Rescued by the Viscount's Ring

by Carol Arens

  Which made her all the sadder while she lay here listening to the quiet creaks of the house and the tapping of rain on the cobbles beyond the window.

  Of course, she wasn’t really listening to rain as much as footsteps in the rain. For Rees’s footsteps, coming for her.

  She tried not to want it—but there it was, causing a rather large lump to swell in her throat.

  No doubt he had given up his pursuit by now.

  Rees had a fiancée, a life to live with Miss Mosemore. Now, with Madeline gone, he was free to go on as he had planned before he lifted her from the lifeboat and carried her to his cabin.

  Before—before everything.

  * * *

  Pelting rain felt like needles nicking Rees’s head. His coat had become soaked through so long ago it no longer provided protection against the elements.

  He had searched, asked person after person if they had seen a woman who resembled a lost angel. No one had.

  At last, only hours before dawn and with very few people about to ask, he met a lamplighter on his rounds.

  The fellow did remember a woman from earlier in the day. She had rushed past him appearing distressed, so he’d followed her.

  He told Rees the name of the lane she had turned down. The lamplighter remembered seeing her go into a house about halfway down, along with another woman and an old man.

  It had taken a further half an hour to find the lane. Thirty minutes in which he wondered if he could go on.

  Any second he expected to keel over face first on to the cobbles. He had stopped feeling his feet hours ago. When was it that his hands had grown numb?

  He could only imagine what the temperature might be—just shy of snow, he figured.

  This had to be the right lane, if not—Ah! Halfway down, a window glowed as if someone had left a lamp burning low.

  Coming closer, he saw a woman passing back and forth in front of the glass while carrying a baby in her arms.

  She wouldn’t appreciate a knock on her door by someone who looked a half-frozen fiend. No matter, he had to know if his wife was inside or if she had gone on her way.

  Lifting his hand, he noticed his fingertips were blue. An odd sight, that. He felt detached from it, as if he were looking at someone else’s hand.

  He pounded on the door with the side of his fist. He could see the woman glaring at him, but she did not move from her spot at the window.

  Once again, he hammered, this time with both fists. When he could pound no more, he leaned his weight against the door for support. The frigid temperature robbed him of the last of his strength.

  All at once, the door flew open. He grasped the frame, looking into the eyes of the irate lady.

  ‘Have you no sense, man!’ Her glare at him accused him of all sorts of idiocy. ‘Pummelling the door when a woman is trying to get her child to sleep?’

  She seemed to be swaying, but more likely he was the one listing.

  ‘I’m looking for my wife.’

  ‘And you imagine I have her stashed away on my couch, perhaps. Ah, my wee lad is wide awake now.’

  ‘Please, if you have seen her...’

  If she had, it might have been some time ago. Just because Madeline had sought shelter here did not mean she remained.

  ‘Can you not stand, man? You seem near to death.’

  ‘My wife ran away and—’

  The woman tipped her head to one side, frowning severely at him with a brow arched.

  ‘Did you heartlessly lie to her?’

  Somehow, he managed to straighten up.

  ‘You have seen her, then—my Madeline?’

  * * *

  Madeline did not believe she could have fallen asleep, but she was clearly dreaming. How else would she be hearing Rees say her name?

  Reality tried to intrude, so she dug deeper into sleep. But the harder she dug, the more wakeful she became.

  ‘Perhaps I have. I’ll need to make sure.’

  She was not dreaming Mary’s voice. Within seconds she was bending over the couch, the baby hugged tight to her chest.

  ‘I believe your husband has found you. Shall I send him away?’

  ‘Yes, do.’

  ‘You ought to know, he looks rather poorly. Even the walk back down the lane might do him in.’

  Do him in! Her great strong husband?

  Madeline bounded from the couch.

  Good heavens!

  Rees stood in the doorway, swaying on his feet.

  Holding tight to the doorframe, he smiled weakly at her and said, ‘Thank the good Lord.’

  His voice sounded like sand.

  She slipped under his arm, but he straightened and made it to the couch on wobbling legs.

  He closed his eyes, let out a great sigh. ‘You’re safe.’

  With that, he fell asleep. But then again, because of how pale he was, how cold his hand felt, he might be unconscious.

  Madeline knelt beside the couch. Mary peered over her shoulder.

  ‘He must be a very big liar for you to run away from him, my friend. A man who looks like that? If I were not completely devoted to my husband, well... I’ll just say there’s many who would want to be in your shoes.’

  ‘I’ve been told it before.’ She had also seen the not-quite-subtle glances of dreamy-eyed women.

  A circumstance which did not change the fact that he had grievously lied to her.

  But about everything?

  Were the feelings he had declared for her true in spite of the way things appeared? Madeline could hardly ignore the fact that he must care for his fiancée.

  Ah, but he did look done for. The question in her mind was, had he been searching for her out of guilt or out of the love he claimed to have for her?

  ‘Since I’ll not put myself into a situation to lust after a man who I’m not wed to, I’ll leave it to you to change him out of his wet clothes.’

  With a wink, Mary picked up her fussing child from his crib and walked towards her bedchamber.

  ‘I’ll set some of Long’s clothing outside my door, although I expect they will fit a bit snug.’

  ‘Rees...’ She shook his shoulder. ‘...can you hear me?’

  He grunted, but his mouth ticked in a weary half-smile.

  Good, not oblivious, then, only exhausted.

  ‘I need to get these wet clothes off of you, but you’ll need to help me.’ Was that a nod? If so, it was very weak.

  He tried to lift his arm, but it flopped back on the couch. She picked up his hand. It was far too frigid for her peace of mind.

  ‘How did you injure your knuckles?’ She didn’t dare touch them, as swollen and bruised as they were.

  ‘Doors.’

  Knocking on them, looking for her, he must mean. She felt wretched.

  Very clearly she had a character flaw: she was a weak-spined runaway. First she had fled from her grandfather, then from Bertrand and now from her husband.

  Taking to one’s heels was no way to solve a problem, but rather to create one.

  ‘You’ve got to help me, Rees. I cannot do this on my own. You are far too—’ muscular, strapping, brawny and well built ‘—heavy.’

  He sat halfway up, groaned. Eventually, with a great deal of tugging and yanking, she managed to remove his coat and shirt.

  And then to blatantly stare.

  She had seen him bare chested before, but apparently it was not a sight one got used to. No, it was a sight one brazenly indulged in with great longing.

  She blushed, felt heat creep up her chest to her neck. She pressed her cheeks with her fingertips. As she suspected, they were sizzling. Her red face was not due completely to her reaction to seeing him this way, but because—well—he knew she had that birthmark on her hip and possibly a good deal more than that.

 
; If his feelings in the moment had been anything akin to what hers were now, it was no wonder he insisted they would marry.

  All of her was ablaze. He had touched her, to warm her only, but after that he had kissed her quite ardently.

  Yes, he’d done that in the full knowledge that he had a fiancée waiting for his return.

  ‘Let’s get you out of those trousers.’ Her voice sounded like a frog croaking. ‘Then I’ll make some good hot tea. That should set you to rights.’

  In spite of how much she wanted to, she was not going to warm him with her touch. There was much to be settled between them and just now she was not certain it was even possible.

  The man was hers in a legal sense, but she had to wonder if his heart was hers. He had claimed so, but he also claimed to be a working man making a living shovelling coal.

  He lifted his hips. She closed her eyes and yanked the sodden fabric down his legs, tugging it over his feet.

  With her eyes squeezed tight, she fumbled about for her shawl. It had fallen off her shoulders when she had bounded up from the couch and now he sat on it. She only hoped, prayed even, that her fingers would not close about anything that was not yarn.

  Drat it! That springy substance her palms brushed across was not wool, but hair. She did not allow herself to imagine where it grew.

  She nearly sighed in relief when her fingers found the shawl and it slid free from under him without her having to—never mind that. She had the shawl and that was all that mattered, that and getting hot tea into him.

  She spread the shawl over him, then opened her eyes. It covered what it could, but he was a large man.

  Spinning about, she raced for the kitchen.

  He needed warming and she needed cooling.

  Chapter Nine

  Something burned his lips, but at the same time, gentle fingers pressed the back of his neck, lifting his head.

  ‘Drink it up.’

  He did, one sip only, then said, ‘Lie beside me.’

  ‘It’s a narrow couch.’

  He opened his eyes to see her frowning at him. She could be hurling profanities at him and he wouldn’t mind. Finding her safe was the best thing to have happened to him in a very long time—maybe ever.

  ‘Not much narrower than our cot in the ship’s cabin.’

  Relief slowly restored his strength, even more than being dry did.

  Madeline did not answer, but withdrew the cup from his lips.

  ‘What do you think your fiancée would think about that? I hate to imagine.’

  What she would do was run for Gretna Green with Wilson.

  He sat up. Her wool shawl puddled in a heap on his lap.

  ‘Sit beside me.’ He reached for the tea. While he no longer feared freezing to death, he was still just this side of shivering. ‘We need to speak of what happened.’

  ‘I’ll spread your clothes in front of the fire so they will be dry when you leave.’

  ‘When we leave, you mean.’

  ‘That is not at all what I mean.’ She turned away, crossed to the hearth, then spread his garments on it.

  ‘I wonder how long the lady of the house will allow us to remain here. I have no intention of leaving her house without you.’

  ‘I suppose as a grand lord you believe you may dictate to me.’ She plopped down beside him, her arms folded defiantly across her chest. ‘But I am an American. I do not recognise your noble precedence.’

  ‘A viscount. That is all. Only a baron is ranked lower.’

  ‘I despair to imagine how arrogant you would be as a duke.’ She popped back up from the couch, paced a moment, then spun around to face him, her hands balled firmly on her hips. ‘We agreed to a temporary marriage. You will leave here without me.’

  ‘We also changed our minds.’

  ‘I would not have if I’d known you were promised to another.’

  ‘Madeline, sit down.’ He patted the cushion. ‘Had I met you first, I would not have proposed to Miss Mosemore.’

  ‘How very noble of you.’

  While she spoke, her gaze slipped from his eyes to his chest. Her blush hit him square in the heart. He wouldn’t, under any circumstance, leave here without her.

  ‘You did not meet me first and you are promised to another.’

  ‘That promise became null when I recited vows to you. I never loved her, Madeline. When I said I loved you, my heart was not bound to another.’ He patted the couch again.

  The bedchamber door creaked open. Something hit the floor with a thump before it clicked closed again.

  ‘Oh, good.’ She crossed the room, then picked up a bundle of clothes. ‘Mary has given these to you to wear until yours dry out.’

  She dropped the garments on his lap, then went to the window and stared out.

  ‘Will you not help me dress, as I did you?’

  She spun about. ‘You are a rogue, Rees Dalton. You know I will not. Why, Miss Mosemore would be broken-hearted.’

  ‘Miss Mosemore is in love with my brother.’

  Madeline went utterly still, her skirt swaying about her ankles. She pressed the fingers of one hand to her mouth, slowly shaking her head while tapping her lips.

  ‘And so you decided to have her for yourself? That is rather twisted, even for a man as despotic as you are. I fear I do not know you at all. The man I professed to love would not betray his family. And you, a father—an example to your little girls!’

  ‘But you do know me.’ He stood up. Clutching the shawl to his middle, he crossed to the window.

  ‘Have you no shame? You are standing bare as a jay in front of the glass!’

  He lifted her chin with his free hand, peering deeply into her eyes. ‘I do not. But I will agree to go back to the couch if you promise to sit beside me. I have much to say.’

  ‘All right, I will. But for Mary’s sake. She would be hard put to explain a naked man standing in her window!’ She spun away from his touch, hurried to the couch and sat down. ‘But you must agree to put on those clothes.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  He dressed while she stared at her lap, neatly spacing the gathers of the skirt she wore. His borrowed garments were too small, so he had to leave several buttons unfastened and the sleeves of the shirt rolled up at the cuff.

  ‘You may explain now,’ she stated curtly. ‘Although I do not know how it is possible.’

  ‘From the beginning I told you there was a reason our marriage benefited me.’

  ‘I can hardly forget. You ought to have told me what it was before the vows.’

  ‘I should have.’

  A quiver of poisoned arrows would not have stung more than her pointed glare did.

  ‘When I made the marriage agreement with Miss Mosemore’s uncle, I had no idea of my brother’s attachment to her, nor hers to him. The time was right for me to remarry and my daughters needed a mother. So when Milton Langerby, Bethany’s uncle, pressed most insistently for the union, I accepted his offer.’

  ‘But you must have been in love with her, otherwise why would you?’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘Very fond of her at least?’

  ‘I barely knew her. If I had, I might have been aware of the attachment between Miss Mosemore and Wilson. To me she seemed as respectable as any other woman I might wed. I honestly had no feelings for her one way or another.’

  All at once Madeline shook her head and nodded, making it seem like one wide-eyed gesture. ‘I ran away with Bertrand, in part, to avoid being that sort of bride. I wanted to be loved.’

  ‘And so you are.’

  ‘I am not ready to hear that from you. Even though you are at last explaining to me what happened, I do not know you. The man I loved was a fireman aboard the Edwina.’

  ‘I’ll get to that, but can you not see now why our marriage was a
great boon to me?’

  ‘Make me understand it, Rees.’

  He’d rather stumble into a patch of nettles, but—‘I saw straight off what a mistake I’d made when, after the betrothal was announced, I came upon the pair of them in the garden. They didn’t know I was hidden behind a bush, so they spoke freely of their devotion to each other. Wilson wanted to elope to Gretna Green on the spot, but Bethany was not willing to stand against her uncle. I’ll tell you, Madeline, he is a severe fellow, so I don’t blame her for not acting against him.’

  ‘Well, poor thing, her future determined by the whim of a man. It seems she was stuck in a mess she had no control over. I hate to think of the great scandal the poor girl will be subject to if our marriage becomes known.’

  ‘She hasn’t a bit of your spirit.’ Or compassion. Madeline might have been bitter towards a woman who turned out to be her husband’s fiancée, but, no, she seemed more concerned for Bethany’s fate than anything else. ‘But don’t you see I was also in a mess I had no control over? I needed a miracle. I could not betray my brother and take the woman he loved as my wife. It was unthinkable. But at the same time, agreements, promises had been made between me and Milton Langerby. I sailed before I had time to even think of what to do about it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll admit you were in a difficult place.’

  ‘An impossible one, until I came across you. You were my miracle.’

  ‘It hardly felt like a miracle to me.’ She sighed deeply, leaning her head back on the couch to expose the fair column of her neck. She was his wonder, his heart and every bit a miracle, no matter how she might see it in the moment.

  ‘Were you running from the situation—?’ Suddenly she looked away from him, biting her bottom lip and frowning. ‘Perhaps avoiding facing your problem by taking a job aboard the Edwina?’

  ‘Ah, no.’ The weight of his lies felt crushing. The only way was to press on. ‘I own the Edwina.’

  She swung her gaze back at him. Her eyes narrowed upon him, but given the fact that her face looked angelic, her expression could look nothing but sweet, no matter how she might be striving to make it otherwise.