She reached out and took the paper. “What is it?”
“A poem. It’s bad. But read it anyhow.”
Dubiously, she unfolded the paper.
“Go ahead,” he urged, when she hesitated.
She looked at him, and in the flickering light from a lantern, began to read. “Rosalie McCormack, she has my heart, this beautiful girl has owned it from the start. With eyes that sparkle and hair like the sun, I know in my soul she’s the only one.”
“Awwww, Kieran. That is really sweet.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Her eyes warmed. “Well, you’re not Shakespeare, but if you were, I wouldn’t be half as fascinated by you.”
“Keep reading.”
“As poets go, I’m not the best, and if she likes this I’ve passed the test. She kissed me awake in a cave in the sand, and I hope when she reads this she’ll give me her hand.”
She looked at him, trying not to laugh. His lips twitched; he was not taking himself seriously, and she laughed right along with him. She returned her attention to the paper and kept reading.
“So here I am, hopelessly in love, with a girl who’s as beautiful as a dove. I hope my heart she will not break, because that heart is hers to take.”
“Oh, Kieran…”
“Marry me, Rosalie. And you’ll have bad poetry for the rest of your life.”
She lowered the paper and touched the healing gash on his cheek. “Kieran, there is something you need to know about me. Something that you must know before we can take this any further, because after you know it, you may not wish to have anything more to do with me.”
“I can’t imagine anything you might say that would put me off, Rosalie.”
“This might.”
“So what is it?”
She took a deep, bracing breath and gripped his hands. “James and I….” She shut her eyes, unable to bear the pain she was about to bring him and the rejection that would certainly follow. “He…that is to say, we….” Shame filled her and she waited for him to pull away, to retreat into formality and leave her here out here in the dark as he retreated to his sloop. “We—”
He said nothing, just waiting with the quiet patience that was so much a part of him.
“It only happened once, but…we, uh…we did something that only married people do,” she said at length—and waited for her world to crumble around her. Waited for him to let go of her hands and stand up, to back away, to bow a farewell to her and disappear into the darkness.
And waited.
“Want to hear some bad poetry?” he finally asked, and she opened her eyes to see him smiling down at her.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Rosalie, my beautiful flower, plucked she was in her finest hour, afraid she was that her suitor might bolt, her suitor afraid that HE was the dolt.”
The ludicrous verse broke the tension and Rosalie burst out laughing.
“So they sat on a bench and she thought he would run, he looked at her and just wanted some fun—”
“Oh, Kieran, that is bad!”
“Deter him it didn’t and never it would, for he loved her as much as a man possibly could.”
She collapsed in giggles, relieved. “So my confession hasn’t scared you off?”
“Marry me, Rosalie. Or I shall be forced to come up with even worse verse.”
“You’d still have me, even after that confession?”
“Don’t be insane. You’re only human and we all do things we regret. It’s not the end of the world, for heaven’s sake.”
“But you won’t be bringing a virgin to your wedding night bed.”
“Neither will you.”
“But you’re a man…it’s different….”
“Is it?”
She wiped her hand over her face, overwhelmed.
Kieran leaned forward to touch his brow to hers “Do you love me?”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘buts.’ You either love me and wish to marry me, or you don’t.”
“Oh, Kieran, I don’t know what to say.”
“Then say ‘yes.’ Your courage in telling me this, something I know causes you great pain, only makes me admire you all the more.” He cradled her face in his hands and gazed deeply into her eyes. “I want you as my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, to have children, to grow old together. We can live in Baltimore so you can be near your family. Or we can go to Newburyport, where I still have some of mine. Or we could spend half the year in each place or live somewhere else entirely. I don’t care what is in your past, Rosalie, I really don’t; I only care what is in your future, and that I am in it.”
She felt the tears of relief slipping from her eyes, hot, salty tracks that wet her cheeks and plopped onto the thin muslin of her gown. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling him thumbing away the moisture, cupping her cheek with his hand.
“Don’t cry,” he said quietly. “Please don’t cry. I’ve never made a woman cry before and I don’t want to start with you, of all people.”
“I don’t know what to say….”
“Say yes.” His quiet, steady, beloved gaze was intent on hers. “I love you. I want you by my side for the rest of my life. I may and I may not be many things, Rosalie, but one thing I’m not is a bad judge of character. I see a woman who is vibrant and beautiful and generous, one who is brave and kind, honorable and true. One who shares my love of the sea, one who pulls me out of my shell and forces me to inhabit a world that I’d otherwise avoid and to actually take enjoyment from that world. You buoy me. You make my very soul sing with joy just for being near you. My God, Rosalie, must I beg?”
She shook her head through her tears. “I would never have you beg, Kieran.”
“Then marry me, Rosalie.”
“You’ll take me with all my warts?”
“I’ll take you just as you are. I wouldn’t change a damned thing. Not one.”
She sniffed back the tears, clutching his hands like a lifeline.
“Rosalie?”
She nodded, her lips already seeking his in relief and joy. “Yes, Kieran. Yes, I will marry you.”
Chapter 25
Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 4 June, 1814
Today is my wedding day. I am the happiest and most fortunate man who ever lived. If I have any wish at all aside from the obvious, it is that you, Dadai, and Mother, were here to see my dreams come true. You would love Rosalie. I know you would. Please, give us your blessings from heaven.
They were married just over a week later.
Angus and Susannah McCormack might’ve envisioned a huge and splashy societal affair for their eldest daughter with invitations going out to the most prominent citizens of Baltimore, Annapolis and even Washington. But given the scandal over Rosalie’s ending her betrothal with James, it was decided to make the affair a small and private one. Any whisperings and raised eyebrows about the haste with which the nuptials were announced and the ceremony celebrated were quelled by rumors that Miss McCormack’s handsome groom was eager to return to the Caribbean to destroy the nest of pirates that had claimed some of Baltimore’s own, and that the lady herself wished to accompany him. The swiftness with which he replaced his crew amongst Baltimore’s seafaring population was a testament to both the design of his ship, the tales (spread by Stephen) of his fearless heroics while rescuing what was left of Penelope’s nen, and his likeable, unassuming character itself as he mingled with the people of Fell’s Point, observing the way they built the privateering schooners for which the city had become justly famous.
It wasn’t long before all of Baltimore was in love with the quiet New Englander who’d won not only the heart of Rosalie McCormack, but brought a number of its sons safely home. And tongues did indeed wag. The beautiful young women who had dismissed Rosalie as too garish in coloring, too plump, too tanned and too freckled to be serious competition for the city’s most eligible bachelors, had to swallow their own bile that she’d ret
urned from her self-imposed exile with the most eligible bachelor of all.
He in a fitted blue tailcoat and she in an elegant Empire-waisted gown of cream satin with capped sleeves, gloves, and a string of pearls woven through her carefully pinned up hair, they made their vows in the hot and sweltering First Presbyterian Church. They returned to the McCormack mansion and the day flew past. The last of the guests were still drinking toasts to their health as well as the longevity and fruitfulness of their marriage when Kieran, the only sober man in the home’s hot, crowded ballroom, leaned down and murmured in Rosalie’s ear.
“If it’s all the same to you, dearest, I’m ready to leave.”
She nodded.
Announcements were made…the new couple was soon to be off.
People came forward, taking Rosalie’s hands and hugging her as they wished her and Kieran well. Father… Mother… Stephen and Pepper and her aunt, along with their closest friends and neighbors. Liam, who’d spent most of the day at Aunt Annis’s side. Joel, and the men who’d helped sail Sandpiper back from the Caribbean. The foxhounds, Jack and Jill, tongues lolling in the heat. The day marked the end of what was familiar. A turning point in her life, in any bride’s life.
No. The turning point in my life was when Kieran found me in that cabin.
And that desperate kiss in an island cave to wake him.
She smiled, and gazed down at her finger as the McCormack coachman drove them to the Indian Queen Hotel on the corner of Hanover and Baltimore streets. It would take her some time to get used to the intricate gold band set with her favorite stone—a blue sapphire—but its weight and presence were as comfortable as the new name she now carried.
The coach came to a stop. Kieran helped her out, they checked in, and then sat together outside enjoying cold glasses of lemonade and watching the sun set until the mosquitoes came out.
By the time Rosalie had slapped at a third one, her husband was standing up and reaching for her hand.
“I think we should retire, Mrs. Merrick,” he said.
She flushed, suddenly assailed by the memory of her new husband as he’d been a week ago, lying tangled in the sheets of an upstairs bedroom, warm and sleepy and inviting, and she hoped she wouldn’t shock him by all but ripping his clothing off to return him to that state.
Had he ever looked more handsome?
Well, he’d looked plenty handsome standing at Sandpiper’s helm with the wind carelessly tossing his hair around his face, his cheek still oozing blood and his body bristling with an arsenal of weapons. And he’d looked plenty handsome when she’d first seen him dressed as a gentleman…and he’d looked plenty handsome when—
Patience!
He escorted her inside and up the stairs. Their room was papered in a light floral pattern, the windows draped with rose damask, a large bed of polished cherry commanding the chamber and hung with gauzy muslin that lent an air of both coolness and elegance. Rosalie looked at that bed and what it promised, and felt her heart kick up a beat.
Patience!
Kieran shut the door behind them.
“Well,” he said, taking off his smart black top hat and placing it on a chair. He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it and restoring it to the carelessly tousled look she loved so much. “If we were any other couple, I’d ply you with drink to dispel any nervousness, have a shot or two myself, and we’d get down to the business of consummating our union.”
“But we’re not any other couple.”
“No, we’re not.” He sat down on the bed and began to pull off a shoe.
She watched him. “But we still have to get to the consummation part.”
“Indeed.”
The hell with patience. “And I’d like to begin it by getting you as naked as I saw you last week, but then I’d have to contend with what I suspect would be your complete and utter shock.”
He paused in removing his shoe, cocked his head ever so slightly, and looked at her, one corner of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly. It was subtle, but she had come to recognize that look. It was his look of information-gathering, of mulling that information over in his mind, of coming to conclusions that were, almost always, uncannily correct. There was no hiding from that look, no lying to that look. And, as if he knew the direction of her thoughts—and surely he did—the slight lift in his mouth became a teasing, amused little smile, and he raised one dark and questioning brow.
“Do you know, Rosalie,” he said, removing the other shoe, “I do believe I would enjoy being completely and utterly shocked.”
“Would you?”
He pushed aside the cast-off shoes with one foot and again, looked up at her. The last rays of the setting sun caught the profile of his face, gleamed in his dark, carelessly curling hair, and struck gold off the buttons of his open tailcoat. And then his mouth began to twitch with suppressed humor.
“What?” she asked, grinning.
“This beautiful woman is my bride, but her boldness she thinks I cannot abide—”
“No, no poetry—”
“When truth be told I’d have her no other way, the most beautiful girl on the Chesapeake Bay.”
Rosalie laughed, shook her head, and put her hands on her hips. “Kieran Merrick, I hope to God you’re a better lover than you are a poet.”
“Why don’t you come over here and find out?”
His warm caramel eyes sparkled with merriment. She looked at him sitting there on the bed in a cutaway tailcoat as blue as the sea he loved, his fitted vest showing underneath. His fitted vest that she couldn’t wait to unbutton. A ruffle of lace at his throat only emphasized his tanned skin into which the boyishly endearing spatter of freckles across his nose blended, and with a sudden pang of emotion and gratitude, Rosalie knew herself to be the most fortunate and blessed woman on the planet.
She folded her arms across her chest as though to contain her suddenly burgeoning heart. “I love you, Kieran Merrick,” she said quietly.
He pulled off his socks, never breaking eye contact with her. “I love you too, Rosalie Merrick.” He cocked his head and looked at her. “You’re not going to cry again, are you?”
“If I do, it’s because I’m grateful to be married to the best and most wonderful of men.”
“Aye, well, you haven’t tried me out in bed yet. I may disappoint.”
She walked over to him still sitting on the bed and tenderly cupped his jaw in her hands. She gazed down into his eyes. “You,” she said, and leaned down to ever-so-gently touch her lips to his healing cheek, “have never disappointed me and I don’t expect you to start tonight.” She let her hands drift downwards over the snug vest and the hard chest just beneath, and began to coax his tailcoat off. “You,” she continued, “are everything I’ve ever dreamed of. And you—” She couldn’t help a sudden little smile—“are overdressed.”
“And so, Rosalie, are you.”
Their lips met as he shrugged the rest of the way out of his tailcoat. His hands went around the small of her back, pulling her off balance and down onto his knee. The feel of his long, hard thigh beneath her bottom caused her to flush. His mouth became insistent, angled now against hers, seeking, hungry and demanding.
She broke away. “My gown—”
“Has to go.”
She leaned into him so he could undo the back buttons of the satin garment. He smelled of shaving soap and linen. His hands were warm against her skin as he worked, and she remembered these same hands coaxing anguish and beauty from an old violin, killing a pirate, wielding a cutlass, steering a ship; hands that knew how to do many things and would surely bring her pleasure on this, her wedding night.
The feel of his fingers against her nape caused heat to pulse through her blood.
He was not going to disappoint.
Oh, no. Not Kieran.
“You’ve an unfair advantage here,” he said, his fingers pushing beneath the now-gapping fabric at her shoulders and gently caressing her skin. She shivered with desire. Felt those
hands, ever so warm and delicious, now tracing the groove of her spine through her corset and chemise.
“How so?”
“You’ve seen me with nary a stitch of clothing on. I’ve not yet had that same pleasure.”
“Maybe it’ll be my turn to disappoint.” She sighed as he leaned forward, his lips against the side of her neck, kissing her. “After all, I’m as round as an apple.”
“As sweet as a cherry,” he murmured against the satiny skin beneath her ear.
“As plump as a pineapple.”
“As ripe as a berry.”
She realized he was deliberately rhyming again, and laughed.
“And you taste sweeter than all of those fruits combined,” he said, his tongue coming out to flick at the little pulse point at the base of her neck. “Mmmm….”
She sighed as he kissed her there, his lips drifting lower to brush against the swell of one breast.
“About my gown,” she managed.
“It has to come off.”
“Take it off then, Kieran.”
She slid off his knee, already missing the press of his thigh against her most intimate flesh, and turned her back toward him. He got up behind her. Came up close. Very close. She could feel the heat of his body all down her back as he slowly worked each button through its hole, lower and lower and lower. She could hear his breathing, feel it against her nape as he bent his head and kissed her there. Could feel the confident brush of his knuckles against her skin.
And then he turned her to face him, pulling the gown up and over her head until she stood before him in her corset, chemise and petticoats.
A moment later, the corset, too, was off.
Heir To The Sea Page 21