Forget-Me-Not Bride (20 page)

‘What are we going to do, Lilli?' Lottie asked tremulously, her usually happy shining face pinched and pale.

As she looked across at her, Lilli felt crucified by guilt. Lottie was only ten years old. The anxieties and fears she was experiencing on Edie's behalf were anxieties and fears she shouldn't even be conversant with, let alone be burdened with. ‘I don't know,' she said thickly, ‘but we'll think of something.

Leo held tightly to Marietta's hand, knowing that something was deeply wrong but not understanding just what. ‘Why does Edie have to marry anyone?' he asked bewilderedly. ‘Why can't she live with us or with Marietta?'

Over his silk-dark mop of hair Marietta and Lilli's eyes met and held, both wondering if it were a possibility.

‘I'll speak to Kitty Dufresne,' Marietta said, wondering if Kitty would hire Edie as a maid or a kitchen assistant.

‘And I'll speak to Lucky Jack,' Lilli said as she led the way out of the cabin.

‘Lucky Jack?' Marietta's eyebrows shot high into her frizz of fiery hair. ‘Lucky Jack Coolidge? Land's sakes! He isn't a beau of yours as well, is he?'

‘As well as who?' Leo asked interestedly as Lilli, struggling to negotiate the narrow corridor with her bulky carpet-bag, didn't trouble to reply.

Marietta didn't belong to the school of thought that believed certain subjects of conversation should be censored for young ears. ‘As well as a very handsome seaman and the very personable Mr Cameron. Thank goodness the voyage is at an end, Leo. If it had continued for much longer there wouldn't have been a man aboard ship not carrying a torch for your sister!'

Leo giggled, because Marietta always made him giggle, and with his hand in hers followed Lilli and Lottie up onto the crowded deck.

The crush was horrendous. Every man seemed to have a ton of equipment with him. Newcomers hoisted bedding-rolls and bags of flour and frying-pans. Men who had already struck it rich and were returning after spending the winter in warmer climes were burdened with gigantic brass-cornered leather suitcases and parcels and crates bearing labels as diverse as London, Paris and Rome.

With a colossal shudder the
Senator's
gangplank was lowered. Lottie's sailor's hat was nearly knocked from her head as the stampede to be amongst the first ashore began.

‘Where is Lettie?' Lilli shouted across to Marietta. ‘Do you think she's alright?'

‘She's with Kate and the others,' Marietta shouted back. ‘I'm going to have to leave you now to go and get my own bags. Will you be okay?'

Lilli nodded, certain that at any moment Lucky Jack would be at her side.

‘There's Ringan!' Lottie said suddenly as they were buffeted about on all sides. ‘Look! Over there! He'll help us!'

‘We don't need help!' Lilli said exasperatedly as Lottie began to wave to attract Ringan Cameron's attention. ‘And please don't refer to Mr Cameron by his christian name, Lottie. It's not at all polite.'

Vainly she searched the sea of heads in search of one wheat-gold and Homburg-hatted, but the only figure forging his way through the crush to her side was copper-haired and bare-headed.

‘Can I be of any assistance?' he asked as he reached her side, his voice as always thick with a Highland burr. There was something else in his voice as well. Something Lilli couldn't quite define. Was it reluctance? The thought sent the blood boiling through her veins.

‘No, thank you,' she said crisply.

‘Yes, please,' Lottie and Leo chorused.

He frowned slightly, wondering if Lilli Stullen's negative reply was because she didn't want to receive assistance which might arouse Lucky Jack Coolidge's annoyance or if it was something less easy to accept; if it was because she had heard gossip as to his jail-bird past.

The temptation to simply accept her refusal and leave her to struggle with her bag was almost overpowering, but it wasn't only Lilli Stullen who was struggling with a heavy bag. It was little Lottie also.

‘If you're waiting for someone, I'll leave you to wait for them,' he said diplomatically, ‘but the bag wee Lottie's carrying is too heavy for a child.' He removed it from Lottie's unprotesting hands. ‘I'll take care of it for her till she's safely aboard the train.' He hesitated. The arrangements for all passengers bound for Dawson was that they would partake of a late lunch at the Golden North Hotel, Skagway, before boarding the train which would take them on the next stage of their journey. Tables at the Golden North would, however, be limited, and by insisting on struggling with her heavy carpet-bag Lilli Stullen was running the risk of arriving there too late to be fed at all. ‘Taking your bag as well wouldna be a problem,' he said as the stampede for the gangplank continued.

Over the sea of heads Lilli could see Miss Nettlesham's tall, thin figure being uncomfortably jostled as she stepped on to the gangplank. A little way ahead of her Susan was being accompanied off the ship by the Reverend Mr Jenkinson. Behind her, Kate and Lettie and Edie could be seen, all of them battling not to be knocked off their feet.

She turned her head slightly looking to see if, coming from the direction of the nearest companion-way, Marietta was also being buffeted in the crush. There was no sign of her distinctive fox-red hair but with vast relief she saw Lucky Jack making his way towards her, two slick-suited men on either side of him.

She turned again to face Ringan Cameron. ‘Thank you for the offer,' she said, smiling radiantly, her inner happiness such she would have found it impossible
not
to smile, ‘but I can manage.'

Ringan shrugged, gave Leo and Lottie a friendly grin and, slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder and holding it by the thumb as if it weighed no more than a jacket, turned away from her.

Lilli stared after him for a few seconds, the annoyance he so often aroused in her surfacing yet again. His friendly grin hadn't been directed at herself. To herself he was always faultlessly polite but … reserved? Was that the word she was looking for? Unbending? Or was he simply dour? A dour Scot who had a naturally easy manner with children and who was uncommonly gentle with frightened, mentally-retarded young women such as Edie?

Shrugging him from her thoughts she heaved the weight of her heavy carpet-bag from one hand to the other and turned to greet Lucky Jack. He wasn't there. Bewildered, she scanned the forest of heads, a forest that was fast beginning to thin. There was no sign of him. Swinging round she looked in the direction of the gangplank.

There was no longer any sign of Ringan Cameron's tall, broad-shouldered figure but three men, all similarly-suited, were just about to step onto the gangplank. As she watched she saw the man on the right-hand side of the Homburg-hatted man in the middle jovially slap his companion's back. The Homburg-hatted man threw back his head, obviously laughing uproariously. Blue cigar smoke rose in a cloud above all three of them.

The word Lilli muttered beneath her breath was not one she was in the habit of using. And it wasn't directed at Lucky Jack. When she had seen him heading in her direction she had simply
assumed
that he had seen her and that he was making his way towards her. And he hadn't seen her. He no doubt thought she was way ahead of him, with Lettie and Kate and Edie.

‘I didn't know ladies said words like that,' Leo said naively, as impatient to be off the
Senator
as he had been to board her.

‘They don't and I shouldn't have,' Lilli retorted, even crosser with herself than she had been a few moments earlier. ‘Come on, pet lamb, if we don't get a move on we're going to be the last passengers to disembark.'

‘Where did you learn a word like that?' Lottie asked curiously, grateful she wasn't still lugging a cumbersome travel-bag.

Lilli was just about to reprimand her for asking such an improper question when innate good humour and sense of proportion came to her aid. ‘From Pa's fellow ranch-hands when we were in Wyoming.' There was the suspicion of a giggle in her voice. ‘But
you're
not to start using it, Lottie. And Leo mustn't either!'

She put a hand on the rail flanking the gangplank and, as she stepped onto the gangplank and saw the view in front of her, she sucked in her breath. ‘Oh my, Lottie! Look at that. Just look at that!' She wasn't referring to Skagway, which at first glance looked to be rackety and ramshackle, but at its setting. Behind the untidy conglomeration of wooden-built houses, saloons, and stores the mountains rose in dazzling, snow-covered splendour. Mountains they would shortly be crossing.

‘How on earth did men traverse them by foot?' Lottie asked, reading Lilli's thoughts.

Lilli shook her head, not knowing the answer, overcome by the knowledge that one of the men who had done so was Lucky Jack. As she thought of his feat of endurance her admiration for him was boundless. There was far more to Lucky Jack Coolidge than some people seemed to think.

‘Why didn't you let Ri … Mr Cameron carry your bags off the ship for you?' Lottie asked musingly, breaking in on her thoughts.

Lilli stepped off the gangplank and onto dry land. ‘I thought Mr Coolidge was on his way over to us.' The air was dazzling in its purity. The brassy-blue bowl of the sky cast a limpid haze on the snow-covered slopes of the White Pass and lower down, on the grass-covered foothills, drifts of lupins and forget-me-nots stretched as far as the eye could see. ‘I thought he'd seen us,' she continued as they began to walk on a rickety sidewalk towards the Golden North Hotel, ‘but I was mistaken.'

Lottie chewed the corner of her lip thoughtfully for a moment and then said, ‘It shouldn't have mattered whether he had seen us or not. If he's your beau, he should have sought you out. If Ri … If Mr Cameron was your beau
he
would have sought you out.'

‘I'm getting tired of hearing about Mr Cameron!' Lilli said sharply, stepping a neatly booted foot onto the first of the steps leading to the Golden North's entrance. ‘Mr Cameron isn't quite the Mr Perfect you obviously think he is, though as to
why
he isn't, I can't tell you. On the subject of Mr Cameron you'll just have to trust me. And I'm getting tired of your constant criticism of Lucky Jack! Lucky Jack is being an absolute … an absolute …
saviour
to us. If it weren't for him I would have to fulfil my obligations to the marriage bureau and marry any Tom, Dick or Harry!'

Lottie bit the corner of her lip even harder. In saying that Ringan wasn't Mr Perfect Lilli was obviously referring to his history as an ex-convict. Not for the first time she wondered just where Lilli had first gleaned that particular piece of incredible information. She, Lottie, didn't believe it was true for a moment and neither did Leo. Ringan Cameron was a hero, not a criminal, anyone with half an eye could see that. As to Lucky Jack Coolidge … She sighed heavily and straightened her sailor-hat. If Lilli
was
in love with him and if he loved her in return, then Lilli was right and she, Lottie, would have to stop being so critical of him.

She followed Lilli into the gloomy confines of the hotel wondering what their Pa would have thought of Lucky Jack. In his own way their Pa had been a gambling man and so Lucky Jack's reputation at the tables wouldn't have disconcerted him too much. Even so, she couldn't help thinking that their father would have preferred a brawny Celt as a prospective son-in-law, rather than a suave American.

‘Lilli! Lottie! We're over here!' Marietta called out, waving to signal just where she, Kate, Edie, Lettie and Susan, were sitting.

Lilli wove her way between the crowded tables, Leo and Lottie close behind her.

Kate was seated at the head of the table her high-necked, long-sleeved, ankle-length navy-blue dress giving her a matriachal air. ‘Where on earth have you been? she asked as Lilli sat down. ‘We thought you must have been one of the first to disembark. As it is you must have been one of the last.'

‘
I
came ashore with Miss Dufresne,' Marietta said exuberantly before Lilli could reply to Kate. ‘And everything is settled. I'm going to work for her at the
Gold Nugget
and Mr Coolidge is going to square everything with Mr Nelson as far as money and the marriage-bureau is concerned. Lord! I can't tell you how relieved I am!'

‘Is Kitty Dufresne in the hotel?' Lilli asked, her stomach muscles tightening with nervous tension. ‘Is she here, in the dining-room?'

‘She's seated at Mr Coolidge's table,' Lettie said, her voice expressionless, ‘over near the far window.'

Lilli was too eager to see what Kitty Dufresne looked like in the flesh to trouble to be circumspect. She turned her head swiftly, looking with apprehensive curiosity in the direction Lettie had indicated. Lucky Jack was seated at a table for four. Two of his companions were the slick-suited men who had accompanied him off the
Senator
. His third companion was seated on his left, looking towards him, her back towards the rest of the dining-room. From the rear all that Lilli could see was a glorious pompadour of Titian-red hair crowned by a nonsense of a hat lavishly trimmed with exotic feathers. The hat was emerald and so was Kitty Dufresne's exquisitely-fitted travelling costume. The bolero jacket was trimmed with extravagant curlicues of black astrakhan, as was the hem of the bell-shaped skirt.

‘Paris,' she heard Kate say to Susan, ‘that outfit was definitely made in Paris, France, not in America.'

Lilli's stomach muscles were so taut she felt physically sick. Miss Nettlesham had said that Kitty Dufresne was Lucky Jack's paramour and certainly from the partial view Lilli had of her, Kitty Dufresne looked the part.

As if to oblige her in order that she could have a clearer view Kitty turned slightly, speaking to the man seated opposite her. With an elbow resting on the table, her chin propped by a suede-gloved hand, she was utterly at ease. In profile Lilli could see that Kitty's eyelashes were long, her nose girlishly retroussé.