“I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Dora’s eyes narrowed. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it.

“I’ll pay you fair market value for the house and the acre of land it stands on,” Grey St. Bride announced. Her jaw fell, and while he waited for her response, he went a step further. “I’ll even include a bonus if you’ll agree to vacate the premises within one week.”

By the time she remembered to close her gaping mouth, Dora’s fists were clenched at her side. Not even that could prevent the tremors that raced up and down her body.

Nor did it quell her sudden fear, her doubts.

Could Grey force her out? If he did, where could she go to start over? No matter how much he paid her, money didn’t last forever. She, more than anyone, should know that.

“No, thank you,” she said, her voice betraying her feelings by only a slight stiffness. “I believe I’ll stay.”

Blue eyes had never looked more arctic. “The devil you will.”

Praise for Bronwyn Williams

Longshadow’s Woman

“This is a perfect example of Western romance writing at its very best…an exciting and satisfying read.”

—Romance Reviews Today

The Paper Marriage

“From first page to last, this is the way romance should be.”

—Old Book Barn Gazette

“Creating multi-dimensional characters in a warm-hearted story, Ms. Williams draws you into the heart of her tale.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

#587 THE PRISONER BRIDE

Susan Spencer Paul

#588 THE QUEST

Lyn Stone

#590 SARA AND THE ROGUE

DeLoras Scott

The Mail-Order Brides

Bronwyn Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin Historicals and
BRONWYN WILLIAMS

White Witch #3

Dandelion #23

Stormwalker #47

Gideon’s Fall #67

The Mariner’s Bride #99

The Paper Marriage #524

Longshadow’s Woman #553

The Mail-Order Brides #589

To the keepers of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, which includes our grandfather, E. D. Burrus, and our great-grandfather, Bateman A. Williams.

And to our sister, Sara Shoemaker, for duties above and beyond.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter One

April 1899

St. Brides Island, on the Outer Banks

of North Carolina.

Considering all she had lost over the past few months—her father, her fiancé, her friends and her reputation—it was her personal maid, Bertie, that Adora Sutton missed most at this moment. Feet spread against the rocking motion of the boat, she tried to brush out the worst creases from her gown. The travel stains would have to wait. As for her hair, which was unmanageable at the best of times, all she could do was flatten it with her hands, pin it down and hope the wind wouldn’t set it free again. There was no way she could keep a hat on her head in this wind—it would be gone the moment she stepped outside.

“I’ll set your bag out onto the dock, miss,” said the young mate as she left the protection of the cramped passenger section. “Mr. St. Bride, he’ll see to it.”

“Yes, thank you very much,” Dora murmured, fumbling in her reticule for one of her few remaining coins while she scanned the bleak terrain for some sign of welcome. Merciful heaven, was this all there was? Aside from the bustling waterfront, she could see only sand, marsh, a few stunted trees and a scattered handful of rough cottages. A single road, roughly paved with oyster shells, crossed the island, leading directly from the waterfront to a tall weathered house perched on top of the highest dune. Before they had even reached the docks, the mate had identified it as St. Bride’s house, St. Bride being the name of the man who had placed the advertisement that had brought her out to this bleak, unappealing island.

According to Captain Dozier, the man owned not only the entire island off the coast of North Carolina, but almost everything on it. Dora had murmured a noncommittal comment and silently wondered whether the king of the island was, in reality, a dragon. Hadn’t some wise man once said, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?” Perhaps she should turn back before it was too late.

But then, another sage, she reminded herself, had said, “In for a penny, in for a pound.” She hadn’t come this far to allow worrisome second thoughts to send her scurrying.

However, she did wish she’d chosen to wear one of her darker gowns. While the pink lent her courage, it was rather impractical. Now, instead of looking her best, which might have bolstered her spirits, she looked rumpled and frivolous.

Perhaps, she thought with a surge of bitter amusement, she should have worn scarlet….

The advertisement had specified healthy, capable women of good character, who were seeking a mate. The first few qualifications posed no problem. Small she might be, but she was far stronger than she looked. How else could she have survived the past six weeks? She was certainly healthy enough, if one didn’t count the aftereffects of mal de mer. The brandy Captain Dozier had given her had settled her stomach, but it had done little for her equilibrium.

Capable? Oh, yes indeed. She’d been the first in her set to learn the two-step, and her voice was considered exceptional. Unfortunately, she couldn’t carry a tune, but when it came to tennis, she easily outshone all her friends.

Her former friends, she amended quickly.

As to her character, that, unfortunately, was open to argument.

Behind her, men swarmed over the two-masted freighter, some bringing freight up from the hold, others carting it to a tall building that seemed to be some sort of warehouse. A redheaded man with a fistful of papers had cornered the captain, and the two men were deep in conversation.

Dora looked around helplessly. When it became obvious that no one had sent a carriage to meet her, she told herself that if this was to be the first test of her mettle, she would not be found lacking. Shifting her valise to the other hand, she approached a youth who was busily unrolling a length of stained canvas. “Where will I find Mr. St. Bride?”

Startled, the boy looked up. His face turned fiery red. “St. Bride? That’s his place up there on the ridge, ma’am.” Rising, he dusted off his hands and said, “Tote yer poke?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yer poke-sack, ma’am? Kin I tote it for ye?”

Thinking of the few coins that were all that remained between her and starvation should this venture fail, she smiled and shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s really not heavy.”

The boy nodded and returned to his task. Dora, stepping carefully off the weathered wharf, set out along the rough road that led to the house on the hill. She had taken for granted she’d be met on arrival, or at the very least that a conveyance of some sort would be available.

The shells were mostly crushed, but there were a few clumps here and there. Picking her way carefully, she tried to avoid the worst clumps and at the same time look around her. Merciful heavens, what a desolate place!

Stepping on something sharp, she lurched, righted herself, and wondered how long it took for the effects of a single glass of brandy to wear off. Perhaps she should have worn something sturdier than her kidskin slippers instead of packing all but a single change of clothes in her trunk to be sent out as soon as she could afford it. Which was to say, as soon as she had a husband who could afford to send for it.

Not that she even owned any serviceable shoes.

Besides, she’d wanted to make a good first impression.

Imagining every man on the waterfront staring at her the way the men had before she’d left Bath, she wished she could shrink even smaller than she was. As that was impossible, she stiffened her back, staggered once and continued her march toward what would soon be her home.

A homely yellow dog raced past her, followed by half a dozen others. After one shaggy brown creature nearly knocked her off her feet, she regained her balance and gazed around her, trying not to feel too discouraged. The house on the ridge didn’t improve at closer range. Not the slightest effort had been made to adorn its uncompromising façade. Window boxes might be a nice touch. And perhaps a porch swing, or some lovely rattan furniture.

If her prospective bridegroom was anything like his house, she was beginning to feel less certain of her future. The least the man could have done was meet her when she arrived. The very least.

Passing a raw wooden shack halfway along the road, she wondered if it could possibly be a church. While there was no steeple, someone had erected a cross over the doorway. She tried and failed to imagine being married in such a place.

It was no easier than picturing herself marrying a total stranger.

Numerous sandy footpaths cut away from the main road, leading to what appeared to be several one-room cabins. Off in the distance she saw a long wooden structure with a shed jutting off the back. The few trees she saw were stunted, bent low as if by a constant wind.

Not a single shop in sight. She sighed, thinking perhaps she should have waited to be met. Then, at least, she could have asked questions before committing herself completely. If only she hadn’t been so determined to demonstrate just how strong, capable and sensible she was. To prove that she met every single qualification Mr. St. Bride had specified in his advertisement for a wife.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the dark, racing clouds. She told herself it was a good omen after a stormy crossing. You listen here to me, Dora Sutton—whatever he’s like, the man would never have advertised for a wife if he hadn’t wanted one.

That in itself was encouraging…wasn’t it?

Nor, she reminded herself, would she have responded if she hadn’t been desperate. A husband was the last thing in the world she wanted, but at that point she’d had little recourse. Which was why, professing to be a widow, she had written her qualifications, and Mr. St. Bride had arranged her passage, and now here she was, for better or worse.

It could hardly be worse than what she had left behind.

Stepping on another broken shell, she hopped on one foot and steadied herself on the picket fence she happened to be passing. Beyond the fence stood a cozy-looking cottage, far smaller than the house on the ridge, but larger than any she had seen so far. Behind the house, an elderly man on a ladder appeared to be repairing the roof of an outbuilding of some sort. As the entire contraption was leaning, it hardly seemed worth the effort, but then, that was the least of Dora’s concerns.

Waving away a cloud of midges, she trudged on, setting her sights hopefully on the gaunt structure ahead. The brisk, salt-scented breeze helped to clear her head but did little to steady her legs. She still felt as if she were on a rolling deck, although the captain had assured her that the effects would pass quickly.

Evidently she was no better a drinker than she was a sailor.

The closer she came, the more she dreaded the coming interview. To think that not long ago she’d been celebrating her engagement. Henry Carpenter Smythe, a young man her father had met on a business trip to Richmond and brought home with him, had seemed to be everything any woman could want. Handsome, with lovely manners and a delightful sense of humor, he had quietly let it be known, without actually boasting, that he was more than comfortably situated.

Dora had been smitten at first glance. Intent on impressing him, she had arranged a dinner party and invited a dozen of her closest friends, praying that Henry wouldn’t fall instantly in love with her best friend, Selma, who was easily the most beautiful woman in their set.

He’d been polite to all her friends, but no more than that. At her father’s invitation, he had extended his stay at Sutton Hall, and two weeks later, after a whirlwind courtship that had been encouraged by her father, Henry had asked her to marry him.

On St. Valentine’s Day he had given her a handsome diamond ring and they’d begun making plans for the wedding. They had talked of June weddings and bridesmaid gowns and flowers, and who Henry’s best man would be.

“If I’d seen him first,” Selma had declared, “he would have been mine.” She’d said it in jest, but there’d been something about the way she’d persisted in hanging on to Henry’s arm at every meeting, quizzing him about his friends and asking if he had a brother, that had made Dora rather uncomfortable.

But then, at the time, Dora had been increasingly concerned over her father’s health. He’d lost weight and seemed distraught. Even if she hadn’t fallen in love with Henry, she would have encouraged him to stay because her father seemed to perk up in the younger man’s company.

When Henry had asked for her hand, her father had beamed, offered his blessing and urged them not to wait. “I’m looking forward to seeing my first grandson before I die,” he kept saying, and each time, Dora would hasten to assure him that he would soon be teaching a raft of grandsons to ride, to hunt and fish.

One or two, she’d thought privately. After a few years. First she wanted time alone with her husband who, seemingly every bit as eager to wed, had talked about the trips they would take together, the home they would build, the children they would eventually have…

That had been in February. Now here she was, barely two months later—orphaned, seasick, tipsy and penniless—about to face a future as the mail-order bride of a man she had yet to meet, in the most godforsaken place she had ever seen in her entire life.

Well…not quite godforsaken, she amended. There was the tiny, steepleless church.

Standing on his wide front porch, a tall, dark-haired man slid a pair of leather-palmed hands into the hip pockets of his lean canvas trousers as he gazed with satisfaction over his windswept island. He’d watched as Dozier’s bugeye, the Bessie Mae & Annie, pulled alongside the dock. Watched the men swarm aboard, lift the hatches and begin unloading freight. Still others tackled a deck cargo of lumber, swinging bundles off onto the wharf. Clarence’s crew of warehousemen began logging in and transferring crates to the warehouse for future shipment, setting aside a few small parcels to be brought up to the house.

Grey nodded in satisfaction. They knew what they were about, the men of St. Brides. A bit rough but, for the most part, good men, deserving of all he had done for them. All he planned to do.

Today’s woman, however, couldn’t have come at a more awkward time. He needed to leave within the hour if he wanted to reach Edenton by tomorrow morning. His brother, Jocephus, after setting up a meeting with another ship owner with a view to consolidating their two businesses, had asked Grey to take part in the negotiations, even though Grey had no direct interest. While his brother might be better at reading fine print, Grey was the acknowledged expert when it came to reading men.

Circumstances had made Grey St. Bride what he was. Some called him arrogant because he made laws as he saw fit and expected those laws to be obeyed. Grey didn’t see it as arrogance, but simply as the only way to keep peace among the tough, independent men who lived and worked on St. Brides Island.

He’d been seventeen, Jocephus nineteen, when their father’s health had begun to fail. Calling his two sons to his bedside, the old man had given them their choice of his various and scattered properties. Jocephus, then a student at Chapel Hill, had chosen the family’s two small schooners and the warehouse in Edenton; Grey had chosen the island that had been granted by the state of North Carolina to his great-grandfather more than a hundred years earlier.

By the time Grey had actually inherited the island that bore his name, there’d been little left but a single storm-ravaged house and a few dilapidated wharves and warehouses. More valuable was the dependable deepwater inlet on the north side, between St. Brides and Ocracoke Island, as well as a less dependable one to the south between St. Brides and Portsmouth.

He remembered standing on this very spot—gazing out over the free-ranging livestock that had eaten down the vegetation to the point where blowing sand had covered half the maritime forest—and thinking something had to be done if the island was to survive, much less thrive.

Left to the meager population of transient seamen, inlet pilots and seasonal fishermen who came late in the summer for the mullet, residing in bulrush-thatched huts bordering the North End, the entire island might have washed away before anyone could take measures to secure it. As it was there were tree stumps visible at low tide in both the sound and the ocean, a mark of the constant erosion.

The first thing he’d done was to bring in a few stockmen to pen up the livestock so the scrubby vegetation could recover. Next, he’d brought in carpenters to rebuild the docks and warehouses and provide sturdier housing for the permanent men. Three years ago, it had occurred to him that something was still missing.

Women.

Actually, he hadn’t thought of it until Emmet Meeks had led a delegation up the ridge to ask what he could do about bringing out a few women.

“Thing is, Cap’n—” the men gave him the courtesy title, saying damned if they were going to call him Saint. “—see, the thing is, it takes so long to go over to the mainland and meet up with a woman and court her, and then, when she finds out where we hail from, they don’t want nothing to do with us.”

Not to mention the fact, Grey had told himself, that most of the men, as decent and hardworking as they were, lacked certain social graces, shyness being the least of their problems.

It was Almy Dole, boatbuilder and general carpenter, who had expressed it best. “Maybe once we get ’em stranded out here for a spell, it won’t be long before we start looking right good to ’em.”

That had planted the seed—because the men were right. In order to thrive, a community needed stability, and that meant creating families. To that end he had tracked down the circuit preacher who served the nearby islands of Portsmouth and Ocracoke, and convinced him to add St. Brides to his charge. Then he’d set about building a church and a parsonage. Next, he’d composed a carefully worded advertisement and sent it off to the newspapers in three different coastal towns on a rotating basis, as he lacked the amenities to deal with more than one or two women at a time.

Some called him hard as pig iron. Grey preferred to think of himself as a visionary. Generous but firm. According to the terms of the old land grant, no St. Bride could sell so much as a grain of sand, but there was nothing to say he couldn’t give it away. So as an added inducement, part of the marriage bargain was to deed each married man an acre of land and the material to build a house.

His plan included an initial exchange of letters with any applicant before he arranged for her outward passage. Those who didn’t pass muster would be sent back with enough funds to support them until they could make other arrangements. He hated to send any woman back, knowing she had to be desperate to even answer such an advertisement, but if his plan was to work at all, he had to maintain standards. It took a special kind of woman to survive on a barrier island like St. Brides. Rejecting those he deemed unsuitable was actually a kindness.

But it also meant that his plan was progressing far slower than he had hoped.

As a shaft of sun glinted on the head of golden hair a few hundred yards down the road, Grey eased his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms over his broad chest. He could easily have met the woman at the landing and interviewed her there, as he’d be leaving within the hour. It would have saved time. But experience had taught him that distance lent him the perspective he needed to make a judgment. Gave him time to watch a prospective bride and size her up. By the time she reached him, he would likely have made up his mind whether or not she would do.

From what he’d seen so far, this one looked none too promising. A man needed good stock if he hoped to breed up a passel of strong St. Bridians. The woman coming up the road looked as if a stiff breeze would send her tumbling tip over toenails.

Eyes narrowed against the sudden glare of the sun, Grey studied the yellow-haired woman who was trying to hold down her skirts with one hand, hang on to her valise with the other, and still keep her hair out of her face as she staggered up the road toward him.

Staggered?

A fair man, he gave her the benefit of doubt. Walking in sand and shell took some getting used to when a woman was accustomed to sidewalks or hard clay roads. Then, too, she’d just crossed the Pamlico Sound. With a thirty-knot breeze out of the northeast, the waters might be a bit choppy. The effects took a while to wear off.

On the other hand, he needed women who were sound of wind and limb. Even with his inspection hampered by layers of billowing skirts, it was plain to see there wasn’t much in the way of flesh on this one. Maybe he should have specified a minimum weight. No runts need apply.

Grey made every effort to evaluate the woman objectively, but something in the way she moved distracted him. Such as the way her arms would fly out for balance when her foot caught the edge of a deep rut or a clump of uncrushed shell. When a gust of wind caught her skirt and she swatted it down again, offering him a clear view of the shape underneath, he barely managed to hang on to his objectivity. Shifting uncomfortably, he found himself reacting in a way that was not only inappropriate but damned embarrassing.

Waiting until she was close enough to see the set of her features—he firmly believed that given the right circumstances, a woman’s disposition could be read in her face—he descended the worn wooden steps. Obviously, she was tired and irritated. Only to be expected. Other than that, he couldn’t quite decide. She was a real beauty, though, and beauty was definitely not an asset on an island where men were men and women were rare.

He’d intended her for James Calvin, his chief carpenter. Thank God he hadn’t told him she was due in today, because he was going to have to send this one back and try again. Whatever else she might be, a woman with her looks was trouble just waiting to happen. The last thing he needed was to set the men fighting over her like a pack of mangy hounds.

At the foot of the dune, Dora stopped and watched the man striding toward her. This was Grey St. Bride? This was the man who had advertised for a wife?

There must be something terribly wrong with him—something that didn’t show from the outside. Either that or the brandy had affected her eyesight, because even from this distance he appeared to be strikingly handsome. Tall, with a rangy sort of leanness that reminded her of the live oak stumps she’d noticed along the shore, worn down to heartwood by centuries of wind and water.

“Mrs. Sutton?”

Dora remembered just in time that on her application she’d claimed to be a widow. “Mr. St. Bride?”

Warily, silently, they sized each other up. Dora, still reeling from the long crossing, swayed on her feet. Forcing back a lingering queasiness, she managed a parody of a smile. “What a—an interesting place,” she said. It was the best she could come up with. Bleak. Stark. Inhospitable. Definitely the ends of the earth. “I’m sure it must be quite lovely in the summertime.” It’s the middle of April, for heaven’s sake. If ever a place is going to be lovely, surely it would be by now.

Grey took in everything about the woman, then wished he hadn’t. Seeing her at close range only confirmed his decision. Skin that pale, that soft, would never survive the harsh climate. As for her hands, if they’d ever done a lick of work it couldn’t have been anything more strenuous than wielding one of those fancy feather fans society ladies used for flirting.

Her eyes were the color of Spanish moss, shifting from gray to green. A man could lose his wits trying to figure out exactly which color they were.

“Not got your land legs under you yet, Mrs. Sutton? The trouble with living on an island is that there’s only one way to travel. I’ll be glad to pay for your time, but I’m afraid—” His keen senses picked up the smell of brandy. And while he wasn’t one to hold the occasional drink against anyone, man or woman, it was just one more thing he could chalk up against this particular woman. She was too frail, too pretty, and evidently prone to drink.

She’d never last out a month. If the hard work expected of a St. Bridian woman didn’t defeat her, the solitude surely would. Pretty soon she’d insist on leaving, and then, there would go his best carpenter. It had happened before. What man, offered a choice between work on a desolate island and a woman like this, would choose the job?

“Darling, you can’t possibly expect me to move out to that wretched island of yours. I’d wither and die within a week.”

Echoes of the past. Grey blocked them out and studied this small butterfly of a woman before him. The women who replied to the advertisements he’d been placing monthly were inclined to be plain, verging onto outright homely. If they could have found a husband at home, they would never have applied to his advertisement. It didn’t take a Solomon to know that whatever she was doing here, this one would be nothing but trouble, setting the men against one another.

Besides which, he wasn’t altogether immune to her himself. If he’d had no other reason to reject her, that would be enough.

“Mrs. Sutton, I’m afraid you won’t do. I mean this purely as a kindness, for you’d never survive. For the most part the men here are decent enough, but they’re a rough sort. Their wives will have to be tough as nails to stake a claim and hang on to it.”

Grey found it all but impossible to meet her eyes, though he was commonly known as a direct man. Shifting his weight on his big, booted feet, he tried to think of some compelling reason that might convince her to leave. He could hardly tell her that he hadn’t been this tempted by a woman in years, especially not one who reeked of brandy and looked as if she’d just been tipped head over heels out of a handcart.

“I’m tough,” she said, meeting his gaze with surprising directness.

“The nearest doctor is almost a day’s sail from here.”

“I’m healthy as a horse,” she said calmly.

“We’ve no amenities—no shops or tearooms—the kind of places ladies like to spend time.”

“I can do without those.” One by one, she continued to swat down his arguments, as if daring him to send her away.

“Dammit—begging your pardon, ma’am, but you’re too pretty! If I let you stay, the other men will never be satisfied with plainer women, and you must know, those who come out here are mostly ones who can’t find a husband anywhere else.”

She blinked those incredible eyes of hers. At least she didn’t simper. Finally she said, “I can be plain. I am, honestly, it’s just this gown—pink is—it’s so flattering.”

The air left his lungs in a hefty, hopeless sigh. Dammit, he felt like a dog, but for her own sake—for the sake of his peaceable community—for the sake of his own peace of mind, she had to go. “Your return passage won’t cost you a penny. The Bessie Mae & Annie belongs to me, her captain is in my employ. Naturally I’ll pay for your time….” He reached for his wallet.

Pay for her time? Dora thought wildly. Time was not a problem. Time, she had aplenty. What she didn’t have was another place to go. She had burned all her bridges—or rather they’d been burned for her. After coming all the way out to the ends of the earth, where could she go from here? Off the edge?

Pride fought with anger and desperation. After an exchange of letters—two on her part, one on his—her passage had been arranged. It had never once occurred to her that after all that, she would be rejected.

Fighting the urge to batter him with her fists, she forced back her anger and reached for pride. Head held high, she glanced disdainfully at the bills fluttering in his hand and turned away before the tears could overflow. She might have to crawl behind a sand dune to bawl her eyes out on the way back to the boat, but she would die before she would let him see her shed a single tear.

“Mrs. Sutton?” he called after her.

“I don’t need your money,” she pronounced clearly without turning around. “As you said, there are no shops here, no tearoom—why on earth would I even want to stay?”

“But Mrs. Sutton—”

She kept on walking as fast as she could, hoping to be well out of range when the dam broke. As it would. She was just too tired, too empty—too totally without hope, to hold back much longer.

The church. If she could just make it as far as the church…

But before she even reached the church, someone called out in a wavering, pain-filled voice. “Miss? Could I bother you for a hand up?”

Blinking away the moisture, she glanced over the neat picket fence and saw that the man who’d been standing on a ladder when she’d passed by the first time was now lying on the ground.

Without a second thought, she swung open the gate and hurried to his side. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Obviously he was hurt. “My ankle,” he said with an apologetic look. “It’s not as young as I thought it was.”

It took her a moment to realize he was attempting a joke. In spite of her own situation, she was touched. “Let me help you sit up, and then we’ll see what needs to be done.”

He was not a large man. Pain clouded his eyes, but he managed a smile that cut through her defenses. Her own tears would have to wait.

Obviously embarrassed at having to ask for help, he attempted to lean forward to unlace his boots. With a soft, impatient murmur, Dora brushed his hands away and carefully removed his boot.

“Oh, dear.”

“Would you mind fetching St. Bride before he gets away? If he’ll help me into the house, I’ll be fine in no time at all.”

“It could be broken,” she said.

Fetch St. Bride? She’d sooner fetch the devil himself.

“Wrenched it good, that’s all. I’ve broke enough bones to know the difference.” His weathered face had paled noticeably. Dora could only hope he was right. Hadn’t the dragon king mentioned that there was no doctor on the island?

“If you’ll lean on me, I can help you inside. My father sprained his ankle once. They had to cut his boot off, it swelled so quickly.”

The injured man twisted around, peering hopefully at the house on the ridge of dunes while Dora looked for something to help her get him inside. A crutch, or even a walking stick would be perfect, but she was going to have to improvise. Scanning the tidy yard, she looked past the fallen ladder, past a sagging net pen holding a goose and several chickens to a handcart filled with gardening tools and a small wooden crate. Perhaps she could wheel him up to his porch and…

Perhaps not. It would have to be the crate. Dragging it closer, she managed to get him up off the ground and seated. Sweat beaded his furrowed face, but he thanked her as politely as if she’d offered him milk and sugar for his tea.

“As soon as you catch your breath, we’ll take the next step,” she said firmly. She might not measure up to his lordship’s lofty standards, but at least this much she could do before she left. “There now, if you’ll just take my hands…”

He was only a few inches taller than she was, and frail for a man who looked as if he might once have been far more robust. The steps up onto the porch were a problem, but patiently, she supported him until, hobbling beside her, he managed to get inside.

“There now, if you’ll just steer me to the settee I’ll rest a spell until the swelling goes down. I thank you kindly, that I do.”

“Who lives here with you?” Surely he had someone to look after him. The almighty St. Bride would have seen to that.

“Buried my wife two years ago, out by the fig trees. I’ve managed on my own since then. Can’t say I’m not glad you come along when you did, though. If that old gander of Sal’s was to get out again, we’d have had us a real set-to, with me down on his level.”

Hating her feelings of inadequacy, Dora located a towel, dipped it in a basin of cold water and applied it to his swollen ankle. In other circumstances she might have been embarrassed at such an intimacy, but the man was obviously in pain. She could hardly leave him here alone.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she had anywhere else to go. The boat that had brought her to the island would probably be returning to Bath as soon as it finished its business here. She could hardly go back there.

“I have a few minutes before I have to leave. What else can I do to make you comfortable before I leave?” she asked brightly.

He appeared to consider the offer. And then he said, “You’re one of St. Bride’s women, aren’t you?”

One of St. Bride’s women? How many did the man have, for heaven’s sake?

“You know about that? About the advertisement?” Fighting to keep despair from her voice, Dora managed to smile.

Ignoring her question, Emmet Meeks said, “’Pears to me we could both use a cup of strong tea, missy.”

“Dora,” she murmured. “Dora Sutton.” She had left Adora behind. The only good thing about being rejected was not having to go on with a lie. Or face the shame of admitting how gullible she’d been to believe Henry when he’d said he loved her. Of allowing him to—

Yes, well…from now on out, she was simply Dora.

“Emmet Meeks,” the man replied, still pale, still obviously in pain, but determined to hide it. It occurred to her that they were two of a kind in that respect. “My wife, rest her soul, swore by tea. Said coffee rotted a man’s bones. Reckon maybe that might be what ails mine?” His smile was more of a grimace, but it occurred to her that he must once have been a handsome man.

It also occurred to her that he was not in the best of health, sprained ankle notwithstanding.

The cottage was scrupulously neat. The walls had been whitewashed, the effect being warm and bright, with a faint pattern of wood grain showing through. There were hand-crocheted rugs on the floors and a basket of onions and withered apples on the kitchen table. Homely touches one would expect of a woman, but hardly of a man.

While Dora filled the kettle, her host told her where to find the teapot. “I can’t stay long,” she reminded him, almost wishing she could. Wishing she could linger in this unlikely sanctuary until she could think of what to do next, where to go. With no money, no family and no friends—with her reputation irredeemably shattered—perhaps she could just stay right here in this warm, friendly room and sip tea forever.

That old woman? Oh, that’s Dora Sutton. Ruined herself over on the mainland, don’t you know. Couldn’t go back, couldn’t go forward, so she just sat there and drank tea until she withered up like a dried plum.

Chapter Two

Once she had brewed a pot of strong tea, which more or less exhausted her culinary talents, Dora looked about for her valise and remembered that she’d left it out in the yard. She would tell someone at the docks—that nice red-haired man, perhaps—about Mr. Meeks’s ankle. Surely he would see to sending someone along to do whatever needed doing.

“So you’re one of Grey’s brides,” Meeks repeated. “Who’re you going to marry?”

Who? Well, no one, it seemed. Dora sat back down and stared at the man reclining on an old-fashioned settee in the tiny parlor. Pride alone kept her from telling him she’d been found wanting. He’d thought she was too pretty? Absurd, she told herself, feeling a rising inner heat that had to be anger. “Well…that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

“My Sal was the first,” Emmet confided wistfully. “Grey ordered her out special for me. Couldn’t have done better if I’d picked her out myself, and that’s the Lord’s truth. St. Bride deeded me an acre of land and the lumber to build us this home. Helped build it with his own hands, he did.” It was as if once the man began to talk, he couldn’t seem to stem the flow. “He builds one-room cabins for the single men, but he don’t deed ’em over until six months after they marry. So far, none of ’em that’s married has stayed that long. That makes me the only man on the island besides St. Bride to own so much as a grain of sand.” Pride was evident in his pale face.

But beneath the pride, there was loneliness. Dora understood grief and loneliness all too well. Somewhat to her surprise, she was tempted to pour out her own tale. What would it matter? He was a stranger, someone she would never meet again after today.

But telling wouldn’t change anything, it would only open the wounds again. The time for grieving was past. She had her future to secure now.

“Mr. Meeks, I really do need to leave now if I’m to catch the boat. I promise, though, I’ll send someone back to look after you.”

In a younger man, his smile might have been called teasing. “Call me Emmet. Been a while since I heard a lady speak my name.”

“Then, Emmet, I’d better hurry. It’s been—well, of course, the circumstances weren’t the best, but I’m truly glad I met you. Perhaps one of these days…”

What could she offer? Not friendship—there wasn’t time. “Perhaps Mr. St. Bride will find you another wife. Not to take the place of your first wife,” she added hurriedly. “I know no one could do that, but someone—a companion…”

“A companion,” he echoed wistfully. “Should’ve thought to tell him before he left.”

Before he left?

“Is Mr. St. Bride leaving, too?” If his high-and-mightiness was sailing on the same boat she was, she just might end up shoving him overboard to see if he could walk on water.

“Gone a’ready. Saw him set off across the ridge while you were helpin’ me to the house. Probably all the way out past Pelican Shoal by now, with the wind where it is.”

“He’s gone?” Dora didn’t know whether to rejoice or despair. At least he wouldn’t be sharing the cramped passenger cabin with her all the way across the Sound.

“Then I’d better—”

“Settle down, child. If you were fixin’ to sail with Cap’n Dozier you’re too late. He’s halfway out the channel by now, won’t come about for nobody, so you might’s well settle yourself in for a spell of waiting. Mail boat’s due in day after tomorrow. You could catch a ride out then if you’re still set on leaving. Dozier’ll be back the day after that.”

Settle herself in how? Where? She would like to think she’d begun to mature in spite of her father’s indulgences—the events of the past six weeks had surely hastened the process. But panic was her first reaction. What was she supposed to do, build herself a sand castle? Throw herself on the mercy of the first friendly face she came across?

Hardly. Foremost among the hard lessons she’d been forced to learn was that the world did not revolve around the Suttons. If she was to survive, it would be up to her to find a way.

“The—Mr. St. Bride, that is—um, happened to mention that my passage was paid on the Bessie Mae & Annie. What about the mail boat? Is it very expensive? Where would be her next port of call?”

“Well now, as to that, Grey owns the Bessie Mae. Mail boat’s a different matter—she don’t have much room for passengers. Won’t cost you much for deck space, but if I was you, I’d wait.”

Wait for what? Dora thought with the first fine edge of panic. Wait to be sent back to Bath, where women she’d known all her life would turn away and even cross the street to avoid embarrassment when they saw her coming? Where the men would look her up and down with a certain speculative gleam in their eyes that made her feel as if she’d wandered outside in her drawers and corselet?

No, thank you.

Where she would have too much pride to beg and too few resources to keep from starving?

No, thank you indeed!

“I don’t suppose there’s a—um, a boardinghouse here?” Where she could wash dishes to earn her keep until she could think of something better to do.

Emmet shook his head. “No need for one. There’s a longhouse for the pilots up at North End. Been inlet pilots here long’s there’s been a good inlet, ready to go out and meet incoming traffic, guide ’em across the shoals. Come August, there’s mullet fishermen, but now we got more of a permanent population. Like I said, St. Bride built cabins for them that don’t stay in the barracks.”

“What about the—the women? Where do they stay?” Surely she could find someplace to shelter until she could get off St. Bride’s blasted island.

“When Sal was here, we took one of ’em in. Didn’t stay long, poor woman. Lit out on the mail boat two days after she come. Since then, if the circuit preacher’s not here, they stay at the parsonage. If he’s here, he moves up to Grey’s house, let’s ’em have his place until things is settled one way or the other. Like I said, so far none of ’em’s stuck more’n a month or two, ’ceptin’ for my Sal.”

“Do you suppose—?” She hardly dared voice the question. If it involved the cooperation of Grey St. Bride, she knew in advance the answer. Having ordered her to leave, he would expect her to be gone. Instead she’d stopped to help someone in need and missed the boat. He could hardly blame her for that…could he?

“Now, if you was to want to stay here until the Bessie Mae gets back” Emmet said thoughtfully, “reckon there’s not much Grey could say about it, seein’s he deeded this place to me, fair and square.”

Dora looked about the small cottage. There appeared to be several rooms, including the kitchen off the back. There was also a narrow, steep stairway leading to what must be more rooms or an attic. Altogether, compared to Sutton Hall, Emmet’s cottage was scarcely larger than the servants’ quarters out behind their carriage house.

Odd that it should feel so…safe. Did she dare stay here long enough to plan her next move? No matter how despotic he might be, St. Bride could hardly chase her off his island as long as she remained on the part of it that Emmet owned.

Stalling for time until she could weigh her options, Dora said, “Would you like more tea? Perhaps I could—” Cook his dinner?

Hardly. She wouldn’t know how to start. She’d been no more truthful in her application when she had claimed to be a capable woman than she had when she’d called herself a widow.

Heaven help her if she had actually married St. Bride, as she had naively expected to, and he’d discovered the extent of her lies.

Fortunately, Emmet seemed more interested in talking than in dining. “Did I tell you about Sal? I buried her out by the fig trees. Sal used to race out there of a morning to beat the mockingbirds to the ripe figs.” His smile was for another woman, another time. Dora started to speak, but he continued, and so she leaned back in the uncomfortable spindle-backed chair, determined to be the audience he so obviously needed. She might be shockingly inadequate in most respects, but she could certainly listen for as long as he wanted to talk.

“Now’n again I haul a chair out there by her grave and study on the way things turn out in a man’s life. Planning don’t do much good, not when there’s a Master Planner up there with his own notions of how things is going to turn out.”

“Fate,” Dora murmured. She knew all about the way life’s chessboard could tilt with no warning, sending all the pieces crashing to the floor.

He nodded. “Some calls it luck—some might call it fate when a young woman happens by an old man’s house just when his sand’s about to run out. Does she stop and help when the old fool climbs up a ladder and takes a fall, or does she walk on by?”

Inside her flimsy kid slippers, Dora’s toes curled. What was he trying to say? That fate had directed her to his gate just as another door slammed shut in her face? Whatever it was he suggesting, could she afford not to listen? If she’d already missed the boat, what choice did she have?

“St. Bride, he signed up the circuit preacher before he sent for the first brace o’women. My Sal was one of ’em. With our own preacher on the line, we could send for him whenever there was any splicin’ that needed doing without having to sail o’er and hitch up on the mainland.”

Dora waited. She had a feeling he was leading up to something, only she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Surely he wasn’t about to ask her to marry him.

“Works out real good. Course, there’s not a lot for a preacher to do here less’n there’s a marrying. Not much sinnin’ to preach at, not like some of his other charges where they have saloons and wild women. Grey won’t tolerate sinnin’ on St. Brides—says if he allows sinnin’, first thing you know he’ll have to bring in a sawbones and a sheriff.”

Most of the color had returned to his weathered face. Dora murmured something to the effect that a doctor might be useful, but Emmet, now that his initial discomfort had lessened, seemed more inclined to talk than to listen.

“Now, Preacher Filmore, he’s a good man. Give you the shirt off’n his back if you need it. The Lord sort of slowed up his talking so folks wouldn’t miss any of his words. Trouble is, I listen a whole lot faster than he talks, and besides that, he don’t even play checkers. Not even for black-eyed peas. Calls it gambling, and gambling’s a sin in his book. So you can see the fix I’m in.”

She couldn’t, but she was beginning to see where the conversation might be headed. Evidently, the slow-talking minister would be expected to take care of Mr. Meeks and keep him entertained until he was on his feet again.

And just as evidently, Mr. Meeks’s patience would be sorely tested.

“Now Grey, he’s a meddler, for all he means well. Long as they’re living here on his island, a man don’t have no choice but to go ’long with his notions, ’specially since they generally turn out right good. I reckon he told you about the plans he has to pair up the single men with wives and start raising younguns?”

She wasn’t about to admit that she’d come here believing St. Bride meant to marry her himself.

“Used to be families living out here back in his pa’s day. Storms run most of ’em off. Shoreside washed in near half a mile. Since then, sand covered up just about everything left standing. He tell you about that?”

She shook her head. The man had told her little except that life on his island was hard, and that she would never be able to survive here. He could hardly know she had survived far worse than wild winds and raging seas.

He had also told her she was pretty. No one had ever told her that before—at least, not without wanting something from her.

“Won’t be easy, finding a schoolteacher. Finding the preacher and getting him to take on another charge was hard enough. Poor man can’t hardly keep up with things as it is. Like I said, he talks so slow it takes him two hours to get through a one-hour sermon.” He chuckled, and Dora felt some of the tension that had gripped her ever since she had recklessly answered the advertisement begin to ease.

“Licensed to marry folks, though, that’s mainly what he’s here for. Married Sal and me, right and proper. We was older than some, but when Sal came out, St. Bride, he thought we’d suit, set a good example, he said.” Nodding, he added, “Said words over her grave when I buried her.” He paused as if, satisfied with his summary, he was searching for his next topic. He had told her several times over about his wonderful Sal. The poor man was obviously starved for companionship.

So much for the wonderful Mr. St. Bride.

Dora leaned to one side to peer through a window, wishing she could see the docks from where she sat. What if Emmet was wrong and the Bessie Mae & Annie hadn’t actually sailed yet?

But even if by some miracle she mananged to catch the boat before it left, would she be any better off? There were few jobs available for women who’d been coddled all their lives. When the time came, no matter what their personal inclinations, they were expected to marry men of their fathers’ choosing—men who would continue to pamper them. As far as Dora was concerned, even that door had been closed.

From her rocking chair—Sal’s rocker, according to Emmet—all she could see was that towering monstrosity of a house on the dunes. Castle St. Bride.

Fortress St. Bride, she amended bitterly.

“So I said to myself,” Emmet Meeks went on, and Dora turned her attention back to her elderly host, wondering if she’d missed something. “Either she will or she won’t. Don’t do no harm to ask.”

“To ask?”

“Don’t take offense, Miss Sutton, but the fact that you come here in answer to St. Bride’s piece in the paper means you’ve run plumb out of luck over on the mainland.” She opened her mouth and closed it again. It was no less than the truth. “Happens, I’m alone in the world but for a dog that lives with me,” he went on. “After my wife died I went over to the mainland for a spell. Saw a doctor, thinking maybe I could get me a pair of spectacles—it was getting so I couldn’t even see the channel markers, let alone the shoals. Doc said I had clouds in my eyes—said the best specs in the world couldn’t clear ’em away.” He stirred his tea, sipped it and continued to speak, thoughtfully peering into his teacup. “Saw another doc while I was there. Told me my heart was tired.”

“Oh, no…” she murmured.

“Said if I was lucky, I still had a few good years left before it gave up the ghost.” His clouded blue eyes captured and held her clear gray-green ones. “What I’m trying to say, Miss Dora, is that I’d as soon not live ’em alone. I’ve got my dog, but Salty, she’s not much of a one for conversation.”

Dora was aghast. What could she say under the circumstances? Was he asking her to marry him? Was he daft?

More to the point, was she?

Because she actually found herself considering it. Seriously considering marriage to a man she’d known less than an hour.

Yet, was it any worse than marrying one she’d never even met? That was what she’d been prepared to do until she’d been rejected.

“I’d not ask much of you, Miss Dora. If you’ll agree to stay on as my companion—as my friend—I can’t pay you much, but I promise to deed you my house and my land and bless you with my dying breath for your kindness.”

Grey made it as far north as Long Point and dropped anchor in Wysocking Bay. He’d have liked to get farther, but sailing alone in his 30 foot sloop, he preferred to lay over until daylight. Too much was depending on him to take any foolish risks.

Damn it all, why had the woman showed up just as he had to leave? It would be several days—possibly as much as a week—before he could get back, and then he’d have to start all over again.

There had to be a way to word his advertisements so that only the right sort of woman would apply. Not too young, not too old, like poor Sal. Not too pretty, but not plain as a mud fence, either. Sturdy women, not given to fancy pink dresses and flimsy pink slippers.

Going below, he unwrapped the supper his housekeeper, a giant of a man named Mouse, had provided. Cheese, cold cornbread and smoked fish, with a handful of dried apples to follow. Back up on deck, he consumed the lot without tasting any of it and thought about the woman. Dora Sutton.

Who the devil was she? Why would a woman with her looks bother to answer his advertisement? While he might not be up on the latest fashions, he knew quality when he saw it. That fancy pink frock of hers, in spite of the stains and wrinkles, was quality.

She hadn’t taken his money, which meant she was not entirely without resources. Otherwise his conscience would never let him rest until he’d tracked her down and seen to his own satisfaction that she was all right. He’d been called a martinet—his own brother had once jokingly called him a tinhorn dictator—but he would never willingly allow anyone to suffer as long as he had the means to prevent it.

Thank God she was no longer his problem. She was the kind of woman who set a man’s sap to rising—his own, included. Being married wouldn’t change that fact. All she would have to do was stroll down to the landing on a busy day and every tongue between North End and Shallow Gut would be dragging on the ground. Next thing, there’d be fights among his men, demands that he find them a pretty, yellow-haired wife with high breasts and a hand-span waist.

Did they think he could simply sail across the sound, pick out a few likely candidates, knock them over the head with a club and drag them back to the island? Matchmaking required patience and careful planning. It took guts, tact and finesse, not to mention the ability to handle large amounts of frustration.

Any way you looked at it, turning a rough crew of transients and watermen into a settled, civilized community was damned hard work.

Thank God he had what it took to do the job.

With a million stars reflected in the black water all around him and Dora Sutton stuck in his mind like a peck of sandspurs, Grey allowed himself the rare indulgence of reliving a Chapter from his past. Back when he’d first fallen in love with her, Evelyn had been almost as beautiful as the widow Sutton. A tall woman, she’d had auburn hair and an imperious way he’d found amusing…at least for the first few months.

The years that had given her more generous proportions and darkened her hair had done little to lessen her loveliness. Lately, though, he’d noticed a few lines of dissatisfaction on her face. Come to think of it, even her voice was beginning to sound more querulous than melodious.

But that was Jocephus’s problem, not his. Thank God. One thing about having once fallen hard for the wrong woman, Grey told himself—it lent a man insulation. Taught him what qualities to look for in a wife, as well as which ones to avoid like the plague.

Back on St. Brides, Miss Adora Sutton, the once-popular but now-disgraced daughter of one of Beaufort County’s most prominent citizens, challenged her host to a game of checkers after a modest supper of cold biscuits and molasses, served with dried fruit and tinned tomatoes. Not too long ago she would have turned up her nose at such a crude repast, but having had nothing at all to eat since the ship’s biscuit and brandy Captain Dozier had offered to settle her stomach, she’d scraped her plate clean, going so far as to lick the molasses from her fingertips.

When the last rays of daylight dimmed, she lit a lamp and plumped a pillow to support Emmet’s ankle. They had played a game of checkers, and fading vision or not, the man was a wizard. “One more game?” he teased.

“All right, one more,” she agreed, “but only if you promise to keep your foot up on that stool.” Dora tried to imagine what it must be like to be alone in the world, with both a failing heart and blindness a distinct possibility. The poor man was so lonely he was reduced to talking to a dog, a pen full of chickens and one old gander. He insisted that his ankle wasn’t bothering him, but she knew the swelling alone must be uncomfortable.

They played two more games, and then she insisted on helping him to his bedroom. It had been decided after she had agreed to stay on as his companion that she would sleep in the parlor for now, on a pallet made up of quilts his wife had brought with her. Tomorrow, with Emmet’s permission, she might clear away the clutter in the back. If he objected, she could always see if the attic was at all habitable. It would be hot as blazes, but at least it would be private.

I’ll do my best to look after him for you, Sal, she thought as she snuggled down on her hard bed and stared up at the ceiling. He’s really a dear man. He misses you terribly.

The snug frame house was a far cry from Sutton Hall, but for the first time since her world had come crashing down, Dora felt a measure of peace. Of hope. And oddly enough, of security.

Sooner or later she would have to face Grey St. Bride again, but not tomorrow. Emmet assured her that whenever he sailed north to Edenton to visit his brother, he was usually gone for several days.

Meanwhile, she had much to learn, and Emmet promised to begin teaching her first thing tomorrow. She had confessed when she’d agreed to stay on that she was willing to learn—eager, in fact—but that at the moment, her domestic skills were limited to making tea and boiling eggs.

Emmet had smiled in a way that hinted at the handsome, charming scamp he must have been in his youth. He was only fifty-eight, but looked much older. “I reckon until I’m steady on my pins again, I’ll have to take my chances.”

“Do you really think you can teach me to cook?” The playful challenge was not without a degree of desperation. She had her work cut out for her if she ever intended to be self-sufficient.

“I’m a right fair hand at plain cooking. Sal left a book of recipes. I made out a few things, but like I said, my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

“Then I’ll read and you can interpret,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask why a woman who lacked even the most basic skills had come here to marry a simple workingman.

The last thought on her mind as she closed her eyes, rolled onto her side and tucked her fist against her chin was of a tall, dark-haired man with an incongruous dimple in his chin. A man who had told her she wasn’t suitable—that she was neither wanted nor needed here. That she was, of all things, too pretty!

You and your blooming island can go take a flying leap, Lord St. Bride. I’m here, and I’m staying, and that’s the end of that!

Chapter Three

Among the nicest features of Emmet’s house were the two porches. From the front she could look out past the garden, down toward the landing and watch the activity as ships lined up waiting to come alongside and unload or take on their cargo.

The back porch looked out over a chicken house, three enormous fig trees and one lonely grave, a sagging net-fenced pen and the outhouse. Beyond those there was only sand, a bit of marsh, some scrubby woods and more water. Both front and back porches were sheltered under the deeply sloping roof, which made them good for both sitting and hanging clothes out to air.

When it came to laundry—to drying her most intimate garments, however, Dora chose the attic. Someone—Sal, perhaps—had strung a line across from rafter to rafter. According to Emmet they had planned to turn the space into another bedroom, so as to house St. Bride’s women until they could make other arrangements. With a small window in each end, it would have served well enough.

She tried to visualize what could be done with the small space. Now that she no longer had to live up to anyone’s expectations but her own, she was beginning to discover not only new interests but new talents.

For instance, she was quite good at planning. Better at planning than at the actual doing, but that would come in time. The important thing was that she had a perfectly good brain and a pair of capable—marginally capable—hands.

For no reason at all, she thought of the man who had sent for her, only to reject her. “Here’s one in your eye, St. Bride.”

Her friend Selma Blunt used to announce her serves that way when she meant to zing one across the net. But then, Selma had always been fiercely competitive. She’d always had to be the best at anything she attempted. More often than not she’d succeeded.

Selma had wanted Henry. So far as Dora knew, she hadn’t succeeded there. She did know, however, that both Selma and her personal maid, Polly, had done their best to spread the gossip. Her own maid, Bertola, had told her so.

Well, Selma could have Henry Carpenter Smythe with her blessings. The two of them deserved each other. Personally, Dora found the position of companion far preferable to marriage. If she ever did marry, the truth would have to come out, because she simply wasn’t capable of living a lie.

But then, neither was she ready to confess to the truth.

Sighing, Dora thought of what an utter ruin the Suttons had made of their lives. Her poor father had been unable to accept failure. She, at least, was trying to recover and make a new start. Whether or not it was what Emmet called fate, she happened to have stumbled onto the ideal solution. Instead of being forced to marry for the sake of security, as she had resigned herself to do, she had found the perfect position with a man who was content with what she could offer. Best of all, she had found a friend.

The early morning sun came streaming through the window, striking her face with blinding brilliance the next morning. She had her pallet rolled up and hidden behind the settee by the time Emmet emerged from the bedroom.

“You shouldn’t be up,” she scolded. He had upended a broom and was using it as a crutch.

“I’ll be dancing a fandango before you know it.”

“Fandango, indeed. You’re a scamp, Emmet Meeks, do you know that?”

His eyes, clouded though they were, had a decided twinkle. “Been called it a time or two. I reckon we’d best see to clearing out the back room. After Sal died I shoved everything inside and shut the door. There’s a bed under there somewhere. I built it. Didn’t do as good a job as James Calvin would’ve done, but I reckon it’ll hold a small woman.”

“Emmet, are you sure? I don’t want to—hurt your feelings.”

“Go to it, gal. Can’t have you sleeping on the floor.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Dora assured him. Although as long as she was going to live here, she would really prefer an arrangement that would afford her a bit more privacy, not to mention comfort.

After a leisurely breakfast of scorched sausage, overcooked eggs and embarrassed apologies, she helped Emmet out onto the front porch where he could watch the goings-on at the landing, arranging a stool for his ankle. The swelling had gone down, but he was still unable to pull on his boot.

Washing dishes involved bringing in water from the rain barrel, heating it on the woodstove, pouring it over a chunk of brown soap and scrubbing until the plates came clean, then heating more water to rinse them and drying them with a towel made of a flour sack.

In the process she managed to burn her fingers, drop a cup, which was thankfully thick enough that it didn’t break—and splash water all over her bodice.

“Well, that’s done,” she announced proudly, joining her employer on the front porch just as the redheaded warehouseman passed by.

“Morning, Clarence,” Emmet called out.

“Morning, Emmet. Miz Sutton.” It was the same man she’d seen yesterday when she’d stumbled off the boat. Evidently word had spread, as he obviously knew who she was. If he was surprised to see her still here, he hid it well. “Looks like rain tomorrow,” he declared.

Salty, Emmet’s yellow dog, who appeared to be a mixture of retriever and shepherd, yapped once and then curled back into her spot of sun on the corner of the porch.

“On his way up to fetch Grey’s ledger, I reckon,” Emmet said when the man walked on by. “With the way business is picking up, it don’t pay to let things slide.” Emmet’s rheumy gaze followed the lanky young man walking along the shell-paved road to Castle St. Bride, as Dora had come to think of it.

“Mercy, it’s warm.” She discreetly plucked her damp petticoat away from her body, wishing she had more than a single change. So far, she’d learned to wash drawers, stockings and dishes. Her education was progressing by leaps and bounds, but with every leap forward, she was aware of many more shortcomings.

Really, she thought, something should be done about women’s education. What good was knowing the proper seating at a dinner party for twenty-four when one could barely manage a simple meal for two?

Emmet eased into a more comfortable position. “If Grey had in mind to marry you to one of his key men, there’s Clarence, or James Calvin or Almy. You got any particular leanings?”

“If you mean do I favor any particular man, I’ve spoken only briefly to Clarence. I’ve never even met the others.”

Dora, who had already decided that she would far rather stay on as a companion than marry any man, asked, “What would have happened if I’d been accepted, but then my prospective bridegroom and I hadn’t suited?” Now that marriage was no longer a possibility, she could allow herself to wonder.

“I reckon you’d have suited any man with eyes in his head. St. Bride must’ve figured you wouldn’t thrive in a place like this. One thing I’ll say for the boy—when he makes a mistake, he’s not too proud to admit it. He’s hard, but he’s not heartless.”

The boy. Grey St. Bride had to be at least thirty years old, but then, coastal men, like farmers, tended to age earlier than men like Henry and her father. Although one would never have known it from his soft white hands, Tranquil Sutton had come from a long line of Beaufort County farmers. Sutton Hall had once been centered in more than two thousand acres of rich, productive farmland before it had been sold off, a few hundred acres at the time, to enable her father to go into what he called “investments.”

As it turned out, he’d have done better to lease out his land and live on the proceeds.

“You’re going to need a pair of real shoes. Pity Sal’s things won’t fit you. She was a sturdy woman.” He fell silent, and Dora completed the thought. But evidently not sturdy enough.

Looks could be deceiving. “I left my trunk in storage over on the mainland.” While it wasn’t a hint that he might offer to send for it, she could hardly stay on with only two dresses and a single change of undergarments.

“I’ll have Clarence send for it when he comes down the ridge again.”

“How much do you suppose it would cost to ship it out?”

“Cap’n Dozier’ll see to it. He brings out supplies two, three times a week.”

Grateful but embarrassed at having to accept charity, Dora reached down and scratched the ears of the dog sleeping beside her chair. Things were moving almost too quickly. Having her trunk shipped out—moving into Emmet’s house…There was still one big obstacle to be faced before she felt truly secure.

St. Bride.

“Well. I suppose I should—should go and find something useful to do.” Rising, she turned to go inside.

“Easy, girl, you’ll come about just fine.”

Dora was proud of each small accomplishment. Better yet, Emmet seemed just as pleased. Using her eyes and hands along with Emmet’s encouragement and Sal’s recipe book, she cooked another meal. After fanning the smoke out the window, they dined on underdone biscuits, scorched bacon and what was supposed to have been sauce made from dried apples, but ended up a tasteless, lumpy mush.

Emmet praised it all and Dora swelled with pride. If she could do this much now, she could do even better with enough practice. She wasn’t stupid, after all—only inexperienced.

The next day she accomplished two things. First she mastered the art of cooking beans, then she worked up her courage to slide a hand under Emmet’s hens and remove the eggs.

Unfortunately, the gander chose that morning to escape from his pen, which was separated from the chicken’s side only by a length of fishnet. The wretched bird chased her back to the porch, hissing and clacking his beak. She ended up throwing six of the seven eggs she’d collected at the vicious creature.

Emmet had laughed until she almost felt like throwing the last egg at him, but then, she’d had to laugh, herself.

After that had come the crucial test. Fish. “Filleted and fried?” she asked dubiously, thinking of the heavy cast-iron frying pan and the hot bacon drippings their old cook had always used, and the way the grease had always spattered. Could she do it without burning down the house?

“If you don’t mind, I believe I’d as soon have it stewed.” Evidently Emmet picked up on her uncertainty.

“Then stewed it is,” she said, covering her relief. “Sal says potatoes, onions, corn dumplings and salt pork.” She had read the book from cover to cover, trying to absorb in a matter of days the lessons of a lifetime.

“And fish,” Emmet said dryly, and they both laughed again.

That was something they did frequently. Laugh together. For the life of her, Dora couldn’t imagine why, because nothing either of them said was particularly funny. The best she could come up with was that they were comfortable together. Here in their safe little world, where there were no real threats, the smallest things brought pleasure.

More than once she warned herself not to look back, for the past held little but pain. Instead she focused on the future. After only a few days, when nothing disastrous happened, she felt secure enough to lower her guard.

Emmet would have probably listened if she had gone on and on about the latest fashions, or even the latest gossip about who was courting whom. Somewhere between then and now—between Bath and St. Brides, those topics seemed to have lost their appeal. With the perspective of time and distance, her entire life seemed incredibly shallow compared to that of a man who had once guided big ships through a treacherous inlet—a man who had finally found love, only to lose it so suddenly.

At Emmet’s urging, however, she related a few stories from her childhood. Small things. Like hanging around the kitchen hoping to get a taste of frosting before it went on the cake. Like dressing up on rainy days in gowns she found in a trunk in the attic.

Nothing at all about her father’s losing everything, including the home that had been in their family for more than a hundred years. Certainly nothing about his suicide, or her shame in allowing Henry to seduce her.

Dora talked and Emmet listened, and then Emmet would talk while Dora listened. More often than not they ended up laughing together over some trivial incident from either her past or his. They played checkers—clouded eyes or not, he was a wicked competitor.

And then, Emmet suggested she marry him.

It wasn’t a proposal so much as a business proposition. Dora was sitting in one of the two parlor chairs, rubbing her foot through her lisle stockings, as the sole had finally worn through her left slipper.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Now, don’t jump ship before you hear me out.” Emmet had buttoned his blue shirt up to his neck and put on his best denim trousers. His ankle had healed enough that he was able to get around quite well. “I’m an old man. Like I said, my sand’s running out. While I’m still able to get about, I’d like to see things settled between us. Now, Grey, he means well, but he might take a notion to send you on your way once he gets back—ought to be showing up most any day now. If I remember correctly—and I gen’ally do,” he added with a familiar twinkle—”this house is mine for my lifetime, then it goes to my widow and any issue I might have. Otherwise, it turns back to St. Bride.”

Frantically thinking of all the reasons why such a match was absurd, Dora hardly heard what he was saying about his house. St Bride was on his way home. He would find her and…what?

Emmet waited patiently for her reaction. Having presented his case, he left the decision to her.

Could she stay on as his companion if she said no? If not, where could she go? Could she even afford to leave the island? She had no desire to marry. On the other hand, such an arrangement would benefit both and harm neither.

Dora took a deep breath. Then, suppressing second thoughts, she accepted.

The wedding was held the next day, before St. Bride could return and object. It was quite small. Clarence was there, his smile bright enough to light up the whole church. And the two carpenters, James Calvin and Almy Dole. By then Dora had met several of the local men. She couldn’t help but feel relief at not being thrust into a stranger’s arms by Lord St. Bride.

Clarence was nice. Red-haired and freckled, he had an engaging smile. She rather thought he was an intelligent man, but on the few occasions when they’d met, she hadn’t been able to think of a single thing to say to him.

As for the boat-building carpenters, James Calvin and Almy Dole, who were cousins, according to Emmet, they both seemed equally decent. Both were dark haired, dark eyed, really quite attractive men, but painfully shy. If Emmet was right and St. Bride had picked out one of those to be her husband, what on earth would they ever have found to talk about?

She sighed, waiting for the minister to stop clearing his throat and get on with the marriage service. Emmet didn’t need to be standing for any length of time. Besides, St. Bride was expected at any time.

Somewhat surprisingly, the church was filled, all three rows. Most of the men appeared to have made an effort at grooming for the occasion. Hats in hand, hair slicked back, each one bowed gravely as Emmet introduced them to his bride-to-be. Instead of flowers, the church was beginning to smell distinctly like fish.

Suddenly struck by the absurdity of the situation, Dora managed to swallow her mirth just as the preacher said sonorously, “Friends…we are…gathered here…”

He did, indeed, speak slowly, just as Emmet had warned. It wasn’t so much a drawl as an emphasis on each word spoken. Halfway through the proceedings Dora was ready to scream, “Get on with it, do, before I lose my courage!”

But she gripped Emmet’s arm and they supported each other until they were finally pronounced man and wife.

On the way back to the cottage, having been showered with shy smiles, a few mumbled blessings and even a bow by a courtly old gentleman wearing faded denim and rubber boots—Dora walked slowly, aware that Emmet was tiring. His ankle was largely mended, but he still had a limited amount of strength.

She’d been able to take most of his daily tasks on herself, even if she didn’t do them particularly well. After nearly a week she was still discovering strengths and weaknesses, as well as abilities she might never have known about if her life hadn’t taken such a sudden turn.

They had almost reached the front gate when Grey St. Bride came riding over the dunes on a big, shaggy bay horse. “Oh, dear, he’s back, she murmured.

“Heard he was due in,” replied Emmet equably.

Suddenly the animal reared. Silhouetted against the sunset, the man appeared to Dora almost like a centaur. Her mouth went dry and her heart began to pound until she could hardly breathe.

Shading his eyes against the lowering sun, Emmet said cheerfully, “Good evening, to you, St. Bride. I reckon you’ve met my wife. Sorry you missed the wedding.”

Protectively gripping her husband’s arm, Dora heard with amazement the cocky note in his voice. Weak or not, he suddenly sounded far younger than he had only moments ago.

St. Bride looked from one to the other before his gaze settled on Dora. “The devil, you say.”

Chapter Four

“Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Cap’n?” Emmet asked, grinning broadly by now. “I reckon you had in mind marrying her off to James or Clarence, but I need her more than them two does.”

Slowly, his eyes never once leaving Dora’s, Grey St. Bride swung down from his horse. “Madam, I told you—”

“You told me I wouldn’t do. That I was too weak. Well, you don’t know me at all. I’ll do just fine!” Pain from all the wounds that had been inflicted over the past few months suddenly coalesced into raw anger.

Emmet patted her arm and stepped between them. “I’ve enough laid by to see to her care and feeding,” he told the other man, quiet pride lending him stature. “You’ll not be inconvenienced.”

Though his intent was clear, there was a tremor in his voice that warned Dora he was overreaching his limited resources. Fearing that he might actually challenge the younger man, she stepped forward and tucked her arm through his again. “If you’ll excuse us now, Mr. St. Bride,” she said firmly, “I’d best get started cooking our marriage dinner.”

Not waiting to see the effect of her words, she tugged Emmet toward the gate and ushered him through, wondering if she had taken leave of her senses, deliberately taunting the man that way. Among several qualities she had recently developed was a rather alarming strain of recklessness.

However, she couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder just before she closed the front door behind them. Grey was still standing in the middle of the road, threat implicit in every inch of his tall, powerful body.

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Had she heard that somewhere, or only read it?

Never mind, just so long as it was true.

Emmet headed for his favorite chair and collapsed, fanning his face with his straw hat. “I reckon we set the boy in his place,” he said, looking smug despite his flushed face. “Don’t fret, Doree, Grey won’t give you a speck of trouble. He’s a fair man. Gets his dander up when things don’t go his way, but you have to remember, the boy owns near about the whole island. Him, and his father and grandfather before him.”

Which went a long way toward explaining his arrogance, she allowed grudgingly. Even so, he was too tall, too strong and entirely too male. “I don’t like him,” Dora said flatly. “I don’t care if he owns every twisted tree and every grain of sand in sight, he doesn’t own me. And he doesn’t own you—and he doesn’t own our home.”

Emmet smiled, but it seemed somewhat forced. He’s tired, Dora thought ruefully. Walking to the church, then having to stand there until that tedious, slow-talking minister finally pronounced them man and wife—it was enough to test the strength of a much younger man. And then, to be challenged on the way home by the St. Bride…!

“Let me slide your stool closer, then I’ll see what I can do about dinner.”

“To tell the truth, wife, I’m used to eating dinner in the middle of the day.”

“Oh, I know—it’s supper. I keep forgetting. You wait right here and I’ll bring you a glass of your blackberry wine.”

She brought two. Gravely they saluted their union with a silent toast, totally unaware of the brooding man gazing down at their cottage from his vantage point on the highest ridge on the island. Dora made a silent vow that Emmet would never regret marrying her and giving her a home. She would be the best wife any man could wish for, as long as she didn’t have to…

Well. At least she could see that their wedding supper was neither scorched nor underdone. She was beginning to get the hang of cooking, thanks to Sal’s recipe book and Emmet’s patient translations.

Emmet was ready for bed by the time the first few stars emerged. Dora waited until she could hear his soft snores through the closed door, then she heated water and bathed in the kitchen, put on her nightgown, blew out the lamp and sought her own narrow bed. Her last waking thought was that no matter what St. Bride had said—no matter what he thought of her, she was safe here.

In his house on the hill, Grey stared morosely at Meeks’s cottage. She was down there, laughing up her sleeve for making a fool of him. What kind of a woman would take advantage of an old man whose health was so precarious that Grey had actually been meaning to send his own housekeeper down once a day to see to the necessary?

Dammit, he should have made arrangements before he’d left for Edenton. If the woman hadn’t shown up just when she did—if he hadn’t allowed her to distract him—none of this would have happened. Mouse could have gone down each morning to see to the old man’s meals and make sure he hadn’t died of heart failure in the middle of the night. He could have brought his laundry up to the house to be done along with Grey’s.

A wife. Godalmighty, he thought as he watched the last light go off in the cottage below—if there was one thing the man didn’t need, it was a wife. He’d kill himself trying to satisfy the gold-digging little witch.

She’d done it purely out of spite, Grey thought bitterly. Because he’d told her in effect that she wasn’t worthy of being a St. Bridian. Why else would a beautiful young widow who wore fancy pink gowns and flimsy kid slippers marry a man more than twice her age? A stranger, at that.

For his property?

Hell, it was only a cottage, and not even on a fashionable resort beach like Nags Head or Cape May. However, if she thought she could talk Emmet into selling it, she was in for a surprise.

“Damned female,” he muttered. One last glance down at the dark cottage set his imagination off on a pointless and decidedly unwelcome course. Honeymoon dinner, be damned!

Just before the lights went out he’d caught a glimpse of her pink skirts swishing back and forth. From his higher vantage point he could only see the lower half of the room. But the windows were open and he’d heard drifts of laughter. Heard them and wondered what the two of them found to laugh about.

And admitted to himself that any man with a shred of decency would be glad Meeks could laugh again after so long.

“Damned woman,” he muttered. Turning away, he reached for the mail that had come in on the boat that morning. He had better things to do than visualize what was going on down the ridge. One thing for certain, though—if Emmet turned up dead after his wedding night there’d be hell to pay. Grey had made it his business to look after the old man’s health after finding him halfway to John Luther’s place back in December, his lips blue and a look of panic on his face.

He’d carried him home, called in the preacher, and between them they had stayed at his bedside until Grey could get a physician over from Portsmouth Island.

That was when he’d learned the truth—that the poor old man was not only half blind, he had a failing heart. The doctor had given him some pills for his heart, a tonic for his general health, and warned him against hard physical labor. Nothing could be done for his eyes. A lifetime spent on the water, according to the eminent Dr. Skinner, could do that to a man.

But tonic or no tonic, the last thing a man in Emmet’s condition needed was a woman like Dora Sutton, ripe for trouble and not above marrying for spite. Unfortunately, he could hardly crate her up and ship her back to where she came from now, not without upsetting Meeks.

However he would make a point of keeping a close eye on what went on down the ridge. At the first sign of any shenanigans, the lady would find herself hustled onto an outward-bound schooner before she could even slap a bonnet on her head.

The mail. He’d come back fully intending to go through the week’s mail. Already the blasted female was interfering in his business.

The first letter was from Jocephus, written before Grey had arrived for his last visit. He took some small comfort in the fact that occasionally, even with the U.S. Postal Service, things didn’t go according to plan.

“Evan, your nephew and sole heir, continues to do well at his studies. The boy takes his intelligence from me, quite obviously. Ha-ha. Evelyn mails him cookies each week, which I suspect he raffles off for spending money. She spoils the boy something fierce, but then, I suppose all mothers are the same.”

Grey was not in a position to know about all mothers, having lost his own when he was a mere lad. He did know, however, that Evelyn had doted on her only child from the day he’d come into the world, red faced and squalling fit to bust a gut.

Smiling, he refolded the letter and set it aside to be answered in the coming week. He had long since gotten over having fallen in love at the age of nineteen with the toast of Edenton, a beautiful young woman who’d been horrified at the thought of trading her comfortable life for the rugged island of St. Brides.

She had married his brother, instead, and Grey had forced himself to stand as Jo’s best man. He had returned to the island the very next morning, nursing a broken heart and a hangover. Both had quickly mended, and he’d thrown himself into planning the rebuilding of his island community. In the back of his mind there might have been some idea of showing Evelyn just what she had passed up, but somewhere along the way, his motivation had changed.

His determination, however, had not.

Over the next few weeks the pattern the newlyweds had established early on continued. The bride and bridegroom talked together, laughed together and shared tasks, with Dora taking on all those she could manage and watching carefully to see that Emmet didn’t overextend himself.

Emmet talked about places he’d been, people he’d known, triumphs and mishaps in which he’d been involved. At first Dora listened because she owed him that much and more. And then she listened because she was quickly coming to care for this frail, gentle man she had married in such haste. She listened, too, because while he was relating his own story, he couldn’t ask her about hers.

But then, one evening shortly after their wedding, Emmet paused in the middle of one of his hurricane stories. “Whatever’s troubling you, girl,” he said quietly, “I’m almost as good a listener as I am a talker.”

And perhaps because she needed to talk about it—or perhaps because not to confide would have indicated a lack of trust—Dora began hesitantly to speak of her past. Small things—games she’d played as a child. Pets she remembered. Nothing that would give rise to questions as to why she was here, married to a man she would never have considered marrying if her life hadn’t suddenly fallen apart.

“Well, you see, there was this man…”

When he simply nodded, she searched for the best way to explain what her life had once been like. Oddly enough, her past no longer seemed quite so relevant.

While it was true that her father had lost a fortune that included their very home, then shot himself rather than face ruin, Emmet had lost the wife he adored.

“I don’t suppose his name really matters,” she said wistfully.

Emmet watched the sparkle fade from her eyes, the smile from her face. He nodded for her to continue, and she did. “Henry and I were already engaged by the time my father—lost everything—and killed himself.” There, she’d gotten over the first hurdle.

As if to give her time, Emmet pushed himself up from his chair and went out to the kitchen to bring her a tumbler of water. “I take it your young man didn’t stand by you.”

“Stand by me?” Her eyes threatened to overflow, but she managed to laugh. Henry had completed the task her father had only begun, destroying any possible chance she might have had of happiness. “Hardly. You see, Henry had lost all his money by investing in the same stock scheme my father had, only neither of them realized it at the time. They’d both been told that by keeping the deal private, they stood to recoup a fortune beyond their wildest dreams—something to do with South American oil and diamonds, I think.” She spoke rapidly, as if by skating fast enough on thin ice, she could reach the other side without plunging into the freezing depths. “Evidently Henry got wind of trouble first and decided to insure his future by marrying me, Daddy’s only heir. What he didn’t realize until too late was that Daddy had mortgaged our home and invested everything he could scrape up in the same risky scheme. And then he—” She swallowed hard before she was able to continue. “Once he realized what he had done, Daddy decided that the only way to look after me was to find me a wealthy husband.”

Ironically, she had found herself a far better husband than the one her father had chosen.

“Henry was somewhere up north when the Wall Street Journal broke the news. When it came out, Daddy shot himself.”

Dora breathed deeply, like a winded runner. Somewhere nearby a whippoorwill called softly to its mate, the melancholy cry almost an intrusion. The constant sound of water lapping against the shore was like music heard from a distance, while beside her, Emmet rocked slowly in the slat-back rocker, offering her time to recover.

Now that she had put herself back in that time, that place, Dora found herself unable to go on, yet unable to stem the flow of memories.

It was the night after her father’s funeral. Everyone in town had attended, even the servants, even though, with no money to pay them, some had already left to find other positions.

Needing to be alone to make sense of all that had happened, Dora had wandered out to the summerhouse, with its chintz-covered settees and rattan tables and chairs—the place where Henry had proposed to her barely a month earlier.

Henry had not returned in time for the funeral, yet she hadn’t been particularly surprised when she’d seen him that evening, following the winding path through the magnolias and cypress trees. She’d known, of course, that he would come as quickly as he could.

She opened the door, needing more than anything in the world the undemanding comfort of his strong arms, the healing balm of his love. As if her father’s suicide hadn’t been enough of a shock, the reading of the will had left her stunned, wondering how on earth a man who had inherited wealth and accrued still more could have lost it all in less than a week.

“He’s gone,” she’d said, her voice rising to a thin wail as she rushed into the arms of her fiancé. “Oh, Henry, Daddy’s gone—everything is gone. Tell me I’ll wake up and it will all have been a dream.”

The vultures hadn’t even waited until after the funeral to descend. Strangers brought in by her father’s lawyers had been taking inventory for the past two days while the lawyer himself met with creditors in her father’s study. That was when she’d learned that her father had even sold her pearls, her diamond-and-sapphire bracelet and the gold-and-emerald broach he’d insisted on keeping in his office safe.

“Henry, tell me what to do,” she’d wept in her fiancé’s arms.

“Shh, it’ll be all right,” he’d murmured. “You still have me, sweetheart. Let me make you forget all this.”

Feeling as if her whole world had collapsed, she’d been in desperate need of comfort and security. Several times they had come close to making love, because Henry’s kisses had been so very exciting. This time when he tossed several cushions onto the floor, eased her down and began unbuttoning her bodice, she hadn’t tried to stop him.

It had ended far too quickly. She remembered the pain—remembered feeling chilled and oddly disappointed. As if she had reached for a rainbow that hadn’t been there. Henry had rolled over onto his back, his clothing awry, and stared up at the ceiling. Feeling bereft, she had waited for him to reassure her that their wedding would take place quietly, as soon as decently possible, because she needed him now more than ever.

Only he hadn’t.

When she’d asked what she should do now that her home was going to be sold out from under her, he’d looked at her as if she were a stranger.

“What to do?” Rising to stand over her, he began tucking his shirt back into his pants. “My advice to you, dear Dora, is to find yourself a paying position. There must be something you’re good at. God knows, the last thing I need if I’m going to have to start all over again is a spoiled, whining wife hanging around my neck.”

She remembered thinking it must be some horrible, tasteless joke. Only how could he possibly make jokes at such a time, when her whole world had crumbled around her? When she’d needed him more than ever?

When they had done what they had just done.

“Henry—”

“Goddammit, Dora, I’m ruined, don’t you understand? I lost every damned cent I could beg, borrow or steal! Why do you think I asked you to marry me? Because you’re so damned irresistible? Come, girl, even you can’t be that stupid. Once I got wind that things might be headed for trouble, I started looking around for a backup plan. And there you were, daddy’s precious darling, ripe for the plucking.” In the rapidly fading light, his features had twisted into those of a stranger. “So I thought, why not? The old man can’t live forever, and once he dies, I’ll be set for life.”

They were standing stiffly apart by then. Dora, her gaping gown held together by only a few buttons, felt behind her for a chair. “Th-that’s not true. You—you’ve been drinking. Besides, if you thought something was wrong, why didn’t you tell my father? Why didn’t you warn him before he—before he—?”

“Before he blew his brains all over your fancy French wallpaper? Because I didn’t know the old bastard had gone out on a limb to put everything he could scrape together into the same lousy deal I had, that’s why! It was supposed to be a private, limited opportunity!” By that time he’d been yelling, patting his pockets as if to be sure he hadn’t lost anything. “Five investors, one in each state, I was told. All names kept secret, they said. Once it paid off, we’d all be rich beyond our wildest dreams. God, I can’t believe I was so stupid! They must’ve rounded up every idiot who could scrape together a few thousand dollars and sold them the same bill of goods!”

She had stared up at him, dazed, struggling to make sense of what she was hearing after the absolute worst three days of her life. “But—but then, why did you—”

“Allow you to seduce me?” His bark of laughter had made her flesh crawl. “Why not? You landed-gentry types sure as hell owe me something for all the time I wasted in this crummy little backwater town.”

He’d started to leave, turned back and said, “Oh, yeah—I forgot this.” Lifting her limp hand, he’d kissed her fingers and then removed the diamond engagement ring she had scarcely had time to get used to wearing.

She’d still been there, numb with shame and disbelief, when her maid, one of the few servants who had stayed on, had found her. Bertola had taken one look at her face, then at the condition of her clothes, and said, “He done it to ye, didn’t he?”

The little maid was hardly more than a child, but Dora had turned to her and burst into tears. “He—he doesn’t want me,” she’d wept. “He said he—said I—we owed him…”

“Hush, honey, you come on back to the house now.” And Dora had allowed herself to be led back to the house that would soon no longer be hers. “I’ll run warm water in the tub. You might want to smear some salve down there, where—you know. So it won’t burn so much. I know it don’t seem like it now, but you’ll feel better by an’ by, Miss Dora. I’ll bring you some hot whiskey and sugar, it’ll help you sleep.”

Such wisdom and understanding from a sixteen-year-old maid. Dora had been in no condition to wonder about it at the time, and now that it occurred to her, it was too late.

She had slept that night…eventually. Slept and woken in time to say goodbye to the last of the servants. Head aching, heart numb, she had waited for her three best friends to call, as they’d promised to do after the funeral. She’d been told she could stay on until the house was sold and the new owner took possession, but she would rather not stay alone and there was no money to pay anyone to stay with her. She was warned not to think of selling any of the furnishings—as if she would.

Bertola had offered to stay on, but Dora knew she would need to find other work as quickly as possible. It was just beginning to dawn on her that without a home—without funds—people might actually starve.

Surely one of her friends, Dora had told herself, would invite her to stay with them until she could think more clearly about the future. They had all visited back and forth, she in their homes, they in hers.

So she’d continued to wait in the big old house with its familiar polished woodwork, its familiar faded murals, its tall, arch-topped windows draped in black. She’d blamed the rain when no one came to call the next day.

Then, too, she’d told herself, they were probably embarrassed for her. First, losing her father in such a shocking way, and then losing her home—practically everything she possessed. Granted, she was now poor while they were still wealthy, but surely their friendship had been based on more than a shared social position. They couldn’t possibly know what had happened in the summerhouse. Henry certainly wouldn’t brag about it, not after breaking their engagement the very same night. Gentlemen didn’t break engagements, much less…the other. If he even hinted at what had happened, he would quickly find himself run out of town—or worse.

It was Bertola, as the two of them were packing Dora’s trunk a few days later, who finally told her the truth. Not content to take her virginity—although she’d been a willing partner, to her everlasting shame—Henry had deliberately destroyed her reputation. The scoundrel had put it about that when he’d hurried back to town to offer her his condolences, Dora had seduced him, intent on making sure he married her as quickly as possible.

That’s when he’d discovered, to his astonishment, that far from being a virgin, his fiancée was a bold, experienced adventuress. His heart, of course, had been shattered beyond repair, but how could he possibly accept damaged goods? How could he possibly bestow his honorable name on a woman half the men in town must have known intimately?

Bertola claimed tearfully that she’d done her best to refute the wicked tale, for hadn’t she known Miss Dora ever since she’d first come to work at Sutton Hall as a scullery maid? But who would take the word of a servant over a fancy gentleman from up north?

“That Polly,” she’d exclaimed indignantly, Polly being the personal maid of Dora’s best friend, Selma Blunt. “She’s the worst. It ain’t enough she steals and then brags about it, but to lie about something she knows ain’t the truth, the devil’s gonna take her right down to the bad place!”

Dear, faithful Bertie. Dora had given her a coat, three dresses and a lace collar, but she had refused to take any money. Of all she’d left behind, it was Bertie she missed the most. Riches could be lost. True friendship was invaluable.

Now, months later and many miles away, Dora sat in companionable silence with the man she had married in desperation and silently closed the door on the past. Somewhat surprisingly, the pain had lessened with time. Someday perhaps even the scars would fade.

“Thank you, Emmet, for listening. I feel better for having told you.” She had told about her father, and about the fiancé who had broken their engagement because she hadn’t, after all, been an heiress. But she’d held back her most shameful secret of all. That she was damaged goods, as Henry had called her.

It no longer mattered, because Emmet didn’t expect that of her. One of the advantages of moving to the ends of the earth, even though it was only some fifty-odd miles away by water, was that no one here knew about her past. Here there were no friends to snub her, to huddle in corners and whisper about her, or cross the street when they saw her coming. No expectations to live up to, no reputation to guard as if it were the crown jewels. From here on out, the slate was clean. Her future was what she made of it.

“Don’t forget to take your bedtime pill,” she reminded her husband as he got to his feet and reached for the cane he still used, even though his ankle was completely healed. Pills at night, tonic in the morning. Reminding him made her feel better, as if she were doing something in return for his patience in hearing her without comment, question or criticism.

And for giving her a home when she’d had nowhere else to turn.

Tomorrow she would store the last of Sal’s things in the attic. She had finally uncovered the bed. It was small, but not at all uncomfortable as long as she didn’t turn over in her sleep and fall off onto the floor.

From his castle on the hill, as some jokingly called the weathered old structure that had first been built nearly a hundred years earlier and added onto by succeeding generations, Grey watched for some indication that the woman was up to no good. Watched as they sat in the two porch rockers with their morning coffee, talking together, gesturing occasionally, seemingly content. He watched as Sal’s old gander chased Dora around the backyard.

Sal had rescued the bird from the dogs and nursed him back to health. The creature was mean as a three-legged weasel. Emmet claimed he was too tough to cook, but Grey had a feeling the old man kept him for sentimental reasons. And so the bird stayed on, escaping every few days to chase after Dora whenever she stepped outside.

Grey continued to watch her, waiting for her to show her true colors. At the first misstep, he vowed, she’d be gone, set aboard the next boat out. If he had to, he’d go with her and find some decent middle-aged widow to come out in her place to look after Emmet. Marriage in his condition, wouldn’t matter. What he needed was someone capable of keeping him company and seeing to his needs.

Instead, the poor fool had gotten tangled up with a haughty baggage who managed to get herself talked about by half the men on the island. He was damned sick and tired of hearing Miss Dorree this, and Miss Doree that. Just let her pick up her pan and walk down to the landing for fish, and every man on the island started panting.

She damned well had to go before his whole plan came unraveled.

Chapter Five

Seated at his desk the following day, Grey tried to concentrate on rewording his advertisement. What with all the distractions, concentration was becoming more and more difficult. “Young women with farm experience.”

To do what? Milk the cows? St. Brides boasted one poor old bull, whose duty it was to service the dozen or so cows descended from those that had been brought out generations ago by some misguided stock-man, or had since escaped from a cattle barge and swum ashore. There hadn’t been a calf produced in the past four years—which meant no fresh cows. Which meant no fresh milk. It was all the stockmen could do to keep the poor creatures supplied with hay. There were no pastures to graze on, only the wild sedge; not even Grey St. Bride could command grass to grow in windswept, tide-prone sand.

He had a choice of having the cows butchered and salted down, the meat to be distributed among the men, or he could have a young bull shipped out. Making a note on the order he was working up for Captain Dozier, Grey went back to his advertisement.

“Wives needed. Must be young, strong, healthy.”

Not for the first time, he asked himself why any young woman in her right mind would agree to move to a place that lacked even the most basic amenities, to marry a man who worked from sunup to sundown and bathed only on rare occasions. The younger men might even take a notion to ship out whenever a ship came in that was shorthanded, and be gone for months, if not years. For the most part they were decent, hardworking men. Still, what did they have to offer a woman?

More to the point, why had he ever thought he could turn this place into a settled, civilized community, one where children could grow up and learn a trade, or be taught their letters until they were old enough to go off to school? Once grown, some would move on—a few always did. But of those few, some would eventually marry and return to the island with their families.

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