Sybill (52 page)

His eyes slowly and with obvious pleasure moved along her slender body. In the gown that flattered her delicate curves, she was the image of the maidenly bride. “I admit I wouldn't have known you, Rebecca, but I had thought you would recognize me. I haven't changed that much since our last meeting.”

Once again memory tried to stir within her, but brought no answers. “I'm sorry, sir. I don't think we have met. You must be mistaken.”

Keith stepped between his bride and the stranger. “Sir, Rebecca has asked you to desist. I suggest you do so, or you may not like the result.” Although he stood several inches shorter than the dark-haired man, he was not afraid to take on the intruder who had ruined their wedding. He had been waiting so long for it to take place, and he would let no one halt it. “I don't know who you are or why you think you have the right to interfere.”

“Let me introduce myself.” He gave a half-bow in their direction. “My name is Nicholas Wythe. That woman next to you is my wife.”

Immediately the church erupted into chaos. Hart leapt to his feet and over the front of the first pew to join in the confrontation with this man who dared to make such a pronouncement. Keith caught Rebecca as she gave a small cry and swayed against him. He feared she would faint, but she only clutched his arm as her life felt as if it was whirling out of control.

The elusive memory had been so close to her heart. While packing her personal and dower items that morning, she had pulled out from under her bed, the box which contained her most precious mementos and discovered the faded marriage lines that announced she was the wife of one Nicholas Wythe. It was a secret which had been kept for so long that it was no longer worth revealing.

Nearly five years had passed since the day she had discovered a wounded man delirious in their barn. The only thing he had been able to communicate was his need for secrecy. She had smuggled food to him and had cleaned the wound in his side and bound it for him. Around his head had been a bloody turban she had not dared to touch.

For two weeks, he slept in the barn. Each morning she expected to find him dead in his hiding place behind the bags of feed for the animals. Both her brother and her father had been away fighting in the War of Independence from England. It had been just she and Aunt Dena, Father's spinster sister who had come to live with them when Rebecca's mother had died before her young daughter's fourth birthday.

Slowly he recovered enough to escape his delirium. Whenever she had been able to get away from her other duties, Rebecca went to sit in the barn with him. She entertained him with her young impressions of the war, the village she lived near in northern Connecticut, and the world in general. He seemed ancient to her, for he must have been in his early twenties. Soon she learned how to cheer him so he was not so unhappy in his confinement. What little he told her of his own life she had forgotten in the passage of time.

She did not remember exactly when she had discovered that he was not a Continental soldier, but a loyalist. By that time she had come to see him as a person, not as an enemy. When he gave her a crudely written note to carry to a friend, she did not pause to wonder if she was doing something to compromise the ideals of independence she valued so highly. Her friend would never ask her to do something wrong.

Shivers of fear had filled her young body when she had had to face those she knew were enemy soldiers. They were frighteningly close to her home. Only her friend's name kept her from being shot by the men. She gave them the note and scurried away once they were sure she would not betray them to the Patriots. The next morning, the man who had told her his name was Nicholas was not alone. She recognized one of the men as the person to whom she had delivered the note the day before. The other man had been a stranger.

Clearly she could recall his deep voice as he said, “Rebecca, I fear I shall not survive this. I—”

“No, don't say that!” she gasped. The idea of death was alien to her young heart. Tears filled her eyes. She had come to value his friendship and did not want to think of him dying.

“You must do me a favor.”

“Anything!”

He smiled weakly and glanced at his companions as if her answer confirmed something he had said before she entered the barn. “Rebecca, you have taken care of me. I owe you something.”

“No, you don't!”

“All right. You can't disagree that you are my very best friend in Connecticut.”

Twisting her hands in her apron, she nodded. That was undoubtedly true. Loyalists were not welcome in villages where Patriots were the majority.

“Rebecca, it would make me feel better if I had someone to leave my personal effects to if something does happen to me. For that reason, I'm asking you to marry me.”

“Marry?”

“It'll make it easier.”

She looked into his ebony eyes and nodded. At the time, it did not seem odd for a fourteen-year-old to be wedding a dying man nearly a decade her senior simply to be his heir. The stranger had been the chaplain who had witnessed their vows. He gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek before he was secreted away by his comrades. His promise to write he kept well for a few months.

Then after a large battle where many members of the unit to which he belonged were killed, there had been only silence. For twelve long months, she had hoped he survived, but when the first anniversary of the battle came, she knew it was useless to pray any longer. She packed away the three letters he had sent her and the marriage lines which had been kept secret at the bottom of the box. They had been tied with a piece of velvet ribbon which had once belonged to her mother.

The war ended, except for the formalities of signing treaties and exchanging ambassadors. The war had cost her her father and had sent her brother home with a limp from a poorly healed bullet wound to his hip. In those years, she had changed from a child to a woman. She had been courted for the past year by Keith Bennett without anyone knowing that Keith would be her second husband. She had thought that since Nicholas Wythe was dead, there was no reason to bring up the subject. She had planned to tell Keith someday of that secret wedding which had netted her only pleasant memories of a man who had passed through her life so quickly.

As Rebecca stared into the dark eyes which matched the ones from the depths of her memory, she could form no coherent thoughts. When she spoke, the wedding guests fell silent as they waited to hear her reaction. Her voice was rough as she spoke past the lump in her throat. “Nicholas Wythe? Captain Wythe? I thought you were dead!”

Hart demanded, “You know this man, Rebecca?”

She could not meet the eyes of the man she loved. She raised her left hand and pulled off the engagement ring Keith had given her. With a half-sob, she placed it in his hand. He glanced from it to her, not knowing what to say. When she stood on tiptoe to kiss him one last time, she squeezed his arms convulsively.

Only then did she turn to answer her brother. “I know him, Hart. He is my husband.”

A shout came from someone to catch Aunt Dena as she swooned. All shreds of decorum disappeared. Reverend Poore closed his black book and placed it on the altar. It was clear there would be no wedding today.

The dark-haired man reached up and took Rebecca's hand and drew her down to stand next to him. As if he was the groom, he raised her veil to be able to see her face undistorted by its fine mesh. He bent slightly and kissed her cheek. “Hello, Rebecca.”

She gazed up into his handsome face which was far above hers, for he was well over six feet tall. Knowing why he had seemed so familiar, she could not believe he was here. In her memory, he had been a faceless entity whose identity had been blurred by the passing of time. “I thought you were dead,” she repeated in a whisper. She was afraid that if she spoke aloud the vibration of her own voice would shatter her. “I thought you had been killed. I waited for a year to hear from you, but there was nothing. I could think only that you were dead.”

He chuckled at a joke only he could share. Holding out his hand, he touched the soft skin of her cheek. The unmolded face of the child had matured into beauty. He had not been prepared for the change. In his mind, she had remained the youngster who had risked her life selflessly to save his. Only because he had learned that it was Rebecca North being married in this backwater village had he known that the bride was his wife.

“I'm afraid I am very much alive. It was impossible to get mail out of the prison hulks which were my home for the last four years. I have been released with the end of the war. Now that I have found you, my dear wife, we must be on our way home. We have only time for you to pack what you want to take with you, if we want to meet our ship.”

“Ship?” she repeated. She knew she sounded moronic, but just now her mind was unable to function. All she could think of was that this man had come out of her distant past to interrupt her present. Until he had said he meant to take her with him, she had not considered that he would want her. “You are taking me away? Where do you live, Captain Wythe?”

“Nicholas, my dear. We are married, so it would be more normal for you to call me by my given name. Your new home is across the ocean in England. It's called Foxbridge Cloister, and you, my dear Rebecca, are Lady Foxbridge.”

Hart stepped forward and took his sister's arm. He pulled her away from this man he had already decided he disliked intensely. “I have heard enough of this nonsense. You have disrupted my sister's wedding, and you have so shocked our aunt that she has fainted. I think you have done quite enough. Sir, I ask you—no, I insist one final time that you leave.”

“I am leaving,” he replied calmly. “Rebecca and I are leaving. I expected that I might not be believed, so I brought this with me to lay any of your fears to rest. I did not want you to think I was kidnapping this lovely lady from underneath your very noses.” He held out a paper which was stained with sweat and rusty discolorings that no one had to be told were blood. “Here is my copy of our marriage lines. Do you still have yours, Rebecca?”

Hart took the page and scanned it. He recognized his sister's signature at the bottom. This man was her husband. His hand shook as he handed the page to Keith. The rage on the groom's face increased as he looked from the stranger to the document. When Wythe held out his hand, he reluctantly placed it back on his palm.

Rebecca watched as the piece of paper that tied her to this unknown man circulated among the men. When she saw the dark-haired man was awaiting her answer to his question, she nodded. “I have my copy still, Cap—Nicholas.”

Keith was recovering from the shock of realizing that Rebecca would not become his wife. Irately, he turned to her and demanded, “This man is telling the truth? You are really married to him?”

“Yes, Keith,” she whispered.

“That is ridiculous. Look at the date on that document. That was when the damnable British were running all over the area. Such a marriage under duress would not be sanctioned by any court.” He frowned. “Did you fear she was pregnant, Wythe, and wanted to give your bastard a name?”

The fury which burst forth from Nicholas was as cold as his eyes. “I did not seduce Rebecca when she was a child. I can assure you of that, sir. She saved my life. I was a badly injured man in enemy territory. She did nothing for which she should have been ashamed.”

When Hart stepped between the two men who looked as if they were set to settle the issue on the altar, he asked Rebecca for her side of this confusing tale. It did not take her long to tell, although he had to ask her to repeat herself several times when her voice became a whisper. Because she could not bear to look at the man she had promised to marry, she did not see Keith's outraged expression when he learned that she had married of her own free will and had known exactly what she was doing. The fact that she had been only fourteen would have no bearing on its legality. Many lasses were wed not much older than that.

“Are you satisfied?” asked Nicholas when she had completed the short account which had kept the wedding guests enthralled. Once more he put out a long arm to pull Rebecca close. No one could miss her discomfort as he placed his arm around her shoulders. “As I said, we must be leaving, if we are to catch our ship before it sails. Come along, Rebecca.”

“Now?” She could not comprehend what was happening. Her mind had been numb. Her world had turned inside out in one split second. One moment she had been so blissfully planning to wed Keith, the next this man who was a stranger was claiming her rightfully as his wife.

Nicholas' voice softened for the shortest moment as he gazed at her shattered face. “Yes, we must leave now, my dear. Bid your friends and family farewell.”

Docilely she did as she was told, for she did not know what else to do. She did not hear what she said or who she said it to as she went from one guest to the next. Only when she turned to Keith did her frozen exterior break. “I'm sorry, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I had no idea that he was alive. I'm so sorry to hurt you like this. I love you, Keith.”

Paying no attention to anyone else, he swept her into his arms and kissed her with all his desire for her. Holding her tightly, he whispered in her ear, “I will come after you, my love. We will have this marriage annulled. Try to keep him out of your bed, Rebecca.”

“My bed?” she cried. Involuntarily, she turned to look at the dark-haired man who was talking quietly to her brother. Hart nodded his head in resignation. As each second passed, this nightmare was solidifying into reality. She closed her eyes in pain as she saw her brother introduce Nicholas to her aunt, who had recovered her senses. When she saw Aunt Dena smile, Rebecca was sure the whole world had gone mad.

Grimly, Keith said in the same low tone, bringing her attention back to him, “He's your husband, Rebecca. He has a right to sleep with you. Try to keep him away. As soon as I can sell my farm, I'll come to England and hire an attorney to free you. If the marriage is unconsummated, it will be easier. Just be careful, darling. You know how I love you. I promise you I will see you released from this marriage.”