The Paper Marriage by Bronwyn Williams

Author:Bronwyn Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The boat—a sail skiff, according to Peg, who looked after it while Luther was away—was much smaller than the mailboat, and far more graceful.

Nevertheless, it was still a boat.

Rose stood on the wharf, fighting the urge to turn away and forget the whole crazy notion. What had ever given her the idea that it would make a difference? Matt had planned from the first to leave her at home. It was the sole reason he’d married her, so that she could stay here and take care of his baby.

She looked at the boat, at the water, which was mirror-calm, then back at the boat. There was a flat, rectangular case of some sort rising up from the floor near the middle. She had no idea what that was all about. The front bench had a hole in it. Luther had told her it was for stepping—stepping?—the mast. She’d only seen him use oars.

Rose had no intention of using either mast or oars. She was determined only to climb down into the thing and see how long she could stand there without throwing up. With enough practice, sooner or later she should be able to go for hours without getting sick, which would be time enough to start learning about all the paraphernalia. Luther had mentioned that the first few times he’d sailed as a boy he’d been deathly ill. Then suddenly one day, he wasn’t. Just like that, he’d been cured.

Well, if a cure could be had, then Rose intended to have it. When she finally laid out her case before Matt, she wanted to be able to tell him that she would stay ashore if he insisted, but she would rather follow him the way all the women in the Powers family had followed their seafaring men.

Now that she had herself another husband, she intended to be a better wife. And if she was a better wife, then Matt, whether at home or at sea, would be a better husband.

At least he hadn’t married her for her money, as Robert had done, although she’d been far too naive to realize it at the time. Grieving for her parents, it had never occurred to her to wonder why a handsome, charming gentleman would suddenly fall blindly in love with a gawky, gullible girl with little polish and no looks at all.

Matt, on the other hand, had married her sight unseen. Given a choice, she would rather be married for her usefulness than for her supposed inheritance.

But then Matt had kissed her. More than a few times she’d caught him looking at her in a certain way. He had encouraged her to fall in love with him, which wasn’t fair unless he meant to love her back. And the one thing she knew about Matthew Powers was that he was a fair man.

It took her several minutes to lower herself into the bottom of the skiff. Arms flailing, it took less than thirty seconds to scramble out. Dismayed, she wondered

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