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.

Of course, if he followed his plan to deed each married man an acre of land and supply lumber to build him a house, St. Brides Island would one day no longer belong solely to a St. Bride.

So be it. By that time it would be up to his nephew Evan to take on the responsibility of doing whatever was best for the island’s inhabitants. Grey would have done his best.

His attention strayed, as it did all too often lately, to the neatly fenced cottage, clearly visible through the window of the room where he worked. “Damned female,” he muttered. Shifting uncomfortably, he thought about the way she had looked when he’d confronted her that first day, all light and bright in her pink gown, with the gray skies behind her and a shaft of sunlight picking out the gold in her hair. With her flashing green eyes and her stubborn little chin.

Wrenching his attention back to the task at hand, he finished writing out his requirements, wording them as tactfully as he possibly could and still get his meaning across, then set the letter aside to go out on the next mail boat. He was reaching for his daily ledger when he saw Dora step out onto the front porch, peer around the corner of the house, then scurry to the road, closing the gate behind her.

Emmet’s dog crawled under the fence and trotted along beside her as she turned toward the landing. She was carrying a pan, which probably meant she was after fish.

Which meant that every man in sight would drop what he was doing to watch her. The woman was a distraction, pure and simple. The first time she caused an accident by waltzing down there while his men were hoisting a heavy load onto the dock from the cargo hold of a ship, was the day she’d be gone.

Damned disruption, that’s what she was, he fumed.

A man couldn’t even concentrate on his work!

Dora was worried. Even from her own room, through two closed doors, she could hear her husband coughing. Just that morning he’d complained of aching muscles. Actually, it was more an apology than a complaint, for Emmet was not a complaining man.

Her first impulse was to send for the doctor, but the only one she knew was in Bath. She wasn’t at all certain he would come, even if he happened to be free. If St. Bride thought so blooming much of the welfare of his people, then why wasn’t there a full-time physician living here? Or even a part-time one?

She could try her hand at doctoring if only she could remember a few of the remedies her old family doctor had used on her childhood sniffles and upsets. Whatever the dose, it had always tasted perfectly terrible. Trouble was, she didn’t have a single dose of anything available. Nor did Emmet have anything other than his tonic and his heart pills.

She would simply have to face St. Bride and insist that he send for someone immediately. Why in the world hadn’t he hired himself a doctor instead of a preacher? The minister who had married them was no doubt a worthy man, but useful he was not.

“Don’t you dare get up, you’ve been coughing all night,” she scolded as she brought Emmet his morning coffee in bed, with an extra spoonful of sugar. Hadn’t her mother given her a spoonful of sugar with something that tasted like turpentine dribbled on it for a cough?

She had no idea whether it was the sugar or the smelly red liquid that had soothed her throat—or simply the fact that she was being taken care of. Even as a child, she’d seldom been ill.

“Stay right there and cover up,” she warned. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to gather the eggs and boil them for breakfast, and then we’ll see about letting you get up.”

Not until she was halfway up the ridge did it occur to her that she’d marched into his bedroom without a second thought. Not long ago, she would never have dared to do such a thing.

But Emmet was different. He was her friend.

He was also her husband, but she thought of him first as her friend. With a kind providence and a healthy young wife to care for him, they would have many good years ahead. Playing checkers. Talking over old times. Threatening what they were going to do to that old gander if he didn’t stay in his pen.

The castle was even more formidable at close range, but no more so than the creature who opened the door. With his gleaming dome of a head and his eye patch, he reminded her of one of the illustrations in a book of pirate stories she’d had as a child.

“Is Mr. St. Bride at home?”

“Yes.”

“Well?” she said when the man didn’t seem inclined to move. “May I speak with him?”

“No.”

Deep breath. Patience. The creature is obviously lacking in wit. “Then perhaps you’ll tell him that my husband, Mr. Meeks, is ailing and needs a physician.” Her foot was beating an impatient tattoo on the gritty porch floor.

Before the one-eyed butler—if that’s what he was—could answer, St. Bride came quietly up behind him and placed a hand on his massive shoulder. “It’s all right, Mouse. This lady is our new neighbor.”

With an anxious look over his shoulder, the huge man called Mouse disappeared into the gloomy interior, and Dora was left to deal with St. Bride. “Don’t mind my friend, Mrs. Meeks. He’s inclined to be a bit overprotective.”

“Yes…well.” Dora braced herself and said, “Emmet’s not well.”

“More than usual?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come now, Mrs. Meeks, you knew very well when you talked him into marrying you that Emmet was a propertied man with a weak heart. Why else would a woman like you tie herself to a man of his age?”

Her immediate impulse, so foreign to her nature that it shocked even her, was to claw his eyes out. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t! It might be true that she’d had no place to go and no means to get there, but she certainly hadn’t chosen to marry Emmet for material reasons. Not solely for material reasons. That would have made her no better than Henry Smythe.

“Yes, well—think what you like, but my husband needs help.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Grey said silkily.

Dora bit back her temper. This was about Emmet, not about her. “He’s been taking his pills and his tonic—I think it’s mostly alcohol, but it seems to make him feel better. I don’t think the coughing has anything to do with his—his heart, but last night he complained of aching muscles, and I don’t want to take any chances.”

He appeared to be weighing the situation. Finally he nodded. “I’ll walk down the hill and look in on him.”

“Are you a doctor, along with everything else?”

“Everything else?” He appeared to be amused, and Dora, who had never—at least not until recently—been prone to violence, wanted to beat him with her fists until he recognized the truth—that she was not what he thought her.

She was worse.

“You know what I mean,” she snapped.

“Do I? Suppose you tell me what you mean, Mrs. Meeks.” They were halfway down the boardwalk that led from his porch to the shelled road by then. Face flaming, Dora did her best to stride out in front, but the wretched, long-legged man had no trouble keeping up with her.

“Mrs. Meeks? Dora. What is this everything else I’m accused of being?”

By the time she could come up with an appropriate response, they had reached her own gate. When Grey reached past her to lift the latch, she turned and said, “You know very well what I’m talking about. The way you order people about as though they were your subjects. Even if your business is marriage brokering, that’s no reason to set yourself up as some sort of minor deity.”

She was wound up and going strong, and all he could do was stand there, looking amused. “Well, let me assure you, you don’t own me and you don’t own my husband, so I’ll thank you to—to kindly mind your own business!”

You’re dragging the man to your house, practically begging him to do something for Emmet, and at the same time you’re telling him to leave you alone? He must think you’ve lost your mind.

“Yes, ma’am.” He sounded entirely too subdued. Besides that, he was grinning. Unable to think of a single annihilating thing to say, Dora swept past him into the house.

“Emmet? I’m back. I’ve brought his lordship to visit you.”

When Grey burst out laughing as he crossed the room toward Emmet’s bedroom door, Dora grabbed the egg basket and let herself out the back. If she had to spend another moment with the maddening man, she might do him irreparable harm.

A few minutes later, having collected three eggs and one pecked hand, she let herself back into the house. Grey met her at the door of Emmet’s bedroom. “I believe he’s suffering from nothing more than a bad cold,” he said. “His color’s good. His pulse is steady.”

Dora wanted to say something biting, but as the man was only doing what she’d asked him to do, she could hardly complain. It wasn’t his fault he affected her the way he did.

“I was pretty sure that’s all it was, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Thank you for coming,” she added grudgingly. She tried to edge past him, eager to see for herself, but Grey continued to bar the way. Nor did she care for the smug look on his face. “Yes, well…thank you. I’m sure Emmet appreciates your concern.”

In other words, go! Go before I do or say something wildly inappropriate.

“I’ll send Mouse down with a bottle of brandy. A small dose now and one later. Meanwhile, you might cook him a hearty fish broth. I’ll stop in this evening to see how he’s faring.”

He didn’t budge. Stood there like a blasted tree, but at least Dora could see past him enough to tell that Emmet was all right. Actually, he was grinning. Amused, no doubt, because she didn’t share his lofty opinion of Lord St. Bride.

Irritated with both men for no real reason, she plopped her basket on the table, endangering the eggs, and said, “I’d sooner make a broth of that blasted gander.”

Emmet laughed then, but his laughter ended up in a fit of coughing.

“I’ll come by later, as I said, and send Mouse down with something for that cough. Behave yourself, Em,” Grey said, and then let himself out the door.

Dora watched him stride away, still fuming. Even the way he walked irritated her. As if he owned the ground he walked on.

Which, she reminded herself, he did.

“Fish broth,” she muttered, trying to recall if Sal’s book had a recipe for anything that sounded so dismal. Why not chicken broth? Chicken broth with noodles. Chicken broth with rice…neither of which she had the least idea how to prepare.

They had chickens, but until she could find someone to kill and pluck one of the poor creatures, it would have to be fish. At least fish came scaled and dressed. She had learned that the first time she’d gone, pan in hand, to the landing.

“John Luther just come in,” Clarence had told her the first time she’d gone seeking fish. “Got some nice flounder today.” He’d indicated a small pier farther down the shore, where nearby, several men were tarring nets.

“Do I just go and ask?” She’d had no idea what fish cost. Emmet hadn’t given her any money—she hadn’t wanted to ask, but she had very few coins left.

“Yes, ma’am, you just go give him your pan and he’ll give you enough for dinner. If you want some to salt down, he might charge you a penny or two, but for eating, he’ll not charge you. We take care of our own here on St. Brides, ma’am,” the warehouseman had told her.

They took care of their own. She remembered the warm feeling the words had given her at the time. Regardless of what Lord St. Bride said, she was now one of their own.

“Emmet? Are you still awake? I’m going to walk down to John Luther’s. We’ll have a nice fish broth for dinner.”

No response. He was asleep. Just as well. Rest was the only cure for a cold.

Some twenty minutes later, she approached John Luther, a weathered man with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, with her request. Hands black with tar from the nearby barrel, he insisted on dressing her fish for her. “Me and Emmet, we have an understanding,” he said gravely, wielding a wicked-looking blade. “He grows collards and onions, I take him a mess of fish from time to time.”

After thanking him profusely and asking after his two sons, Dora and the dog headed home with a dishpan filled with small dressed flounder. She had just passed the church when she saw St. Bride striding toward her. Salty, the disloyal creature, trotted to meet him, her tongue lolling out and a blissful expression on her wide face.

St. Bride scratched her ears, his gaze never leaving Dora. “Been down to the landing?”

“As you can plainly see.”

“Who dressed your fish?”

She started to tell him, then thought better of it. “I don’t believe that’s any concern of yours. You told me to make fish broth—I intend to do it.”

He was impossible to understand. Either he was angry with her for daring to disobey his orders, or laughing at her for no reason at all. Every single time she saw the man, or even thought about him, her heart commenced to pound and she could feel her face turning red. One of these days he would push her too far and she would say something she would regret. Heaven help her if that happened. She had a feeling that, given enough provocation, his temper would be utterly devastating.

He certainly brought out the worst in her, and she’d always been known for her sunny disposition. “I appreciate your coming to see Emmet this morning,” she said, forcing a smiling. “We won’t bother you again. As you can see—” she held up her pan of fish “—I’m perfectly capable of looking after my husband.”

His eyes glinted dangerously, whether from anger or amusement, she couldn’t have said. “See that you do, madam. And keep this in mind—Emmet has friends on this island. Friends who would take it amiss if anything were to happen to him.” With that, he strode on past her, leaving her to stare after him. She was tempted to throw the flounder at him, but she would probably miss the target. Then she’d have nothing for Emmet’s supper and Grey would have something else to hold against her.

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