Elizabeth Grayson (7 page)

Just then the bell in the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral began to toll. It was four o’clock.

Chase straightened like a shot. He didn’t have time to argue with this woman who, in a moment of utter insanity, he’d made his wife. He had his duties to perform.

“I’m going to spare you the humiliation of carrying you bodily off this boat,” he began, “but don’t imagine for a moment this arrangement is permanent. I’m flagging down the first steamer we pass that’s heading downstream and sending you back to your father.

“Now, before we cast off—should I send word to him that you’re here with me?”

“I left a note.”

“Good enough,” he answered and slammed out of the cabin.

He took the steps to the pilothouse three at a time. Rue was at the wheel when he arrived.

“I didn’t see Ann leave,” the younger man observed with the slightest of smiles. “Did I miss my chance to say good-bye?”

Chase scowled at his brother and took one last look at the charts. “Whether Ann left the
Andromeda
is none of your concern.”

“Well, you have to admire her gumption,” Rue went on, “storming aboard this afternoon and demanding passage.”

“I can’t imagine why I should admire that,” Chase shot back. “Now, will you sound that damn whistle to let everyone know we’re leaving?”

As Rue blew a single long blast to signal their intentions, Chase made his way down to the hurricane deck. He paused to take one last look at St. Louis, at the cobblestoned levee and the rows of big, brick warehouses rising in tiers beyond it. Then he shouted down to the mate who was waiting on the foredeck.

“Mr. Steinwehr, single up the double lines.”

Gustave “Goose” Steinwehr gave the order to his deckhands, and several men scrambled up the levee to loose the ropes that bound the
Andromeda
to big iron links set into the cobblestones.

“Let the stern and aft lines go.”

As the hands dropped more of the ropes, the stern of the steamer began to drift out into the current.

Chase turned and called to Rue. “Signal the slow bell ahead and give me some left rudder.”

Rue rang the engine room and muscled the wheel around. As the
Andromeda
eased closer to the levee, Chase directed that they drop the bow lines.

Then, once the hands were aboard, Chase signaled for three sharp blasts of the whistle and gave the order for backing down. Graceful as a ballerina, the
Andromeda
eased away from the bank and turned out into the brisk Mississippi River current.

A hot tingle of satisfaction sizzled from Chase’s scalp to his toes. He was in command now; the riverboat was his.

“All stop,” he sang out once they were well beyond the line of boats tied up at the bank. Facing upstream to the north, Chase sensed the steamer drift a little beneath him and took an intoxicating sip of the river’s power before he gave the order.

“Right rudder, full ahead.” The
Andromeda
homed to the main channel like a swallow to its nest.

For a long, shining moment Chase stood alone on the hurricane deck and let the cold March wind tear at him. It plastered his clothes against his body and yanked at his hair. It made his cheeks sting and his eyes water. Never had he felt more alive than he did at this moment, like the world was his for the asking. Like he was a man who’d proved himself.

With a whoop of pure elation, Chase spun on his heel and strode back to the wheelhouse.

Once inside, he nudged Rue aside and wrapped his hands around the wheel’s elegantly tapered spokes. He caressed the satin-smooth turnings and savored the feel of the engine’s vibration in the hollows of his palms.

He closed his eyes and let loose a sigh that felt like it had been building behind his sternum for half his life. He’d never believed he could have this—a boat of his own and a river he could follow into the sunset—the sum total of all he’d ever wanted for himself.

As he guided the
Andromeda
north, the banks of the Mississippi rolled past him. To the east lay Illinois, swampy scrub country that masked its towns and villages in a gray-brown haze of branches. To the west the state of Missouri was slipping by, the St. Louis waterfront giving way to lumber mills and manufacturing plants, scattered farmsteads and forested banks that climbed a low, gray bluff set well back from the water.

Chase rang the bells to the engine room for half-speed as he maneuvered the
Andromeda
toward the mouth of the Chain of Rocks channel. It was one of the most treacherous sections on the Mississippi. In just the last ten years its rocky, saw-toothed reefs had killed seventeen steamboats outright and maimed countless others.

The current was stiff and the Mississippi so swollen by spring runoff that the
Andromeda
was having to fight up every inch of the Chain’s seven-mile course.

“Eddy to port,” Rue pointed out from where he was leaning against the breastboard at the front of the pilothouse.

Chase held the wheel over hard, then brought it back. The
Andromeda
came about like a saloon girl ruffling her petticoats at a potential customer.

In the next hour and a half, they clawed their way north, struggling upriver toward the point where the Missouri flowed into the Mississippi from the west. The
Andromeda
bucked as they swung bow-first into the Missouri’s current. Then, as they penetrated the mouth of the river that would take them all the way to Montana, she settled again.

“They say boys go up the Mississippi, and the men the Missouri,” Rue offered with a grin. “Guess what that makes us?”

“Damn fools for getting into steamboating in the first place,” Chase answered and turned into a crossing toward the opposite bank.

“Want me to take the wheel?” Rue asked eagerly.

Chase measured the pleasure of piloting the
Andromeda
against the demands of his other duties and shook his head. “I’ll hold her steady for awhile yet.”

Rue shrugged, then ambled toward the door. “I’ll head down and get us some coffee before the cooks start dishing up supper.”

Chase nodded absently and let him go.

Though piloting took most of Chase’s concentration, he couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts from straying to Ann. How delicate she’d looked as she’d glided across the parlor this morning. How stubborn and uncompromising she’d been, standing at the head of the gangway this afternoon.

He’d recognized the resolve in her that first day, but it had been tempered by the mortification of being offered in marriage as damaged goods. Chase saw now that when she’d clenched her fist and refused his ring, it had been as much an act of rebellion directed at her father as at him.

But when he’d faced her across the cabin this afternoon, she’d showed such temerity and resolve that Chase found himself wishing he could give her what she wanted. Still, keeping Ann aboard the
Andromeda
was impossible. No matter what James Rossiter had done or how single-minded he was when it came to his daughter, Ann was better off in St. Louis than on a steamer bound for Montana.

Chase stayed on at the wheel for a good deal longer than he’d intended, well into a sunset that turned the river ahead to molten copper. It wasn’t until after they’d tied up at Portage de Sioux for the night, that Chase left the wheelhouse, finally resigned to dealing with Ann.

She was his wife, his responsibility, and maybe once they’d shared a companionable dinner, he’d be able to make her see it was best that she take passage home.

Making his way down to the Texas deck, Chase paused outside the door to his cabin. He smoothed his hair, let out a long, gusty sigh, and reached for the knob. It turned beneath his hand, but when he leaned into the panel nothing happened. He jiggled the latch and nudged a little harder. The door didn’t budge.

Ann had locked him out of his own cabin!

Chase fought a sharp jab of annoyance. “Ann,” he said, leaning close to the door so his voice wouldn’t carry. “Open up, Ann. I need to talk to you.”

He didn’t hear so much as a whisper of movement from inside. Not a rustle, not a murmur.

“Let me in, Ann,” His voice was sharper, less cajoling.

He could imagine her sitting in there, knitting or reading with single-minded purpose while he stood out here.

“Ann, please!”

The silence persisted, growing stubborn, insolent, mutinous. Anger chewed along his nerves.

“Ann!”

Nothing.

Damn the woman, anyway. All he wanted was to settle in the captain’s sitting room, savor a brandy and a cheroot, and reflect on all he’d accomplished. He’d been working toward this moment all his life. It was his triumph, damn it! His proof that a boy who’d been taken in out of pity could make something of himself.

He wasn’t going to let Ann Rossiter—Ann
Hardesty
or whoever the hell she was—spoil his victory. He wasn’t going to let her lock him out of his own cabin.

He glared at the door. He could break the lock without half-trying. He could kick his way into that stateroom and show Ann
Hardesty
that her new husband wasn’t a man to be trifled with.

He backed up a step, balanced on his left leg and flexed his right. Did he really want to burst into that cabin and begin married life by bullying his wife into submission? Did he want the crew and passengers to come trooping up here to see what the commotion was about?

That thought sobered Chase faster than a dip in the river. He straightened, let out his breath, braced back against the railing and glared at the door.

He had to get Ann off his boat.

What the devil was she doing in that cabin anyway?

He realized all at once that the sitting-room windows were dark, and the only illumination glimmered dimly between the halves of the bedroom curtains.

He stepped up close to the glass and peered between the velvet panels. He could only see a narrow slice of the room, the bottom half of the bunk, the built-in shaving stand on the opposite wall and the mirror that hung above it.

He saw that Ann lay fully clothed toward the outer edge of his berth. That she was dressed meant either that Skirlin had neglected to have her baggage delivered, or that she thought the layers of clothes might offer some protection.

Against him, he supposed.

Chase let out his breath in exasperation.

As he looked closer, he could see she slept with her knees drawn up and had left the lamp burning, like a child afraid of the dark. And he was suddenly very glad he hadn’t gone charging into that cabin like a madman.

Still, a spark of resentment burned in him. Today he had gotten everything he’d ever wanted for himself, and Ann was spoiling his victory.

Biting back a curse, he turned from the window and took the stairs down to the boiler deck where a few hardy passengers stood in the cold, smoking cigars. He spoke to each of the men in turn, then stepped into the warmth of the pastry kitchen.

Unlike the galleys on most steamboats, Frenchy Bertin’s was spotless. The wide wooden tables had been wiped with vinegar, the floors swept, and the food stored away in the pie safe or carefully covered with cheesecloth.

Since he’d elected to remain in the pilothouse right through supper, Chase was hungry. He scavenged two slices of bread, then headed into the starboard galley where Harley Crocker prepared the meat and vegetables. After making himself a sandwich of sliced beef and horseradish, Chase wandered back to Frenchy’s side of the boat for a slice of pie and a glass of whiskey from the “nip” bottle Bertin kept hidden in one of the canisters.

Feeling better for having food and a jot of whiskey in his belly, Chase returned to the Texas deck and tried to figure out where he was going to sleep.

When he peered between the curtains again, he saw Ann hadn’t moved—and that odd, ridiculous protectiveness stirred in him again. He couldn’t quite bring himself to disturb her, which left him one choice about where he’d spend the night.

Cursing under his breath, he entered the officers’ quarters, the series of narrow bunk-lined rooms that lay directly behind the captain’s cabin. Three men were at the table playing cards: Rue, Cal Watkins, and Beck Morgan, the mud clerk.

They watched without a word as Chase sat down on the nearest berth and removed his boots. In absolute silence they watched as he stripped to his knitted underwear. He tugged back the blankets on the bed and climbed beneath them.

“Good night,” he mumbled gruffly.

Not wanting to see his officers’ speculative glances, Chase turned his face to the wall. Though not one of them said a word, Chase knew what they were thinking. Here he was, the captain of his own damned steamer, hunkered down in a steerman’s cot, humiliated in front of the men he was supposed to command.

And sleeping alone on his wedding night.

chapter four

NOTCHING THE WHEEL TO STARBOARD, CHASE guided the
Andromeda
into another of the scores of channel crossings they’d made since they left St. Louis four days before.

“Is that river the Gasconade?” Rue asked, shouldering into the pilothouse carrying two cups of coffee.

Chase glanced to where another of the Missouri’s tributaries joined its already swollen flow and nodded. “I expect we’ll make Jefferson City this afternoon.”

He accepted one of the steaming mugs, took a sip, and grimaced. He’d forgotten to warn Rue about drinking Harley Crocker’s coffee. Still, life was good. The sun was out. The river was running high and fast, and so far at least, the trip had been uneventful.

Because the
Andromeda
was a brand-new boat and making one of the first runs of the season, every cabin was full and cargo was piled high on the guards. There were boxes of cloth, all manner of guns and ammunition, farming implements, boots and tools and patent medicines, tinware and toothbrushes, washtubs and weather vanes. Like every other boat heading west, she was carrying barrels of sugar and salt, flour, whiskey, and pickles. They had everything from dynamite to canned goods aboard, from dentists’ tools to hand-painted china.

Some of the load was bound for general stores in towns along the river that had been inaccessible all winter. But most of the cargo was going all the way to the head of navigation at Fort Benton, Montana Territory, where the prices were better.

The passengers aboard the
Andromeda
weren’t nearly as diverse as the cargo. Most of the people who’d taken cabin passage fell into one of four groups: folks hoping to homestead in Nebraska and the Dakota Territory now that the war was over, businessmen or speculators intent on making money on people moving West, army officers on their way to postings at the forts along the river, and would-be miners traveling to Montana by boat because the Indians had the trail to the goldfields under seige.

On the main deck, both the accommodations and the company were less refined. “Room” consisted of sleeping in the open with most of the crew, and the “board” was a pan of leftovers from the dining room. Down there, the company ran to adventurers, freed slaves, immigrant families, and barnyard animals.

Rue ambled up beside where Chase was standing at the wheel. “I didn’t see much activity in your cabin when I passed by. You sure Ann’s still with us?”

“I imagine.”

In truth, Chase hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his wife since they’d cast off. He would have been more concerned if the food he’d had set outside the cabin door didn’t keep disappearing.

“So what’s she doing holed up in there, anyway?”

Chase knew the whole crew was wondering that, and probably half the passengers. “I think she’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Rue echoed. “For four whole days?”

Chase didn’t think Ann had been sleeping the night before when he’d tried the outer door to the cabin and found it unlocked. The way he had it figured, his wife had been poised on the bedroom side of the pocket door, listening as he rummaged through the sitting room and gathered up his logbook and writing utensils, his shaving gear, and a fresh suit of clothes. He doubted she’d have unlocked that outer door at all, except he’d left a note on her breakfast tray explaining what he needed.

Though he supposed Ann had reason to be wary of a man she barely knew, her mistrust rankled him. What did she think he was going to do? Drag her out of the cabin and abandon her on the riverbank? Burst in and ravish her?

Chase steered the steamer into a bend and made note of how the water had undercut the bank. He’d bet two weeks’ wages the grove of trees on that little point would be washed away by the time they came downstream four months from now.

“I think women need a lot of sleep when they’re breeding,” Chase offered sagely.

“I don’t remember Etta Mae sleeping this much when she was carrying Samantha,” his brother observed.

Chase figured Rue had guessed the truth. “I suppose at least part of the reason Ann’s locked herself away is because she’s avoiding me,” he admitted on a sigh. “I told her I was going to put her aboard the first boat we passed that was headed back to St. Louis, and she isn’t giving me the opportunity.”

Rue looked up from his coffee. “Do you mean to do that?”

“What are
we
going to do with her?” Chase wanted to know. “Ann’s in a family way; she needs folks to look after her. How are
we
going to do that? She’ll need a doctor when her time comes.
We’re
headed off into the wilderness.”

“You could leave her with Ma,” Rue suggested. “Ma would look after her.”

Chase wasn’t about to foist Ann off on his parents. If Ann’s baby had been his, he might have considered it. If he were Lydia and Enoch’s natural son, he might have felt differently. Though his mother would surely agree, Chase couldn’t bring himself to ask more of his parents than they’d given him already. A man didn’t expect other people to shoulder responsibilities he’d taken upon himself.

“I’m not leaving Ann with Ma and Pa,” he told his brother. “I’m the one who agreed to this marriage, and I’m the one who has to look after my wife. I’m sending Ann back to St. Louis first chance I get, or my name’s not Chase Hardesty!”

HE WAS HERE IN THE ROOM. ANN KNEW IT THE INSTANT she started awake, the moment she opened her eyes. He was hidden, cloaked in the darkness.

But he was here.

She could feel his energy squirm across her skin. She could smell the high, sharp bite of camphor and hear his fervid breathing. He was taunting her with his presence, with his silence. He was waiting to show himself.

He sensed the thick, choking dread condensing inside her. He was relishing her panic, thriving on it.

Gooseflesh crawled along her ribs. All Ann could do was lie there with her mind roaring and her muscles turned to stone. Soon now, between one breath and the next, he would reach out and close his hands on her. He would grab her, tear at her, crush her beneath him.

When he did that, she would shatter. She would splinter into a thousand shivering shards. A sob fluttered in her throat.
If he touched her she would lose her mind.

Then from somewhere beyond the walls of her terror, beyond the walls of this room, she heard the sound of footsteps and disembodied voices.

“—longer than I figured to scale those damn boilers,” one of them said.

“It’s hellish work,” a second man agreed.

“An’ unless I miss my guess,” the first continued, “the captain’ll want ’er steam up b’fore dawn.”

“Then we best grab what sleep we—”

Somewhere to Ann’s right a door opened and closed, shutting off the conversation.

Gradually she began to notice other sounds. The gentle
shush
of water and peepers chorusing weren’t things Ann associated with her room at her father’s house. She gradually came to realize she wasn’t cowering in her own bed. She wasn’t even in St. Louis.

She was aboard the
Andromeda,
locked up tight in the captain’s cabin. Though it might be black as pitch in here, it didn’t seem likely someone could have breached the locks on both the outer and inner doors without awakening her. No one was lurking in the dark.

She was safe.

Relief gushed through her. Tears singed her lower lashes; her arms and legs went rubbery. She was safe aboard the
Andromeda,
safe from her demons and from her night-mares.

She nuzzled into her pillow and closed her eyes.

Once Chase had left for the riverfront the day of their wedding, she’d packed her bags and slipped out of the town house while everyone was busy in the aftermath of the wedding. Her hands might have been shaking when she hailed the horsecab that delivered her to the levee, but she’d stood up for herself once she got aboard. Chase hadn’t wanted to let her stay. He was still threatening to send her home, but she wasn’t going back. Not now, not ever.

Ann nestled deeper into the bedding and lay for a good long while letting the rustle of the river soothe her. Finally, she fumbled toward the head of the berth and peeked outside. What time was it? she wondered. Where had they tied up for the night? How long had she been sleeping?

Long enough at least to need a chamberpot.

Ann pulled herself upright and eased out of the waist-high berth, feeling for the floor with her toes. Once she’d clambered down, she lit a lamp and went about her business.

When she was done, she slipped the lock on the pocket door that separated the sleeping quarters from the captain’s cozy sitting room. She saw that Chase had been there again. He’d left papers stacked on the desk, and her covered supper tray was sitting on the table in the corner. Ann crossed the room and raised the cloth. On the plate was a slice of ham and wedges of potato wallowing in grease, a dish of limp cabbage, and a few shriveled grapes.

Though the smell of the cabbage made her swallow hard, Ann realized she was hungry. What she wanted was custard, sweet and creamy enough to roll around on her tongue. Or a big lemon tart with tang enough to make her pucker.

Saliva pooled under her tongue, and her stomach grumbled. What was on this tray was all she was going to get until breakfast—and even then, no one would think to bring her lemon tarts. Which gave her a choice: she could sit here hungry and safe, or brave the open deck in search of something more appetizing.

Though the idea of looking for the galley in the dark turned her hands slick with sweat, Ann teased open the cabin door and stepped outside. Except for lanterns hung at intervals along the rail, everything was dim and quiet.

Did she really want lemon tarts enough to chance this?

Taking her courage in her hands, Ann scurried to the top of the stairs and paused to listen. When nothing stirred, she crept down the flight to the boiler deck. Drawn by the scent of baking bread, she stole along the promenade and peeled open an iron-banded door midway toward the stern.

Ripe, fecund heat enfolded her.

Though the galley was only dimly lit, she didn’t have any trouble finding the head-high pie safe—or plundering the booty inside. She cut a slice from a tall, elegant coconut cake and another from one of the cherry pies still warm from baking. An enormous tray of plump, golden-brown fried cakes was laid out for breakfast, and tucked back in a corner were three of what must have been yesterday’s tarts. They were apple not lemon, but Ann made do.

Then, pulling a stool up to one of the room’s three high wooden counters, she forked up a bite of one of the tarts—and moaned with pleasure. The crust was flaky and the apples, still slightly crisp, were perfectly seasoned with sugar and cinnamon.

She devoured the tarts and was chewing her way through the coconut cake when a tall, bone-thin man stalked into the galley through a door that evidently led into the salon.

“Merde!”
he was mumbling. “Will I ever learn not to draw to an inside straight?”

He’d shambled halfway across the galley before he saw her. “Ah! You there!” he demanded. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”

Ann did her best to swallow the bite of cake so she could answer, but it caught in her throat.

“You cabin passengers,” he scolded as he approached her. “You think you can come in and eat my delicacies at any hour of the day or night! What will I serve at dinner if you eat them now, eh?
Eh?”

Ann scrambled down from her stool and brushed the crumbs off her skirt. “I’m sorry,” she said, bobbing her head in apology. “Truly I am. But I was so hungry...”

As she backed away the Frenchman must have caught sight of her belly, because his demeanor immediately changed. “And what kind of a meal is this for a woman carrying a child?” he chided her. “Here, let me fix you something more suitable for that baby than all those sweets.”

“Oh, no!” Ann pleaded. “I don’t mean to be any trouble.”

“Trouble!” he said with a sniff. “Losing all your money at cards is trouble. Having three wives to support is trouble. Fixing you something to eat is no trouble.”

He plucked two eggs from the straw in a big, closely woven basket and broke them into a bowl. With a few flicks of his fork, a sprinkling of herbs and cheese, and a swirl or two in a frying pan, he presented her with a perfectly folded omelet.

Ann stared as if he’d conjured the meal out of thin air. “It looks delicious.”

The chef raised his impressive eyebrows. “But of course.”

As Ann tucked into the eggs, the tall man bowed with a flourish. “I am Guillaume Bertin, but most everyone on the river calls me ‘Frenchy’.”

“I’m Ann”—Rossiter, she’d almost said—“Hardesty.”

Frenchy looked down his long, knobby nose at her. “Ah, the captain’s mysterious new wife.”

“Mysterious?”

“The captain, he doesn’t tell a soul he is getting married.” The Frenchman enumerated on his fingers. “His bride arrives and disappears into his cabin. She stays there for five whole days
—all by herself.”

Ann flushed at his implication. It wasn’t her fault Chase had neglected to mention the wedding, and once she’d come aboard and closed the cabin door behind her, all she seemed able to do was sleep. And in spite of the considerable inconvenience and the gossip she’d evidently caused, Chase hadn’t disturbed her. Her opinion of her new husband softened a little.