Chapter 4 #2
She smiled, and Samuel could not help but stare at her even more as the prettiness of her expression became her. “Thank you for asking me to marry you.”
“Thank you for saying yes.”
Her smile broadened slightly as she whispered, “Thank you for ignoring my Great Aunt.”
“Thank you for…for…” Samuel’s smile became one of embarrassment. He had never been left speechless before, and this Margaret Berry was the woman to do it? “My God, Margaret, but you are beautiful.”
If he was not mistaken, the smile fractured a little around her eyes. “Inside, and out?”
Samuel stared at her, at the worry and concern in her expression, and he squeezed her hand. “Inside and out.”
Margaret relaxed, and turned her attention to the captain who, with a glare at the Great Aunt with her pursed lips and disapproving stare, was pointedly asking whether anyone there objected.
Though her attention had moved away from him, Samuel could not help staring at her. Margaret Berry. Mystery, beauty, enigma.
As the vows began to wash over him as no one had objected, his stomach turned as the thought flashed through his mind that Margaret Berry may have objected if she had any idea that she was marrying an accused murderer.
Margaret swallowed as she carefully closed the cabin door as quietly as possible. Even after the latch had slotted into place, she paused for a moment, head bowed over the door. Not afraid to turn around, exactly, but knowing that once she did, there was no turning back.
She turned around. Samuel Brown’s cabin – now her cabin – filled her vision.
It was largely empty: a large double bed took up most of it, with two trunks now sat at the end.
On the right was a tattered chaise longue, evidently placed here after the captain’s wife grew tired of it, and in the centre was Samuel Brown, sitting on the bed, smiling at her gently, watching her gaze flicker about the room.
Margaret swallowed again. There was fear in her heart and she could taste it on her tongue. As her hands fell to her sides after closing the door, she could feel them shaking gently against her gown.
“There will be no…no marital expectations, you understand? Just two people who have realised that they have mutual aims.”
That is what he had said – but how could she be certain?
Many a man would say anything, promise anything, to get a young girl into marriage or what she thought was marriage.
It was why she had made the captain complete the wedding certificate there and then, placing it in his safe for security while they completed the voyage.
Mr Brown – Samuel – had laughed, but she had not. She wanted to make absolutely sure. After all, she was to sleep here now, was she not? She would not lose her reputation by slanders that their wedding was not valid.
“Mrs Brown.”
Margaret jumped, startled at the unfamiliar name, but relaxed slightly as she saw Mr Brown – Samuel, it really was ridiculous that she did not think of him as Samuel – incline his head to her.
Her heart began to quicken. Surely, he could not expect from her…
She curtseyed obediently. “Mr Brown.”
He laughed, and leaned back nonchalantly on his elbows while still looking at her. “I know that look, Margaret, even now. You do not have anything to fear from me. I am not one of those men to beat his wife, or to force her to do his bidding.”
Margaret raised an eyebrow, despite herself. “Ah, so I am to have free reign, am I?”
“Not entirely,” admitted Samuel, his hazel eyes scanning her face as though looking for a secret. “But I meant what I said.”
She felt stupid standing here still, by the door, but in her nervousness she could not think where else to go – the chaise longue? The bed, surely, would be too much for her. But she could not stand here like an imbecile, as though guarding the door!
“I offered a marriage of convenience, without any of the marital duties,” he said quietly, observing her closely. “And although we shall keep up the charade for appearances, as one would expect, you do not even have to share a bed with me.”
Margaret’s shoulders slumped with relief. “I must admit, I was worried that I had…well, not entirely known what I had managed to get myself into. At the front of the ship, when we were saying our vows, I-I almost…”
There – there was a flicker, a flicker of something but she could not tell what, it was gone before she could really look at it. But something that looked an awful lot like regret seemed to dance across his face.
Samuel jumped up from the bed, and bowed. “You, of course, will have the bed, oh wife of mine, and I will make a little bed for myself on the chaise longue.” He dropped onto it, and winced slightly at the toughness of the springs. “An additional blanket may be necessary, though.”
Margaret suppressed a little smile at his buoyancy, and a dart of guilt penetrated her heart. This was his cabin, and he was giving up the bed – but then, she reminded herself, it is our cabin now. Our chamber. Our space. Our bed.
Just two steps were enough to bring her to it, and as she sat down and placed her hands on the blanket, she felt the softness, the warmth of where he had been.
The thought of sharing it with him, of having such an intimate space with another human being, and not anyone, Samuel Brown, dashing, handsome, confident, everything that she was not, was enough to tinge her face a little.
“Ah, now then,” said Samuel suddenly, his eyes now more serious. “I want to learn your ways, Margaret Brown, and you have a half a dozen blushes that I need to educate myself on. What were you thinking just now, hmmm?”
A little smile grew on her face. “Would it not be more fun if I did not tell you, and you had to learn?”
She had not intended to be defiant, had never been defiant in her entire life, and any time she had veered close to it, she had been severely reprimanded by her Great Aunt.
But not this time.
“I suppose that would show me!” Samuel chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “My word, Margaret, you do surprise me.”
“And you me,” she said shakily, taking in the room with wide eyes. “I-I never expected anything like this for a wedding night.”
His smile faded slightly as he leaned back on the chaise longue, but Samuel did not take his eyes from her. “I never thought that I would have one at all.”
Margaret felt her mouth fall open. “You…you never thought about marriage?”
Samuel shrugged. “Not especially. It was one of those things that happened to other people, you know. I always thought that my brother would continue the…the family business. But he died. He left my…our mother’s wedding ring, which you now wear, as it happens.”
Curiosity was welling up inside her. He had been about to say something different, but then changed his mind – what was this man hiding?
“Family business?”
Yes, he was definitely hiding something. It was there, in the flicker of the eyes to the door, as though he was considering just running and hoping that he could make it out before he had to answer the question.
“Trade,” he said briefly. “And what exactly did you think your wedding night would be like?”
Margaret hesitated for a moment, but it was not a battle that she wanted to enter too quickly.
“Well, I…I suppose that I always hoped that I would fall in love, and the gentleman with me, but I was considered plain by my parents and not encouraged to socialise. I have a cousin, Adena Garland, who was a playmate of mine, but that was all.”
“I thought I did not recognise you.” Samuel leaned forward slightly from the chaise longue. “Did you come out, then, in London?”
Margaret shook her head, but gazed at him curiously. “Did you, Samuel? I did not think…I mean, forgive me, but I was not aware that gentlemen in trade frequented Almack’s?”
For an instant she thought she had gone too far, been too forward, too rude, indecently curious, unbecoming of a young lady. The same out criticisms poured out of her mind into her heart and it panged, but he did not shout at her.
He shrugged. “Oh, I meant that I kept a close eye through the papers, you know. I liked to see the pretty young women enter into society, trying to catch their men like flies on a rod.”
“Well, perhaps ‘tis a blessing that I never did enter society,” said Margaret with a wry smile. “I have no beauty to speak of, and my parents spoke truly when they called me plain.”
Samuel stared at her with such an intensity that it brought a little pink to her cheeks. In a low voice, he finally said, “I cannot comprehend anyone who calls you plain.”
Her cheeks darkened and her eyes dropped to her hands, folded neatly in her lap, but when she raised them up he was still looking at her.
She laughed nervously. “You must forgive me, S-Samuel. I am not accustomed to being such a centre of attention. Usually my Great Aunt gave me an order, and then she moved on. ‘Tis fortunate that Mrs Goodwin’s maid was available to tend to her.”
“Well that will certainly be a change for you.” He leaned back finally, drawing away the intensity of his gaze, but Margaret could still feel it all over her body, like she had been plunged into hot water.
“There will be a few…let us call them suggestions in this marriage, just the obvious ones to keep people thinking that we are truly in love.”
“That should not be too arduous,” Margaret said lightly, though her stomach twisted at the thought of it. “I am well practised in the art of acting as though I am happy when I am not.”
She could never have predicted what he did next. Samuel rose from the chaise longue and sat beside her on the bed in one swift movement, taking her hands in his large, strong ones.
It all happened so quickly that she gasped, her hands enclosed in his, her breathing fluttering against her chest.
“You will never have to pretend to be happy again,” Samuel said in a low, deep voice, his face mere inches from hers and such an expression of seriousness on it that Margaret almost forgot to breath. “Do you hear me, Margaret? If you are ever unhappy, you must tell me. At once.”
“I-I d-don’t know what t-to…to say,” she stammered, her eyes dropping down away from the fierceness of his eyes but that only brought into view the sight of their hands clasped in her lap.
She felt warm, hot, and it was centred just below her stomach and she did not understand it and it felt overwhelming and wonderful.
“Such kindness, I am…I am not used to – ”
“You must have had a very hard life indeed,” murmured Samuel, “if you consider that to be kindness.”
Margaret knew that it would engulf her but she could not help herself.
She raised her eyes to Samuel’s and gasped aloud at the intensity of their look.
He wanted something from her, wanted something desperately, but he was holding himself back, despite his desire, and he was tempted, tempted right now to kiss her, she could see it in his eyes.
For a wild moment, she hoped that he would. The feeling of his lips on hers, his hands on her waist, in her hair, around her –
“You must be tired,” Samuel breathed, and he released her hands and rose from the bed. “I will look away while you change, though I will admit that I am tempted to watch – for a bachelor never intending to marry, I have certainly found myself a pretty wife.”
Almost breathless with the shock of his moving away from her, Margaret tried to smile winningly, like she had seen other ladies do.
“You had better not look around,” she retorted with an element of strength that did not come from herself, and she smiled as Samuel laughed, his face to the wall.
What she did not tell him was the wonderful thrill that ricocheted through her body at the thought of him sitting on the chaise longue, watching her slowly remove borrowed garment after borrowed garment until he was staring at her, completely nude, glorifying in her body.
Margaret shivered. It was not that kind of marriage – and she did not want it to be. Did she?