Patricia Potter (31 page)

She had always been alone—but never had she been this alone.

Shivering against a centuries-old oak tree, Meredith made a vow to herself. Never, never again would she risk her heart. And God help Quinn Devereux if she ever saw him again.

Meredith had more trouble than she had envisioned in trying to flag down a boat the next morning. Standing in the cool wind that swept the river, she shivered as four vessels, including a large riverboat, ignored her frantic waving. She was finally rescued by a small packet heading north and carrying cotton. It was operated by a family of redheads, including a father and mother and their eight children, one a son her own age. Their name was McClury, and they were kindness itself when they heard her tale of being snatched off the streets of New Orleans, wrapped in a blanket and taken upriver for an unmentionable and obviously loathsome purpose.

“Oh, my poor dear,” Mrs. McClury said, her face wrinkling in concern.

“You have nothing more to worry on,” said Dennis McClury, a red-faced man who obviously drank too much but who looked on each of his family members with an affection that made Meredith ache with envy. “We’ll see you safe to the law.”

Meredith sobbed out her thanks. No pretense was needed. She had started to believe no boat would venture the shallows to help her until this packet, unpainted and cluttered, had arrived. She had been cold, hungry, and dirty, and her spirit, momentarily at least, crushed. Both her cloak and her dress, which was torn during her abduction from Elias’s warehouse and during her stay in Devereux’s cabin, were stained from the night in the woods.

There had been suspicious looks from the family at first, but those soon disappeared as they saw the tattered but fine cloth of her dress and heard her speech. The McClurys listened raptly to her story.

“I was feeling ill, you see,” Meredith said pitiably, not needing to act much at all, “and I couldn’t get the windows opened so I dressed and went down to the porch for some fresh air. I don’t know what time it was. I was just standing there, when—” She stopped and shuddered.

“Ah, dearie, you just stop and take your time. Ain’t no hurry,” Mrs. McClury said kindly.

Meredith knew she looked trembly. She felt trembly. But not for the reasons the McClurys believed. She was testing her story now, for it would be one she would have to tell over and over again.

“I heard a noise,” she continued bravely, “but before I could turn, someone threw a blanket over me. I thought I would die. I couldn’t breathe.” She took a couple of swallows of air as she looked at the intent faces around her. She was not protecting Quinn Devereux, she told herself. She was protecting herself and the Underground Railroad.

She didn’t have to lie when she told them how terrible it was when her hands and feet were tied, how she didn’t know what was going to happen to her. “And then,” she said, “I heard them say they planned to sell me…to sell me to some…”

Meredith obviously couldn’t go on, and Mrs. McClury put big comforting arms around her and crooned soothing words. They needed to be told no more. They were only grateful they could help.

Later, Mary McClury, taking a look at Meredith’s ruined dress, offered a clean one of her own and, although it was much too large, Meredith accepted. She wanted no reminder of the night and day she’d spent with Devereux. She could not bear to think of him as Quinn, because that was too intimate, too hurtful. She now bundled her pain with the dress and threw it over the side of the boat, hoping that somehow its disposal would remove some of her memories. The McClurys had readily agreed to take her to Natchez where she could contact friends.

The oldest son was particularly thoughtful, bringing her a huge plate of food she could barely look at, much less eat, although for his sake she nibbled at it. They then offered her the elder McClurys’ tiny cabin to rest.

But, once there, she wondered whether she would ever really rest again, or whether Devereux would continue to haunt her with icy detached eyes or contemptuous mocking ones. She didn’t know which were worse.

Meredith realized now that he was, indeed, with the Underground Railroad, but the knowledge that once would have delighted her heart and brought them close was now only more wounding. She didn’t want to share the same cause with him, the same friends, the same acquaintances. She wished to hate him completely and fully for the complete blackguard she wanted him to be. He must be involved for the money. She knew some conductors were paid for their efforts by escaped slaves in Canada who now sought to free relatives and friends.

How he had fooled her with his pretend gentleness! How he had lured her with eyes of false passion! Even after he had left his cabin so abruptly, she had waited for him to return. Waited for what seemed hours. Waited for him to come and kiss her and make her feel wanted. And then she couldn’t wait any longer. She couldn’t bear any more rejection. She hated herself for running, for not standing up to him, for not showing an indifference of her own. But it was too late now. She could only hope never to see him again.

When they reached Natchez, the McClurys insisted on accompanying her to the sheriff’s office where she told her tale. She had gone over it so many times in her mind that it came easily now.

“I was feeling ill, you see,” she started, and the sheriff, who quickly ascertained she was a relative of William Mathis of Natchez, was the soul of discretion and sympathy. He very gently asked for descriptions of the kidnappers, and she gave him some very imaginative ones.

“One was huge,” she said. “And shaggy. Like a brown bear. The other one was thin with broken teeth and a terrible odor.” She then burst into tears and swooned, leaving the sheriff panicked and yelling for help. Any other time, she might have enjoyed the deception. She had long ago discovered within herself an appreciation for the ridiculous, and she often took delight in pricking the pompous and authoritarian. But now her tears were not pretend, and all she wanted was to get away by herself, to someplace safe from a tall enigmatic gambler.

Inwardly she stiffened her spirit, but outwardly, when William Mathis arrived at the request of the sheriff, she was swooning once more.

Two days later, Aunt Opal arrived and made arrangements for their return to Briarwood. She had another piece of bad news.

Daphne had disappeared.

The captain acted like a dead man. Cam had never seen him this way before. As they had searched the boat for Meredith, his face took on a bleak expression. His movements had become stiff, and his eyes had looked empty.

When they reached Natchez, Quinn wanted to take his horse and ride back, oblivious to the fact that he had no idea when and where Meredith Seaton had left the
Lucky Lady.
Even if he had, Cam was afraid there would be nothing to find. Few women could swim, and fewer still could combat the strong currents of the Mississippi.

But still the captain had insisted. “She’s too damned stubborn to die,” he said over and over again. “She might be out there alone…cold….”

Cam shook his head sadly. He had been taken aback when the captain had brought the young woman to his cabin. But when the captain said she also was a member of the Underground Railroad, she had seemed a good match. Cam didn’t know what exactly had happened in that cabin, but it had had a profound impact on the one man Cam had come to think of as unassailable.

He was anything but that at the moment. If they weren’t on the open deck, Cam would have put his hand on the man’s shoulder, but as it was he had to maintain his sullen expression, his defiant stance. “Remember,” he said softly, “we have fifteen people below dependin’ on you.”

“I have to go back.”

“I would have to go with you,” Cam said. “No one would believe you’d allow me North on my own. Who is going to know about those people between the walls? Who will take care of them?”

“I can make up the time…catch another boat, a faster one.”

“You’d never make it, Capt’n.”

Quinn stared out at the foaming water. Fifteen lives against one. And that one life was probably already forfeit.

Because of him. Solely because of him.

For the second time in his life, he was a murderer.

He turned around and looked at Cam, hell in his eyes. “We’ll go on,” he said in an emotionless voice, but Cam saw the pulse throb in his throat, and he knew Quinn Devereux was hurting.

There was nothing he could do. Not even sympathy would be welcome now. Everything about the captain said he wished to be left alone.

With heavy steps, Cam moved away, leaving Quinn staring with unseeing eyes at the wake of the
Lucky Lady.

C
hapter 17

CINCINNATI LOOKED LIKE
a welcoming friend.

Meredith’s soul was sore, and she needed a friend. She needed Sally Grimes—Sally Bailey now. And Sally’s grandparents, the Meriweathers. And Levi. Perhaps Levi most of all. She needed a renewal of purpose, for she had never been quite so hollow inside.

The last two weeks had been the worst she had ever spent. Worse even than that first month at school. Daphne had disappeared mysteriously, and there was no word of Lissa. Even the Parson was gone. And at Briarwood, there was no peace, only explanations and more explanations. Recriminations. Scoldings. Censure.

She was used to it all, but never from so many people at the same time and never when she was feeling so lost.

Bitter and confused, she had ridden one day to the Parson’s, but he was not there, nor was his dog, which meant that he was traveling. She was angry with him, angry that he had not told her about Devereux. She had briefly considered the possibility that he hadn’t known about Captain Devereux’s connection with the Railroad, but dismissed it. Jonathon Ketchtower coordinated activities in Mississippi and Louisiana. He knew
all
the stations,
all
the conductors. He should have warned her, and then that day on the
Lucky Lady
wouldn’t have happened. She would have been able to quickly explain her presence at Elias’s warehouse and been on her way, with no one the wiser.

Whenever she thought of that afternoon, she was flooded with humiliation and festering hurt. And something else, something very unwelcome. Her body now ached for something she knew she would never, could never, have again.

Meredith had hoped time would blur the memories of what had happened in Quinn Devereux’s cabin, but it hadn’t. It had only sharpened the need, made more precise each recall of the feelings only once experienced and which made life a living torment.

And she worried constantly about Daphne. Robert and Opal had assumed she had escaped and urged Meredith to post a reward. Meredith had steadfastly refused, saying she did not want an obstinate and unwilling servant, and good riddance. But secretly she wondered. She had not thought Daphne determined enough to escape on her own, and she was afraid harm had befallen her. She had written her detective and asked him to inquire discreetly, but she had as yet heard nothing.

It was December now, nearing Christmas, and she had announced her intention to visit the Meriweathers for the holiday. There had been no protestations from her brother; he hoped the talk would leave with her. And she quickly dismissed any suggestion that she take Aunt Opal. Other than locking her up, Robert had no choice but to let her travel unchaperoned.

He also had been heartened by Meredith’s renewed interest in their neighbor, Gil MacIntosh. Meredith knew her brother had high hopes that she might announce an engagement upon her return. It would quiet some of the speculation that had continued about her missing two days. News, unfortunately, traveled fast between Natchez and Vicksburg.

Gil, she thought, as the riverboat neared the landing at Cincinnati, had been quite wonderful. He was one of few who had asked no questions, nor offered any censure for putting one’s self in a position to be kidnapped. He had simply been there, offering quiet support.

She had wished futilely that she could care for him. She had even allowed him a kiss, hoping that there would be even the tiniest spark, that she could feel with him even a little of what she had felt with Devereux.

But there had been nothing, not the smallest twinge or slightest quickening of the blood. Her legs hadn’t trembled, nor had her heart beat faster. She had only wanted the kiss to end.

Yet all those things happened when she only
thought
of Quinn Devereux.

When she’d boarded the
Dixie Belle
in Vicksburg, she’d heard its whistle and thought of the whistle of the
Lucky Lady.
She had felt the boat move and remembered that day when Devereux’s steamboat moved as she lay in his arms.

But now she was finally in Cincinnati, and she was sure the city would not hold the same shadows.

She looked out at the crowd gathering as the boat docked. She picked out Sally and Mr. Meriweather. They looked so good to her. So familiar.

The boat nudged up to the landing and was secured. As Meredith made her way to shore, Sally rushed to her, hugging her with enthusiasm, while Mr. Meriweather grasped her hand warmly. When they were in the carriage, Mr. Meriweather examined her face carefully and looked at her with concern.

“Any news of Lissa?”

Meredith shook her head. “The detective believes she’s in Kentucky, but he hasn’t located her yet. I received a note just days ago. He’s checking the records of slave dealers in west Kentucky, and apparently there are a number of them.”