Jess pushed away from Eleanor. “We Taggerts don’t take charity.”
“But it won’t be charity, my dear, it will be all in the family.”
Eleanor was pulling Jess from the room. “Thank you, Alexander. God will seat you at his right hand for this act of generosity.”
“And, Eleanor, clothes for everyone. I don’t want children in my care dressed in rags.”
“Yes, Alexander. Bless you, Alexander.” Eleanor closed the door behind them.
Chapter Fourteen
JESSICA sat on the floor of the Taggert house, facing the fireplace, roasting a fish stuck on a long stick over the little fire. The house seemed oddly silent with the children gone. No one was laughing or crying; no child was jumping on her back or begging her to give him a ride. She should have been enjoying the quiet but, instead, she missed the children—she even missed Eleanor. Or at least the old Eleanor who wasn’t always shouting at her.
Two days ago, the very evening of Alexander’s proposal, Eleanor had packed what little they owned and moved into the Montgomery house.
Jessica had refused to go with her. She had said she had no intention of marrying Alexander and therefore she was not going to move into his house. Eleanor had screamed some things that surprised Jessica; she wondered where her sister had learned such words. Eleanor had said she’d have to come to her senses sooner or later and that she and the kids would be waiting for her by Alexander’s side.
So, Jess had remained alone since then. Alexander—the presumptuous ass—had sent a town crier about to announce his engagement to Jessica. When some of her more persistent suitors refused to leave, that arrogant Russian of Alex’s had played a few tricks with the men’s clothing with the tip of his sword. Jessica came back from fishing to see a suitor—the one who’d offered the pig for her—running away as he clutched his trousers on.
She barely glanced at Nicholas before slamming into her house. Alexander—the coward—was nowhere to be seen.
So here she sat for a second night alone, the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls, with nothing to eat but roasted fish, since it was the only thing she knew how to cook.
A crack of thunder outside and the ensuing downpour of rain made her feel even more lonely and isolated. She didn’t hear the door open.
“Jessica?”
She glanced about to see Alexander standing there, his bright yellow coat shimmering in the darkened room. “Go away.”
“I brought some food,” he said, holding out a basket. “Some of Eleanor’s pasties. With beef. Not a fish in it.” He put the basket down, then removed his yellow coat and carefully spread it on the floor to dry.
She didn’t answer him, just kept her eyes on her fish.
“And cheese and bread and a bottle of wine and…” He hesitated. “A piece of chocolate.”
The chocolate did it. She dropped her fish in the fire and held out her hand to him and he put a piece of real chocolate in it. She began licking it. “What do I have to do to pay for this?”
“Marry me,” he said, sitting down and then clamping his hand on her shoulder to keep her from leaping up. “Jessica, we have to talk about this. You can’t remain in this house sulking. Two more days and Westmoreland will be here to get you.”
“He’ll not find me,” she said, her jaw stiff.
Alex began unloading the food from the basket, his eyes downcast. “Do you hate the idea of marriage to me so much?” he asked softly.
She turned to look at him. Without his coat, he didn’t look so preposterous. His big white shirt was gathered and the dampness made it cling to his shoulders. Although she knew him to be fat, from this angle, he looked almost slim.
“I don’t like to be forced into anything,” she said. “Women don’t have too many choices given to them in life, but who they marry should be one of them.”
He unwrapped a pastie—meat and vegetables in a crust—and handed it to her. “I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Jess, you have to be practical. Either you get married within the next couple of days or you’ll have a half-wit forced on you. I may not be much to look at but I do have all my wits about me.”
“Alex, you don’t look so bad, especially when you’re not wearing one of those hideous coats.” She nodded her head toward the shimmering pile of satin behind him.
Alex turned and grinned at her. “Have some wine, Jess,” he said jovially. “I stole it from my father’s private stock. He brought it from Spain ten years ago.”
She smiled back at him and accepted the mug of wine, loving the clean, sharp taste of it.
“To business,” he said. He was roasting cheese over the fire, removing it just before it dripped. “You don’t want to marry me, your Raider hasn’t even shown up and you have two days left. What do you plan to do?”
“I can’t go off and leave the children,” she said, “or else I’d leave town. Someone has to support them. Eleanor can’t do it alone. And no other men seem to consider the idea of taking me and the children.”
“I see. Maybe I’m to win you by default.” He put a piece of cheese on bread for her.
“Alex,” she said pleadingly. “It’s not you so much as it is that I don’t want to marry but one man.”
“Your elusive Raider.”
“Yes.” She finished her wine. “Besides, there are things about me you don’t know. You wouldn’t want to marry me if you knew them.”
“All right,” he said, refilling her mug. “I’m prepared for the worst. Tell me what horrible secrets I don’t know.”
“I…I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, her head down.
“Neither am I. What else?”
“Alex! Didn’t you hear me? I said I’d been with another man. I can only marry him.”
“Would you like more cheese? Stop looking at me like I’m an idiot. I know what you’re saying. I also know you’ve lived all your life in this little town. There are some places where it’s not unusual for a woman to be married and have two or three lovers at the same time.”
“Really?” Jess asked, interested. “Tell me.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t think a man should tell his wife-to-be about adultery. All right, you’ve told me you’re not a virgin. I assume it’s this Raider.”
“Yes, he and I—”
Alex put up his hand. “I’d prefer not to hear the details. I’m sure it was a moonlit night and you found his black mask fascinating. Here, eat this. I don’t like skinny women.”
She accepted the cheese. “Alex,” she said softly, “how did you lose…I mean, who was the woman who was…your first, you know?”
He leaned back on his arms. By a trick of the light, she could barely see the mound of his big belly surrounded by the lemon yellow satin of his vest. “Remember Sally Henderson?”
“The seamstress?” Her head came up. “But she was my mother’s age. She left town when we were children. Alex, you’re lying.”
He turned and grinned at her in a way that made her relax her muscles. She sprawled on the floor a few feet from him. “Sally Henderson,” she murmured. “You must have been a boy.”
“Old enough, I guess.”
“And no one since then?” she asked, eyeing him. He certainly did look different in this light. He didn’t have on that wig with all the curls, but, instead, wore the small one tied by a black ribbon at the nape of his neck. She’d never noticed before how the whiteness of the wig contrasted with the black of his brows.
“A few here and there,” he said, grinning at her over his shoulder. He turned onto his belly and looked at her. “I was pretty rotten to you when you came to my room with Eleanor, Jess,” he said. “I never met anyone with the ability to make me angrier than you. A man doesn’t like to be called a piece of seaweed when he’s just asked a woman to marry him.”
“For the kids’ sake.”
“What kids?” he asked.
“You did ask me to marry you because of the children, didn’t you? And also
because your father wants you to marry. Isn’t that why?”
He took a while to answer as he sat up and looked into the fire. “Of course. I need seven kids hanging on me, their sticky hands on my expensive coats. Yesterday Molly used my best wig to cradle a bird with a broken wing. And Samuel sat on Marianna’s silk embroidery wearing a wet diaper. And Philip climbed in bed with me at two this morning because he heard a noise and the other kids were afraid to sleep alone so, by three, they were all in bed with me. Yes, I’d say they were a real joy to have around, something of yours I’ve always coveted.”
Jess looked at the fire. She was afraid to say a word. She wanted to ask him why he’d asked her to marry him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Could he possibly want to marry her? She looked at him while he had his head turned. She hadn’t been exactly kind to him since he’d been home, but they had spent a lot of time together and she felt, well, almost attached to him. The first man she’d ever noticed was a Montgomery and she’d been selling fish to the Montgomerys since she could hold a net. She remembered Alex’s mother sitting her down beside Alex, feeding them both milk and cookies.
“Alex,” she said softly. “What about children?”
“I’ll keep them,” he said firmly. “No matter what they do. Father spends a lot of time with Nate, and Marianna may take on the girls, so that leaves me with the rest of the boys. Sam follows me like a fat Christmas goose and Philip—”
“No, I mean our children.”
He kept his back to her. “We’ll have to postpone our children, Jess,” he said softly and there was great sadness in his voice. “I can’t…not yet. We’ll have to wait.”
Jess’s heart went out to him as she looked at the back of him. Silhouetted as he was by the firelight, all she saw was his broad shoulders, his lean jaw, and his kindness to her. She remembered all the things he’d done to help her—and all the times she’d been ill-tempered with him.
She sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, her lips next to his cheek. He put his hand over hers. “Alex, thank you for all you’ve done for me, thank you for putting up with the kids, and for tolerating my temper.”
She leaned forward so that she was facing him. He really did have a handsome face she thought and, on impulse, she bent forward to kiss his lips.
He turned and her kiss landed on the corner of his mouth.
His reaction made her feel very sorry for him. No doubt she reminded him of times before his fever.
She patted his hand. “That’s all right, Alex, I don’t mind. I understand. And I’ll marry you. If the Raider doesn’t come forward to claim me by Tuesday night, I’ll marry you on Wednesday morning.”
For a man so fat, Alexander certainly reacted quickly. He was on his feet before Jess could blink.
“If he doesn’t what?” he shouted. “I’m to wait until the night before my wedding to see if I have a bride or not? Jessica, you go too far! You may think you’re the most desirable woman in the world, but there are other women.”
She stood, hands on hips. “Women who’ll marry you for your money? Why else would they marry you? Your looks? The way you make love to them? Even with your money you can’t get anyone else. I’ve never lied to you. I want the Raider. If he comes for me, I mean to take him.”
“But I’m second choice, is that it?”
“I didn’t have any choice at all, Alex,” she said, softening, walking toward him.
He was putting on his damp coat. “How can you be so stupid as to love a man who only appears now and then? A man who won’t show you his face or tell you his name?”
“I didn’t say I loved him.”
Alex stopped and stared at her. “If it isn’t love, then what is it? Lust?”
“No, I…I don’t know. He’s like me. We think alike. I’ve never met a man like him before. I think I could love him.”
Alex went to the door, then turned back. “You can damned well love me, too,” he said and went out into the rain.
For an astonished moment, Jess stared at the door. “Love?” she whispered. Was Alexander in love with her? For some reason, the thought pleased her very much. Whistling, she went upstairs to her lonely, cold bed.
* * *
Alex was shoveling hay for the Raider’s big black stallion.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Nick said, laughter in his voice, a smirk on his lips. “I hear shouting and you run away to your private island.”
Alex didn’t answer him. “Doesn’t Eleanor give you enough to do?”
“I gave her something to contemplate this morning,” he said smugly. “She was too busy to even remember her sister’s name. So, you’re going to marry your Mistress Jessica tomorrow morning.”
“Someone is,” Alex said, filling the horse’s water trough. As usual, he was stripped to the waist. Whenever he didn’t have to wear the padded clothes, he wore as little as possible.
“The wedding night with that little cat should be memorable.”
Alex gave Nick a malevolent look. “I can’t sleep with her and you know it. She’d know I wasn’t fat and she’d know the reason for the disguise in a minute.”
“Perhaps you could tell her the truth.”
“Jessica?” Alex spat. “Tell Jessica the truth? That woman has no sense at all. She’d probably borrow my mask and challenge the admiral to a duel. Besides,”—he grinned—“it’s better for my disguise if she doesn’t like me. If we spent a few nights together, she’d look at me, well, differently. People might guess I wasn’t the weakling I appear to be.”
Nick groaned. “So, you’ll marry her but not sleep with her.”
“Oh, I’ll sleep with her all right—as the Raider. Alex will support her and put up with those damn kids, and the Raider will enjoy her.”
“So Jessica will think she’s an adulteress.”
“It’s only for a while. Until I think it’s safe to tell her. Or maybe I’ll go to Boston and get cured of my disease. Alex will lose weight and the Raider will be no more.”
“I hope it works out as well as you plan. Are you ready to return? I don’t like this place at night.”
“The Raider will protect you,” Alex said in a deepened voice, making Nick laugh.
Together, they rowed back to the mainland.
All evening, Alex kept hoping Jessica might come to him, might apologize for her remarks, but she didn’t appear.
Eleanor walked into the common room. “They’re all in bed at last. She hasn’t shown up yet?”
“No,” Alex said, looking down at his empty mug.
“I guess everything’s ready for the wedding tomorrow,” she said.
Alex nodded glumly.
Eleanor patted his hand. “Alex, it’ll be all right. Jessica really does have some brains and someday she’ll see what a good man you are. You just have to wait for her to come to her senses.”
“I don’t think I’ll live that long. Do you think she’s with the Raider?”
“I think she’s at home sulking and hoping the Raider will come to her.”
Alex slammed his fist on the table. “I don’t want her to see him. If she sees him tonight, she’ll never marry me tomorrow.”
Eleanor clasped his hand. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that. There are more things to life than…babymaking.” Her face turned red.
Alex grinned at her. “Not to a young, healthy woman like Jessica.”
“A woman who has helped me clothe, feed and house seven children for several years,” Eleanor reminded him. “You underestimate Jess.” She looked around the room. “Do you know where Nate is? He should be in bed.”
“I sent him over to see if Jess needed anything.”
“Oh no,” Eleanor breathed. “You sent Nate to Jessica? Don’t you know how much Nate adores Jessica? She sheds one tear and—” Eleanor stopped at the puzzled look on Alex’s face. “If Jess does something really stupid like decide to run away, Nate will help her. Alex,” she said, standing, “you have to go find Nathaniel and
see what’s going on.”
Alex stood rather abruptly, then remembered his disguise. “I don’t want to go out in the cold. I think it’s going to rain again. You know how wet I got last night. Can’t you send someone else? Someone healthy like Nick.”
“Nicholas is too healthy. No, Alex, you have to go. Take your father’s horse. It hasn’t been ridden in months.”
“That brute?”
“Then take Adam’s stallion, whatever, but go.”
Alex started to protest but the urgency in Eleanor’s voice spurred him on. He turned and left the house. There was, fortunately, no one in the stable to see the supposedly feeble Alexander saddle his father’s horse with lightning speed. He skirted town and rode hard, through the rain, to the Taggert house.
Nathaniel was asleep on the floor, the fire almost dead, a half-eaten apple by his hand.
“Nate, where’s Jessica?”
“Hello, Mr. Alex,” Nate said, blinking and sitting up and starting to eat his apple.
“Where’s Jessica?” Alex repeated.
“She was crying about the Raider, so I told her.”
“Told her what?”
“Told her that the Raider’s camp is on Ghost Island and he keeps his horse there.”
Alex was speechless, his mouth open.
“But I didn’t tell her you were the Raider.”
Alex sat down on a stool hard. “Who else knows?” he whispered.
Nate swallowed, then crossed his fingers behind his back. “Just me. And Sam. We followed you. I mean, I followed you. Sam just slept. I think that’s why Sam likes you so much, but, don’t worry, he can’t talk.”
“But you can, you little spy.” Alex pulled Nate to him. “I ought to raise a few welts on your backside. How long have you known?”
“Since the second raid.”
Alex leaned back against the stones of the fireplace. “You’ve known all this time and not told anyone?”
“I told Jessica,” Nate said, skirting a direct answer.
Alex was looking at the boy with new respect. “So,” he said slowly, “you told her the Raider camped on Ghost Island?”
Nate’s dilemma showed in his eyes. “She was so sad. She wanted to see you before she married you.”