Forget-Me-Not Bride (35 page)

‘I, Elizabeth, take thee Ringan, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward …'

And now, Mr Jenkinson was saying, ‘the ring …'

Ringan released her hand long enough to twist a signet ring from his finger. He slid it over the knuckle of her fourth finger.

‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship …'

The ring was so large it hung loose on her finger and would have slid off had Ringan not folded her fingers around it and enclosed her fist once more in his own.

At last it was over. Dizzily she heard Mr Jenkinson say, ‘You may now kiss the bride.'

Even more dizzily she turned to face the man who was now her husband.

His eyes held hers and then, as she made no demur, his arm slid around her waist as he lowered his head to hers.

His lips were soft and warm on hers. Vaguely she was conscious of noises, whoops of enthusiasm and encouragement from the spectators, but all she was really aware of was the sweetness of his kiss and the sense of security and sanctuary his enfolding arms gave.

‘Right folks!' Kitty was saying to all and sundry, ‘The wedding breakfast is to be at
The Eldorado
! Champagne's compulsory, so I hope you've all got thirsts!'

Reluctantly Ringan released Lilli. With troubled eyes he said, ‘We're going to have to go along with things a little longer. Ye dinna mind, do ye?'

‘No.' The breath was tight in her chest, her disappointment so crushing she thought she might faint. So they were only ‘going along with things'were they? He wasn't considering their marriage a real marriage. They wouldn't be living together, loving and laughing and having children.

‘Champagne!' Edie was saying in childlike excitement, her arm tucked through Saskatchewan Stan's, ‘I've never drunk champagne before!'

‘Nathaniel and I are going to return to Whitehorse so that the Methodist minister there can marry us again,' Susan was saying to her friends as they all began to stream out into Front Street and the pale light of a Dawson midnight. ‘Nathaniel isn‘t at all sure that Mr Nelson's minister is properly licensed.'

‘Will and me are leaving on a boat for Nome first thing in the morning,' Lettie was saying to Lilli. ‘But I'll write. I'll write care of Miss Dufresne.'

Even though it was the middle of the night, Dawson's main street was as crowded as it had been at mid-day. Dogs still dashed madly up and down, saloon doors swung open and shut continually, male laughter merged with the tinkling of a score of pianos. On the side of a frame building an enormous magic lantern projected advertising messages. Newsboys ran spryly along the duckboards selling the
Nugget
. On an open-air stand a girl was selling dances at a dollar a dance.

‘Welcome to
The Eldorado
,' Kitty announced, leading the way into a hotel which was at first sight as magnificently opulent as any in San Francisco.

Still clutching her posy of forget-me-nots, Lilli stood stockstill in the dust-beaten street, staring up at the giant lettering.
The Eldorado
. Hadn't Lucky Jack told her that Eldorado was the name of his home? He had said it was big, more than thirty rooms. Had he not been referring to a house after all, but to a hotel? And if so, why hadn't he said so?

Mistaking the reason for her hesitation Ringan cupped her elbow gently. It was the first physical contact there had been between them since their nuptial kiss.

‘I dinna want ye worrying about anything,' he said as Lottie skipped on ahead of them, entering the
Eldorado
at Marietta's side. ‘Ye can leave for wherever ye want in the morning. There's a boat at eight o'clock for Whitehorse. Your uncle canna take Leo and Lottie away from ye now you're a married woman. And I'll see ye alright for funds. I'll arrange a bank account for ye, wherever ye settle.'

‘Yes,' she said tightly, feeling as if she were dying by inches. ‘You're very kind. Thank you.'

She wanted to ask him about the twenty-five thousand dollars. She wanted to ask him how on earth he had been able to pay Josh Nelson such a huge sum. She needed to ask him if he was hoping she might one day be able to repay it. She tried to speak but no words would come. All her dreams had finally and irrevocably turned to ashes. She would never live in this wonderful wild country she already loved. She would never work with the Indians. She would never give birth to Ringan Cameron's babies.

‘We need to go inside,' he prompted gently, ‘or people will think it a mite odd.'

Crucified by a pain almost beyond bearing she allowed him to lead her up the steps into the
Eldorado's
plushly ornate lobby.

Leo rushed to meet her. ‘Where've you been? What's been happening?' he demanded, hurling himself into her arms. ‘Lucky Jack's here. He's leaving for Nome tomorrow and he's packing his bags. We're not leaving for Nome, are we? My magic lady isn't. She likes Dawson and I like Dawson too.'

Before she could even begin to answer his questions Lucky Jack strolled out of what appeared to be an enormous dining-room complete with dance-floor, into the lobby.

Ringan looked swiftly towards Lilli, the pain in her eyes and the tension in her face confirming all his worst fears. She looked like a woman barely holding herself together against an inner disintegration; a woman coping with an anguish of the deepest possible kind.

‘Congratulations,' Lucky Jack was saying to them breezily. ‘Kitty's just told me the happy news. Seems as how I did you both a good turn by not being able to get to the
Phoenix
.'

He shot Lilli his familiar down-slanting smile and then said to Ringan, ‘I was going to pay Nelson off and engage Lilli as housekeeper, here, at the
Eldorado
. It would have given her and Leo and Lottie a roof over their heads.'

He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, his grin widening, ‘As it is, this is by far the better solution to her problem, isn't it? Would you like some champagne? I've a shrewd idea Kitty's trying to show me she doesn't give a darn about me leaving tomorrow for Nome, but whether that's the reason behind the extravagance of the wedding breakfast or not, she's certainly asked the staff here to go to town on it.'

Through the open doors of the dining-room they could see laden tables. Somewhere out of their field of vision a small orchestra was playing. Will and Lettie were circling the floor to a waltz, feasting their eyes on each other. They looked like two people who had been fiercely in love with each other for months and months and months. Kate and Lord Lister began to waltz together as gracefully as if they were in a London ballroom. Saskatchewan Stan began to propel Edie clumsily but enthusiastically around the floor.

The colours of her friends' dresses blurred and merged. Pink, lemon, white. Lucky Jack had never, ever, intended marrying her. He had been going to pay Josh Nelson off for no other reason than that he wanted her as a housekeeper for one of his hotels.

It was an incredible realization. A realization that, until a few short hours ago, would have totally destroyed her. Now, however, it caused her only a dazed wonderment. How could she have read so much into so little? How could she, from the moment she had entered the Peabody Marriage Bureau, have shown such bad judgment and lack of commonsense? No wonder Lottie had so often looked at her in anxiety and accused her of being unrealistic. Lottie had known the truth about Lucky Jack and Ringan right from the very beginning. She had known that Lucky Jack was a Greek god with feet of clay just as she had always known that Ringan was a big man in every sense of the word.

The waltz came to an end. The orchestra began playing another. Lucky Jack swirled Marietta out on to the dance-floor.

Even if she hadn't mis-read everything he had said to her so totally, by neglecting to make the arrangement he had promised her he would make with Josh Nelson, he had still let her down in a way which, if it hadn't been for Ringan, would have been grievous. Kitty, of course, had prophesied he would do so. She thought of him leaving for Nome in the morning and knew that he had let Kitty down; knew too, that he and Kitty had been lovers and that beneath Kitty's apparent gaiety was a savagely bruised heart.

‘We dinna have to go in and dance,' Ringan said, cursing Lucky Jack and the effect he had had on Lilli from the bottom of his soul. ‘I've a room booked at
The Fairview
. Ye can take the bed and I'll take the couch.'

The despair emanating from her in waves, increased. On the
Eldorado's
dance floor Kate and Lettie and Edie were dancing with their new husbands. Susan was standing hand in hand with hers. All of them were blissfully happy. Wherever they were going to sleep tonight, none of them would be sleeping alone whilst their bridegroom slept on a couch.

Tiredness merged with her misery and despair, nearly swamping her. She was certainly too tired to dance and to pretend to a happiness she was so far from feeling. The lonely bed it would have to be. And in the morning? Had she really no other alternative but to return to Whitehorse and from there to San Francisco or Vancouver or Seattle? Her head ached. She was too tired to think straight. Too tired to feel anything but an overwhelming sense of loss. ‘I'd like to go to
The Fairview
, please,' she said stiltedly.

As they turned to leave the lobby, Marietta left Lucky Jack alone on the dance floor and hurried after them. ‘Don't worry about Leo and Lottie tonight,' she said breathlessly, catching hold of Lilli's arm. ‘They can stay with me in the room Kitty has given me at the
Gold Nugget
.'

‘Thank you, Marietta.' Incredibly, she had forgotten all about Lottie and Leo and the problem of where they would sleep that night.

Ringan had continued to walk towards the lobby's door and as Marietta saw Lilli's unnatural paleness and the deep, dark circles of strain which were beginning to appear below her eyes, she said urgently in a low voice, ‘Sweet saints'alive! From what Lottie told me I thought you were happy with the way things have turned out! You're not still grieving over Lucky Jack, are you?'

‘No.' There was no doubting the sincerity of the vehemence in her denial. ‘No, it's just that …' She looked quickly over her shoulder but Ringan was now yards away from them, his back still towards them. ‘He doesn't love me,' she said, her voice cracking. ‘He simply saved me from an intolerable situation as he might have saved Edie or Kate or even Rosalind Nettlesham. He's suggested I leave Dawson in the morning for Whitehorse and I think that's what I'm going to have to do, Marietta. I can't stay here now, can I? Not if he doesn't want me here.'

Ringan had turned, making what Lilli now thought of as his ‘Scottish noise'in his throat, in order to gain her attention.

‘Bye, Marietta. If I do leave I'll write to you at the
Gold Nugget
.' The thought of not being cheered daily by Marietta's friendship was almost too much for her to bear. Swiftly she turned away, walking rapidly towards Ringan and the door.

‘Ye'll miss her I dinna doubt,' he said gently, reading the cause of her distress right for once.

‘Yes.' Her voice was muffled, thick with tears.

‘Hst,' he said, cupping her arm gently as they began to walk down the street, his heart hurting on account of her distress, ‘Ye're over-tired. Things'll not seem so bad in the morning.'

She made an inarticulate sound that could have meant anything and his jaw tightened. This wasn't how he had wanted it to be. It was their wedding night and he wanted to be dancing with her as joyously as Perry and Will and Saskatchewan Stan were dancing with their brides. And when it came to walking to
The Fairview
he wanted to be doing so with his arm around her waist and her head nestling lovingly on his shoulder.

Dear God in heaven! There had been moments, in the
Phoenix
, when he had believed all his hopes were possible. The moment when their eyes had met as he swung her down from the obscenity of a stage she had sat on to be auctioned; the moment when he had given her the posy of forget-me-nots; the moment when he had kissed her. And then they had entered the
Eldorado
and he had seen the anguish in her eyes as Lucky Jack had strode towards them, and he had known that all his hopes were vain.

As they entered
The Fairview
a figure not unlike Kitty hurried to meet them. ‘Congratulations!' she said, beaming at them, ‘One-legged Pete gave me the news a half hour ago. It sure didn't take you long to make an impression on Dawson, Mr Cameron! First time anyone's married at the
Phoenix
in full Highland fig that's for sure!'

She turned her attention to Lilli. ‘The name is Belinda Mulroney and I'm right pleased to meet you. I've been in Dawson ever since the spring of '97. I floated down the Yukon on a raft with two Indians in order to reach it and I've never regretted it once. I didn't know Mr Cameron would be honeymooning here when he booked in and so he wasn't given the honeymoon suite. However, I've rectified that omission and you'll find yourselves in the best room
The Fairview
can provide, and that's saying a lot.'

As she led the way upstairs to the bedrooms she continued inundating them with information almost nonstop. ‘Despite all Lucky Jack's claims for the
Eldorado
, The
Fairview
is the finest and best-appointed hostelry in town. All my twenty-two rooms are steam-heated, my table silver is sterling and my china is bone. I brought the whole lot, cut-glass chandelier, brass bedsteads, everything, over the Chilkoot and then down the Yukon on fifteen flat-bottomed boats.'

On reaching the top of the stairs she began to lead the way down a crimson-carpeted corridor, silk skirts swishing around her ankles. ‘I've had the girls fill your bath with hot water and put champagne on ice. Mrs Cameron's travelling-bag has been brought over from the
Phoenix
. I always have had a soft spot for Peabody brides but a Peabody bride who's a friend of Kitty Dufresne's is a Peabody bride worth pushing the boat out for. Now …' she flung a mahogany door open. ‘Is there anything else you folks might be wanting?'