Bogus Bride

“Not a bit,” Samuel answered, feeling the heat invade his cheeks. Was he nervous? Surely not. To cover his embarrassment, he poured strong black tea into a tin mug and pushed it across the slab-timber tabletop. Murphy smiled back, showing very white, very strong teeth. He held out his hand, palm upward.

“Mother Mary, you should be. All the best husbands are nervous on their wedding days, just as all good wives are nervous on their wedding nights.”

A black look speared Murphy. When Samuel spoke, it was without inflection. “It’s a bad time for investment, and I want all accounts squared. We’ve got to get the timber out of the woods and boomed in the water, ready to tow to the mills, before we can thumb our nose at Sagamore and his henchmen.”

A look of concern crossed Liam’s cheery face. “The Angelica docks in an hour. Maine’s a rough country, and with trouble brewing between the rival lumber camps, perhaps it’d be best not to take a wife upriver. If you have any regrets, there is still time to change your mind, Sam. The wedding arrangements can be canceled.”

Samuel didn’t want to speculate on that. He stood upright with a jerk. “I’m not changing my mind about anything. Murphy.” He spoke succinctly, and smiled the smile of a captain prepared to go down with his ship. “There isn’t a man anywhere in God’s universe who knows what he wants better than I do. My bride has waited ten years and traveled three thousand miles for this marriage,” he said, in a tone that meant “And that is that.”

Sunlight glanced dully off the thick, low bollards and the secured mooring lines. Crowds of visitors—men, women and children—lined the wharf. Eyes wide, Caitlin anxiously scanned the blur of faces.

Could she venture among the crowd, she wondered, to meet and greet Samuel, before so many interested and curious eyes? Her heart beat, and her eyes swam in a happy mist at the prospect. Steadying herself against the rail, she tried to focus on the dock, and sweep its limited space, so that she might find the figure she sought.

The letter in which he had fixed the day of her arrival lay in her reticule. It had been only brief, and hinted at, rather than expressed, the passion of his soul. When he saw her, he would tell her that he cared, and how much. After all, there had been neither bond nor promise between them, not even an ordinary goodbye.

“Cat!”

She leaned over the rail. A little gasp came from her lips. There was Samuel! Yes, it was him, pushing through the crowd on the quay, his hat in his hand. His hair was the same tossed, untidy chestnut mop, but his strong, lean body seemed larger, more overpowering than she had remembered. And his face looked sterner. The arched nose and high cheekbones seemed more prominent, the line of the mouth harder.

“Samuel! Samuel!”

Caitlin scrambled to the wharf level. Impossibly tall, terrifying in his imposing presence, he stuck out his strong, square hand as he would to a long-lost friend.

“Good to see you, Caitlin. You haven’t changed at all. You’re a picture in your fine gown.”

What was wrong? she wondered, watching Samuel’s aloof face from under lowered lashes. He was behaving as if she were someone he had just met. She smiled as she gripped the hard fingers. His hand seemed to dwarf hers, and the top of her forehead barely reached his shoulders.

“You look different,” she managed breathlessly. “I hardly recognized you.”

“A man doesn’t get anywhere on his appearance in this country, Cat, especially when he’s a lumberjack. He shucks off a lot of things he used to think were quite essential,” he answered, with just a ghost of his remembered smile.

It was a strange and unfamiliar Samuel who looked toward the clipper, his figure set and still. The shadow of something came and went across his face. A soft breeze ruffled his hair, and then it was calm again. He looked her over again.

“Where is Caitryn?” His voice sounded a little stilted.

Caitlin smiled as she saw the deep furrows appear on Samuel’s forehead. She wanted to throw herself into his embrace, but was paralyzed, while vagrant feelings she could barely comprehend rose and fell within her. Love, excitement, joy and, above all, sheer nerves reduced the moment to one of almost unbearable rapture.

She extricated her hand from his. “She could not come.”

Samuel’s face went dead white. There was an odd, shuttered reticence in the high cheekbones, the arrogantly-arched nose and the proud mouth. He looked out along the inlet of the bay at the sun-sparked waves, the small fishing boats scudding along with the wind, as if they were objects whose purpose he could no longer quite comprehend.

What was wrong? Caitlin wondered desperately. Why was he treating her with this distant courtesy? Had she been wrong? Had he truly intended that letter for Caitryn? No! Her mind rejected that notion.

“Samuel!”

Samuel turned back to Caitlin. He slanted her a hardedged glance. His strong jaw clenched as he watched her. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel his intent gaze, as if he were probing her inner thoughts.

The sensation made her uneasy. A strange awareness settled in her. Was he sorry that he had sent for her? She swallowed.

He hesitated a moment. “I had thought she would come.”

Something in Samuel’s voice made Caitlin say, “She is to join the Little Sisters of Saint Teresa, and wanted to prepare herself through prayer and devotions. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

There was a distinct pause. His expression hardened. He stood there like a stuck image, his face set. Sudden, irrational fear gripped her. This blankness, this cessation of eagerness, disturbed her. He seemed strangely alien.

Caitlin looked away from him, seeking the indistinguishable line where sea met sky. She licked dry lips. What was it? Anything was possible, and it was always dangerous to jump to conclusions.

Apprehension went through her. Had she been wrong? Could her father have been right? If Samuel had truly cared, would he have waited ten years to write? Did he simply need a wife?

Caitlin’s own attraction was like a pulse, a living thing existing deep inside her, separate and undeniable. She shook her head in bewilderment. Surely he could feel it? Or was that wishful thinking? Had she miscalculated the depth of his feeling? Had she made her attraction, her desire, his? The questions sent a small chill down her spine.

True, she had none of her sister’s fair beauty: golden hair, blue eyes, and small, delicate mouth. But she had added strengths, an enviable mastery of language and art, a more profound knowledge of medicine and science than even Samuel’s father, and she was fiercely protective of her lover. In truth, she suspected that she was the only one who understood Samuel.

Her eyes flicked to his face. He looked so…remote. She ruthlessly squashed her doubts. Come the night, she would be married to Samuel, in a place more appropriate to direct speech, with full honesty. Now wasn’t the moment for frank discussion.

He looked singularly uncomfortable. She could feel his discomfiture; it was like rubbing up against a rusty scow. What should she do?

She resisted the urge to touch him. Instead, she clasped her hands tightly together. It was going to be difficult curbing her own far more dynamic, often impulsive nature. She took a deep breath, let it out in a rush.

“What are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to kiss me, Samuel? Is there something wrong?”

He looked at her with surprise, as if he had forgotten she was there. His hand closed upon her shoulder. Caitlin seemed to feel the whole man vibrate behind it, like a steel spring. She watched him with an expectant, eager expression, curious as to how his kiss would feel.

Then, just as suddenly as he had frowned, his face cleared. The serious look left his mouth, to be replaced by a lazy smile. He was once more her Samuel, the Samuel she loved.

Very gently, he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the merest brush of his lips over the trembling warmth of her mouth. Before she could encircle his neck with her slim arms, he had pulled away.

He traced the delicate line of her cheek with the knuckles of one hand, and sighed. “I’d best sort out your baggage, and get you to the hotel. You’ll have time for a rest. I’ve arranged for Kate Flaherty to help you dress. The marriage ceremony is at seven. The river steamer leaves at first light.”

Caitlin did not demur, but stood and watched Samuel disappear down the companionway amidships, to see about her luggage. She felt a little dazed, for some intuition warned her that something had gone amiss.

Was this the welcome of a man passionately in love? If he did not return her love, the bonds would be those of duty and obligation. That was not what she wanted, to be trapped by her impulsive, sensual nature into a lifetime of guilt and bitterness. Then she shook the doubt away.

It was not the greeting or the embrace she had expected, but the immense tenderness of it was very sweet, more suited to a public place than passion. Of course, this was perfectly logical.

What she hadn’t expected was the change in Samuel.

This man was not the same person she had loved so passionately ten years earlier. This man was taller than she remembered, his face harder, stronger, his skin burned brown by the wind and sun.

Ten years of pioneer life had changed Samuel almost beyond recognition. He was not the slim, cocksure youngster willing to be tormented by the nearness of a silly young girl. No longer would he be easily led into mischief, or easily provoked to anger.

This man was a stranger. He would go where he wanted, and do what he wanted at the time and place of his choosing. He was in control of himself, and he would not be manipulated.

When she thought of Samuel, a curious fluttering warmth uncurled in her stomach, leaving her heart pounding and her knees weak. Caitlin supressed a shiver, appalled at the wildness of the emotion that flooded her.

What had she done? What had she done?

She was here, and that was that, with an ocean between her and home, with a man she had not seen for ten years. In a panic, she wondered wildly what she would do if he sent her away. She would survive, of course, but, she asked herself, to what purpose?