The Bride's Rescuer
Page 7
In the kitchen, as Mrs. Givens had promised, Celia found a napkin-covered plate that held fluffy biscuits filled with thin slivers of ham and slices of fresh pineapple. She took one and wandered down the kitchen steps, hoping to find Cameron, but her host had disappeared.
Noah was in the vegetable garden chopping weeds with a hoe.
“Want some help?” she asked.
He looked up in surprise, then leaned one arm on his hoe while he wiped his face with his sleeve.
“No, ma’am. It’s hot and dirty work for a lady. But I sure would like somebody to talk to. Makes the work go faster.”
She settled onto a large stump nearby, guessing from the grooves in its surface it was used for chopping kindling, and nibbled her belated breakfast.
“How long have you worked for Mr. Alexander?” she asked.
“Ever since we came here, six years ago.”
“Did you come with him from England?”
Her question was more than idle conversation. Celia hoped Noah would shed some light on the reason Cameron had left his native land. Her interest grew not only out of concern for her safety but also out of the strange effect Cameron had on her. He’d become her last thought before sleeping, her first fancy on waking and the person she looked for when she entered a room.
Noah, not realizing her motives, told her about himself. “I met Mr. Alex in Key West. I come from South Carolina, but I’d been working on a shrimp boat out of the keys.”
“Why did you come here?”
Noah’s dark eyes clouded. “They was a fight on the boat. One man gutted another with a fish knife. I had nothing to do with it, but the crew decided they’d put the blame on me. When we reached port and they called the cops, I ran. Hid on Captain Biggins’s boat. That’s where I met Mr. Alex.”
“And that’s why you can’t leave here?”
He nodded sadly. “If the police catch me, it’s my word against three others. I don’t want to go to jail. I’d shrivel up and die if I couldn’t be outdoors.”
Her appetite disappeared at Noah’s story. She crumbled the remainder of her biscuit and scattered it for the gulls.
“Living on this island isn’t my idea of freedom,” she said.
“Where was I gonna hide? And how was I gonna earn a living? When I told him my story, Mr. Alex asked me if I’d come work for him, and I said yes. We came to this island that same day.”
She glanced around at the garden and the wood pile, both Noah’s domain. “You work hard, don’t you?”
A broad grin split his face. “I don’t mind working hard. When we first came, Mr. Alex worked as long and hard as me to build this house. Even now he works, too, hunting and fishing for food, chopping wood when need be. He’s a good man, Mr. Alex is.”
Pondering Cameron’s goodness with more than a pinch of doubt, she gazed across the dunes rising between her and the gulf.
“But I ain’t told you the best part,” Noah said. “Every week since I came here, Mr. Alex gives me my pay. I been saving it up for when I’m too old and feeble to work. That’s when I’ll leave here and go to Canada or maybe even to Africa, where the Key West law can’t find me. I’m a lucky man.”
He was lucky to have avoided being arrested, falsely accused and imprisoned, but beneath his surface cheerfulness, Celia sensed a deep sadness. He had to be lonely, in spite of his gratitude at being free.
For Mrs. Givens and Noah, their work took all their time, especially without the modern conveniences that Celia was accustomed to, but how Cameron spent his days remained a mystery.
“How does Mr. Alexander pass his time?” she asked.
“He studies things.”
“Books?”
“Sometimes books. He’s got stacks of ’em in his study and Captain Biggins is always bringing more. But mostly Mr. Alex studies plants and flowers and fish and animals.”
“Is he a scientist? A naturalist?”
Noah shrugged. “I think he just likes ’em. And he leaves things where he finds ’em. He don’t hold with cages or killing things for—” He scratched his head. “What was that word?”
“Specimens?”
“Yeah, that’s it. He believes what the Good Book says, that people should be stewards of the earth.”
“He’s right, Noah.” She stood and shook her cumbersome skirt. “If we don’t take care of the earth, a hundred years from now, this could all be ruined.”
Noah threw back his head and laughed. “You’re joshing, Miss Celia. All this land and water? Why, it’s enough to last to the end of time.”
That’s what too many people thought, she grumbled to herself as she walked back to the house.
Her conversation with Noah had taught her more about Cameron, revealing his positive traits to add to the less stellar ones he had exhibited since her arrival. He also had a treasure she was anxious to share. A study full of books.
Mrs. Givens was singing in the kitchen as she prepared dinner, and Cameron was nowhere in sight when Celia entered the house.
She slipped into his study to search for something to read and closed the door behind her. Through the open French doors of the room, she could view the path to the beach, but Cameron wasn’t in sight.
The walls of bookcases overflowed with volumes, and stacks of books littered the floor. A wing chair and ottoman, upholstered in maroon leather and flanked by a campaign chest holding a decanter of whiskey and glasses, stood within arm’s reach of the shelves. Cameron’s frame was imprinted in the chair’s leather cushions, and she sat, molding her body to the impressions in the leather, thinking disturbingly intimate thoughts of the man who’d made those indentations.
Disconcerted by the direction her thoughts were taking, she scrambled to her feet and returned her attention to the shelves. Her survey revealed books on meteorology, astronomy, ornithology, botany, horticulture and zoology. On the opposite wall were Shakespeare’s plays, several slim volumes of poetry, classical novels and dozens of the past year’s bestsellers. She studied the titles, but they told her nothing about Cameron except that his taste in reading was eclectic.
Consumed by curiosity to know more about the man who held her hostage and who haunted her waking dreams, she was drawn to his desk, a large mahogany structure that dominated the room. She settled into the chair behind it and inspected the pipe rack, humidor and pens and pencils on its polished surface. Neatly piled to one side were several bound journals. With only a slight twinge of conscience over her snooping, she opened the top one. Written in a bold, clear hand were the day’s date and a summary of the weather and tides of the previous day. A peek at the other journals revealed records of bird sightings, fish catches and plant and wildlife observations.
What little she had learned from Noah about Cameron had only whetted her appetite for more. She slid open the top right drawer of his desk. Stacked inside were folders filled with papers. The top folder held bills and receipts for supplies, but the second, filled with old newspaper articles, proved more interesting. She picked it up and a yellowed clipping fluttered to the floor.
Celia retrieved the clipping, an article from the London Times dated over seven years earlier. The headline read Heiress And Son Murdered, Killer At Large.
Intrigued, Celia read further:
Yesterday police discovered the bodies of Clarissa Wingate Alexander, heir to the Wingate mining empire, and her son, Randolph, in their country estate on the Devon coast. Although authorities have released no specifics, the pair were brutally murdered. Police have no suspects in the killings, and Cameron Alexander, the bereaved husband and father—
At the sound of footsteps on the veranda outside the study, Celia stuffed the clipping back into the folder, jammed the folder in the drawer and slammed it shut. She scampered across the room to the shelves of novels, grabbed the handiest book, and opened it, pretending to read.
She looked up to find Cameron, leaning against the door frame and watching her. With the sunlight behind him, his face was unreadab
le in the shadows, but the irritation in his voice was unmistakable.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Chapter Five
Cameron stepped into his study and confronted Celia, who stood at the bookcase across the room like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit tin. She had obviously been snooping, but what, if anything, had she discovered? The flush on her face could have been embarrassment, distress, or merely the sunburn she’d suffered from yesterday’s escape attempt.
Before he could speak, she glanced at the book she held in her hands, discovered it was upside-down, and righted it quickly.
Cameron repressed a grin. God, the woman had spunk. He’d caught her red-handed rifling through his office, but she’d recovered her composure and faced him now, head high, chin out, eyes blazing with innocence. She was absolutely fearless, a woman who had braved the unknown in a strange boat within days of a terrible shipwreck that almost killed her. Her courage evoked a tenderness toward her that he fought to repress. For now, he had to avoid this woman who held such fascination for him.
“I was looking for something to read,” she said in a clear, unwavering tone and held the volume out to him.
He moved closer, careful to keep his suspicions and his attraction hidden. He glanced at the title and raised an eyebrow. “Paradise Lost. An interesting choice.”
“I hope you don’t mind.” Her straightforward gaze challenged him.
Only with the strongest resolve did he hold himself in check, when what he wanted most was to take the book from her and draw her to him, to feel the softness of her skin against his— He yanked his rebellious thoughts back in line. “On the contrary. Help yourself to any book you wish. They make good company.”
With a nonchalance he didn’t feel with his senses stirring at his proximity to her, so close he could inhale the delightful frangipani-scented soap she’d bathed with, he moved across the room. With studied casualness, he took a small key from the top of his desk and locked the drawers. He would share their contents someday with his uninvited guest, but not yet. First, he had to win her trust and her loyalty.
“I hope you haven’t suffered ill effects from your recent trip.” He placed the key in the pocket of his shirt and resisted the tender feelings welling in him, generated by her bravado at being caught snooping. Celia Stevens was an intelligent woman. She would demand answers to why she was being held prisoner and persist until she’d ferreted out the reason for her captivity. But he must make her wait as long as possible before knowing the truth.
For both their sakes.
She shook her head. “No ill effects. Just a touch of sunburn.”
Longing to remain in her company, but afraid to trust his reactions to his beautiful guest, he turned toward the door. “Take any book you want,” he repeated and rushed headlong toward the beach and solitude.
He had questions of his own he wanted answered. Why had Celia been wearing a wedding gown when he and Noah had first discovered her cast up on his beach? Had she been running from—or to—marriage? And why should her marital state matter to him?
SHAKEN, CELIA WATCHED him go. With the knowledge the newspaper clipping had given her, she viewed Cameron from a new perspective, understanding at last why he’d chosen to withdraw to the privacy of his island in the Florida wilderness. To have lost both his wife and child in such a violent manner must have devastated him. No wonder Mrs. Givens wouldn’t speak of it. Any references or remembrances would only bring him more pain.
The desire to follow Cameron, to place her arms around him and console him swept through her, until she realized that her stoic host didn’t look as if he’d be easily comforted. Then another thought struck her. If Cameron had simply withdrawn in grief, why the obsessive need to keep his whereabouts secret?
She’d do well to stay as far away as possible from her attractive captor until she had answered that question to her satisfaction.
For the next few days, she saw little of Cameron. Her time was spent with Mrs. Givens, who had recruited Celia into a campaign to provide her with a proper wardrobe.
After breakfast each morning, they cleared the large kitchen table and spread out fabrics for cutting. Mrs. Givens contributed several lengths of cotton cloth, one a leaf green, another a deep blue, and the third a pale yellow. Celia knew the materials had been intended for the housekeeper’s own use, but Mrs. Givens brushed aside her protests.
“We’ll make you some casual clothes, but you should have a few dresses, too.” The housekeeper gazed at the ill-fitting borrowed clothes Celia was wearing. “Even in the wilderness, we try to keep our ways civilized.”
Doubting the usefulness of dresses, but acknowledging that she would soon wear out her one pair of shorts and only shirt, Celia applied herself diligently with needle and thread. To her surprise, she found she could produce a small, neat stitch and she began to enjoy sewing.
Mrs. Givens, after measuring every circumference and length of Celia, cut underclothes from fine linen sheets, and Celia stitched them while the housekeeper constructed patterns for dresses, shorts and shirts.
The sewing times created an oasis of camaraderie and happiness in the long, lonely days as Celia waited for the time to pass. The hot, humid weather had broken the day of her return from her escape attempt, and mornings in the kitchen, even with the cooking fire blazing in the wood stove, were comfortable and pleasant with the French doors open to the sea breeze.
The enticing aromas of baking always filled the room, from the yeasty tang of dinner rolls to the spicy scent of gingerbread. A true Englishwoman, Mrs. Givens kept the kettle boiling and constantly replenished the teacup at Celia’s elbow. Had Celia not been homesick and concerned over her eventual fate, plus struggling to understand her inexplicable longing to spend more time with her elusive host, she would have found even greater satisfaction in those hours of tranquil domesticity.
Mrs. Givens chattered as she worked, telling stories of her childhood in Liverpool, of Mr. Givens’s death at sea some thirty-five years earlier, and of Cameron’s childhood. “I went to work for the Alexanders right after my Arthur died. Mr. Alexander—Cameron—had just been born, and his mother wasn’t well, so the child needed me. And I needed him, broken up as I was over losing my Arthur.”
“And you’ve been with him all this time?”
“Aye, I raised him from a babe, then took over the housekeeping for him and his father when his poor mother and baby brother died in childbirth. Cameron was only four years old.”
“Is his father still alive?”
“Died when the lad was fifteen. Thrown from a horse and broke his neck. That loss almost killed Cameron.”
“They were close?”
“He worshiped his father. Went quite wild after Mr. Alexander died. I’d hoped Clarissa—”
Mrs. Givens clamped her jaw shut, got up and took the kettle off the stove. She busied herself refilling the teapot, avoiding Celia’s gaze.
“Is that Clarissa’s portrait in the front room?” Celia asked.
Mrs. Givens returned the kettle to the stove, crossed to the open doorway overlooking the bay, and gazed toward the pier as if to assure herself that Cameron’s sloop was still gone. She returned and settled herself into her rocker by the fire. “You must never speak her name in this house.”
“Why?” Celia couldn’t admit that she understood. She was ashamed to confess to snooping in Cameron’s desk.
“It’s too painful for Mr. Alexander.”
“She’s dead?”
Mrs. Givens nodded and tears filled her eyes. “And little Randolph, too. I’d raised him from a baby, just like his father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was horrible, just horrible.” The housekeeper’s lips trembled and tears flowed down her cheeks.
Celia poured her a fresh cup of tea, added milk and sugar the way Mrs. Givens liked it, and handed her the cup. “I shouldn’t have mentioned…I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I can understand why you don’t want anything said around Mr. Alexander. It must be awful for him, too.”
Mrs. Givens snapped up her head and drilled Celia with a penetrating stare. “What do you know about it?”
“Nothing.” She couldn’t help blushing at her lie. “Only what you’ve told me.”
“Then let it go at that. Their deaths were a terrible, terrible…accident, and it’s best we don’t speak of them again.”
Accident?
Celia longed to ask the housekeeper more, but speaking of it upset Mrs. Givens so much, Celia knew she would be cruel to press the issue. Maybe the housekeeper thought the word murder so sinister, she couldn’t bring herself to use it.
Celia returned to her sewing, and Mrs. Givens did the same, putting the finishing touches on the deep blue dress, a slender sleeveless sheath with a scooped neck that would be cool and comfortable in the Florida weather, but where Celia would wear it was a puzzle. All she needed were shorts and shirts. Aside from walking the beach, she spent her time either in the kitchen or reading in her room. She didn’t require a dress for any of those activities.
And she certainly didn’t need a new dress to please her elusive host. That day, as had been his custom since her arrival, Cameron took his lunch in a basket on his sloop, where he spent most of the day. He ate dinner either alone in his study or in the formal dining room, but Mrs. Givens served Celia’s dinner with hers in the kitchen or carried it up to her room on a tray.