Poppy: Bride of Alaska (American Mail-Order Bride 49) (6 page)

“I’ve arranged for my own cabin. I trust you won’t bother me again for the remainder of the journey. Good day to you.”

Mt. Edgecumbe loomed like a mighty giant over Sitka Sound, rising so high it disappeared into the clouds, as
City of Topeka
steamed toward the small town on shore just before noon. Not wanting to miss a single view, Poppy stood on the exposed upper deck of the ship, shivering and giddy in the chilly air.
 

The light dusting of snow on the never-ending forest and cluster of buildings held a promise of a new start. The air was crisp, but not as cold as she expected, and it held the sharp tang of the sea mixed with the earthy scent of trees. Similar to Seattle but fresher, as bright as the ship’s electric lights and hopefully her future.

For the last four days, Poppy had reveled in the luxury of the ship. Her new stateroom was even smaller than the one she’d left for Matthew, but it suited her just fine. Back in Lawrence, she’d grown up in a one-room flat with her parents, and then she’d lived with three other women. Never had she been able to call a space her own, and it was a feeling she could get used to.

They were fed three fine meals a day, each of which she took with Eddie, pointedly ignoring Matthew whenever he appeared. Sometimes she didn’t even need to see him to know he was nearby; some kind of sixth sense pricked the hair on her neck and made her skin glow warm, which Eddie was sharp enough to notice but kind enough to not mention.
 

Small boats moored in the bay bobbed as the ship slid past like one of the blackfish she’d seen the day before. The large black and white creature barely made a ripple when it breached the surface of the smooth water to suck in a gulp of air through its blowhole. And then it disappeared into the inky depths, taking her breath with it.
 

“Whites call them killer whales,” Eddie had told her from their vantage point on the lower promenade deck, “but Tlingits call them blackfish. I think that’s more poetic, don’t you?”

Poppy agreed and vowed to never call them anything else. She gripped the railing tightly, forcing herself to not seek out Matthew to see if he’d witnessed the spectacle.

Once the ship docked at the town wharf, Poppy could no longer delay the inevitable. She’d have to find him and report to the Presbyterian mission. They were expecting a happily married doctor and teacher, and with no other options to establish herself, at least for the moment, she’d have to suffer through being in Matthew’s presence until she could figure out something else.
 

“Poppy, dear,” Eddie called out from the next level down. “Come down from there and escort me off this blasted rust bucket!”

Not surprisingly, the crew members near Poppy didn’t take kindly to Eddie’s shout. “Sorry,” she muttered toward them as she hurried downstairs to ward off anymore of the woman’s brash words.
 

Picking her way down the ramp to the wharf, Eddie in tow, Poppy spotted Matthew off to the side, watching her descent in a nervous way she might have found charming a few days earlier. But not now. The fire in her heart had cooled some, but the wound was still fresh.

Eddie squeezed her arm and whispered into her ear.
 

“Men are like spiders. They’re more scared of you than you are of them. Now go to him.”

He squared his shoulders as she walked toward him, bracing himself for whatever she might say. Dark smudges under his eyes suggested that his trip hadn’t been as peaceful and relaxing as hers. Maybe he lost sleep over lying to her, but she doubted it. More likely he’d stayed up late gambling with Captain Wallace’s drunken officers. Whatever was keeping him up, it almost certainly had nothing to do with her. She hated the pang that pinched her belly at the thought.

“Hello, Matthew.”
 

“Poppy,” he said, dipping his head in greeting.
 

His voice acted like a balm to her wounded pride, soothing the pain, ever so slightly.
 
Poppy’s eyes widened in dismay at her sudden and terrible realization: She’d missed him.

* ~ * ~ *

Matthew’s heart thudded in his chest just looking at Poppy. She wore the same blue dress, but her hair was different. Pulled back in a tight bun, short curls crowned her forehead. That old woman must have styled it for her. Indeed, women back in Boston wore their hair in such a manner but he preferred the way Poppy normally wore it, slightly looser and less…
puffy
in the front, with soft curls framing her face.
 
Of course, it didn’t make her any less fetching, much to his dismay.

Doesn’t matter
, he chided himself.
Your only objective is to find Vinchenko. Remember that.

“So what’s the next step, dear husband?”

He blinked at the term of endearment, searching her cool blue eyes for a hint at her meaning. Masses of bodies jostled past them — dozens of Indians trying to sell their baskets and carvings, fishermen bringing their morning catches ashore, other passengers hurrying home. Then he understood. She was keeping up appearances in case anyone from the Presbyterian Home Mission Board was within earshot.

Of course.

A grim determination set in. He’d spent the last four nights lying awake, worrying whether Vinchenko would still be in Sitka and wondering if Poppy still hated him. From the fierce glares she’d cast at him whenever he dared to approach her on the ship, the answer was obvious. Her chilly demeanor only confirmed his suspicion. It didn’t sit well with him, but there was little to do about it.

“We’re to be met by someone who will take us to the mission school.”
 

What she didn’t need to know was that, once there, he’d make inquiries, maybe take a trip to town. Poppy would be safe and sound at the school, so her welfare would no longer be his concern, and he could finally —
finally
— focus on finding the villain who ruined his family. Maybe it was a blessing that she hated him so fiercely.
 

He ignored the way his chest seized up, and focused on the crowd gathered on the wharf. An older couple dressed in dark clothing scanned the crush of people. When the man locked eyes with Matthew, he smiled and waved them over.

“Reverend and Mrs. Alonzo Austin,” the man said, shoving a calloused hand at Matthew.
 
“You must be Dr. and Mrs. Turner?”

Matthew itched to glance at Poppy to see how she reacted to the title but managed to control his curiosity.
 

“Indeed. Pleasure to meet you both.”

“We’ll have our man take your bags to the school while we give you the tour, if that suits you. We had a light snowfall last night, I’m afraid, but we brought the carriage so Mrs. Turner won’t have to walk through the cold mud on her first day.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Reverend,” Poppy chirped, her excitement contagious. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve yearned to see Sitka for myself.”

“Really, dear?” Mrs. Austin hooked her arm into Poppy’s and led her toward their carriage.
 

“Oh yes, ever since I first read about Mr. Muir’s expeditions. When I was younger, I daydreamed about foreboding Russians and otter-fur coats.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Austin sighed. “Alas, both have all but disappeared from these parts.”

“Is that so?” Matthew interjected. The woman couldn’t have given him a more perfect opening to starting making his inquiries. “I would have thought a few might have stuck around.”

“Only a handful, really. Mostly those who married Tlingits, and a few who had successful enterprises.”

From what Matthew knew of Vinchenko, he was a bachelor but he once overheard a discussion about a family business. The temptation to ask directly about the man nearly overwhelmed him, but the last thing he wanted to do was tip off the scoundrel that someone was looking for him. Better to bide his time and be less forward…for the moment.

“My husband has a keen interest in the people of this lovely town,” Poppy said, casting him a knowing glance. Anxiety cut into him like a knife that she might reveal what she knew of his secret. Did she hate him that much? The knife dug deeper.

Desperate, he tried to divert attention away from himself. “Is that the famous Baranof Castle? Not much of a castle, if you ask me.”

And so began their tour of the town, such as it was. The ‘castle’, built by Russian governor Alexander Baranof on a promontory overlooking the town and harbor, looked more like a run-down country hotel, not some grand mansion that had played hosts to many of the world’s leaders. He couldn’t deny that the view from Castle Hill was most impressive, though.

“Oh, it’s magnificent,” Poppy breathed once they reached the top of a treacherous staircase, plumes of steam puffing from her lips. Indeed, the clouds that had obscured Mt. Edgecumbe’s peak quickly dissipated, allowing a full view of the extinct volcano’s crater.
 

“How long has it stood there and been forced to watch man’s evil ways?” she mused to no one in particular.

A shudder wracked her small frame, and Matthew immediately shucked his heavy coat to wrap around her shoulders.
 

“We’re not all evil, Poppy. We may not be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we’re evil.”

Her lips pursed, as if about to argue, but a quick glance at their hosts stilled her tongue. Instead she muttered a ‘thank you’ and spun in a slow circle to take in the rest of the vista. The mountains of Baranof Island rose high behind them like a green-black wall.
 

Below, forms bustled along the wharf and through town, the thin layer of snow not doing much to slow anyone’s pace. Rising from the center of town, the incongruous sight of St. Michael’s Cathedral, the famous onion-domed Russian Orthodox Church, drew the eye. Large warehouses mixed with smaller homes in a surprisingly delightful way. All in all, despite the grey skies, it was an appealing place.

“I can see why you’ve been so eager to visit,” he told Poppy as they inched their way back down the stairs to the waiting carriage on Lincoln Street, Sitka’s main thoroughfare. Her look said she didn’t believe him. Perfectly understandable but still disappointing.

“This is the Rancherie, the Indian village,” Reverend Austin explained with a wrinkled nose as they made their way past shabby, dismal dwellings dotting the waterfront. “Many of our students come from here. We give them a better life.”

“Oh really?”
 

Matthew jerked at Poppy’s sneer. What had gotten into her? Mrs. Austin looked just as puzzled as he felt.
 

“Why, yes, dear. They live in squalor here, but at our mission, they’re well-clothed, well-fed, and well-educated. Wouldn’t you agree that’s a better life?”

“Not if they’re torn from their mothers’ loving arms.”

Mrs. Austin gasped.
 

“We would never do such a thing! Where would you get such an idea?”

Confusion and uncertainty filled Poppy’s sparkling blue eyes.
 

“I just thought…Eddie said…um…” She trailed off, her cheeks burning pink.

“I apologize for my wife, Reverend and Mrs. Austin. She’s tired from the voyage, and I’m afraid she must have misunderstood some comment or another.”

Poppy bristled and opened her mouth to object, but his warning glance shut it quickly. Alienating their hosts on the day of their arrival wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do, the glance said. It also said, shut that pretty mouth of yours.
 

“Of course, you’re tired, dear,” Mrs. Austin said kindly, patting Poppy’s knee. “Reverend, perhaps we should postpone the rest of the tour for a few days. There will be plenty of time to show them around their beautiful new home.”

Sitting in the front without a coat, Matthew agreed wholeheartedly.
 

“That’s fine, Mother. I’ll bring Matt back to town tomorrow for a little shopping and to meet some folks.”

The little carriage trundled down the road past the Rancherie, warehouses and curio shops. Matthew could almost see how crowded the street would be during the summer tourist season, packed with wealthy Americans just off the steamships buying all manner of silly souvenirs from the natives. And, of course, the row of shops that dotted the road.

A man stepped out of one, leaning his large frame against the doorjamb. Dark eyes peered out from a bushy black brow as the man sucked on the edge of his mustache, watching a young boy of about twelve play with a dog in the street, dodging carriages and horses.
 

Matthew’s heart lodged in his throat as his eyes bore into the man. Could it be him? The last time he’d laid eyes on Vinchenko, he’d been leaving for college. This man was thicker than he remembered his father’s old business associate being, but time had a way of doing that to people.
 

The man laughed and called to the boy, waving him inside. It was awfully cold out, but the chill wasn’t what caused a shiver to race up Matthew’s spine and straight to his heart. It was the gritty growl thick with a Russian accent that Matthew would never forget.

He’d found Vladimir Vinchenko.

Several round faces the color of bronze peeked at the new arrivals from behind the safety of a wall. Curiosity turned their dark eyes into saucers as they tracked Poppy and Matthew’s every step. At her smile, one ducked away and three continued to stare, stoic and unimpressed. But the tentative smile on one boy’s sweet face warmed her heart.
 

“You boys go back to your classroom,” Mrs. Austin commanded. The boys disappeared but the echo of their feet on the polished wood of the main building’s floor followed their path. “This is the way to the married couples’ quarters.”

Poppy’s stomach lurched at the words. She’d spent so much time on the ship ignoring Matthew that she hadn’t thought about what their situation would be once they arrived in Sitka. How foolish! Of course they would put happy newlyweds in the same room. How could she possibly ask for separate rooms now? There had been no one on the ship they needed to fool, but here…