The next morning, the family gathered aboard the Bonny Meg for the wedding ceremony. The decks were scrubbed clean, the sails billowing. The Union Jack had been hoisted now that they were in British waters.
Madeline had borrowed a pink lace and chiffon dress from Cousin Amy for the occasion. Its flowing hemline was just right for a sultry, outdoor wedding. Her hair was braided and pined in swirls, garnished with lavender, which was carried on board for medicinal purposes. And her bouquet consisted of other fragrant herbs from the galley, tied with ribbon.
Madeline soon stood across from William, adorned in dark breeches and polished boots. His shirt was crisp white, his black vest pressed, and a short red scarf was knotted around his neck. The wind teased his ebony locks, and she considered him the most handsome man she had ever seen. His gaze connected with hers, and their eyes never wavered from one another.
As James stood between them, reciting a few lines about matrimony, she scarcely heard the vows . . . or the lapping waves against the ship’s hull and the creaking deck boards, the taut ropes groaning under pressure and the sails swelling beneath gusts of air. The marine noises sounded like distant whispers. There was only the heavy drumbeat of her heart pounding in her ears, and a fluttering sensation in her belly that distracted her from her surroundings.
At some point, she heard the words “man and wife” and heaved a desperate breath, as if her head had been below water up until that time. The instant they were wed, a resounding cheer spread across the ship and rice peppered the air.
Madeline’s blood surged ever harder as her husband—her husband—stepped toward her and pinned her flushed cheeks between his palms, bussing her lips with a sweet, soft kiss.
“Hurrah!” from the crew and family again.
And she smiled, the moment perfect.
Dancing, drinking and food soon followed and lasted into the night. Many of the sailors were talented musicians and lutes and fiddles filled the starry sky with festive folks tunes. Feet stomped in reels and salted fish roasted over iron stoves, making the nautical reception as brilliant as any ball in London.
Of course, the ribald taunts started soon enough, crude smooching noises and teasing remarks about the wedding night from the drunken crew—and her new brothers-in-law.
Madeline had just finished a jig with Cousin Edmund, breathless, when the innuendos heated her already rosy cheeks. She glanced at William, leaning against the main mast, a tin mug in his hand. He watched her with such an intensity in his eyes, her lungs gasped for air.
After several more moments of silent observation, he sauntered toward her and the cacophony of bawdy voices increased. As he extended his hand, she blushed down to her toes. “Let’s get away from this ruckus,” he said in a smoky voice, his eyes just as smoldering.
She took his offered hand, so hot. He clamped hers in a protective, unmistakably possessive hold, and she shuddered at the newfound intimacy between a husband and wife.
William escorted her to a cabin that had been especially prepared for them, alight with lamps and dressed with fresh bedding. At the washstand, a bowl of steaming water, oil and herbs infused the room with the aroma of a wild garden.
Madeline heard the latch shut behind her, and her heart pounced with anticipation.
“You look lovely,” he murmured.
“Thank you.”
Her skin prickled with gooseflesh, and she twisted her fingers in an absentminded fashion. She had spent many nights in William’s arms, his bed. Why was the thought of being with him now so very different?
“I need help with the buttons at the back of my dress.”
His heavy footfalls approached her—and stilled. She heard his labored breathing, sensed his robust strength. He was inches away from her, but it was still too far. She wanted him even closer, deeper.
At last he touched her. She tightened under the tender brush of his knuckle at the nape of her neck before he grazed the curvature of her spine, right down to the small of her back.
The long, slow, and blatantly sensual, stroke ignited her blood, and she quivered with longing. But after the sensuous touch, he moved away from her, stopping beside the scuttle.
Her throat dry with want, she asked, hoarse, “What’s the matter?”
He folded his arms across his chest, his eyes covered by shadows. “I don’t think we should have a wedding night, Maddie.”
“Why? Do you have headache?”
He shook his head in denial.
If he wasn’t ill, then . . . “You don’t want to be with me anymore?”
He had performed his duty. He had married her, securing her reputation and that of any babe, but now he rebuffed their marital relationship: a relationship he’d never wanted until his brothers had forced him to do the honorable thing.
“I want to be with you,” he rasped with vehemence. “Always.”
And she sighed with indescribable relief. “What’s wrong, then?”
He pulled a letter from his trouser pocket, stared at it for a moment before he said, “This is the note I wrote to my sister: the one I asked you to deliver upon your return to England.” He handed her the sealed message. “I’d like you to read it.”
Madeline took the familiar paper, her fingers trembling. She also took in a fortifying breath. She knew, intuitively, the letter was going to change her life forever.
Tears filled her eyes even before she broke the wax seal, and anger replaced the want in her bones. He would deny her the pleasure of a wedding night, she thought with bitterness. Her first night in his arms as his wife would be dashed by the devastating news in the letter. And she knew the news was devastating. She felt the weight of the words in her hand; it pressed on her palm, her arm, her body until she dropped in a chair, unable to stand.
~ * ~
A welter of feeling raged in William’s breast as he watched his wife collapse in a chair, holding the letter in her quivering hand. He wanted to snatch the blasted note from her and tear it into pieces, to make love to her one last time . . . but if she wasn’t pregnant, it was better she remained that way. He wouldn’t take her to bed, knowing he’d leave her a widow with a child.
A selfish part of him didn’t give a damn about the future; he cursed it to hell. He had always done what was right, what was honorable, what was expected of him: the reasonable, levelheaded brother. And for once, he yearned to break the bars of his suffocating prison . . . but he couldn’t break anything without also breaking Maddie’s heart. And that hurt worse than any bullet in the chest.
She deserved to know his fate. As his wife, it was her fate, too.
Madeline opened the seal and unfurled the paper. Her eyes glazed over his penmanship, her features inscrutable.
His lungs seized as he waited for her response, and as the insufferable silence stretched, he wavered between addressing her and holding her . . . but soon the letter flittered from her fingers and gently touched the ground.
Without looking in his direction, she stood up and headed for the door, the heel of her shoe crushing the paper as she hastily retreated, rejecting him.
William girded his muscles, holding back a torrent of inexplicable, overwhelming emotion. It’s better this way, he told himself. It was better she hated him, so when he was gone, she wouldn’t mourn him. She wouldn’t feel any hurt. Yet still . . .
It was several minutes before he could breathe at a normal pace. Why was he feeling so damn much now? At the end of his life?
The moment he had the strength to walk, he thundered from the cabin, topside.
Amid the revelry, he searched for James. The second he spotted his eldest brother, he grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward the edge of the ship.
“What the devil are you doing here?” demanded James. “If your wedding night is over already, I’ll be mighty . . .” The banter ended there. After a thoughtful pause, “You told her the truth, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he gritted.
James looked over his shoulder, searching for the bride, no doubt, but she wasn’t to be found on deck. “I’m sorry, Will.”
“I’m going back to my ship. I need a boat.”
“And Maddie?”
“She’s staying aboard with you. I’ll send over her belongings in the morning.”
“I’ll fetch Eddie and Quincy.”
“Why?”
“They’re going back to the Nemesis with you.”
He growled, “I don’t need nursemaids.”
“But you need a boat.”
In other words, ‘take the fledglings or swim back to the Nemesis.’ Though tempted to jump ship as suggested, William gritted, “Fine.”
James left to make the arrangements.
William inhaled the salty air and shut his eyes, still fighting to keep the anguish in his breast from bursting through his ribs. When a feminine hand brushed his lower back and a head propped on his shoulder, he sighed.
“I’m still angry with you, you know?”
William opened his eyes and kissed the top of his sister’s golden head. She mirrored their mother with her blonde locks and umber eyes, while the rest of them resembled their father: black tresses and sea blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, Belle.”
She sniffed and parted from him. “Is everything all right between you and Maddie?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She removed a thin chain from her neck, a gold ring at the end. She held the chain straight until the bauble tumbled into her hand. “I want you to have this, Will.”
He recognized the ring. It had belonged to their father. “But he gave it to you for your twentieth year.” She cherished the ring. Wore it always.
“And I’m giving it to you on your wedding day. For luck.”
He accepted the gift with uneasy gratitude, fingering the bauble: a man’s ring with a winged hourglass for an emblem, a pirate’s ring warning time was getting away. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She walked away then.
William curled his palm around the ring, feeling time flying away . . . but there was nothing he could do to stop it, much less turn it around.