Wearing an old blue muslin that was snug across the bosom and loose at the waist, she settled herself on the bench Peg had built and Luther had carried up to what she thought of as her private garden. She’d been warned against snakes, sunburn, sandspurs and prickly pear cactus. Bess had mentioned ticks, and Rose watched diligently to see that no insect, large or small, crawled into the basket.
Adjusting a light spread over Annie’s basket, she unfastened another button at the neck of her gown. “Annie, my sweet, I could get used to this life of indolence, couldn’t you?”
Annie kicked and gurgled in agreement.
As was too often the case when she had nothing better to occupy her mind, Rose thought about Matthew Powers. After three weeks, she still didn’t know quite what to make of the man, but at least she was no longer intimidated by his size. In fact, she rather enjoyed the novelty of looking up to a man. It made her feel…well, hardly delicate, but still, it was a pleasant feeling.
She had learned at an early age that men couldn’t abide tall women. Even her father, once she’d grown a full two inches above his respectable height of five and a half feet, had avoided standing beside her whenever possible. She had understood intuitively, but it had hurt, all the same.
Matthew avoided her, too, but it had nothing to do with her height, or even her lack of looks. According to Bess, he simply didn’t care for women. Which suited her just fine, as she wasn’t overly fond of men. Once this trial period was over, if she decided to go through with the marriage, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about the marriage act.
She hated it. It was painful, demeaning and embarrassing. A friend had once confided that she enjoyed it every bit as much as her husband did, and Rose had thought she must be lying. When, a year into her own marriage, Rose had learned that Robert kept a mistress, she’d been relieved rather than angry, thinking that he might leave her alone.
He hadn’t. Especially when he’d been drinking, in which case he would grab her with no warning at all, shove her down on the bed, even in broad daylight, and do it to her.
She had hoped her pregnancy would end all that, for he’d been eager for a child right from the first. For a while he’d seemed delighted, seldom snapping at her, even paying her some of the same small courtesies he’d shown during their brief courtship.
She’d been nearly five months along when Robert had come home one day in a rage. “Guess where I’ve been, my dearest little wife.” Sarcasm was one of his favorite weapons.
“I can’t imagine. At the club?” He reeked of strong drink, and it was barely past noon.
“Right you are. I happened to meet the trust officer who handled your father’s estate. Would you care to explain yourself?” His eyes flashed dangerously in his pale, narrow face.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “I—I’m afraid I don’t remember him very well. I believe he was in Switzerland when Mama and Papa—after they—”
His control snapped. Waving a fist, he shouted, “Why did you lie to me? What in hell did you hope to gain?”
“B-but I’ve never lied. Why would you think that?” She’d been truly mystified.
“Oh, no? What about your trust fund, what about that?” By that time his face had been fiery red, spittle flying from his thin lips.
“Robert, please don’t shout, I don’t think it’s good for the baby. I won’t be twenty-one until September, you know that.”
“What good will your blasted brat do me, when there’s not a damn copper penny left to inherit? All that money, wasted! Blown away!”
That was when she’d learned that he’d married her for the fortune he’d expected her to come into on her twenty-first birthday, insuring it with a son.
“It’s gone, I tell you! Every single investment cashed in and wasted by your cheating scoundrel of a father!”
She’d backed away, instinctively holding her hands out to ward off his temper. “I didn’t know, Robert, truly I didn’t. Father never talked to me about money. He—he always said ladies didn’t discuss such things.”
“Don’t lie to me, bitch, you had to know! What about your father’s will?”
“The will…I don’t remember. I must’ve…but I was ill for weeks after the funeral, you know that. Papa’s lawyer was away in Switzerland, and I—by the time he came back, I’d met you and we were getting married, and I never even thought about the money,” she’d whispered, frightened as he continued to curse and shout.
Actually, it had been Robert who had rushed things along, hardly giving her a chance to think. She’d been in deep mourning, still in shock, and he’d insisted she needed him to take care of her. He’d been so sweet, so convincing, and she had desperately needed someone….
“Why the devil do you think I married you, for your pretty face? For your stupid female brain?” he’d shouted.
She’d tried to reason with him, but as usual when he’d been drinking, which was more and more often, he’d refused to listen.
Instead he had struck her across the face. As she’d been cowering in a corner, there was no escape. He’d struck her again, and she’d slid to the floor, and then he’d started kicking her.
By the time he had slammed the door behind him, she’d been too hurt and frightened even to cry for help. Eventually she’d managed to drag herself to her bed, too sick at heart even to weep.
It had stormed that night, the constant lightning and thunder that shook the house merging with her own sick nightmare. Sometime before morning she had started to bleed. Frantic, she’d shouted for help, and eventually the housekeeper had heard her, come to her aid and summoned the doctor.
By then, it had been too late.
Hours later the police had come to tell her that her husband was dead. Robert, it seemed, had left her and gotten himself roaring drunk, fallen off the Smith Creek bridge and drowned. In a single night, still mourning the loss of her parents, she had lost both her baby and her worthless husband.
“But now I have you, Annie, my love.”
The baby looked up, a frown puckering her all-but-invisible eyebrows. “I know, I know,” Rose murmured, “you’re hungry again. Why don’t we go and see if Crank has supper ready.”
So many things in her life had changed since the day she had staggered off the mailboat onto this sandy little barrier island. After the first few days, meals were taken in the kitchen. Luncheon had become dinner, dinner was now supper, and an early one, at that. A musical evening was no longer Mozart on the pianoforte, but sea chanties—bawdy ones, she suspected—played on a mouth organ and a pair of tablespoons.
She had learned to launder clothes. She had eaten things she’d never even heard of before, much less tasted. No one yelled at her or made unreasonable, conflicting demands the way her grandmother had done. The men, with the possible exception of Captain Powers, went out of their way to be helpful.
Oh, yes, she could do very well here as Mrs. Littlefield, secretary-who-couldn’t-take-shorthand and companion to a darling little girl who filled a place in her heart that had been empty far too long.
As to her other role, that of the captain’s wife, she’d as soon go on as she was without being pressed to make a choice.
Tomorrow, perhaps.
Or next week….
After three days of rain that put the entire house-hold out of sorts, the weather turned sunny again, and warmer than ever. Luther, as usual, pitched in to help with all the laundry that had accumulated. “Before you and Miss Bess came down here, me and Billy did the wash,” he confided. “It weren’t half as much fun.”
With the sun shining from a sky so intensely blue it hurt the eyes, and the lines billowing with baby napkins, men’s shirts and ladies’ smalls, Rose felt a sense of exhilaration. Here, so far away from civilized society, even the conventions were different. Rules she had lived by all her life seemed unimportant, even silly. She knew for a fact that her grand-mother’s laundress never washed men’s and women’s clothing in the same tub.
And just yesterday, Captain Powers had unpacked a crate of newly arrived books and told her she was welcome to make use of his library. He’d glanced at the yellow dimity she’d been wearing, turned away, then turned back for a second look. She’d been surprised. Except for Robert, who had hardly been motivated by her beauty, no man had ever given her a second look. As a rule, the captain avoided looking at her at all.
“It must be the sunburn I’m collecting,” she told Annie. “At this rate, I’ll soon be as dark as your captain.”
Not that it mattered what she looked like. It hadn’t mattered to her first husband; it certainly didn’t matter to her second one. When and if she decided to disclose her real identity, it still wouldn’t matter. Matt Powers had married her sight unseen, not for her looks but for her usefulness. What difference did it make if she was brown as a berry, if her hands were red and rough, her hair a sun-bleached mass of corkscrew curls?
“What if I decide to stay, Annie?” she whispered, knowing her decision had already been made. She laid a carefully folded stack of napkins in Annie’s basket and carried basket, baby, napkins and all to the house. “Do you think he’ll have me?”
Annie gurgled cheerfully. From overhead came the maniacal laughter of the ever-present seagulls. Rose pondered her own question without arriving at an answer.
Chapter Five
The air had a stillness about it that made him uneasy. Matt put down the ax and stood for a moment, eyes closed, his head tilted back as he absorbed the keening sound of gulls and the pungent smell of mudflats at low tide. There were bare shoals far out into the sound. Not a breath of wind stirred. The sky held a sulfurish tint, and instead of rising, smoke from the chimney followed the slope of the cypress-shingled roof.
Line squalls. Nothing serious, thank God, unless they spawned a few waterspouts. They’d hit hard and fast and, with any luck, move offshore before any real damage could be sustained. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that here on the island the elements were almost as immediate as they were at sea. He wondered if the first Powers had settled here because of that, or if he’d simply washed ashore from some long-forgotten shipwreck, taken the line of least resistance, and put down roots.
Without dwelling further on the matter, he went back to splitting kindling, a task he’d willingly taken over after Billy had died. Inactivity made him restless. Always had, even as a young sprout when he’d spent most of his time and energy avoiding the old man’s eagle eye.
He needed his ship, dammit. Needed a deck to pace, needed the challenge of getting the best consignments, the best prices, racing the wind to make the best time. At this rate he’d soon grow soft as a striped-suit banker.
All of which meant he was going to have to find a permanent solution for Annie. Mrs. Littlefield was good at babytending—surprisingly good, considering her claim of no experience—but she’d be leaving as soon as Bess had bled the life story from every villager over the age of fourteen.
The quick stab of disappointment that followed the thought was for Annie’s sake, he assured himself. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was easy to have around. Or the fact that he would find himself listening for the sound of her laughter, the silly nonsense songs she sang to Annie, the way she encouraged Crank to relate the same old stories he’d told a hundred times or more.
Hell, he’d even found himself watching the way she puckered her lips when she was pegging wash to the line.
Matt blamed his increasing distraction on the novelty of having a young woman in the house. Any woman at all. With the possible exception of Bess, the women in his life could be classified as either available or off-limits. Aside from that, they were either useful or merely decorative.
At this point he hadn’t made up his mind about the Widow Littlefield. She was young; far younger, in fact, than she’d first appeared. He had to admit she was useful. As for being decorative, he wouldn’t have given her a second look when she’d first shown up, but once he’d got used to her, he’d have to place her in the decorative category.
The one thing she was definitely not was available. Not to him, at any rate. He was supposed to be a married man.
A scowl darkened his face as he considered the last letter he’d written to the lawyer Bagby, demanding to know where the devil his bride was. In it he had reiterated his reluctance to enter into any such irregular connection.
“Having traded room, board and the Powers name for the simple task of raising one small infant,” he recalled writing, “I believe I am justified in expecting the woman to live up to her end of the bargain. Please pass along my sentiments to Mrs. Powers and urge all haste.”
The reply, when it finally arrived, had been anything but helpful. The lawyer claimed to know nothing about the woman’s present whereabouts and suggested he ask his aunt, which Matt had done until he was blue in the face. But as Bess would sooner lie than tell the truth, even if she’d come up with an answer, he’d be hard-pressed to believe her.
“Who the devil takes precedence?” he’d demanded, cornering her when she’d come back from her daily trek to the village. “A malingering relative or a legally contracted spouse?”
Without batting an eye she’d said, “Depends on if it’s a blood relative or not. I’d think a parent would take precedence over a husband—but then, there’s that ‘cleaving unto’ business with spouses. I could ask Horace if you’re interested.”
“It was you and your friend Bagby that got me into this mess in the first place. He’s ignored every letter I’ve written save the first, so you can tell him for me he can damned well untie the knot.”
With that he had slammed out and gone back to splitting wood. At the rate he was having to work off his frustrations, they’d soon have enough wood to fire every stove between here and Nova Scotia. If the woman had actually been called to the side of a sick relative, she should have written to explain. More likely, she’d changed her mind and found herself a better mark. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been cast aside when a bigger fish came along.
Leaning on the ax handle, he let his gaze wander over his princely estate: a straggling collection of unpainted buildings, a mule, half a dozen mares, one good stallion and a sail skiff.
God, no wonder she’d had second thoughts. What woman in her right mind would settle for this desolate outpost when she could live in the city and have an unending stream of fancy parties, pretty clothes and smooth-talking gentlemen to dance attendance?
He might even have agreed to set her and Annie up in town, but then what about Crank and Peg? He owed those two old men more than he could ever repay. They’d more or less raised him. He couldn’t see either of them settling down in a town where the horizon was hidden behind a bunch of three-and four-story buildings; where you couldn’t spit without looking first to see if your neighbor was in range.
At least on a barrier island a man was free to fight the elements, win or lose, unhampered by all the trappings of so-called civilized society. Roots, he was learning, went surprisingly deep in sand.
A patch of blue over on the ridge caught his eye. Damned if she didn’t dress to match those little blue flowers she kept digging up and bringing home. If she stayed out much longer she’d be burned to a crisp, that aristocratic nose of hers as red as a boiled crab.
Deliberately turning away, he swung the ax over his head and whacked into another chunk of oak. When the splits fell neatly on either side of the chopping block he kicked them aside for Luther to stack. Chopping wood helped a man work off his natural frustrations. God knows, he had enough of those.
Stacking it did little but give him a backache.
From inside the kitchen he could hear Crank gr
umbling about something or another. Crank always grumbled on a falling barometer. His cooking was getting more erratic every day. Matt didn’t know how to tell him without hurting his feelings, but he didn’t know how much more undercooked fish and unsalted bread he could stomach.
Rose, or Primrose as he’d taken to calling her in his mind, never complained. She would pick around the edges of her fish, douse her cornbread with molasses, and praise the plain boiled potatoes. She was considerate, more than he would have expected.
It occurred to him that Gloria, with all her fine foie gras manners, would never have gone out of her way to spare anyone’s feelings, much less those of an old man nearing the end of his usefulness.
Out near the shed Peg was mending the gate Jericho had kicked down and cursing the chickens that insisted on pecking around his feet. With his stiff hands, it was slow going, but the gate would eventually get mended, good as new.
Resting the ax between swings, Matt squinted against the brassy glare of the sky at the place where her ladyship lolled about on the sand. He’d lay odds she wasn’t near as cool and collected right now as she’d like the world to believe. He was half tempted to quit splitting wood and climb the ridge, just to watch her swatting mosquitoes and sweating like a horse.
But he wouldn’t. It had been a year and seven months since he’d had himself a woman. As long as he stayed busy, with enough on his mind to keep him occupied, it didn’t bother him overmuch, but lately he’d had trouble falling to sleep.
The time had come to make another trip to the mainland. A man’s natural urges, if they went too long unsatisfied, had a way of interfering with the logical workings of his mind. The trouble was, with a wife apt to show up most any day he was afraid to leave.
So he chopped wood.
Chopped wood and thought about the way a woman looked when she was fresh from her bath of a morning, with her skin all soft and smooth and smelling of lilacs. Or drying her hair on the back porch, with the afternoon sun setting fire to a halo of curls. Or later on, at the supper table, when she’d braided it up so tight it flattened the curls and pulled her eyes aslant, making them look even more like cat eyes.
The Paper Marriage Page 6