The Paper Marriage. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ the catch and salting down those fish not needed for the day’s meals. “Let me clean up first and I’ll stand the next watch. Think she’ll be sleeping by then?”

      “More likely she’ll be squalling again.”

      Because his grandfather had been one of them, Matt had been guardedly accepted by the villagers when, along with the two youngest and the two eldest members of his crew, he had returned to Powers Point, the land his grandfather had purchased soon after he’d sold his ship and retired. After standing empty for years, most of the buildings had been storm-damaged, a few of them washed clean away, but the main house was still sound. With the help of Peg, his ship’s carpenter, and a few of the local builders, they had brought it up to standard, adding on whatever rooms were deemed necessary.

      In Matt’s estimation, it was as fine a place as any man could want, still he counted the days until he could leave. Crank and Peg would stay on as caretakers once he got his ship back. Neither of them was young or nimble enough to return to their old way of life.

      The five men had quickly settled into a comfortable routine, fishing, repairing the outbuildings, working with the half-wild horses they’d bought on the mainland and had shipped across the sound—riding into the village for supplies or to meet the mail-boat.

      Billy and Luther had quickly made friends, especially among the young women. The first few times they’d ridden south, Matt had cautioned them as a matter of course against drinking, gambling, fighting and fornicating. “A village like this is different from a port city. If either one of you oversteps the boundaries here, we’ll all pay the price.”

      “I ain’t heard no complaints, have you, Lute?” Billy had grinned in the infectious way that had made him a favorite of all, male and female, young and old. Remembering what it had been like to be young and full of juice, Matt hadn’t kept too tight a line on them.

      Now Billy was lying under six feet of sand.

      Not a one of them doubted he’d done what he’d been accused of doing. Luther had as much as admitted he’d suspected what was going on. Evidently, half the village had suspected, but as the woman in question was from away and her much older husband had a reputation for meanness, they had chosen to mind their own affairs.

      Hearing the sound of Peg’s hammer as he nailed another rafter in place, Matt slowly shook his head. Using wrack collected along the shore, the old man had insisted on building another room for Annie, as if they didn’t have rooms going unused in the old two-story frame house.

      But then, it made as much sense as Luther’s wanting to buy and train a pony for her, and her not even two months old. Crank had even mentioned getting her a puppy.

      It amused Matt to watch his crew vie for Annie’s favor. If she preferred one over the other, she didn’t let on. Bess could sort it all out, if she ever showed up. He had lost his temper and called her a meddling old busybody the last time she’d poked her nose into his personal affairs, but sooner or later she’d be back. Out of curiosity, if nothing else. And once she was here, he could concentrate all his efforts on regaining his ship.

      His ship…

      Looking back, Matt marveled at the depths of stupidity to which an otherwise intelligent man could sink. Four years ago, at the behest of an old friend of his father’s, he’d reluctantly agreed to attend a ball being held to raise funds for the Old Seamen’s Retirement Home.

      It was there that he’d met Gloria Timmons, daughter of one of the sponsors. She had stood in the receiving line looking like one of those Christmas-tree angels, all white and gold and sparkling.

      A large man, used to towering over all women and most men, Matt had been flat-out terror-stricken when she’d placed her small, soft hand in his, gazed up at him with eyes the color of a summer sky, and fanned her eyelashes. With his free hand he’d tugged at his collar. He’d had to clear his throat several times, and she must’ve felt sorry for him because she’d given him a smile that would melt a cannonball.

      Matt could readily hold his own in the company of men, but he was a fish out of water when it came to women. The truth was, he’d never really trusted one, not since his mother had decided she’d rather live ashore than aboard her husband’s ship, even if it meant leaving her eight-year-old son behind with his father.

      Not that he hadn’t enjoyed his share of doxies, but respectable women—especially young, beautiful, dainty, respectable women with soft voices, soft faces and soft hands—those were his downfall.

      It had all started that night. Matt had never bothered to learn how to dance. With Gloria, he’d scarcely been able to string two words together without stuttering, but somehow she had made him feel like a regular Prince Charming. By the time that first evening was over, he’d been heart-stricken in the worst way.

      They’d spent every day together the entire time his ship was in port. Neglecting appointments with custom officers, shipping agents, brokers and consigners, over the course of seven days he had listened to more music, drunk more tea and sat through more dull lectures than any man should have to endure in one lifetime.

      He hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. If Gloria had asked him, he would have crawled over a bed of live coals.

      The night before he’d sailed she had allowed him to kiss her. Scared stiff he would break her, or at the very least, terrify her by either his size or his tightly leashed passion, he’d been shaking too hard to do the job justice.

      “If only you didn’t have to leave,” she’d whispered after that brief hard, dry kiss. “I could never marry a man who would go off and leave me by myself for months at a time. I would simply die of loneliness.”

      He hadn’t realized it at the time, but she’d hit him in the one place where he was vulnerable. It had been years since he’d last seen his mother. As an adult, he’d seldom even thought about her. The last time they’d met had been at his father’s funeral where, like the strangers they were, they had made polite conversation. She’d told him she would be marrying again and moving to Chicago; he’d told her he was off to Honduras at week’s end and they’d parted still strangers. Since then she had rarely crossed his mind, but evidently the old scars were still there.

      Oh, yeah, he’d been broadsided, all right. By the time he’d left Gloria that last night in port he had promised to finish one last run, then put his ship up for sale and invest the proceeds in her father’s ship-building firm in exchange for a seat on the board of directors.

      In the end, he got exactly what he deserved. After delivering a cargo of dyewood, mahogany and bananas to Boston only three days behind schedule, he had contracted with a broker to sell the Black Swan. With his head still in the clouds, he had bought the biggest diamond ring he could find and headed south with marriage on his mind, only to be informed that Miss Timmons was visiting a friend in West Virginia. Five days later, having partially regained his senses, he’d taken a train to Boston, intent on pulling his ship off the market.

      He’d been three days too late. She’d just been sold.

      So he’d headed south again, determined to make the best of a bad situation. If he could no longer be captain of the finest three-masted schooner afloat, he would be the finest husband, and make a stab at being a damned good director of Timmons Shipbuilding. He was not without business experience, after all.

      That was when he’d discovered that the woman who had stolen his heart was too busy reeling in another poor sucker to spare him more than a rueful smile. “But darling, I never actually said СКАЧАТЬ