Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  It had been assumed that she would be in attendance at the party, and she did nothing to change that assumption. But, she would not be there. She had no stomach for merriment, and neither was she anxious to see the moment when the gossip about her reached the runner captains. She would stay in her room, slipping out for a few minutes only to check on the supper before returning.

  She reckoned without Peter. He knocked on her door five minutes after the ball had begun. As she opened the door to him, nodding to the guard at his side to indicate that it was all right, she could hear the music of a waltz coming through the French doors behind her, rising from the converted ballroom on the ground floor below.

  “I’ve come to escort you,” he said.

  He was impeccably dressed in his frock coat with a crimson hibiscus flower in the lapel. As he sketched a short bow, giving her a warm smile, the gaslight gleamed on the fine blonde hair brushed back from his high forehead.

  “I don’t believe I’ll go, Peter. Really, I don’t feel well.”

  He studied her. “Sick with fright?”

  “What can you mean?” She stared at him, her gray eyes cold.

  He did not look away. “Oh, I think you know.”

  “So, you’ve heard,” she said, her voice flat as she swung from him, moving into the center of the room.

  “I heard, but you forget; I know the truth.” He pushed the door wide, as convention demanded, then followed her.

  “The truth? But, that day in Wilmington, Ramon only said—”

  “He said you had killed your husband. He told me the whole story, later.”

  Had he? Had Ramon told him everything? She doubted it. Somehow, she hoped he had not. Some things were too personal to tell even someone like Peter.

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason I should go downstairs and let them stare at me.”

  “Would you rather they thought you were hiding?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped, “but why should they notice one way or another?”

  “They will notice,” he said dryly, “the men because they miss you, the women because of the men.”

  “And if I go, they will look to see how a murderess comports herself.”

  “You are no murderess. What should they see, but pride and beauty?”

  You are no murderess. Ramon had said that once, too. Where was he now?

  Twenty-four hours past due. Had he and his men been chased down and captured by a cruiser, taken prisoner? Had his ship, dangerously overloaded as the runners always were, foundered in the gale? Had damage from shelling on the outward run through the blockade made the Lorelei unseaworthy in rough weather? Or had she been sunk with all hands, lying now on the bottom with the shifting ocean currents washing through her while sharks and barracuda feasted? Such thoughts, such images, had haunted her all day. She shook her head now to rid herself of them, raising her hands to her mouth.

  “Lorna?”

  “Peter,” she whispered, “where’ is he?”

  His voice hard, he asked, “Are you mourning him already? Is that why you won’t come?”

  She whirled on him. “No!”

  He stood watching her, waiting, a brooding look in the back of his blue eyes.

  “Oh, all right!” she cried, flinging out her hands. “If you will wait in the gentlemen’s parlor, I will be with you as soon as I can.”

  She dressed quickly, taking little pains with her appearance. The music rising in the dark outside her window tore at her nerves. The gown of lavender tulle was her only choice and she put it on, then braided her hair into a coronet. She bit her lips to make them red, wishing for some lip pomade. To add color to her pale face, there was the milk-glass pot of French camelian rouge, and she used it with a liberal hand. She stepped into her slippers, searched out her fan and gloves from a drawer, snatched up her key and slipped it into the net purse that lay on the washstand, then slipped the strings over her arm. Feeling rushed and half-dressed, she whirled from the room and locked the door behind her. For all her hurry, it had been nearly three-quarters of an hour since Peter had left her.

  He looked up as he caught the silken whisper of her skirts on the stairs. Rising, he came forward from the parlor to meet her in the hall. He took her arm, turning immediately back toward the stairs. Smiling down at her as they descended, he said, “Lovely, as always.”

  She had need of the boost of his compliment. The music had just stopped as they paused at the open double doors that gave access to the dining room-cum-ballroom that, like the eastern end of the building, was shaped in a half-oval. It seemed to her that every head in the room turned toward them as they entered, that every gaze was narrowed in sordid speculation. She ignored them as best she could, gazing around at the potted palms, ferns, and aspidistra that were banked before the ensemble of piano-forte, French horn, viola, and two violins; at the softly glowing chandeliers suspended from elegant plaster medallions down the room; at the intricate open cornice-work around the high ceiling; the walls papered in pale pink, and the fringed and swagged drapes of gold satin at the French doors, fifteen in number, that stood open to the coolness of the night.

  There was need of the last, for the room was warm with the advance of the season and the number of people crowded into it. The ladies standing with their partners around the verge of the polished floor were fluttering their fans, while the faces of the men were flushed with their exertions. Lorna had just begun to open her own fan of ivory and lace when the music struck up, a reel. Peter, his arm about her waist, swept her forward, and the dancing began.

  It was more of an ordeal and, at the same time, less of one, than she had expected. The formality of dance cards had been dispensed with for this affair. It was every man for himself, since the males far outnumbered the females; there were no wall-flowers. The runner captains gathered around Lorna with unabated enthusiasm, so that she scarce had time to catch her breath. She drank champagne punch and was whirled in waltzes until she was giddy. There was no opportunity to watch the reaction of the matrons ranged in the corner opposite the musicians, or to speak to any of the younger women on the floor. The Lansing sisters were there, but were surrounded by admirers. Since Lorna did not expect them to notice her, she was not disappointed. Still, there was no pleasure in twirling in the arms of one perspiring man after the other. The effort to smile and make gay conversation was wearing. Her mouth was stiff, her head ached from the noise and heat, and her feet were sore. Her heart was so leaden that she felt like a china doll moving stiffly in a child’s game.

  The supper dance belonged to Peter. When it was over and there was a general movement toward the stairs and the meal laid out on the next floor, Lorna begged off. She was not hungry. All she wanted was quiet, solitude, and air. She urged him to eat, saying she was going to her room, but would come back down later, and, finally, he agreed.

  At the third-floor landing, she paused, then without conscious thought continued upward through the sleeping silence of this upper section of the hotel. She passed the fourth floor and, holding her skirts high, mounted the steep stairs to the belvedere.

  The glass-paned doors had been closed for the night. Lorna skirted the chairs that were set around the walls of the small, octagon-shaped eminence and turned the handle of the nearest door, swinging it wide as she stepped outside. The wind at this height was fresh, almost cold. She lifted her face to it as she stood gazing out over the dark city lit here and there by glowing windows and street lamps. The moon had risen, riding high above the island; it was round and full, bright gold veined with gray. Its brilliant light gleamed far out on the sea, catching the crests of the waves that moved relentlessly shoreward.

  Lorna thought of Ramon and his claim that he would sail under a half-moon. He must have known even then that the phase would change to full before he could return. They were mad, these men who ran the blockade. It had been dangerous enough in pitch darkness; it was sheer reckless bravado to try it with moonlight on the sea
. And why did they do it? For gold, only for gold.

  There was hardly room for her skirts between the glass-paned wall of the belvedere and the railing of the walk around it. She compressed them with her hands as she paced slowly in a complete circuit, gazing out over each point of the compass. There was a light at Government House and, farther along, a pale gleam at Fort Fincastle. A small sloop was coming in from the east, with the glow of moonlight on its sail. The darkness lay more dense to the north, as if there might be a storm brewing far out to sea, a possibility since the rainy season was almost upon them. There was nothing to be seen, however, in the North West Channel, nothing more than there had been the first time she looked.

  At a sound behind her, she turned. It was only Peter. In his hand, he balanced a tray holding two glasses of water, two of champagne, and a plate heaped with food and covered by a napkin.

  “How did you—?” she began.

  “A lucky guess, since you weren’t in your room.”

  He offered the tray, and she took a glass of water. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Service of the house.”

  “You … you are far too kind.”

  “Kind enough to marry?”

  The words were spoken in a tone not too unlike his usual banter. It was a moment before their meaning penetrated. She looked up quickly, her eyes wide.

  His mouth curved in a wry grin only half-visible in the darkness. “It can’t be that much of a surprise. I’ve been out of my head since I saw you.”

  But, it was. She had been so much involved with her own problems that she had not seen it coming. For a brief instant, she considered it. If she had never met Ramon, she might have been happy, even honored, to accept Peter. He was a dear friend, such good company; she had come to depend on him more in the past few days than was wise, or good, for either of them. Still, his touch didn’t set her on fire as that of Ramon did, and when he was not with her, she did not think of when she would see him again. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  “I thought you … just liked women, that you enjoyed light flirtation.”

  “It hasn’t been so light lately.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “Now that you do, what do you think?”

  She put her hand on the railing behind her. The wind swayed the bell of her skirts, lifting the tulle with little fluttering motions. It tugged his cravat from his waistcoat, flapping the ends not held by his stick pin, and tore the napkin from the plate he carried, sending it sailing out over the roof where it lodged on the shingles. He hardly glanced at it.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice quiet.

  “Because I love you. Because I want to take care of you. Because I want the right, if a man like Bacon touches you again, to smash his face in for him.”

  “Are you certain it isn’t because you … feel sorry for me?”

  He swung back inside and set the tray down on a chair, then moved back to where she stood. He reached out, taking her arms. “There is nothing to feel sorry for you about,” he said. “You are a beautiful woman with much to give a man; I hope you will let that man be me.”

  “Your family—”

  “—Is in England and will not, in any case, have anything to say about the woman I marry.”

  There was one other objection, the most important one. She had saved it for last because it seemed so unlikely that it would be needed once she pointed out the others. She raised it now.

  “And Ramon?” As he did not answer, she went on, “Oh, Peter, can’t you see that I can’t do it?”

  He took a deep breath. “Because he’s missing?”

  “Because … oh, because—”

  “You are in love with him.”

  “What if I am?” She broke his grasp, swinging from him as pain surged through her, staring out over the ocean. “Is that so terrible?”

  His voice grave, he said, “I don’t know. Is it?”

  “You … can’t begin to guess.” She lifted her head, afraid the tears welling slowly into her eyes would fall, betraying her.

  He moved to her side, reaching to close his warm fingers on her shoulder. His sigh was a rustle of sound. “I think I can.”

  She did not answer. She put up her hand, dashing the moisture from her eyes, looking again to where the channel lay under the moonlight. She stretched out a hand that trembled. “There,” she said, her tone strained. “Do you see it?”

  He swung to follow the direction in which she was pointing, his forehead drawn in a frown. “No — yes. Yes!”

  “Is it—”

  “I can’t tell.”

  In tense silence, they watched it come closer, a soft gray blot on the sea that resolved itself into a ship. It carried no deck cargo, no masts or bulwarks, and appeared to have no housing to the wheelhouse, no superstructure over the paddle wheels. It crept in at half-speed or less, with a peculiar crab-like movement caused by a heavy list to starboard. The smoke that boiled from its stack was black and shot with sparks, as if it were burning wood instead of coal.

  “My God,” Peter breathed.

  The tightness of fear in her throat made the words hard to get out. “The Lorelei?”

  His face was bleak as he answered. “What’s left of her.”

  Lightning flashed overhead and thunder growled by the time the ship dropped anchor in the harbor. That did not deter the guests from the ball, who, discovering her limping progress, descended en masse to the dock to watch her arrival, cheering as her anchor chain rattled down. Nor did it deter Lorna and Peter, who by that time had commandeered a boat and were riding the waves made by the last turn of her paddle wheels, almost at her side.

  Lorna had not thought to change. She had only paused long enough to snatch a shawl from her room and fling it around her. Staring at the landing stage let over the side, and the rope ladder leading up from it, she wished devoutly that she had at least removed her hoops, if not donned her old riding habit. But what had to be done, could be, and she was used to managing the width of her skirts. At least it was night, so that Peter, steadying the ladder from the boat below, would not be treated to a display of ankles and undergarments.

  Slick and Chris were there to help her aboard. The executive officer had several cuts on the right side of his face, as if from flying glass, and his right arm was in a sling. The second officer appeared unharmed, until he turned to give a hand to Peter; then, he favored his right leg. Anticipating her first question, they said that Ramon was in his cabin. He had remained upright until they had passed the breakwater at the tip of Hog Island, entering the harbor; then he had lost consciousness.

  “How badly is he injured?” Lorna asked, her face pale in the lantern light.

  “We caught grapeshot, Ma’am, from a cruiser late the second day out,” Slick answered. “Ramon got a couple of pieces of scrap iron driven through him, a bolt and an old knife blade. Neither hit a vital spot, but there was no time to tend to them for quite a while. He lost a right smart of blood. It didn’t bother him much until yesterday morning, when the fever started. Might have still been all right, if he could have rested, but we got blown off course by the storm after we ran into it to escape the federals, and he had to bring us in.”

  Lightning flashed overhead, showing the desecrated state of the ship. Peter spoke then. “It looks as if that last took some doing.”

  “I’d say so,” Chris answered, turning from giving orders for the landing stage to be brought in. “We ran out of coal yesterday afternoon. We were so far out we had to practically burn her to the waterline to make steam. ‘Course, most of the planking was so torn up from the shelling that it didn’t make a lot of difference, but throwing on the cotton soaked in the turpentine hurt.”

  Nodding, the Englishman said, “I think I should direct your attention to the crowd on the dock and warn you that you may be swamped with visitors at any moment.”

  “Good,” Slick said, casting a short glance toward shore. “They can man the pumps. We’re
all about tuckered out from trying to stay afloat.”

  Fear was a tight knot inside Lorna, but around it burned a slow anger. Why did men have to risk their lives in such dangerous undertakings? True, without such as these, the South would be forced to her knees before the year was out, but there had to be some other way of settling differences than putting human beings made of fragile flesh and bone at risk.

  “I would like to see Ramon,” she said.

  “Frazier’s with him now, seeing to him. Might not be a pretty sight, Ma’am.” The two officers exchanged a look, then glanced at Peter.

  She gave an impatient shake of her head. “That doesn’t matter.”

  “If you say so.”

  Slick indicated that she was to precede him, then stepped toward the place on the deck where the doorway to the companionway had stood. There was only a series of steps leading down now. Flattening her skirts with her hands, wishing yet again for simpler clothing, she began the descent.

  Ramon lay upon the bunk, his booted feet hanging off the end. His shirt had been removed, but he still wore his trousers. The light from the lamp in the gimbals above him outlined the planes and hollows of his face, bringing out the flush of fever on the bronze of his skin and the dark shadows beneath his eyes. It glinted with blue lights on the growth of beard covering his chin that indicated plainly he had not had time for grooming in days, had not been out of his clothes. From the stains on the bandaging that wrapped his chest, it did not appear that the dressing had been changed.

  Frazier had been kneeling beside the bunk. He got to his feet as Lorna entered, greeting her with every appearance of relief, nodding to Peter who entered behind Slick.