Forget-Me-Not Bride (14 page)

‘He wouldn't have been able to take you on the Chilkoot Trail with him,' Jack said, standing very close to her as he looked out to sea. ‘The Chilkoot was a nightmare. I know because I was one of the first to take it. A solid line of men, bent nearly double under the burden of their supplies, forming a human chain across the snow and ice of the face of the mountains. God only knows how so many of us made it. The final slope was so steep no animal could cross it.'

She looked at him, deeply intrigued. Lean and lithe though he was, he didn't look like a man who would relish hardship. He looked too citified. Too sophisticated.

He turned his head towards her and saw the look in her eyes. Interpreting it correctly he shot her a flashing, down-slanting smile. ‘It was worth it. I knew exactly what I was going to do when I reached Dawson, and it wasn't to grub-stake. All I had to do was build saloons and rake in gold that way.'

‘And was there no other way of reaching Dawson in ‘97?' she asked, realising how deeply grateful she should be for the railway that now linked the coast of Alaska with the interior.

‘There was the White Pass, another narrow funnel through the mountains and equally treacherous and there was a way by sea and river, via the Bering Sea and the Yukon.'

She turned slightly, resting both her folded arms on the deck rail, completely at ease with him, feeling as if she had found a friend as well as a soon-to-be husband.

‘Surely the sea route would have been by far the easiest and most comfortable?'

He, too, leaned his weight on his arms as he rested them on the rails, his hands loosely clasped. ‘At that particular point in time it would have taken too long. By the time the Bering Sea had been crossed the Yukon would have been frozen up until the spring. And by the spring Dawson would have been established and I wouldn't have had a monopoly on the saloon and dance-hall trade.'

It was a logical explanation. A businessman's explanation. She said, not looking at him but staring out across the silk-dark water, ‘The friend I introduced you to, the friend who teaches in Dawson, told me that I shouldn't be seen in conversation with you. She said Dawson saloons and dance halls were little better than … than …' She couldn't bring herself to say the word brothel. Well brought up young ladies weren't supposed to know brothels existed.

‘I can quite well imagine the word your friend used,' he said dryly, amused by her as always. ‘All I can say in defence is that not all saloons and dance-halls fall into the same category. The
Gold Nugget
is the slickest dance-hall in Dawson but it doesn't have upstairs rooms. At least not of the kind Miss Bumby was thinking of.' He was speaking the truth. It was the
Mother Lode
that had the monopoly on upstairs rooms.

Relief surged through her. He was being totally frank with her, making no apologies for the way he earned his living, because there was no need for such apologies.

She turned her head so that her eyes met his. ‘I have another friend,' she said, hoping he would again set her mind at rest, ‘and Marietta isn't very … conventional. She's set her heart on becoming a dance-hall girl and naturally, after what Susan told me …'

‘You're worried?'

She nodded.

In the Northern evening light her creamy skin was as pale as ivory and her blue-black hair had the sheen of satin. He wondered what it would be like unpinned. How long it would be. How thick. With an effort he forced his mind to the matter in hand. How the devil had she become friends, in such short a time, with the racy Miss Rivere? And what had her long-term friend, the ultra-respectable Miss Bumby, been thinking of to have allowed it to happen?

‘Dance-hall girls are a breed apart,' he said at last, not wanting to damn them all as prostitutes, for he knew very well that many of them were not. ‘Once a girl enters a saloon or dance-hall she leaves her good name at the door. As I'm sure your friend Miss Bumby has already told you.'

‘Yes, but if a dance-hall girl isn't also a lady of the … of the …'

‘Night,' he finished for her helpfully.

‘… why should she be ostracised?'

It was a good question and one he would have liked to be able to answer. The fact that they were having such a conversation at all was bizarre enough. Despite all the sensuality of Lilli Stullen's slender, deliciously curved figure and of her wide-spaced, thick-lashed eyes and full-lipped mouth, respectability oozed from her every pore. And he wasn't in the habit of amusing himself with girls so respectable, not when they were vulnerably young and innocent into the bargain.

‘How come you've got to know Miss Rivere so well?' he asked, intrigued. ‘She's aboard the
Senator
as a Peabody bride and Peabody brides are …'

She was relieved that the conversation had come so easily and naturally around to the subject of Peabody brides that the fact of his knowing Marietta's surname and circumstances slid right by her.

‘I know what Peabody brides are, Mr Coolidge.' Her eyes held his. This was it. This was the crucial all or nothing moment. Her heart was pounding so fiercely she was sure he must be able to hear it. With her voice betraying her inner emotions only by the faintest tremor she said quietly, ‘You see, I'm a Peabody bride as well.'

If she had said she was Calamity Jane he couldn't have looked more astounded.

‘
You
? How can you be? You have your kid brother and sister with you and you're going to Dawson to stay with Miss Bumby!'

She shook her head. Neither of them were looking out at the ocean now. Though she was still holding onto the deck-rail with one hand he had now turned completely towards her, so near to her that she could smell his cologne and the linen-freshness of his shirt.

‘No,' she said, feeling as breathless as if she were in a race, a race far from finished and a race she had to win. ‘I only met Susan Bumby the evening I boarded the boat. Susan is a Peabody bride too.'

Lilli, Marietta and Susan Bumby. They made such a disparate trio that it took all his self-control not to blaspheme with incredulity. Instead he said, ‘I don't wish to be ungallant but I can understand Miss Bumby resorting to the help of a marriage bureau. As for your friend Marietta, we both know she's only using the bureau to pay for her passage north and that the instant she reaches Dawson she's going to renege on her agreement. But what about yourself? Miss Bumby may be plain as a pikestaff and unable to get a husband by any other method, but her reasons hardly apply to you!'

She was devoutly glad he didn't think they did. She also knew that her fate was still hanging precariously in the balance. He was incredulous at what she had told him, which was all to the good. But she needed him to be far more than incredulous. She needed him to be outraged.

‘And have you any idea of the way Peabody brides are disposed of when they reach Dawson?' he asked, outraged. ‘Josh Nelson has reduced the process to something akin to a Turkish slave market!'

Lilli looked suitably aghast. It would never do for him to realise she already knew a Peabody bride's fate and to believe she was apparently resigned to meeting it.

‘What on earth possessed you?' he continued angrily, the moonlight emphasising the Greek god perfection of his cheekbones and jaw. ‘Only women desperate for the security of marriage become mail-order brides! Though what security there can possibly be in marrying selfish and shiftless stampeders beats me!'

His anger was genuine. Josh Nelson was a snake. Before Nelson had begun acting on the Peabody Marriage Bureau's behalf, girls the bureau sent north had been matched up with husbands in a reasonably decorous manner; a generous statuary fee being paid to the bureau by the men availing themselves of its services. Nelson had put an end to all such decorum. Seizing advantage of the huge disparity in numbers between men wanting Peabody brides and girls willing to become Peabody brides, Nelson had set up a system whereby the girls went to men willing to pay the most for them. The Marriage Bureau still received its standard, statuary fee. The difference went into Josh Nelson's greasy palm.

‘I didn't see that I had a choice,' Lilli said, her heart still hammering, knowing that though she was now in her stride the sprint to the finish still lay before her. ‘My widowed father died six months ago and …'

‘Judas priest!' It was the kind of story Jack had heard countless times before and it never failed to infuriate him. When a young single woman lost her home and family the results were nearly always catastrophic. Except for the fortunate few, work opportunities were limited to lowly paid drudgery. Which was why so many homeless girls flocked into saloon and dance-hall work.

‘Don't say a word more!' he commanded tightly. ‘And don't go fretting yourself an instant longer about marrying a loutish miner because I'm not going to allow it to happen.'

Too damned right he wasn't! She was too naive, too sparky, too goddamned
nice
to be subjected to Josh Nelson's crude auctioneering techniques. Nelson would have to be paid off, of course, but that was no problem. And Miss Lilli Stullen would have to be found respectable, adequate-paying work, and for a man with his contacts that wouldn't be too much of a problem either.

Lilli was gripping hold of the deck-rail so tightly her knuckles were white. The race was over! And she'd won! His reaction had been all she had prayed it would be. He wasn't going to stand by and watch her marry another man. Which had to mean he was going to marry her himself. Joy flooded through her. Bemused and radiant her eyes held his. Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to be absolutely perfect.

As he saw the dizzying relief in her eyes Jack knew he wasn't going to be strong enough to refrain from taking physical advantage of it. Until now he had behaved towards the delightful Miss Stullen with faultless propriety, enjoying nothing more than her quirky conversation. Now, however, he had come to her aid in the most magnaminous way, saving her, in Gothic novel terms, from a fate worse than death. A kiss, or maybe two or three kisses, would be very small payment in reward. As he reached out an arm towards her waist, drawing her indecently close to him, he felt her quiver.

‘Mr Coolidge, I …'

Her voice was low and husky and not for the first time he wondered what her singing voice would be like.

‘Jack,' he said, his lips brushing her silky-soft hair. ‘We're friends, aren't we? And friends should always be on christian name terms.'

Heat beat through her. Friends. They would always be friends. And soon they would be betrothed.

‘Trust me,' he said softly, ‘I'm going to make everything all right, not only for you but for little Leo and for Lottie as well.'

She melted against the strength of his body like wax. His arms circled her waist. With her heart racing against his he lowered his head to hers.

All time seemed to have stopped for Lilli. He was going to kiss her. It would be a kiss she would remember for all time. The first kiss of a lifetime of kisses.

His mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue touching and teasing hers. Shock rippled through her. It was her first adult kiss and she hadn't known that tongues, as well as lips, were involved. It was a startling sensation. Startling but exciting. As his mouth continued to plunder hers, her confidence grew. Her hands, which had been pressed close against his chest, now slid up and around his neck. Every nerve in her body was tingling. She felt scorched. Ablaze.

Her artlessly passionate response nearly unhinged him. He had intended a few moments of pleasant relaxation instead of which she was awakening in him fierce, raw need. With his heart racing nearly as chaotically as hers he slid one hand from her waist and cupped a voluptuously full, pert breast.

She gasped, stiffening in his arms with shock. Whether, when the moment of shock had passed, she would have sweetly surrendered to his caresses, he never found out. Two men were approaching. Inwardly cursing their presence Jack reluctantly released his hold of Lilli.

‘I wouldn't mind a partner with your kind of guts,' one man's deep guttural voice said to his companion. ‘Trust is what is important between men out in the wilds and I reckon I could trust a man who'd risk his life for a kid he didn't know.'

‘I havna decided on quite what I'm going to do when I reach Dawson.'

There was no mistaking the deep, soft burr. Lilli felt her cheeks flush scarlet. What if he had seen the liberties Jack had been taking with her person? Not that they really were liberties, considering the circumstances, but Mr Cameron was not to know the circumstances and the thought of him leaping to a grossly wrong conclusion mortified her. She kept her head well down, allowing Jack's body to shield her from view.

Instead of walking on past them, the two men came to a halt beside the deck-rail, only feet away from them.

‘What in heck do y'mean, you haven't figgered out what you're goin'to do when we arrive?' the guttural voice said incredulously. ‘What else would a man do in the Klondike but mine for gold?'

Jack, too, had recognised Ringan Cameron's Scots burr. He also realised that as Cameron and his companion seemed settled in for a long discussion he had no alternative but to escort Lilli away as discreetly as possible.

Taking hold of her arm by the elbow he turned with her away from the deck-rail, keeping between her and the two men.

‘My reason for being aboard the Senator isna quite as uncomplicated as most people's reasons,' Ringan was saying dryly.

Lilli knew that he was referring to the circumstances of his parole and instinctively, without thinking, she raised her head, looking across at him.

Having recognised Lucky Jack Cameron's distinctive thatch of sun-bleached hair Ringan had been idly curious as to the identity of his lady-friend.

When Lilli suddenly turned, looking across at him, he sucked in his breath sharply. Dear God in heaven! He'd known Miss Stullen was on friendly speaking terms with Coolidge but he'd never suspected she was on terms of intimacy with him! Even now, though he had seen the proof before his very eyes, he could hardly credit it. Coolidge was, after all, a man whose name was freely linked with that of the most notorious madam north of San Francisco, and Miss Lilli Stullen was a young woman who radiated purity and innocence.