The Paper Marriage. Bronwyn Williams

      Bess took one quick look, sniffed dismissively and disappeared down the hall. Peering down at the wide-eyed infant cradled so tenderly in those massive arms, Rose forgot her misgivings and said softly, “Oh, she’s beautiful. Do you think she’d mind if I held her?”

      “Annie’s not particular, long’s she gets to call the shots.”

      She laughed, but it was a shaky effort. When the captain carefully transferred the small bundle into her waiting arms she felt her eyes film over. Knowing she had to take control of her emotions or risk having to endure all over again the devastating pain that came with the loss of a child, Rose did her best to seal off her heart. In case Captain Powers didn’t like her, or she didn’t like him, she couldn’t afford to let herself get too attached to his baby.

      “She feels damp.” She glanced up questioningly.

      “We’ve not been able to housebreak her yet,” the captain said gravely. “You’ll find napkins in the locker over by the window. I’ll set Crank to heating her some milk. Um…welcome to Powers Point, Miz Littlefield.”

      Back in his office, Matt tried and failed to concentrate on the shipping news that had come out on the same boat as the two women. He gave it up, tilted back his chair, clasped his arms behind his head and gazed out the window, to where Venus gleamed like a diamond in a bed of purple velvet.

      Bess’s Mrs. Littlefield was something of a surprise. He didn’t know what he’d expected—maybe another pouter pigeon like Bess, short, bosomy and bossy. The woman didn’t have a lot to say for herself, which was all to the good. Bess could talk the hind legs off a jackass.

      She wasn’t much to look at except for her eyes. Funny color, he mused. Still, they were steady. The kind of eyes that looked directly back at a man.

      Matt was admittedly no expert when it came to women. Having been deserted by one and made a fool of by another, he was unable to form any but the most fleeting commercial relationship with any woman. Since moving to Powers Point, he had done without even that brief convenience.

      Which reminded him that he was going to have to tackle Bess about the Magruder female. Bess had described her as down on her luck, plain, but sound of limb and meek of disposition. He should’ve held out for reliable, but by the time he’d given in, he’d been so damned desperate he wouldn’t have cared if she howled at the moon as long as she took good care of Annie.

      So far, she hadn’t even bothered to show up.

      Flexing his shoulders to ease the tension that always seemed to collect there, he settled back in his chair and picked up the shipping reports again.

      By the end of the first week, one thing was plain. Bess knew nothing about babies and had no interest in learning. Commandeering his mule and cart, she spent every day in the village collecting stories of early island lore, all the way back, as she informed the table at large, to the first English settlers and the Hattorask Indians who’d been there to meet them.

      “Hell, I could’ve told you that,” Matt said. “Pass the biscuits. Please,” he added as an afterthought.

      “Don’t swear,” Bess said primly, as if she couldn’t cut loose like a stevedore when it suited her purpose. “Mrs. Littlefield don’t like it.”

      “Beg pardon, ma’am,” Matt muttered. Rising abruptly, he begged to be excused and stalked out. “Damned house’s too small,” he grumbled to Peg, who’d chosen to eat with Crank in the kitchen instead of in the seldom-used dining room.

      The two old men glanced up, then went back to their fried oysters. Matt stood in the open back door for a long time, letting the chilly air flow past him into the warm kitchen.

      Ignoring him, the other men picked up their desultory conversation. “Don’t talk much, do she?” Crank observed. He speared another oyster off the platter.

      “Good with the young’un, though,” the carpenter said after he’d split another biscuit and drowned it in molasses.

      “Aye, she is that.”

      “Peculiar eyes. Seen a cat once with eyes like that.” Peg loosened the rope at his waist that held up his canvas trousers.

      “Yeller, I’d call ’em, wouldn’t you, Cap’n?”

      Matt flexed his shoulders, but didn’t reply. He was tired of hearing about Mrs. Littlefield. Bess sang her praises enough, without his men jumping on the bandwagon.

      “I’ll be riding south in the morning,” he announced abruptly.

      The two old men went on eating. When Matt stepped off the back porch and strode down to the three-plank wharf where the shadboat was tied up, Crank grinned. Peg shook his head. “All I can say is, that wife o’ his better hightail it on down here. Last time the boy had that look about him, he went and sold his ship.”