Elizabeth Grayson (2 page)

He paused when he reached the door. “Go see to your appearance, Ann. Put on your good gray gown and repin your hair. I’ll show Mr. Hardesty into the parlor once you’re ready.”

He slammed the thick wooden panel behind him, leaving Ann standing alone in the ringing silence.

AT FIRST CHASE DIDN’T SEE HER.

What he saw when James Rossiter showed him into the town house’s deep double parlor was a pair of enormous gilt-framed mirrors that gave back reflections of the soft-green silk wallpaper, the rose and green velvet settees, and plush Aubusson carpets. The room smelled of lemon polish and elbow grease, of bayberry candles and extravagance. But the silence, broken only by the ticking of the ormolu mantel clock, was the most unexpected luxury.

A steamboat was never quiet. The engines roared and banged and wheezed, the paddles sluiced, bells clanged and whistles hooted. People were always about and the hum of conversation, to say nothing of the shouted orders and the cries of the vendors on the levee, added to the cacophony.

The silence in this room was restful, calming, like being submerged in a pool of still, green water on a summer day.

Only slowly did Chase come to realize that the woman he’d agreed to meet was already here. She was standing motionless, looking out the window at the far end of the room as if there were something of consuming importance taking place in the street.

He slipped silently toward her, soaking up impressions. He noticed first that though she stood gracefully erect, she wasn’t all that tall. She held her shoulders a bit too straight to complement the prevailing fashions, but her gown was well-cut and of a soft-gray color that reminded him of winter dawns. Her hair draped thick and golden-brown against her cheeks, then coiled back close to her nape, twisted like a honeybun.

He paused when he stood barely three feet away. “Miss Rossiter?” he said softly.

Her back stiffened and she turned her head, glancing at him over her shoulder. In that moment, Chase took note of a stalk of satiny throat, the thumbprint of a dimple at the tip of her chin, and a delicate mouth, held far too tightly.

Then gradually she turned to face him—and he understood why her father had summoned him.

She was with child.

Chase should have expected it, but the realization thumped into him with force enough to make the breath huff in his throat.

She acknowledged his reaction with a quick, brittle lift of her chin and a bright rise of color into her cheeks.

Her pregnancy was the reason he’d been offered things he hadn’t sought and probably didn’t deserve. In exchange for ownership of a riverboat, he was supposed to provide Ann Rossiter’s bastard with a name.

The knowledge curdled in his belly, a hot mix of cynicism and an odd kind of disappointment.

Judging by what he’d observed when his sisters were carrying their children, Miss Rossiter was fairly well along in her pregnancy. Four months, at least. Yet in the instant before he’d discovered her condition, he’d sensed a daisy-white purity about her, an open-faced innocence that seemed as much a part of her as breathing. But how could she seem so chaste when she’d quite obviously lain with a man, a man who was cad enough to deny her his protection?

As Chase fought to subdue his incredulity, he realized that Ann Rossiter was staring at him every bit as intently as he’d been watching her. She was seeing a tall, ruddy-faced man who’d invaded her parlor, a rough-looking fellow with a day’s growth of stubble on his jaw and curly, windblown hair.

Suddenly self-conscious, Chase did his best to tame the waves with his fingers, then flashed her a self-deprecating smile. “I didn’t know I was coming courting when I left the levee this morning.”

At those few offhanded words, something stark and desolate kindled up in Ann Rossiter’s eyes. She immediately lowered her lashes, but Chase knew what he’d seen.

In response, his chest filled with a fierce and improbable protectiveness. It was a thick, tight ache that made him want to curl an arm around her shoulders and reassure her, just as he might have done if one of his younger sisters was troubled or frightened.

Then the impulse to protect Ann Rossiter gave way to something a good deal more appropriate—a sharp jab of annoyance. He groped for something glib and ironic to say, for words to put her in her place and deny the feelings she’d stirred in him. But nothing came.

Instead he became unbearably aware of the rush of his own breathing and the faint flutter of hers. The drumming of his heart seemed loud, as the silence between them lengthened.

Finally she took mercy on him and raised her head. “So, you’re Chase Hardesty.” Her voice was low and cool, and blatantly assessing. “One of my father’s men.”

Chase dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I work for your father as a pilot,” he clarified, “but I’m nobody’s man.”

Her eyebrows arched, lifting like the flicker of a bird’s wings. “If you’re not one of my stepfather’s men, Mr. Hardesty, why are you here?”

Though heat crept up his jaw, he answered as forth-rightly as he could. “I’m here because the commodore asked me to meet you. I’m here because he made me a proposition I’d be a fool not to at least consider.”

“He’s offered you one of his steamers in exchange for marrying me.” Her tone was richly flavored with contempt. “Is that right?”

“He offered me the
Andromeda,”
he corrected her.

Her soft mouth parted, bowed. “Father’s offered you his new stern-wheeler?”

Chase inclined his head.

“He and my stepbrother have talked of little else all winter.”

“Then your father must think highly of you,” Chase observed, “to offer something so dear to insure your future.”

She shook her head as if she was surprised by his assessment of the commodore’s motives. “Or he’s exceedingly eager to get me off his hands.”

“You must be wrong about that,” Chase contradicted her. “He’s offered to let you stay on here, so there will be people to look after you when I’m away.”

Her expression didn’t change, but a new desolation crept into her eyes. “He told you that, did he?”

“He mentioned it just now,” he said, gesturing toward the hallway. “He’s very concerned about your welfare.”

Ann turned abruptly and stalked to the far side of the sitting room, her skirts as wish behind her. When she reached the marble fireplace she rounded on him, her expression imperious—a princess considering a commoner.

“Well, then, Mr. Hardesty, tell me just what kind of a man would consider trading his good name for a riverboat?”

Only if you’ll explain how a woman like you comes to need
my services,
he found himself thinking. But he held his tongue and took a moment to assess his motives. To assess himself.

“A poor man would consider it,” he answered carefully. “A practical man. A man who can be bought and sold.”

She looked back at him, her eyebrows lifted in inquiry. “And which of those men are you, Mr. Hardesty?”

He hesitated, smiled, then inclined his head in a mocking bow. “Why, I’m all of them, Miss Rossiter. But I’m also a man who knows enough to walk away from a bargain when it seems too good to be true.”

“Is
this
bargain too good to be true?”

He let his gaze slide over her, let it skim the velvety luminosity of her cheeks, let it follow the slender column of her throat down toward where the black velvet banding at the neckline of her gown skimmed her collarbones, down to where her breasts rose and fell beneath the bodice. He curled his lips appreciatively, letting her know that in spite of her pregnancy, he liked what he saw.

“I’m not sure about this bargain yet, Miss Rossiter. There have been some surprises already. Are there going to be more?”

A fresh flush flared in her cheeks, and she clasped her hands in the folds of her skirt as if to keep herself from slapping him for his impertinence.

Even angry and clearly undone, she was a lovely woman. Graceful, patrician, intriguingly prim, especially considering her condition. In normal circumstances, no one would have thought to introduce her to a man like him, a common riverman, a man who’d run wild in the Missouri bottoms nearly half his life. If he’d encountered Ann Rossiter on one of the packets, he might have inquired if she was enjoying her trip or commented on the weather. Their conversation would never have gone beyond the common courtesies a riverboat pilot afforded a cabin passenger.

It would never have occurred to him that he could marry someone like her. Women with beauty and money and family position didn’t take up with river rats. Women with schooling and sophistication didn’t wed men who were barely literate. Yet with things as they were, the possibility of marrying Ann Rossiter ruffled the edges of his imagination.

What
would
it be like to take her as his wife?

A simmer of heat rose through him. A frisson of awareness—of her nearness, her scent, her softness. Of what it would be like to take her in his arms. Just thinking about touching her stirred his blood.

Things would never be dull if he were married to her—and things certainly wouldn’t be easy. He could see that ideas came and went behind those eyes. There were depths and layers to her that a simple man like him might never penetrate.

But then, he had far more to consider than whether he and Ann Rossiter were likely to be compatible. Taking on a wife—much less a wife and child—meant changes, expenses, responsibilities. Marrying her would mean giving up the freedom he’d relished all his life. It would mean giving up his dreams and the far-flung possibilities he’d never once mentioned to anyone.

It would alter who he was, what people expected from him.
It would change the way he saw himself.

Before he could think what else marrying Ann Rossiter might mean, she straightened from the soles of those very costly Moroccan leather slippers and faced him.

“The truth of the matter is, Mr. Hardesty,” she began, “that Father and I have rather different ideas about how my—my predicament should be resolved.”

Chase ambled toward where she stood before the fireplace, curious about how she meant to remedy this. “So you don’t mean to marry me, then, Miss Rossiter?”

She turned the question back on him. “You don’t want to be saddled with a woman who’s carrying another man’s child, do you, Mr. Hardesty?”

Chase watched her, saw her steel herself, and wondered if she expected him to rebuke her for conceiving a child before she was wed. Or was he supposed to say he’d be well-enough compensated that he didn’t give a damn about her condition.

“Normally no man wants another man’s leavings,” he answered, easing nearer. “But sometimes a man takes on this kind of responsibility to give a child a name or to offer his protection.”

Her chin came up. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

He thought there might be more bravado than truth in those words, and that ridiculous concern stirred in him again.

“A man might marry a woman who’s with child,” he went on, “to acknowledge a long-standing relationship or win some advantage.”

“Is the
Andromeda
advantage enough to induce you to spend the rest of your life with a woman you do not love?”

The question took him aback. It hinted at aspirations that could only make his decision—and hers—more difficult.

He deliberately tipped a one-cornered smile in her direction. “I try never to mix love and business, Miss Rossiter,” he advised her. “What we’re talking about here is riverboats and bargains, your condition and my ambition.”

She hesitated for one long moment, then gave a terse nod, acknowledging that if he offered to wed her and she agreed, there would be no pretense of a courtship between them. No boxes of bonbons and nosegays of roses. No protestations of affection.

What Chase wished he understood in all of this was how a man could make love to a woman like her and leave her to face the consequences. What he wished he could ask was whether Ann Rossiter had loved her baby’s father, and how the commodore could bargain with his grandchild’s future.

But then, Chase figured, even if he had the audacity to ask those questions, he wouldn’t much like the answers.

“Well, then, Mr. Hardesty,” she began, her voice wavering ever so slightly, “since your priorities are so clear, what are you going to tell my father?”

For an instant Chase couldn’t think how to answer. Now that he’d met her and responded to her the way he had, what on earth was he going to say when James Rossiter asked him if he meant to marry his daughter?

“What do you want me to tell him?”

She must have detected the faint rasp of sincerity in his voice, because she raised her head. In that moment he could almost see the thoughts skim through her mind: a spark of hope, a waver of concern at needing to trust a man she barely knew. A brief, bright glint of guilt. Then a darkness, a weariness settled over her, stealing the color from her face and the life from her eyes.

Instinctively Chase reached for her.

She deliberately stepped beyond his grasp. “Tell my father—” She stood like a duelist preparing to fire, terrified but resolute. “Tell my father you wouldn’t marry me if he offered you every steamer in the Gold Star fleet.”

She left no room for compromise. For compassion or concern.

Chase had no choice but to dip his head in acknowledgment. “Very well, Miss Rossiter. When he asks me what I’ve decided, I’ll refuse your father’s offer. And may I wish both you and your child the very best life has to offer.”

He turned to go.

“Mr. Hardesty?”

He glanced back to where she still stood before the fire.

“Thank you.”

Something in those two softly spoken words, some hint of vulnerability or trepidation made him retrace his steps.

“Ann?” he murmured, searching the depths of her gold-and-green eyes. “Ann, are you
sure
this is what you want?”

She drew a wavery breath. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

WHAT HAD SHE DONE?

Ann stood alone in the parlor, just where Chase Hardesty had left her, feeling dazed and breathless. Though she knew very well what it might cost her, she had thwarted the plans her stepfather had made for her, and she was quivering inside. She was quivering with defiance and pride and sheer hand-wringing terror.