An Affair in Autumn Page 4
“Well, good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said politely. “I think I shall rest in my stateroom for a while.” She turned on her heel and walked the deck to the companionway, feeling their eyes on her the whole way. But she didn’t look back.
Just as she put her key in the lock, a big hand closed over her shoulder. She turned, brows raised, to find Mark scowling at her.
“What was that?” he snapped at her.
“What was what?” she asked, ducking away from his grip.
“The way you were speaking to him.”
She blinked at him. “Really, Mark. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You were…” His lips tightened. “You were flirting with him.”
“No. I wasn’t,” she said firmly.
“You were. Would you seriously allow that man to travel with you? You don’t even know him!”
“He seems very nice.”
“Nice?” His lips twisted. “He could be a rapist, for all you know. Or a murderer.”
“Goodness, Mark. The man is to literally be my neighbor for the next few weeks. I was being polite.”
“You were fluttering your eyelashes at him.”
“I was not!”
“And the way you smiled at him—” Mark broke off, shaking his head in disgust.
“If I didn’t know better,” she said after a moment, “I’d say you were jealous.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he said, “No. Not jealous. Just confused.”
“About what?”
“I thought you were in this to catch yourself a duke.”
“I—”
“Yet you’re angling to lure a random Welshman into your bed.”
She gasped, fury boiling hot and red inside her. “I am n—”
“I wonder what Nate will think of that when we finally find him.”
She gaped at him, speechless.
“Because do you think I’d let him operate under the assumption that you don’t go about seducing strange men? No, I won’t. He’s been hurt enough by you already. I’m not going to let you destroy him all over again.” By the end of this little speech, he was nearly growling, he was so angry.
She gasped. “I cannot believe you, that you’d think—”
“And I cannot believe you,” he snapped back.
She threw up her hands, the fury muting into frustration. “You’re ridiculous!”
“I don’t think so,” he bit out.
“You are,” she insisted. “You’re always so ridiculous, Mark! Why can’t you just be reasonable?”
He pushed a rough hand through his dark brown hair. “I am telling you what I saw.”
“You saw a woman trying to be friendly and neighborly to a man she hardly knows.”
Why was she even bothering to explain herself? Honestly, even if that wasn’t all she’d been doing, what right did Mark have to judge her? He’d judged her far too much over the past years. Far too much. And she was tired of the way he made her feel. Like she truly wasn’t worthy. Like she’d done something wrong when she knew, she knew, she hadn’t.
She ground her teeth. “I give up with you. I refuse to defend myself to you anymore. You never listen. You think what you will of me, Markus Hawkins. I can’t change it. But you judge me too harshly. You always have. Always!”
She yanked open her door, stepped inside, and snapped it shut in his face.
Chapter Four
The weather turned. Well, it didn’t turn so much as intensify. Harsh winds buffeted the ship, and huge waves pitched the Liberty violently and sent spray over the bow, making it impossible for Caro to take the pleasant deck walks she’d enjoyed earlier in the voyage.
Half the passengers were struck by violent seasickness. Mr. and Mrs. Frank stayed inside their cabin, wretched and miserable. Caro visited them at least twice a day and tried to convince them that the fresh air out on deck would do them a world of good, but the older couple refused, terrified that they’d get swept away by a rogue wave. Evan Evans stayed in bed half the time, and when he did leave his cabin, he lurched around, pale and wide-eyed.
Only Caro, Mark, and Owen Evans seemed immune, and for that Caro was immensely grateful. Seasickness looked like a miserable malady indeed.
She had hardly spoken to Mark in the past week. She’d decided she was very angry with him indeed. At times she’d felt close to him—as close as they’d been in the past—closer in some ways, since she now found herself desperately attracted to him—but then he always seemed to turn the conversation around to her shortcomings. To how she’d betrayed Nate.
So she’d been polite to him but aloof, building a wall of protection around herself in his presence. His treatment of her hurt her more than she wanted to admit. More than she wanted to feel. So she cut off the feeling as if it were an unwanted growth and buried it deep inside her.
She looked into the small mirror in her room, trying to pat her ever more unruly hair into place, admitting to herself that she missed her maid. It had been a rash decision not to bring any servants, but Caro had always possessed a streak of fierce independence. This had been something she wanted to do on her own. She didn’t want to behave like a spoilt princess—she was going to America, after all. Her friends always teased her that she possessed the spirit of a liberated American rather than a privileged British aristocrat.
So she’d prepared carefully, only packing clothing that she could manage on her own, and knowing that if worse came to worst, she wouldn’t be completely alone. Even if they weren’t really speaking, Mark would be there if she truly needed him. Still, at times like this, when her hair wouldn’t behave, a maid would have been nice.
Giving up on it, she turned to don her heavy woolen hooded cloak. Then she left her room, one hand trailing along the corridor rail for balance as she made her way up on deck to catch a bit of air before the midday meal.
She emerged onto the deck, and the wind immediately blew her hood off and pulled her hair from its pins until it whipped around her face, annoyingly stinging her eyes and getting caught between her lips. She spotted Mr. Woods, the first mate, at the helm and made her way toward him. Moisture beaded on the varnished deck, and the ship pitched violently. Around them, a gray sea churned, several shades darker than the sleet-gray sky.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Woods,” she called.
Intent on his task, with both hands on the wheel, he hardly looked at her. “Good afternoon, Lady Whytestone. Are you sure you should be up here? It’s a bear of a day, and likely to get worse, I’m afraid.”
She made her way to the semi-enclosed area near the wheel. “Do you think it’ll rain?” she asked him, looking dubiously up at the sky.
“Oh yes. We’re in for a bit of a gale. The captain will be requesting that all passengers batten down their hatches and remain below this evening.”
She nodded. She’d been impressed by the seamen’s accurate reads on the weather. They were always correct in their forecasts. At Mr. Woods’s words, a little thrill of fear ran through her. Though “a bit of a gale” wasn’t necessarily a big, dangerous storm, it would probably provide plenty of excitement for the evening.
She gestured at the sailors working busily down the length of the deck, pulling and adjusting lines. She rarely saw so many of them out at once. “What are they doing?”
“Ah, they’re lowering some of the sails and reefing others.”
“Reefing?”
He shot her a quick smile, clearly remembering she was a landlubber and, while she thought she was doing well at learning the terminology, there always seemed to be a new nautical term to learn. “Reefing means they’re making the sail area smaller in preparation for high winds. So they bundle up part of the sail and leave the rest of it out.”
“I see.” She hesitated, frowning. “Do you think the winds will be very strong?” Because they were already blowing more forcefully than was comfortable. She nearly had to yell at Mr. Woods for him to hear her, and he was only standing two feet away.
“She does seem quite sturdy,” Caro agreed, somewhat mollified.
She stayed with Mr. Woods—mostly in silence because it was exhausting to talk over the roar of the wind and waves—until it was time to go down below for luncheon. The captain, Owen, and Mark were already seated when she arrived and talking about the weather—a topic of endless interest on a ship, Caro had learned.
“It won’t be a bad one,” the captain reassured them. “Just a bit of a blow.”
She eyed Mark covertly. He looked especially handsome today—clearly he’d been outside earlier, too, for he looked refreshed and windblown.
His eyes met hers, and they stared at each other for a moment before she tore her gaze away, her heart fluttering in her chest.
Mark, of all the people in the world. No one had ever been crueler to her than Markus Hawkins had. Why, oh why, did she have to be so wretchedly attracted to him?
The lunch was a cold one—the cook preferring not to use the oven much in rough weather—meats, breads, and cheeses, with a medley of chopped apples and currants.
“How is your brother?” Caro asked Owen, taking up a bit of sliced meat onto her fork.
Owen shook his head sadly. “Not well, I’m afraid.”
“Poor man,” she said. “The Franks aren’t doing so well, either. I visited their cabin this morning.”
“Mr. Jones is doing all he can for them,” the captain said. “But this tends to happen to many of my passengers when the weather turns foul.”
“Will it pass?” Caro asked him.
“When the weather improves, hopefully. But some poor souls don’t feel well until they arrive at port and their feet touch solid ground.”
“Has anyone ever perished of seasickness?” Owen asked him.
“Absolutely not!” the captain boomed. “Never on my watch.” He smiled at all of them. “Don’t fret. This weather will clear soon enough, and they’ll be themselves in no time.”
After lunch, Mark disappeared. Caro went to the salon, where she could drink a pot of tea and sit by a porthole to watch the churning seas. Owen joined her there a few minutes later. He plopped down on the chair near hers with a sigh. “Evan’s feeling wretched. In his state, he doesn’t make for the most pleasant company.”
“I imagine not,” she said sympathetically. The steward entered to offer Owen some tea, and he declined, taking up his book. “What book are you reading?” she asked him.
“Something I doubt you’d find interesting, my lady,” he said, showing her the spine. “It’s a book on the architecture of various grain mills in Europe.”
“You’re right, I’m afraid. Milling is not one of my hobbies,” she said with an apologetic smile.
He laughed. “Well, frankly, it isn’t one of mine, either. But… it is what I’m expected to do with my life. So…” He shrugged. “I haven’t much of a choice.”
“Does your family own mills in Britain as well?”
He shook his head. “My father owns an ironworks near Cardiff. I was raised in quite a different industry, though my brother and I have known for some time that our destiny was to take over our uncle’s mills in America.”
“And what will happen to the ironworks?” she asked.
“It’ll go to our older brother, Allyn.”
They kept talking, their conversation comfortable and light. Caro spoke of her homes in London and Northumberland and of the various charities she spent her time on. She kept off the subject of her late husband, and thankfully, Owen did, too. Finally, he stood, stretching. “I think I might like to go outside for a bit. Would you care to join me, my lady?”
She glanced through the porthole. It looked like the wind had picked up a little, but it still wasn’t raining. “Yes, that sounds nice.” It might be her last opportunity to breathe fresh air until the gale blew over.
They donned their coats and gloves and made their way up to the deck, and Owen took her arm as if to hold her steady. It was a kind thing to do because seawater now ran in rivulets over the deck planks and it was quite slippery. The seamen had all donned shiny oiled coats that billowed in the wind.
Heads down, Owen and Caro made their way to the deck rail when a sailor barred them from walking forward due to the danger of the high seas and the waves intermittently crashing over the bow. When Owen and Caro reached the rail, they held on tightly, their gloved hands lightly touching. Spray blew over them every time the Liberty crashed over the crest of a wave. Even though fewer sails flew overhead, and those that were still up were markedly smaller, the ship raced through the water at an exhilarating speed.
Caro laughed delightedly, thrilled each time the cold drops sprayed over her face. Her hood blew off, and her hair whipped wildly about her face. “This is… it’s amazing.” She’d only ever moved this fast when she took a horse to a full-out run, but those were short bursts of energy—this was constant. It was like flying.
She turned to Owen to see him staring at her, the heat in his eyes unmistakable. She looked away quickly. Oh dear.
Her mind worked frantically. She’d given him the wrong message. How had she done that when she was simply attempting to be friendly? What should she do? They still had at least a fortnight to go before they reached New York. She didn’t want to feel awkward every time she found herself in Owen’s presence.
It was then that the first drops of rain spattered over her shoulders. “Excuse me, madam. Sir?”
Caro turned to find one of the sailors standing behind them. “Mr. Woods has asked me to see that you go below now,” he said. “For your safety.”
She smiled. “Oh. Of course.”
Owen tucked her arm in his again for their short, clumsy walk back to the companionway. Just in the brief time they’d been outside, the boat had started moving more erratically. She descended the steps carefully, gripping tightly on the railing, with Owen just behind her. The corridor was quite dim with only one tiny porthole providing the meager light.
“Back to the salon?” he asked her.
“No. I think I’ll retire to my stateroom for a while.” The truth, however, was that she was uneasy from the way she’d caught him looking at her, and she needed distance.
He took her arm again, and they lurched toward her room. Just outside her door, he stopped. But he didn’t let her go. Instead, still holding her arm, he turned to her. “Thank you for spending the afternoon with me, my lady.”
“It was my pleasure.”
He leaned closer, and with a surge of panic, she realized he was going to kiss her.
There was no time to slip away. As soon as she realized it was happening, his lips collided with hers, and she went stiff. Evidently, he took this as a sign of acceptance. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her against him as he opened his mouth, kissing her harder.
She froze. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Then reason came flooding back as quickly as it had fled. Dear God. She had to do something.
As if from a distance she heard a low click. She couldn’t think about what that meant right now. She had to stop this.
Placing her hands flat on his chest, she pushed him away. “Mr. Evans,” she said breathlessly. “Please… stop.”
He pulled back, looking surprised. “What?”
“I think you misunderstood…”
“Misunderstood?” He frowned at her, befuddled.
She didn’t know what to say. She’d never been in this situation before. She’d been married for her entire adult life and a widow in mourning for the past year.
“Or maybe I misunderstood,” she said quietly. Then she winced. Good Lord, he probably thought she was the kind of widow who was eager to lie with every young, handsome buck she met. Goodness. What on earth had she said to him to make him believe that? “I’m very sorry. I enjoy your company, Mr. Evans. But I don’t… erm… I’m not… uh…” She shrugged hopelessly.
Owen regained his composure quickly, a flat, emotionless mask settling over his handsome features and his spine growing stiff and straight until he towered over her. “You’re right,” he said flatly. “I did misunderstand. My mistake. Please forgive me, my lady. I did not mean to offend.”
She breathed out her pent-up breath, relieved that he had chosen to be a gentleman about this.
“Of course.” She waved it off as if it were nothing. But she knew now that their fledgling friendship was over.
“Have a lovely afternoon, my lady,” he said coolly.
“Thank you. You as well.”
Holding the corridor rail for balance, he stepped to his door, which was the next one down from hers, procured his key, and slipped quietly into his cabin.
Gripping the corridor railing behind her, she leaned back against the wall, breathing deeply. Good Lord. That had been terribly awkward. Letting go with one hand, she reached up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
She needed to go inside and scour her mouth with soap and water, she thought with a shudder.
Just then she heard that click again. She glanced toward it, and her heart stuttered. It was the sound of Mark’s door opening. As he stepped out, his gaze caught on hers and he froze.
They stared at each other. His expression was darker than the gathering storm clouds outside. He was furious. And she knew that it had been him opening his door earlier. He’d seen Owen kissing her.
“Mark—” she began.
He stalked to her, reaching her in two long steps. His big hands closed over the tops of her arms. “Why, Caro? Why do you always do this to me?”
“Do… What?”
He stared at her with dark eyes, flushed cheeks, and a jaw so tight she thought it might snap.
“Is that what you crave? To be made love to by that simpering excuse for a man?”
“I don’t—”
But before she could finish, his lips crashed down on hers.
Chapter Five
Oh dear Lord. Mark was kissing her. Moments after… after… She couldn’t even remember his name. Because Mark’s kiss took over her world.