Chapter 36
Drew bundled Marianne in her cloak and helped her down the gangway to shore. His mind still reeled at the fact that he nearly lost her, that she had been kidnapped and almost taken to sea just as he had been four years before.
Ironic seemed too simple a word to define the situation.
“Where are we going?”
Drew could feel Marianne shaking through all the layers of her clothing. “To the inn across the way. We need to feed you, bathe you, and get you to bed. I can’t imagine the last few days have been easy.”
“No, it’s been a nightmare. When I tried to leave, Robert actually slapped me. Hard.”
Drew halted and turned her toward him. He growled, “That pernicious kidnapper struck you? I’ll kill him.” He spun around and dragged her back toward the ship.
Marianne tugged at his arm. “Stop. I’m all right. It won’t help now. Let them have him. Let him go to sea. Please, Drew. Don’t go back there. I don’t want to go back.”
He turned again and studied her face, her eyes circled by dark rings, her skin drawn and pale, her upper lip as white as a ship’s sails. There was the faintest wrinkle across her forehead. She was done in.
He wrapped her back in his arms, placed his cheek against the top of her head, and rocked her gently. “Yes, I’ll let him go. I need to take care of you. The sea can have him and may she do her worst to him. I’d wager he’ll not last a year on the high seas.”
Moments later, they entered the tavern. Drew waved at the innkeeper. “I need your best, cleanest room, a hot bath, your finest soap for my lady, and a hot meal as well.”
“Welcome back, m’lud. I’ll be off to fetch it all as soon as I take you upstairs.” Extracting himself from behind the bar, the keeper led the way.
The room, not large by any definition, looked clean enough as Drew scanned its contents: a large four-poster bed, a table, and two chairs before the fireplace.
The keeper bent and lit the already laid fire. “There you go, m’lud. I’ll be back in a trice with a hot bath and vittles.” He bowed then scurried out of the room.
“Marianne, let’s get you out of these clothes. You need some rest and nourishment. You do not look at all well. Tomorrow we’ll head for home where you can hug Andrea and finish recuperating.” He tugged at the ribbon tying her cloak and helped her off with it. Taking her elbow, he guided her over to one of the chairs to sit.
While Marianne settled, Drew stoked the fire to more heat and light. Even in summer, it could be cool in port cities, especially as night fell. With the flames flaring, he turned back to his wife.
Taking one foot in his hand he removed her shoe only to find her foot cold and clammy. “Marianne, you’re like ice.” He quickly rubbed the foot from toes to heel to warm it up, then unshod the other foot and repeated the process. Feeling circulation returning to her feet, he slid his hands up one leg, then the other to remove her stockings, casting them aside.
A knock came on the door. “The lady’s bath, m’lud.”
Drew rose to open the door. The innkeeper trundled in with another man dragging the copper bathing tub. Behind him, two young girls carried buckets of steaming water. Drew pushed the second chair and the table away from the hearth and the men set the tub down. The girls poured the buckets into it. One of the girls reached into a pocket to offer a bar of soap. The second one took a clean cloth that hung around her neck and handed it over. Both gave pert curtsies to Drew and Marianne, then escaped giggling, followed by the innkeeper’s helper.
“Food’ll be up in a moment, m’lud. I have only to go get it. Thought you’d like the bath first.” Giving a respectful nod, the keeper hurried out.
After testing the heat of the bath, Drew tugged Marianne out of her chair and made quick work of removing her clothes. “I’d prefer to seduce you into disrobing, my lady, but I think it best for now to just get you into this tub of hot water.” He swung her into his arms, then slid her easily into the water.
Marianne sighed as the heat enveloped her. “I thought I’d never see a hot bath again.”
“When we get home you can have as many baths as you want. Every day, if you so desire.”
Marianne chuckled.
Another knock came on the door.
This time when Drew opened it, he cautiously prevented it from swinging too wide as his wife bathed in the tub behind him. The innkeeper handed him a tray containing a number of steaming plates, two spoons, and two mugs. “Just let me know if you want more, m’lud.”
“Thank you.” Drew gently closed the door, then took the tray to the table.
Dragging the other chair over to the side of the tub, he took a bowl holding what looked like some kind of stew and one of the spoons and settled in the chair next to Marianne. “Open wide,” he said as he filled the spoon with hot stew.
“Let me finish my bath.” Marianne soaped one arm.
“You’re going straight into that bed when you finish your bath. Here, eat this. I’ll feed you.”
“I can feed myself.”
“Marianne, I’ve been worried sick over you for days. Please, let me care for you if only so I feel like I am helping.”
She looked up into his eyes. Evidently she saw his concern as she said, “Very well. If you insist.” And opened her mouth.
The bowl emptied, her body washed, Marianne stood up so Drew could wrap the drying cloth, which had been lying near the fire, around her. In the chill of a summer’s evening, she seemed too exhausted to decline the soothing heat of the bath and wrap.
After rubbing her down, he lifted her once again and carried her to the bed. In a moment she was tucked in.
“Aren’t you coming to bed, too?”
“I am. Just as soon as I wash some of the road dirt off of me. You go to sleep. I shan’t be five or ten minutes behind you.” He kissed both of her cheeks and her forehead, relieved to see her eyes close and her face relax. By the time he removed his clothes, washed off in the tub, and returned to curl his body around hers, she slept deeply.
Spooning his body next to hers, wrapping his arm around her, he sighed, then released himself to the welcome embrace of slumber.
~ ~ ~
Drew woke to find the bed empty beside him and the soft muffled sound of weeping coming from one of the chairs before the hearth. With no heed to his naked state, he rose from the comfort of the bed to find his wife wrapped in the drying sheet and curled in a ball in the chair.
He knelt before her. “Marianne, what’s wrong? You’re safe now.” Drawing her into his arms, he lifted her, then sat down in the chair with her in his lap.
She snuffled and wiped her cheeks with the sheet. “It was all so horrible, Drew. I met him purely by accident in Solihull after I spoke with Mrs. Pins. He invited me to lunch. I said yes so we could talk quietly.”
Drew ran his fingers through her disheveled tresses. “It’s all right, Marianne. You don’t have to say anything more. Let’s forget all about it.”
She pulled away. “No, I want to tell you.” She sat up just a little straighter. “While we ate, I told him of my decision to stay with you. He listened patiently so I thought he understood, that all would be well and we, he and I, could just be friends.” Tears kept seeping from her eyes. She wiped them away again.
“I don’t know when he did it, maybe when I spoke with Mrs. Pins, but he must have put something in my tea. When we rose from the table, I felt dizzy and my legs gave way. Robert helped me outside but then I found Honey gone. I have no idea how she got loose. I know I tied her to the hitching post properly.”
“I’m sure you did but he could have released her with an easy tug as he walked after you. That’s how we knew something was wrong, you know. Your mare found her way home just as I told you she would. She ambled in during the dinner hour while Chase and I discussed what to do about finding you.”
“I’m so glad she is all right. I worried about her when my mind functioned. But Robert told me he would take me home in his gig. I trusted him, so he helped me up onto the seat. I must have fainted. When I woke up the sky had darkened but he said we were almost there and handed me a flask of water. I took a few sips. How could I have known he had laced it with some drug?”
Drew held her tight and rocked her gently. “He probably dosed you with laudanum. Marianne, there is no blame to place at your door. Gentilly had been a friend and confidante for over two years. Of course you trusted him and took him at his word. In the same situation, any of us would have.”
“Drew, how could he? He drugged me all the way to the ship. I woke up on board. I threatened to scream and carry on but he told me he explained to the captain I was ill and delirious so no one would come to my aid. I told him I wanted to stay with you and Andrea. He dismissed you and told me we could have other children, that Andrea didn’t matter. He thought I’d leave my daughter. Then he told me the captain would marry us once we were at sea. I said no, I was already married and intended to remain so. He said you and Andrea were my past and that he was my future and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to leave the cabin. Really, I did. I slapped him when he tried to stop me but he just slapped me back, then left and locked me in.”
“Marianne, it’s all right. You’re safe now. They’ll soon be out to sea and we’ll see nothing more of him.”
She sobbed. “I was so scared. And I could only think of how terrified you must have been when you were abducted all those years ago. How you didn’t know anyone on the ship or where you were going or if you’d even survive.”
He rose, holding her tight to his chest, and took her to the bed. Removing the bath sheet, he slid her between the covers and climbed in with her, taking her into his arms. “Hush now, you’re safe. He’s gone and we’ll go on living our lives together.”
He kissed first one cheek then the other. “Let me love you, Marianne. Let me show you what our life will be from now on. Filled with love and the promise of a happy future.” He settled his lips against hers ever so gently.
His entire being responded to the nearness of her but when she opened her mouth and tangled her tongue deliciously with his, his entire body hardened with the need to be closer to her, part of her, united with her. He sat up on the bed, legs crossed, straddled her legs around his hips, settled her derrière in his lap, and wrapped his arms tightly around her. With gentle, coaxing strokes he kissed her deeply, felt the gentle pressure of her pebbled nipples against his chest, slid his hands up and down her back, into her hair, still slightly damp from the night before.
He broke away to nibble on one ear lobe, then the other as he whispered, “I’ll never have enough of you. When I thought I’d lost you, my heart was devastated. I obsessed about finding you, saving you from that bastard who pretended to be your friend.”
Marianne’s fingernails gently scored his back. “I never wanted to leave you. I never want to leave you again. I’m yours, Drew, now, forever, yours.”
He took her mouth again, ravenous for fulfillment, coupling, union. Placing a hand on each of her hips, he lifted her, then firmly pierced her with his hardness and stroked her sheath with the fierceness of a man struggling for a lifeline from a sinking ship.
The rapture of their joining came upon them so quickly, so intensely, there was no time for more love words, more foreplay. Their breath came hard and fast as they held on to each other as if they might be separated once again and refused to let it happen.
When their heartbeats returned to normalcy, Drew laid them down on the bed and enclosed her in the strength of his arms.
“Forever it will be then,” he whispered softly into her ear and was rewarded with a contented sigh.