d already napped some today, I mixed her a dose of my special recipe to help her sleep.”
“Thanks, Ila. I owe you.” Everyone on board knew the reason he’d brought the O’Sullivans back here where he could keep a close eye on them. If there’d been any doubt left, it was gone now. Tara would have regaled them all with her highly colorful account.
“It’ll be just like it was before, we’ll look after the pair of them. Now you go along and visit with your friends down to Pea Island, and don’t you worry a bit.”
“Who’s sitting with Katy now?”
“Ethel. She’s the new maid I hired.”
He nodded, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere until things were settled. Wasn’t even going back up to the tables. Pierre could handle anything that came up.
*
God knows what Ila had put in that potion she’d given her. Galen had sniffed at the glass, but the ingredients remained a mystery. Whatever it was, Katy was sleeping like a baby.
Tipping back his chair, he watched her. He’d dismissed the maid, who’d been snoring away in her chair when he’d tapped on the door and entered.
“Katy, Katy, what am I going to do with you?” he murmured to the still figure on the bed. She slept on her side with one fist tucked under her chin. He counted the handful of freckles, swore silently at the darkening bruise, and wished he dared climb into bed with her and hold her, the way he had once before.
No, he didn’t. With his objectivity already shot to hell and back, the last thing he needed was to sleep with her again. Even if all he did was sleep.
The trouble was, sleep wasn’t all he wanted to do, and that was a problem. An increasingly uncomfortable, insoluble problem. Why now, he asked himself, just when everything was finally going his way?
For the second time, the subject of marriage had come up between them. The first time, he’d scared the hell out of himself by actually proposing.
Not that any woman with a spark of pride would have accepted a proposal framed in that manner. All the same, if they were married, he could take her away somewhere safe until all this blew over.
And then—?
If they were married, she could forget this crazy notion of setting herself up in business. She wouldn’t have to support herself or Tara, he would take care of them both.
If they were married, he could still build his shipyard. Nothing would change except that he would have someone to come home to at night, someone to talk over his plans with. Someone to bounce his ideas off. Someone to share his triumphs.
If they were married, he told himself when the hour grew late and the rattle of dice, the slap of cards, and the muffled roar of revelry gradually died away, he might stand a chance of dealing with this crazy mixture of fear, lust, and tenderness that was making mincemeat of his brain.
*
He must have dozed. He woke up with his mouth open, a crick in his neck, and an ache in his groin that had nothing to do with the slat-back straight chair he was about to fall off of.
She was staring up at him, her features softened by sleep. The lamp was turned down low, casting grotesque shadows on the wall behind the bed.
“Did I wake you up snoring?” he whispered. He’d sell his soul for a drink. Water, not whiskey.
“No, I dreamed . . .”
He didn’t pick up the lead. Didn’t want to know what she’d been dreaming. He knew what he’d been dreaming; the evidence was clearly visible. He cleared his throat and hooked the heels of his boots on the top rung of the chair, using his knees to cut off her view. It wasn’t all that unusual. Most men awoke mornings with a slight erection. It wasn’t morning, and his wasn’t slight, and it was more than a physiological reaction. He wanted her so much it was all he could do not to take advantage of her semi-comatose condition.
Thank God he hadn’t sunk that low.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, hoping she wouldn’t. Hoping she would. Hoping she’d invite him to join her in bed for the few remaining hours of the night.
“Not sleepy,” she murmured, her voice slurred. “Thirsty.”
“Yeah, me, too. I’ll find us something. Lock the door behind me, all right?”
She nodded, but didn’t make a move to get out of bed.
“All right, forget it. Look, I’ll be back in two minutes. Stay right where you are, and yell your head off if anyone tries to get in.”
She blinked, as if trying to focus her eyes, and then nodded.
Lurching down the corridor toward the galley, Galen told himself there was nothing to worry about. He opened one of the new ice boxes he’d bought and chipped off half a dozen chunks of ice, dumped them in a pitcher, filled it with water from a jug, and grabbed two tumblers. By the time he got back, she was on her feet, standing behind the door with an umbrella in both hands. She looked scared to death.
He barely managed to set down the tumblers and pitcher without dumping the lot. “What the devil’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing. Nobody came, but what if they had?”
The air went out of him, leaving him limp as a wet string. And then somehow, his arms were surrounding her. Somehow, he was holding her, face buried in her hair as he waited for his heart to stop thudding and settle down.
Only instead of settling down, it began to beat faster, driving a heavy tide to his lower regions. He felt himself swelling all over again.
He needed that pitcher of ice water, and not necessarily to quench his thirst.
“I was afraid someone would come,” she whispered.
“You’d have handled it just fine. Nobody’s going to come looking for you, sweetheart, I promise you that. You’re not going to be out of my sight again until this mess is finished.”
Wordlessly, she nodded. Her arms tightened around his waist. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked.
“Katy, I’ve been thinking—you know, Tara’s right. Maybe not about the house, at least not right away. The first thing we need to do is get you out of town, someplace where strangers stick out like a sore thumb. As it happens, I’ve got the perfect place in mind.”
By now she’d recovered enough to argue, which was a good sign. However, she hadn’t recovered enough to release her stranglehold around his middle. Galen didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.
“Why do I have to be married to go there? Couldn’t we just go?”
He’d been running on instinct, not intellect. Now he tried to come up with a logical reason, but none came to mind. All he knew was that she was his, and one way or another he was damned well going to keep her safe, if he had to marry her to do it.
He didn’t expect her to buy it, not right off. Not without an argument. Not his Katy. She had more pride than was good for her, but pride alone wasn’t going to protect her.
The way she was gazing up at him didn’t make it any easier to think straight, but he gave it his best shot. “Look, these are personal friends of mine. They’re pretty straitlaced, but if you went there as my wife, they’d look after you as if you were one of their own.”
They would look after a chance-met stranger if they thought that stranger needed it. They’d taken him into their home and made him a part of their family. Even poor Miss Drucy, who didn’t know Tuesday from a hat rack half the time.
“Trust me, it would be better if I could introduce you as my wife, and Tara as my sister-in-law.”
“But we’re not.”
He edged her over toward the bed, reached for one of the tumblers, and placed it in her hand. He
needed to put some space between them if he was going to pull this off.
And suddenly, it was vitally important to him that he bring her around. While he didn’t necessarily want a wife, he wanted Katy. That was enough for now. At the moment, her need took precedence over his own.
*
Tara was wild with excitement. “You mean I can go on our honeymoon, too? Oh, that’s the most grandacious thing I ever heard of!”
She was collecting a brand-new vocabulary from Oscar. Lord knows where Oscar came by it.
Katy said, “Now, you must understand, this isn’t precisely a—”
Galen cut her off. He knew what she was about to say, and he didn’t want it said. Maybe it wasn’t going to be a regular church wedding. Maybe it wasn’t going to be a regular honeymoon. It wasn’t even going to be a regular marriage.
But from the outside looking in, it was damned well going to be as regular as he could make it. And for that, it had to be legal. After that, they’d simply take it one day at a time. They were both sensible adults. At least, one of them was.
Although at the moment, he couldn’t have sworn which one.
They were married in South Mills, which was the fastest way to get it done around these parts. Sign on the dotted line, hand over the fee, and a couple of minutes later it was all over.
Tara looked disappointed. “We didn’t even have any music,” she said softly.
Ila was crying. She looked at him as if he’d just committed a crime.
Not until they were outside in the brilliant sunlight did Galen look at the small figure clinging to his arm.
“Ah, Katy . . . I’m sorry, darling. There was just no time—if I’d thought, I could have . . .”
Could have what? Laid on a church and flowers and a wedding cake with all the bows and ribbons?
Married was married. He hadn’t thought beyond securing the legal right to look after her.
“It’s all right. To be sure, it was a lovely wedding. With the . . . um, the flowers and all.”
The flowers were a bunch of wilted rosebuds provided at the last minute by the florist where he had a standing order to supply his trademark boutonnieres.
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