The tears I thought were forever dry returned with a vengeance as I flung myself into Russian Jack’s waiting arms.
“Oh Jacky.” I breathed in his exotic scent and felt my long-tight muscles relax for the first time in recent memory. “I thought you were dead.”
“Dead? It was close—” Russian Jack’s arms circled me as a gull cried in the distance. “But dead or not, I could not let my wife marry another man, now could I?”
Jack’s breath was gentle on my hair as he took off my elegant veil. It was the only opulent piece of my wedding ensemble. Charles wouldn’t be swayed in matters of the veil. Spanish lace to commemorate his late mother’s heritage.
Jack admired it a moment then draped it gently over the balcony and took me back into his arms.
“Redella,” he began with words as strong and commanding as ever, “do you remember how we met?”
The salty air was sweeter on the balcony in the arms of the man I loved and I allowed my lips to stretch into a wide smile. “How could I forget?”
He traced the scar on my cheek with his thumb, strumming it like the harpist had done the strings inside. “Seems you were about to marry the wrong man then, too. What were you, but seventeen?”
I let my mind drift back to those innocent days that seemed to have played out so many lifetimes ago—
•
Sullivan O’Brien, or Doctor O’Brien as he preferred to be called, checked the compass and turned the massive wooden wheel aboard The Scarlet Rose. His schooner skipped over the gentle waves as he turned us toward the open sea. “How do you feel about becoming Mrs. Doctor O’Brien once we reach Jamaica, Redella?”
My black hair tumbled down my back in twin plaits, well past my waist. Still, the little pieces that managed to escape flew this way and that, catching in my eyelashes and the corner of my mouth.
I didn’t bother to ask why we couldn’t wed in London. The first time I did, Sully reminded me with harsh words not to question a man’s decision. Hours later, when his voice had returned to the velvety tones he used with everyone he considered beneath him, he’d explained that all his family would be in attendance in Jamaica—at least what was left of his family. The memory as to what had come next was fiercely fresh.
“Isn’t your only living blood relative your brother? And he’s sailing with us, is he not?”
Sully raised his hand as though he meant to slap into me the sense I obviously lacked.
I squeaked and raised my arms to shield my face. When I dared open my eyes, Sully stood before me, hand still raised. He didn’t strike, however, and simply walked away. I was lucky then, and I knew better than to mention it again now. I let my mind drift back to the present.
“Yes, of course.” I batted at my wayward strands of hair and squinted against the full brightness of the midday sun before adding the last part. “Darling.”
Sully’s curly red hair billowed in the salty wind and he checked the compass again. “Darling. Ah, how I love when you say that.” He offered me a wink. “If only your mother could see us now. It’d be her dream come true.”
I chewed my lip. Why did he have to say that?
A pod of dolphins danced at the bow of the schooner and caught my attention. I stared at them as I thought about my beautiful mother Drucilla, taken all too soon.
“A tumor,” Sully diagnosed shortly before she passed. “Which spread like a lamp oil fire, burning away healthy tissues and leaving many more tumors in its wake.”
Her dying wish was that he would take care of me. I read it myself, scrawled on a piece of paper from her bedside table. Because, according to her, “the streets of London are no place for a young lady so sweet as Redella, my precious jewel of a girl.”
And take care of me Sully intended to do.
The day of my mother’s funeral, Sully presented me with a golden band and promised me forever. I’d never felt love before, so perhaps this feeling of security—though a bit pushy—was it.
As soon as the bags were packed and loaded onto The Scarlet Rose, it was settled. I was to be his wife. We would wed on an island beach. And I would live out my life pretending that my husband being closer to my mother’s age than mine didn’t bother me.
“Perhaps you would like a schooner of your very own as a wedding gift, hmm?”
His kind offer pulled me out of my dreary state, if only momentarily. I shifted my attention from the dolphins to my fiancé.
“You could even name it after your mother. The Drucilla Jerningham.”
“Thank you.” I forced a smile. “Darling.”
He didn’t return it.
I turned back to the water, an odd sensation in my stomach. Sea sickness? Perhaps. The sudden heaviness of the ocean air made breathing difficult, like sucking my breath through a damp cloth. I tried to ignore the worried feeling that clenched my gut and searched the water for any sign of the playful dolphins. One leapt, then the lot of the dolphin pod disappeared beneath the surf and didn’t resurface.
“Take care now,” Sully warned. “We’re sailing into a fog.”
“Why should I take care?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Sully turned his full attention to me, as though I was a child in need of admonishing. Heat crept into my cheeks and I dropped my gaze to the deck.
“Oh,” I stammered under his direct glare. “Forgive me, I simply meant what is there about a fog that’s worrisome?” My heart thundered in my chest. Whether it was due to Sully or the thick air, I wasn’t entirely sure.
Sully didn’t answer but continued to stare at me until I met his eyes. Even then, he remained silent. It felt like an eternity.
“Good that you corrected yourself,” he finally said. “No woman of mine will talk in such a brash manner to her betters. Ever. Understood?”
I nodded, though I would much rather have melted into a puddle on the deck and seeped between the boards, out from under his penetrating eyes. “I understand.”
“You understand—what?”
I wracked my brain as a glint of sunlight flashed off the sword hanging at his side. I shivered and took slow, shallow breaths. “I understand. Darling.”
