Captain's Bride Read Free

stable boys see to his horse.”
    The wizened old slave exerted a creaky bow. “Yes,
sir, massa.” Long, bent legs carried him out the carved double
doors, between twin Doric columns, and down the broad steps to the
sweeping gravel drive where Nicholas’s hired saddle horse pawed the
ground nervously. Dozens of horses, countless broughams, phaetons,
and carriages, along with the noisy footmen, lined the drive.
    “Come, my boy,” Julian commanded, “let me introduce
you.” With a bulky arm across Nicholas’s broad shoulders, Julian
led him up the stairs to the ballroom. A frail brunette who, except
for her still-dark hair, looked to be somewhat older than Julian
stepped into their path. She snapped several commands to the
servants, her posture erect, her mouth a narrow, uninviting line,
then turned hard dark eyes to Nicholas.
    “Louise!” Eyes wide, Julian appeared almost startled
by her presence, but quickly regained his composure. “May I present
Captain Blackwell. Nicholas, my wife, Louise.”
    An announcement that the woman was really a pillar of
salt could not have stunned Nicholas more. Louise Summerfield
seemed the antithesis of her husband’s warmth and charm. Cold,
remote, and distant—that was Nicholas’s first impression. For
Julian’s sake he prayed he was wrong.
    “Mrs. Summerfield.”
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain.”
    The words, said with little sincerity and even less
enthusiasm, rang with a hollowness Nicholas could hardly have
missed. “The pleasure is mine, madam.”
    “Julian,” Louise said, “I’m afraid you must excuse
me. I’m needed in the kitchen. The dinner preparations, you
understand.”
    “Of course, my dear.”
    “Captain Blackwell,” she addressed him, “I’m sure
Julian and Glory will keep you well entertained. They enjoy this
sort of frivolity much more than I. We’ll have other opportunities
to get acquainted during your stay.”
    “I look forward to it,” Nicholas said, and wished he
could mean it. He watched her leave, looking neither right nor
left, saying little to the guests and they in turn saying little to
her. She was not unattractive, Nicholas decided. Tall, willowy,
fine-featured. But her pinched expression, the tightness around her
mouth, made her seem older than her years.
    “Louise doesn’t care much for parties,” Julian
explained. “She usually spends the evening out in the kitchen or
upstairs in her room.”
    “I see,” Nicholas said, but he didn’t. How could a
man like Julian Summerfield, so vital and full of life, be married
to a woman like that? Then again, why should it be such a surprise?
His own father had married a woman much the same. Elizabeth St.
John Blackwell, Nicholas’s stepmother, was just as coldly
aloof.
    “You’ll come to understand Louise after you get to
know her,” Julian said, and Nicholas wondered if his thoughts had
been that obvious.
    Nicholas nodded. “I’m sure she has a lot on her mind
this evening.”
    They moved into the main salon, where dancers
twirled, dipped, and swayed beneath gleaming crystal chandeliers.
Nicholas discovered he knew several of Julian’s guests, and Julian
introduced him to others. When Julian excused himself to speak with
some banking associates from Charleston, Nicholas took the
opportunity to stroll onto the balcony for a breath of fresh air.
For the past three days a light spring rain had muddied the fields.
The musky, earthen smell mingled with the sweet scent of
honeysuckle, and Nicholas thought how much he had come to love the
South.
    Though he’d been born and raised a northerner, his
business as a merchantman had made spending time in the South a
necessity. His fleet of ships plied the coastal waters between
Boston, New Orleans, and the Caribbean, transporting everything
from cotton to molasses, shoes to pickled herring, venison hams to
sperm candles. He loved the life of a seaman, loved the freedom,
the exhilaration of fighting the elements, and the