Rescued by the Viscount's Ring

by Carol Arens

  Perhaps because he was, in fact, her husband.

  Did that temporary bond make the attachment less risky? Only time would tell.

  She walked ahead of him and peered inside. Drat, there were a couple of dozen first-class diners inside.

  Looking back at Rees, she saw that he was shivering.

  Beyond the doorway was food and warmth. She was going to do her best to make sure they partook of both.

  It would be helpful if she wore pearls and lace.

  ‘Follow me,’ she instructed with a quick glance back at him.

  Rees grinned, nodding. He seemed confident of her success. In her mind she was only half-sure she could gain them entrance.

  She straightened her back, lifted her chin. With a very upper-class smile she stepped inside.

  Someone gasped.

  It took only an instant for the head waiter, dressed in an expensive-looking tuxedo, to march forward. The scowl on his face did not deter her smile in the least.

  Grandfather’s expensive lessons in behaving as a proper lady of society would not go to waste.

  ‘A table near the fireplace, good sir.’ She knew how to make her eyes twinkle and did so without shame. She was rewarded by seeing the fellow’s gentlemanly nature respond. He was not quite smiling, but he was close to it. ‘And a table close to mine—for my servant.’

  ‘I do have a table for you, miss. However, your man will have to dine in steerage.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s impossible.’ She touched her throat, allowed her lips to tremble a bit under her smile. ‘My travelling companion has fallen ill. I have no one else but this man to act as chaperon.’

  ‘Surely there must be a woman to accompany you to dinner.’

  ‘I would not reveal this to just anyone, but am I right in thinking I can trust you?’

  ‘You may count on my discretion, Miss—?’

  ‘Macooish.’ Grandfather was not without influence in certain circles. It could not hurt to display the family name. ‘Well, the fact is, I am exceptionally timid. This fellow has been employed by my grandfather for many years. Grandfather will trust my safety to no one else.’

  She shrugged her shoulders, noticing the other diners begin to stare and whisper behind their hands. ‘Won’t you help me, sir? I have only been to the dining room once since we left New York. Truly, I am nearly weak with hunger. If you seat us near the fire, you will be my hero for ever.’

  It was true, he would. It would take a kindly heart to ignore the displeasure of the other diners and come to her aid.

  ‘Come this way, then.’ His face reflected the compassion she had first sensed in him. ‘There is a table close to yours, but in the shadows. Perhaps no one will object. But may I ask, why is he dressed as though he works in the furnace room?’

  ‘Well, he does. I allow him to earn extra money where he can.’

  ‘Most commendable, miss.’ He pulled out a chair for her. Rees sat close to the fireplace in deep shadow. They would not be able to speak to one another, but at least they would eat fine food and keep warm. ‘I’ll send a waiter over directly.’

  ‘What is your name, sir?’

  ‘Mr Peabody.’ He gave a half-bow and went to find her a waiter.

  She would have to remember his name along with the others who had been kind to her. If Grandfather forgave her, he would want to reward them.

  Moments later she was eating an exquisite meal made all the more delicious because of what she had been through. She even sipped crisp champagne, twirling the smooth stem of the goblet in her fingers.

  She glanced behind her, saw Rees with a decent meal, but not as fine as hers and no spirits to go with it.

  He did look warm and satisfied, though.

  She dabbed her mouth with her napkin and would have motioned for him to take her home—back to the cabin, that was. In truth, she had no home, but at that moment a small orchestra came in, sat down and began to play.

  It had been too long since she had heard such lovely music.

  There was a dance floor close at hand, but so far no one was dancing. She wished they were because she adored dancing. If she could not participate, she would enjoy watching others do so.

  Closing her eyes, she swayed to the music, let the melody wash through her. She had believed she would never feel this lightness of being again—this place where melody carried one out of one’s body to float and twirl as if in a starry mist.

  Oh, but here she was, eyes closed and the sweet, longing melody causing her toes to dance within her shoes.

  A calloused hand covered hers, stilled the drumming of her fingers on the tablecloth.

  ‘Come.’ With a hand under her elbow Rees lifted her out of the chair.

  Instead of escorting her to the door, he led her to the dance floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She knew what. She just could not believe it.

  ‘Dancing with my wife.’

  He caught her waist in one big hand, then swept her into a waltz.

  Her face must have revealed her surprise, her utter and complete shock.

  ‘Where I grew up, people used to waltz. I watched how it was done. Do you have the strength for it?’

  Even if she did not, she was going to do it.

  ‘This is going to cause a great scandal.’

  He winked. ‘We’d best enjoy it while we can.’

  She did. Oh, how she did. Aria, chorus and lullaby swirled in her blood. Waltz, polka, prance and caper gave life to her steps.

  Head dizzy and heart alight with—not love, no, but something suspiciously akin to it, she spun where Rees led.

  For as brief as the moment was before they were told to leave, she revelled in it.

  Drank it in to the depth of her soul. There had never been a dance she’d enjoyed more. A moment more exciting.

  She focused her gaze on Rees’s face so as not to notice the frowns being cast their way. As a distraction it worked supremely well.

  All of a sudden, scowling faces meant nothing. Rees’s face meant—everything was the word that came unbidden into her mind. But how could that be?

  Everything was a rather huge thought.

  Had she learned nothing about giving her heart too quickly?

  Perhaps not, because she found herself wanting to dance with him like this for ever.

  Of course, for ever was not given to her. Within moments they were escorted outside, where the wind blew and cold penetrated.

  It had grown dark while they had been inside.

  She handed Rees his coat because it was his, after all.

  He shrugged into it, then pulled her against his chest, wrapping her up with him.

  All at once, the dance was no longer her most exciting moment.

  This was.

  He backed her towards the railing. She matched the rhythm of his steps and somehow it felt as though they were still dancing.

  * * *

  The last thing Rees felt for what he had done was regret, or shame.

  His wife had wanted to dance. He had wanted to dance with her.

  ‘I’d do it again,’ he admitted. The joy he’d seen shining on her face while he carefully spun her about in front of the chagrined diners lingered on her face.

  He had to admit it appeared outrageous, a common labourer, his only adornment the red-checked handkerchief tied about his neck, and the lady gowned in fine, if modest, wool behaving as social equals on the dance floor.

  Rees Dalton might bear a title, but he was far from being his wife’s equal. Indeed, she ranked far above him in every way that counted.

  Her kind heart, her sweet and generous spirit, quite simply made her his angel.

  ‘So would I. It has been too long since I danced with such a light heart. I think it is because I was able to get lost in the moment without havin
g to try to outwit my partner. Most men I’ve danced with hadn’t much interest in the fun of it. Only in how they might entrap me. Or, more rightly, Grandfather.’

  ‘Whereas I have already entrapped you.’

  She glanced away, focusing her attention on the black crests stirring the surface of the water. Perhaps he ought not to have said that even though it was in jest.

  ‘Ah, Madeline,’ he whispered against her hair while pulling her tight against him under the coat. She resisted for only a fraction of a second, so he continued to snuggle. ‘I do not like to think of you without a light heart. Unless I’m wrong, and I know by now I am not, it is the way you are by nature when nothing else gets in the way.’

  ‘It’s true. My cousin and I have shared some delightfully scandalous times. Nothing wicked, mind you, and mostly no one knew about them.’

  ‘The same can’t be said of the last half-hour. Everyone knows. I hope you were not embarrassed by me.’

  ‘I don’t recall you stepping on my toe or tripping over my skirt. In fact, you were quite accomplished for someone who learned by watching others.’

  ‘My mother says I have a natural talent for physical endeavours.’

  She had said that, but it was in relation to climbing trees. Dancing had taken endless hours of practice.

  ‘If you mean because I am a lady, well, an heiress more aptly, and you are a commoner—no—I’m an American lady. It is not the same thing as being a British lady of title. We are born as common as anyone.’

  Madeline Claire Macooish was as far from common as a woman could get.

  ‘Shall we walk on?’ he said.

  It would be a good idea since, standing here, all he could think of was kissing her.

  ‘I imagine we ought to go downstairs to steerage. We’ve raised enough eyebrows for tonight,’ she suggested.

  ‘It’s nicer up here.’ He shifted her so that she was walking beside him, but still under the coat. He made sure not to let go of her waist. ‘Besides, come morning, conversation about us will be the spice in their breakfast.’

  ‘I wish I could hear it,’ she answered with a laugh.

  They walked past the lifeboats. Although not the same ones Madeline had sought shelter in, Rees could not even glance at them for remembering how she had been so near death. How fragile her hold on life had been.

  No matter the price to his heart, and there would be one, he did not regret what he had done to rip her from the arms of the Grim Reaper.

  ‘How much longer until we reach Liverpool?’ she asked. ‘I’ve lost count of the days.’

  ‘Two only.’

  ‘I’ve never been there.’

  ‘It’s not unlike New York. Lots of hustle, bustle and commerce.’

  ‘Is it where you live?’

  ‘I have a place there.’ He did not admit it was a town house with a dozen servants to see to its care. This sweet moment was not the right time for the full truth.

  He could only wonder if there would be one. The thought of her looking at him as a liar was becoming harder to consider. And yet the longer he waited the worse it would be.

  ‘Will there be room for me? I would not want to crowd your family. Perhaps I can find a hotel until—’

  He stopped. They had reached the bow of the ship. The great expanse of water stretching away before them became one with the darkness.

  ‘You will stay with me.’ He turned her in the coat, gripped her by the shoulders. ‘As common as I appear, I am able to care for you.’

  ‘All I’m saying is that you needn’t. You didn’t choose me, after all. I just usurped your life.’

  ‘I may not have chosen—’ He touched her cheek, traced the shape of her chin then tipped it up. ‘But—’

  But now, now he was going to kiss her.

  She pressed her palms against his chest, backed out of the warmth of his coat. Wind caught the lapels. The fabric snapped like a billowing flag.

  ‘I can’t allow you to steal a kiss, Rees.’ She pressed her fingers over her mouth, tapped them on her lips. ‘It would be as though I learned nothing at all.’

  ‘What I hope you have learned is that I am not a man like Fenster.’

  Even though she stood within arm’s reach, he kept his hands at his sides, his fingers curled into tense balls. He would not take advantage of her like that weasel did.

  ‘Why did you marry me, Rees? You did not have to do it. I would have survived the scandal eventually.’

  ‘You had no one else.’ But why did it have to be him? she must be thinking. Why not give her to the care of a kindly fellow passenger, an honourable matron? Now was the time to reveal the truth about his brother, but he could not.

  Not when another truth was the one pressing to be told.

  ‘Madeline, from the first time I saw you through the spyglass, I—honestly I liked you—very much.’

  ‘I...’ She took a small step towards him. He leaned an inch towards her. ‘...think...’

  With a short leap she was back in his arms. She tipped her face up to him. With a smile she cupped her cold fingers on his cheeks and drew his head down.

  ‘I like you, too, very much.’

  Her kiss was sweet; it was steamy and ardent. It was his undoing. He was completely captured. How could a woman melt against him like that and not be his for all time?

  She could not.

  When she would have drawn away, he held her tighter. He felt it when she gave herself back to him and to the unrestrained fever that bound them to the moment.

  In the end, he did let her go. But he held on to the elation gripping him.

  Somehow he had to convince her three months was far too soon to walk away from what was growing between them.

  Perhaps it might not be so difficult considering what had just happened.

  ‘Did you not just say I couldn’t kiss you?’ He felt like a rooster crowing in joy at the promise of a new dawn. No doubt his grin looked as cocky as a strutting fowl’s.

  ‘I said that.’ She nodded, staring all the while at his lips, biting hers. ‘And you did not kiss me. I kissed you.’

  ‘And I’ll never be the same for it.’

  She turned in his arms, gazed silently out at the great ocean. He caught the coat lapels, then wrapped them up, cocoon-like.

  What could she be feeling about his admission?

  ‘Will you be the same, Madeline?’ He had to ask. His heart was scratching at a wall he had never climbed. He had to know if there was any chance she would be on the other side of it.

  ‘I don’t want to be the same.’ She reached up and squeezed his hand where it rested on her shoulder.

  That was something to build on. He wondered if she felt him grinning against her hair.

  * * *

  In the wee hours of the morning Madeline stared at the ceiling. She listened to the sound of Rees’s even breathing while he slept on the floor next to the cot.

  She had admitted to him that she did not want things to be the same.

  No matter how many times she changed position on the mattress, transferred her gaze from the door to the ceiling and back again, she could not figure out precisely what she meant by saying so.

  Of course, she did mean those words.

  Kissing Rees was something she would never regret. In a sense, doing so had been healing, oddly freeing and binding all in one incredible moment.

  Perhaps she had meant that she, at the heart of her, did not want to be the same.

  For all that she had believed herself in love with that weasel Fenster, she had never returned his kiss with any ardency.

  Perhaps because he gave her no choice, but had taken what he wanted, made a conquest of her.

  Oh, but Rees—he had given her a choice. To kiss him or to reject him, it was for her to decide.

  Did he ha
ve any idea that by doing so he had freed her from the shame of allowing Bertrand to steal her emotions?

  She thought that, yes, he might have, but only to a degree. How could he possibly understand that when he had let her go and not pressed her favour, her heart had shifted?

  He could not know that, yet again, he was her hero. This husband of hers had taken away her shame and changed her sense of being used into a sense of being respected—cherished even.

  The fact that he gave her a choice would mean the world to her for ever.

  Yes—for ever. What she still did not understand was what this meant for her future.

  Or if it meant nothing.

  If it meant nothing, was that what she wanted? She had certainly thought so until a few hours ago.

  She turned on her side, gazing down on the face of her husband.

  Oh, but she did like him—intensely. Was there a word for what she was so quickly feeling for him? She tried a few out while looking down at him.

  Friendship? Yes, that. Affinity? Also, yes. Brotherhood or sisterhood? No, not that, not by a long mile.

  She was quite taken with how handsome he was, but to like him for that quality alone would be foolish and dangerous.

  While watching him sleep was fascinating, it was the man behind those closed lids who intrigued her.

  Years from now, after going their separate ways, she would recall the way his lips tended to quirk in humour, how when he teased her his eyes twinkled. On some distant day she would find herself staring off at the horizon, wondering where he was. At night she would toss about on her mattress, wishing she was tossing on it with him.

  When she went on her way as they had agreed she would do, she doubted she would ever come across a man she trusted half as much.

  Certainly not if she was back in the sphere of Grandfather’s social acquaintances. Every fortune-hunting dandy would be trailing her skirt again.

  Trusting a man, she had learned in a bitter way, meant everything.

  But she did trust Rees. Because she did, it had made it possible to get lost in the scent and the feel of his kiss, to become absorbed in it.