The Paper Marriage. Bronwyn Williams

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      Prologue

      February 27, 1898

      The Outer Banks of North Carolina

      The sound of rain drumming on the roof almost drowned out the sound of the crying baby. Matt wished it could drown out the memory of this infamous day. Wipe it clean from all their minds. They were still stunned, speaking in whispers, staring in horror at the squalling mite bound up in a blanket in the middle of the bed.

      Billy was dead. Handsome Billy, with a slew of sweethearts in every port. Billy, who could win at cards and leave the losers laughing. Billy, who had gone to sea as a cabin boy when his family had died of the influenza and worked his way up to chief mate.

      As captain, Matt was responsible for his crew, whether on land or at sea. He had warned the lad, but without following him every time he rode into the village, how could he know the boy would dally with a married woman and get her with child?

      Hadn’t he carefully explained to both Billy and Luther that the village women were to be treated with respect?

      He should have found himself another ship immediately after he’d lost the Black Swan. At sea, or in any port in the world, a man might get himself knifed in a brawl, but he was unlikely to be murdered by a maddened seaman who had been away from home for eleven months, only to come home and find that his wife had just given birth to a daughter.

      “Cap’n, we’ll have to shovel more sand on Billy’s grave once this rain stops. It’s sinking in.” Luther, the youngest member of his crew now that Billy was dead, was pale as raw dough, his eyes still dark with the shock of it all.

      Matt nodded. Every one of them, even old Crank, whose rheumatism scarcely allowed him to get out of bed on days like this, had gone out again and again to stand in the rain and stare down at the fresh grave, as if to convince themselves that it had actually happened. That some poor, wretched creature had shot his unfaithful wife, then come storming after Billy to put a bullet in his chest and, before anyone could stop him, turned the gun on himself, leaving a screaming newborn infant lying on the ground between the two bodies.

      Hearing the first shot, Matt had rushed outside in time to see Billy fall. He’d yelled for Crank, leaped off the porch and reached the boy just as the wild-haired stranger had flung down a bundle and turned the gun on himself.

      Billy had struggled to lift his head. “Dammit, boy, lie still! Crank, get me a rag—get help from the village!”

      Without waiting for a response he had torn Billy’s shirt open, muttering curses and prayers in the same breath. “Get the midwife, dammit! Luther, go!”

      There was no doctor on the island. The midwife was the best they could do. “Hang on, son, help’s on the way,” he said, wanting to believe it was true. Wanting even more to make Billy believe it.

      “Cap’n, promise me—”

      “Hush, now, it’ll be all right. Just lie still.”

      “You gotta promise me—my baby—it—it—”

      “Shh, the baby’ll be just fine, it’s you we’ve got to take care of now.”

      But he knew even as he said the words that it was too late. They both knew it, yet Billy still struggled to get the words out, his blue eyes pleading desperately. “My baby—you gotta promise me, Cap’n—”

      “Anything, boy, just hang on.”

      “Didn’t mean no harm—her man couldn’t—he weren’t—able…”

      “Ah, Billy, don’t die on me, dammit. Don’t do it, son!” Matt swore because he couldn’t weep. A moment later he stood and turned away until he got himself under control. Then, kneeling again, he examined both bodies and pronounced them dead.

      It was Crank who rescued the squalling babe, wrapped it in one of his own shirts and carried it inside as gingerly as if it had been a basket of eggs. Luther brought the midwife, who did what was necessary for the infant with angry old eyes and a pinched, disapproving mouth.

      “She’ll likely not live out the night. If she’s still here by sunup, you can sop a rag in water and give her a suck.”

      It was all the advice the old woman offered before she climbed up into her cart and headed back to the village. The four remaining men stood helplessly and watched her ride off. Matt swore. Crank misquoted a Bible verse about the sins of the fathers. Peg, the ship’s carpenter, got to work on a casket while Luther rode back to the village, this time to fetch the magistrate.

      It had taken the rest of day to untangle the wreckage. To cart the man’s body back to the village, to bury poor Billy, and to learn that the unfaithful wife had been from “away”—the native’s way of calling anyone not island-born.

      “Not to put too fine a point on it,” Dick Dixon, the lawman, had said, “but she weren’t one of ours, so don’t look for help from that quarter.”

      “What about the husband’s family? Surely one of them—”

      “The poor bastard weren’t his. They’ll not take it.”

      “Don’t call her that, none of this is her fault.” Even before the midwife had come, they’d discovered that the tiny thing wrapped in Crank’s shirt was a newborn baby girl.

      “If I was you, I’d write to the boy’s family. Might be one o’ them’ll take it off your hands.”

      “No help there. Billy is—was an orphan.”

      “Well, I don’t know where the woman came from. Like I said, she was from away, been here about two years, I believe.” He stood, settled his hat on his bald head and turned to go. “Looks like you just became a father, Powers.”

      “No, sir, that I did not.” Matt said quickly. He had promised Billy to take care of the baby, but he hadn’t promised to do it personally…had he?

      On the other hand, until he could find someone to take the child off his hands, he was responsible for its—for her welfare. She was Billy’s, and Billy had been a member of his crew.

      Before he left, the magistrate had sympathized but warned him again not to look for help from the village. “Meaning no disrespect, Powers, but after what happened, none of our women are going to come anywhere near your men.”

      Which struck Matt as grossly unfair, but then, when had life ever been fair? Come a hard blow, a smart man trimmed sail, headed into the wind and rode it out.

      Matt did the only thing he could think of to do: he reluctantly began a letter to his only remaining relative. Bess Powers was a meddlesome busybody who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve as well, but she’d always been honest in their dealings.

      So far as he knew, he amended.