Читать книгу The Bride Ship - Regina Scott - Страница 13
ОглавлениеClay paused while Allegra continued into the salon. In truth, he felt as if the jolt of the ship starting forward had knocked some of the breath out of him. It had been a long time since he’d held Allegra in his arms, and, for the sake of his sanity, it ought never to happen again. Hadn’t he learned by now that he was no match for Boston society?
In fact, it was the suffocating chill of Boston high society that had driven him west, far from everything he’d ever known. He couldn’t regret it. He’d climbed mountains, tops shimmering with snow, ten times the size of Beacon Hill. He’d crossed rivers wider than the Charles and more swiftly flowing. He’d met Indian chiefs with as much pride as his late father, lady prospectors with more presence than his mother. Riding across the vast prairies, he’d realized how small he was and how big the God he served.
It was God’s urging that had propelled him back to Boston when Clay had received the letter telling him about Frank’s death. Like the prodigal son, he’d come to make amends. He wanted to explain to his mother why he’d left, to make sure Allegra was doing all right with Frank gone. He’d taken a room at Boston’s finest hotel, Parker’s; bought a new suit of clothes; even hired a carriage to take him to his family home.
No fatted calf awaited him. Though his father had died several years ago, Clay had hoped his mother would receive him. But the person waiting for him in somber black in the elegant parlor was his cousin Gerald.
“A great deal has changed since you left, cousin,” he’d said, his icy blue eyes staring across the space, every blond hair pomaded back from his narrow face. “With Frank gone, I’ve had to take up the responsibilities you refused to honor.”
Clay’s hands had fisted at the sides of his fancy suit. “I’m here now. Where’s my mother?”
“Indisposed.” Gerald had all but sneered. “And quite unwilling to see you. It is my unhappy duty to inform you of the fact.”
“She has no interest in where I’ve been?” Clay challenged. “What I’ve done?”
“None,” his cousin said. “It doesn’t matter where you’ve been. It matters that you weren’t here. We all know it should have been you in that field near Hatcher’s Run.”
Of course it should have been him. He was the oldest, the better rider, the best shot. He’d had the advantage of a year of military training in a school that specialized in turning willful boys into disciplined men. Frank hadn’t had to attend that school. Frank was the good son, obedient, a friend to all who knew him. He didn’t know why his brother had gone to war, when so many of the wealthy families paid a poorer boy to fight in their son’s stead when their son had been drafted. According to the friend who had written Clay, Frank had gone down protecting others who had been wounded, considerate even to the end.
Clay raised his head. “If you’ve accepted responsibility for my mother and Frank’s widow, I applaud you. Just know that I’m willing to help, whatever they need.”
His cousin’s tight smile was the only answer.
The trip back to the hotel had been mercifully short, for all Clay’s emotions ran higher than the horses on the hired coach. He’d been throwing his things back in his satchel when the bellman came to tell him that a Mrs. Howard was waiting for him downstairs.
Immediately his mind had gone to Allegra, and he pushed past the fellow in his rush to see her. But the woman who perched on one of the scarlet upholstered chairs in the hotel’s ornate parlor was gray haired, her bearing cool, composed in her silver-colored gown trimmed in black lace and jet beads.
“Mother,” he said, going to her.
Gillian Howard’s thin lips trembled, but she did not offer her pale cheek for his kiss. “Clayton. I thought that was you when I looked out the window. You came home.”
Was he mad to hear hope behind the words? “I wanted to talk to you,” he confirmed, sinking onto a chair beside her. “I wanted to see Allegra.”
Before he could continue, she reached out and clutched his arm, fingers tight against his sleeve.
“That’s why I’m here, son,” she said, calm voice belying her hold on him. “Allegra is missing, and you’re the only one who can bring her home.”
She’d gone on to explain her daughter-in-law’s fascination with Asa Mercer’s story about struggling Seattle and the chance of making it a paradise on earth.
“It’s the same ridiculous pie-in-the-sky tale that sent you west,” she’d lamented, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “You came back...you must know the truth. Tell her this hope in Seattle is a lie. Convince her to come home. Please, Clay, she’s all I have left!”
Her pain had touched him just as Allegra’s had today, yet some part of him hurt that his mother could not consider him part of the family. “I thought Gerald was taking care of everything for you,” he couldn’t help commenting.
She’d lowered her gaze even as she tucked her handkerchief into her reticule. “Gerald has been a great blessing to me. He is very good about seeing that the family carries on. I cannot ask this of him.”
But she could ask it of him. Gerald was a gentleman; Clay had thrown off the label. His cousin might not be willing to do all it would take to retrieve Allegra. His mother obviously believed Clay had fewer scruples. Though Clay liked to think he was still an honorable man for all he’d chosen a different path than the one his parents had picked out for him, he could not argue that he was his mother’s best tool for the job. He was more than ready to do Allegra a service, particularly if it meant saving her from the mistakes he’d made.
Now he snorted. And wasn’t he doing a jolly good job of saving Allegra? Instead of sending her home to Boston, he’d aided and abetted her in running away! Shaking his head at his own behavior, he entered the lower salon. Those passengers who had not yet been assigned staterooms were clustered around a hatch at the end of the room. Allegra and her daughter were looking on, but he couldn’t tell whether they were curious or concerned. He pushed himself to the center, where a pretty, petite blonde was struggling with a brass latch embedded in the floor.
On seeing him, she put on a winsome smile. “Please, sir,” she said sweetly, “would you mind helping me with this?”
The others made room for him, their gazes expectant, as if he were about to open a fabled treasure cave. Clay was more suspicious.
“What is this?” he asked, positioning himself over the hatch.
“Access to the coal bin, sir,” she replied. “I was told by Mr. Mercer to open it immediately when we set sail out of quarantine. He said it was very important.”
Clay couldn’t understand why anyone needed to see into a dark, dusty coal bin, but he had to admit to curiosity as to why Mercer had thought it so important. He bent to haul on the ring, and the hatch opened. People leaned around his arm, peering into the gloom. He could see Allegra and her redheaded friend exchanging frowning glances.
“It’s safe now, Mr. Mercer,” the blonde called into the void. “You can come out.”
Allegra stiffened in obvious shock, while others put their hands to their mouths. Coal-dusted fingers waved above the edge of the hole, and Clay bent to tug Asa Mercer to the floor of the salon. He was a slender man, not yet thirty, with a solemn face and a brisk manner. Now his curly reddish hair and whiskers were speckled with black, his long face striped with grime. He tugged down on his paisley waistcoat and beamed at those around him.
“The coal is well stored and sufficient for the first leg of our journey,” he reported as if he’d merely climbed into the bin to inspect it. “It appears we are under way. I look forward to a fine voyage, a very fine voyage.”
Allegra stared at him a moment, then turned her gaze to Clay’s. Very likely, they’d reached the same conclusion.
She had no one to rely on but him, and she had every right to be concerned.
* * *
It was not the most auspicious start to their journey. While many of the women welcomed their benefactor, Allie couldn’t shake the image of Mr. Mercer rising from the coal bin. This was the man in whom they’d placed their trust?
Catherine evidently had similar concerns. “I’m greatly disappointed in him,” she confessed as they all went to find their staterooms. “He paid his own passage, but it seems as if he promised space to anyone who asked. When it became clear not everyone would be allowed aboard, he hid to avoid telling them the truth.”
Allie glanced into one of the rooms they were passing. “I don’t understand it. There can’t be more than one hundred passengers aboard, and there seems to be room for at least three times that. What happened to the other people?”
“Perhaps they saw those wretched reports in the papers,” Catherine mused. “The ones claiming we’d be eaten by bears or enslaved by savages.”
Perhaps. The editorial articles had nearly made Allie change her mind. But Mr. Mercer had seemed so earnest, his vision of a settled Seattle so clear. She knew she wasn’t the only woman who’d put her faith in him. Was he actually a coward? And what about the money she’d paid him? Was he a terrible cheat and liar as well? Or was it the mismanagement of the steamship company that was to blame? She’d read stories in the Boston papers about how ruthless Ben Holladay could be in business dealings.
“I don’t care how many rooms he has on this great tub,” Maddie proclaimed, “so long as we each get a bed.”
Catherine smiled at her. “I’m sure we’ll each have a bed, even though we’ll likely have to share a room. I’m just glad you and I could produce our tickets, Madeleine.”
Maddie stopped at a door at the end of the lower salon and grinned at Allie. “And would you lookie here now! It seems you and me will be together in this room, Allegra, my dear.”
“You and I,” Catherine corrected her, pausing to peer inside the room, then at the number on the door. “Number thirty-five. As I am number fifteen, I must be on the upper deck. Shall we meet for supper?”
Maddie wiggled her fingers at Catherine. “La-di-da—do you think those of us on the lower floor will be welcomed above our stations?”
Catherine tsked. “I cannot imagine anywhere you would not be welcomed, Madeleine dear.” She bent to kiss Gillian on the cheek, then straightened. “I shall see you all shortly.”
Maddie sighed as Catherine strolled away. “Not an unkind bone in her body, so there isn’t. But she’s mad to think I’ll be welcomed at her table.”
As they’d waited for the ship to sail, Allie had learned a great deal about both her friends. Catherine came from a small town outside Boston, the daughter of a prominent physician. Maddie had been quieter about her background, but Allie knew she had journeyed from Ireland as a child with her father, only to meet prejudice on America’s shores. She seemed to expect it now wherever she went.
“The good ship Continental is not New York,” Allie informed her, leading Gillian into the little room. “We’ll be spending a quarter year together. The sooner we learn to live in peace, the better.”
“Just you remember that,” Maddie told her, “when that handsome Mr. Howard comes calling.”
Allie refused to dignify the comment with a response. Instead, she set to work making the room their home.
The cabin was a cozy, white-washed space, with two berths stacked one atop the other along one wall and surrounded by flowered chintz curtains. A narrow padded bench sat opposite with room underneath to stow their trunks.
“And look here,” Allie said, leading her frowning daughter to the tall slender wooden cabinet between the bunks and the bench. “There’s a mirror on top so we can tidy our hair, and a desk that folds out for writing letters.”
Maddie pointed to the wood railing around the top of the cabinet. “And that’s to keep our belongings from tipping over when the sea rocks the boat.”
Gillian’s frown only deepened.
Allie forced a smile as she hung her cloak on a hook on one side of the cabinet. Gillian was used to much finer things, a room three times the size of this one, fancy dresses, fine food, but she was also used to being bossed about every second of her day under harsh discipline no child should have to endure. Changing that situation was more than worth lesser accommodations.
So, she showed Gillian how to make up the berths with the bedding they’d brought, hung a few of their things in the little cabinet, tucked the letters Frank had written her carefully in the back of the trunk. The only time she truly felt a pang of regret was when she arranged her two favorite books and Bible on one end of the bench for easy reach.
She and Frank had devoted one room of their home to a library. How they’d loved to sit and read aloud by the fire or share insights from their private reading. All she’d had room to carry were Ivanhoe and Pride and Prejudice. Both she could one day share with Gillian.
As they finished setting the room to rights, Maddie stood back and nodded. “Just like home. And we even have a sheet and blanket left over to be charitable to Mr. Howard.”
Allie had been stowing her trunk under the bench. Now she paused to glance up at her friend. Because she’d had to sneak away from the Howard mansion, their belongings consisted only of what could fit in the trunk that she had convinced a footman to hide in the carriage house for her.
She’d had a valise, as well, with many of Gillian’s dresses, but it had been stolen. Allie had spent the evenings waiting for the Continental to sail by taking apart one of her gowns to make clothes for her daughter. With each item they currently possessed so hard won, how could she think of giving any away?
“Mr. Howard can certainly fend for himself,” she replied, pushing in the trunk and rising. “I see no need to rescue him from his own choices.”
Maddie cocked her head. “Even when he was so kind as to try to rescue you from yours?”
“Don’t you find that just a bit overweening?” Allie asked with a grimace.
“Oh, to be sure. But a man will be a man, so they will. And as men go, he’s a charming one. What other gent would set his own plans aside to further yours?”
Allie stared at her. She’d been so busy arguing for her right to take this trip that she hadn’t considered why Clay was taking it. He must have had plans for the next three months, and Boston could not have been part of them. She knew what little fondness he carried for his former home. Yet he’d said his mother had sent him to find Allie, so he must have been to Boston. He couldn’t have reached the ship in time any other way. Why was he willing to come with them now?
She did not have a chance to ask him until the next day. After she and Maddie finished setting up their stateroom, they joined Mr. Debro for a tour of the ship. They started on the lower deck, which was completely enclosed in hickory, the passageways lit by the golden glow of lanterns along the way. The deep thrum of the steam engine vibrated the floor and made her feel as if she’d wandered into a cozy hive.
“But you mustn’t enter the engine room, ladies,” the purser warned as they paused before the open door. “The crew works hard to keep the boilers burning, day and night. They have no time for pleasantries.”
Allie was more interested in the activities aboard ship, for she was fairly certain keeping up their small room would not require all their time. She was pleased to find that the lower salon had games like checkers and ninepin, and the upper salon had a piano just waiting unpacking.
The upper deck was exposed to the elements. Already a cold breeze whipped about the buildings along the planking. But Allie knew once they reached warmer weather she and her daughter could promenade there.
“The wheelhouse is in the stern,” Mr. Debro explained, pointing as he talked. “And the officers’ quarters are in the bow. You will have no need to visit either.”
“Is that an explanation or a warning?” Maddie whispered to Allie, twinkle in her brown eyes.
“But the officers will dine with us, won’t they?” another woman asked, and Allie could see many countenances turned hopefully to the purser’s.
Mr. Debro reddened. “That is up to the captain, madam. But I believe, as he has his family with him this trip, he intends to dine in the upper salon.”
Maddie looked at Allie as if to say I told you so. She was equally amused when Mr. Debro pointed out the larger cabins in the central building on the upper deck. The beds were bigger, the upholstery finer, the space brighter from the latticed windows overlooking the sea.
“These may appear more elegant,” Allie whispered to Maddie, “but they are likely colder on a winter’s night than our room.”
Maddie nodded as if that were fair enough.
Above the rooms on the upper deck was another space railed in iron chain, a longboat lashed to each corner.
“This is the hurricane deck,” Mr. Debro told them, one hand to his head to keep his hat in place. “As you will notice, it’s most often windy here, but it is a fine place to take your constitutional in the morning.”
They climbed down the narrow stairs in time to see Clay exiting one of the upper-deck staterooms. He tugged off his hat and inclined his head to the ladies, several of whom giggled behind their hands as if they’d never seen a gentleman before. He went so far as to wink at Gillian, who turned her head to watch him as they passed. Allie kept her own head high.
“I’ll see you at dinner tonight, Mrs. Howard,” he called after her.
“Someone’s made a conquest,” one girl said with a laugh.
Allie ignored her. In fact, she did her best to discourage any conversation with Clay when they gathered for dinner that evening and he sat himself nearby. She set Gillian between them at the table, then directed her attention to Catherine and Maddie on her left. She slid the platter of salted beef to him along the table to avoid any chance their hands or gazes might meet. And she answered any questions put to her as shortly as possible.
“You’re working far too hard,” Catherine told her after dinner had ended and the three women and Gillian were clustered around one of the small tables along the wall. “Simply ignore the fellow. He seems clever enough to understand your intent.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Maddie agreed with a glance at Clay, who was leaning against the opposite wall. “And if you’re certain you’re uninterested, you won’t mind if I should cast my net in his direction.”
“Madeleine,” Catherine scolded, “if Allegra has determined the gentleman to be lacking, we would be wise to look elsewhere.”
Allie bit her lip to hold back hasty words. In truth, she’d once admired Clay, although she knew some in Boston had been shocked by his behavior—racing his horse against his friends’, spending his money on wild schemes and strange inventions. And he criticized her for following Asa Mercer!
Still, no matter her opinion, she could not fault Clay’s behavior that night. The passengers had been divided between the upper salon and the lower, and it seemed that Maddie was right, because finances and connections clearly played a part as to which person went where. Most of the people in the lower salon with her and Maddie were common folk, clothes presentable but worn, and the common language made Catherine raise a brow from time to time at the mismatched verbs and colorful adjectives. Catherine and Clay had been given spots in the upper salon, but both had come downstairs to dine.
Though Clay didn’t go out of his way to introduce himself to any of the other passengers, he always spoke politely to anyone who approached him, Allie noticed. He had helped one of the older widows to dinner when she couldn’t manage the hard wood chairs. He swapped stories in the corner with a group of older gentlemen after dinner, casting no more than a glance and a smile at a passing lady. She couldn’t tell if he had truly changed since the days she’d known him, or whether he was merely putting on a good show for the other passengers.
“Good night, Mrs. Howard, Ms. Gillian,” he said when she started for her stateroom with Gillian in hand. “Sweet dreams.”
Her cheeks warmed, but she managed a nod and kept walking.
Their first night aboard ship was bitterly cold, and she was thankful for their inside stateroom, where heat from the lower salon seeped around the door. The warmth of Gillian’s body pressed against hers on the little berth helped, as well. But even as she lay cuddled beside her daughter, Clay once more intruded on her thoughts.
Was he freezing in an outer berth where the wind whistled through the latticed windows? Was his only covering that pieced-together fur coat? How would he even be able to fold his length onto the narrow berth? She finally found sleep by assuring herself she would do her Christian duty and check on him in the morning.
Having left Maddie dressing Gillian, Allie found him on the upper deck, where many of the women were enjoying a moment in the rare January sunshine. Like her, they were bundled in coats or cloaks that reached past their hips, full skirts swinging as they walked. The Continental was out into the Atlantic, Allie knew, and steaming south. She looked for the familiar sight of the coastline and found only the rolling blue-gray waves. How amazing, when all her life she’d seen no farther than the islands dotting Boston Harbor.
Clay might also have been admiring the view. He was wearing his heavy fur coat, his hands deep in the pockets, his breath making puffs of the cool air as he spoke. Three female passengers were clustered around him, all chattering and flashing smiles, their faces turned up to his like flowers before the light. Allie stiffened, then immediately chided herself. She had no claim over Clay. If another woman thought she could tame him, Allie only wished her luck.
He looked up just then, and their gazes met. The smile that brightened his face made her stomach flutter. How silly! She wasn’t a debutante meeting the mighty Clay Howard for the first time. She squared her shoulders and marched toward him.
He met her halfway. “Good morning, Allegra,” he said with a nod of welcome. “How did you and Gillian fare your first night aboard?”
One of the older women nearby cast them a look with raised brows. She couldn’t know their past history and family connections gave him the right to use her first name.
“Tolerably well, Mr. Howard,” Allie said, making sure to use his last name. She took his arm and drew him a little farther away from the others toward the deck chairs that rested along the wall of the first-class quarters. “And you? Ms. O’Rourke wondered whether you had all you needed.”
She couldn’t confess that she’d wondered, too, but he didn’t question her. Instead, his smile deepened, showing a dimple along the right side of his mouth. “Give her my thanks, but tell her not to worry. I’m set up fairly well. I’m bunking with Mr. Conant, a reporter from the Times, and he was kind enough to offer me the lower bunk so I can stick out my feet. And Ms. Stevens and the widow Hennessy provided me with sheets and blankets when they heard I had none.”
She should be relieved that he had been so well supported. Yet some part of her was disappointed she hadn’t been the one to make sure he was comfortable.
“Well, then,” she said, removing her hand from his arm. “It seems you have no further need of us. Answer me one question, if you will, and I’ll leave you to your promenade.”
He cocked his head. The breeze pulled free a strand of red-gold hair, and she had to fight the impulse to smooth it back from his face. “And what question would that be?” he asked with a smile, as if confident of his ability to answer it.
“Why did you join us on this trip? You can’t have been planning on spending three or more months at sea.”
“No, indeed,” he said with a chuckle. “But make no mistake, Allegra. I joined the company of the Continental because of you.”
There went her stomach fluttering again. “Because of me, sir?” Her question sounded breathless, and she cleared her throat.
“You and Gillian,” he clarified. “It’s a long way with more dangers than you can know. Someone has to protect you.”
Oh, but he was impossible! “Did it never dawn on you, sir, that I might be able to protect myself?”
His shrug did nothing to stem the rise of her frustration.
She stepped back from him. “I will have you know that I’m fairly self-sufficient. Should you need our help on this trip, you can find Gillian and me in stateroom thirty-five, on the port side of the lower salon. We’d be more than glad to protect you.”
