‘… why should she be ostracised?’
It was a good question and one he would have liked to be able to answer. The fact that they were having such a conversation at all was bizarre enough. Despite all the sensuality of Lilli Stullen’s slender, deliciously curved figure and of her wide-spaced, thick-lashed eyes and full-lipped mouth, respectability oozed from her every pore. And he wasn’t in the habit of amusing himself with girls so respectable, not when they were vulnerably young and innocent into the bargain.
‘How come you’ve got to know Miss Rivere so well?’ he asked, intrigued. ‘She’s aboard the Senator as a Peabody bride and Peabody brides are …’
She was relieved that the conversation had come so easily and naturally around to the subject of Peabody brides that the fact of his knowing Marietta’s surname and circumstances slid right by her.
‘I know what Peabody brides are, Mr Coolidge.’ Her eyes held his. This was it. This was the crucial all or nothing moment. Her heart was pounding so fiercely she was sure he must be able to hear it. With her voice betraying her inner emotions only by the faintest tremor she said quietly, ‘You see, I’m a Peabody bride as well.’
If she had said she was Calamity Jane he couldn’t have looked more astounded.
‘You? How can you be? You have your kid brother and sister with you and you’re going to Dawson to stay with Miss Bumby!’
She shook her head. Neither of them were looking out at the ocean now. Though she was still holding onto the deck-rail with one hand he had now turned completely towards her, so near to her that she could smell his cologne and the linen-freshness of his shirt.
‘No,’ she said, feeling as breathless as if she were in a race, a race far from finished and a race she had to win. ‘I only met Susan Bumby the evening I boarded the boat. Susan is a Peabody bride too.’
Lilli, Marietta and Susan Bumby. They made such a disparate trio that it took all his self-control not to blaspheme with incredulity. Instead he said, ‘I don’t wish to be ungallant but I can understand Miss Bumby resorting to the help of a marriage bureau. As for your friend Marietta, we both know she’s only using the bureau to pay for her passage north and that the instant she reaches Dawson she’s going to renege on her agreement. But what about yourself? Miss Bumby may be plain as a pikestaff and unable to get a husband by any other method, but her reasons hardly apply to you!’
She was devoutly glad he didn’t think they did. She also knew that her fate was still hanging precariously in the balance. He was incredulous at what she had told him, which was all to the good. But she needed him to be far more than incredulous. She needed him to be outraged.
‘And have you any idea of the way Peabody brides are disposed of when they reach Dawson?’ he asked, outraged. ‘Josh Nelson has reduced the process to something akin to a Turkish slave market!’
Lilli looked suitably aghast. It would never do for him to realise she already knew a Peabody bride’s fate and to believe she was apparently resigned to meeting it.
‘What on earth possessed you?’ he continued angrily, the moonlight emphasising the Greek god perfection of his cheekbones and jaw. ‘Only women desperate for the security of marriage become mail-order brides! Though what security there can possibly be in marrying selfish and shiftless stampeders beats me!’
His anger was genuine. Josh Nelson was a snake. Before Nelson had begun acting on the Peabody Marriage Bureau’s behalf, girls the bureau sent north had been matched up with husbands in a reasonably decorous manner; a generous statuary fee being paid to the bureau by the men availing themselves of its services. Nelson had put an end to all such decorum. Seizing advantage of the huge disparity in numbers between men wanting Peabody brides and girls willing to become Peabody brides, Nelson had set up a system whereby the girls went to men willing to pay the most for them. The Marriage Bureau still received its standard, statuary fee. The difference went into Josh Nelson’s greasy palm.
‘I didn’t see that I had a choice,’ Lilli said, her heart still hammering, knowing that though she was now in her stride the sprint to the finish still lay before her. ‘My widowed father died six months ago and …’
‘Judas priest!’ It was the kind of story Jack had heard countless times before and it never failed to infuriate him. When a young single woman lost her home and family the results were nearly always catastrophic. Except for the fortunate few, work opportunities were limited to lowly paid drudgery. Which was why so many homeless girls flocked into saloon and dance-hall work.
‘Don’t say a word more!’ he commanded tightly. ‘And don’t go fretting yourself an instant longer about marrying a loutish miner because I’m not going to allow it to happen.’
Too damned right he wasn’t! She was too naive, too sparky, too goddamned nice to be subjected to Josh Nelson’s crude auctioneering techniques. Nelson would have to be paid off, of course, but that was no problem. And Miss Lilli Stullen would have to be found respectable, adequate-paying work, and for a man with his contacts that wouldn’t be too much of a problem either.
Lilli was gripping hold of the deck-rail so tightly her knuckles were white. The race was over! And she’d won! His reaction had been all she had prayed it would be. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch her marry another man. Which had to mean he was going to marry her himself. Joy flooded through her. Bemused and radiant her eyes held his. Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to be absolutely perfect.
As he saw the dizzying relief in her eyes Jack knew he wasn’t going to be strong enough to refrain from taking physical advantage of it. Until now he had behaved towards the delightful Miss Stullen with faultless propriety, enjoying nothing more than her quirky conversation. Now, however, he had come to her aid in the most magnaminous way, saving her, in Gothic novel terms, from a fate worse than death. A kiss, or maybe two or three kisses, would be very small payment in reward. As he reached out an arm towards her waist, drawing her indecently close to him, he felt her quiver.
‘Mr Coolidge, I …’
Her voice was low and husky and not for the first time he wondered what her singing voice would be like.
‘Jack,’ he said, his lips brushing her silky-soft hair. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? And friends should always be on christian name terms.’
Heat beat through her. Friends. They would always be friends. And soon they would be betrothed.
‘Trust me,’ he said softly, ‘I’m going to make everything all right, not only for you but for little Leo and for Lottie as well.’
She melted against the strength of his body like wax. His arms circled her waist. With her heart racing against his he lowered his head to hers.
All time seemed to have stopped for Lilli. He was going to kiss her. It would be a kiss she would remember for all time. The first kiss of a lifetime of kisses.
His mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue touching and teasing hers. Shock rippled through her. It was her first adult kiss and she hadn’t known that tongues, as well as lips, were involved. It was a startling sensation. Startling but exciting. As his mouth continued to plunder hers, her confidence grew. Her hands, which had been pressed close against his chest, now slid up and around his neck. Every nerve in her body was tingling. She felt scorched. Ablaze.
Her artlessly passionate response nearly unhinged him. He had intended a few moments of pleasant relaxation instead of which she was awakening in him fierce, raw need. With his heart racing nearly as chaotically as hers he slid one hand from her waist and cupped a voluptuously full, pert breast.
She gasped, stiffening in his arms with shock. Whether, when the moment of shock had passed, she would have sweetly surrendered to his caresses, he never found out. Two men were approaching. Inwardly cursing their presence Jack reluctantly released his hold of Lilli.
‘I wouldn’t mind a partner with your kind of guts,’ one man’s deep guttural voice said to his companion. ‘Trust is what is important between men out in the wilds and I reckon I could
trust a man who’d risk his life for a kid he didn’t know.’
‘I havna decided on quite what I’m going to do when I reach Dawson.’
There was no mistaking the deep, soft burr. Lilli felt her cheeks flush scarlet. What if he had seen the liberties Jack had been taking with her person? Not that they really were liberties, considering the circumstances, but Mr Cameron was not to know the circumstances and the thought of him leaping to a grossly wrong conclusion mortified her. She kept her head well down, allowing Jack’s body to shield her from view.
Instead of walking on past them, the two men came to a halt beside the deck-rail, only feet away from them.
‘What in heck do y’mean, you haven’t figgered out what you’re goin’to do when we arrive?’ the guttural voice said incredulously. ‘What else would a man do in the Klondike but mine for gold?’
Jack, too, had recognised Ringan Cameron’s Scots burr. He also realised that as Cameron and his companion seemed settled in for a long discussion he had no alternative but to escort Lilli away as discreetly as possible.
Taking hold of her arm by the elbow he turned with her away from the deck-rail, keeping between her and the two men.
‘My reason for being aboard the Senator isna quite as uncomplicated as most people’s reasons,’ Ringan was saying dryly.
Lilli knew that he was referring to the circumstances of his parole and instinctively, without thinking, she raised her head, looking across at him.
Having recognised Lucky Jack Cameron’s distinctive thatch of sun-bleached hair Ringan had been idly curious as to the identity of his lady-friend.
When Lilli suddenly turned, looking across at him, he sucked in his breath sharply. Dear God in heaven! He’d known Miss Stullen was on friendly speaking terms with Coolidge but he’d never suspected she was on terms of intimacy with him! Even now, though he had seen the proof before his very eyes, he could hardly credit it. Coolidge was, after all, a man whose name was freely linked with that of the most notorious madam north of San Francisco, and Miss Lilli Stullen was a young woman who radiated purity and innocence.
‘I don’t give a hang for your reason for being aboard the Senator,’ his companion was saying to him. ‘I seen what I seen and I know I ain’t ridin’the wrong trail. You’ll make a good partner …’
Lilli didn’t hear any more. With her cheeks burning she allowed Jack to walk her down the deck.
When they had gone so far that Mr Cameron and his companion were swallowed up in the blue-spangled dusk Jack came to a halt, hoping to recommence from the point where they had been so annoyingly interrupted.
As his arms slid once more around her waist Lilli said, her voice sounding oddly strangled in her throat, ‘No. I must get back to Leo and Lottie. They’ll be worrying about me.’
Jack curbed a surge of exasperation. The trouble with respectable women was that when they made such remarks there was every chance they meant them. ‘Tomorrow then,’ he said obligingly, reflecting that he could now enjoy a few hands of stud poker. ‘And when we get to Whitehorse, I’d like to show you the rapids.’
‘I’d like that.’ Her voice was thick with love. They would take Leo and Lottie and it would be almost as though they were a family.
For a moment she regretted her decision to leave him when he so obviously wanted her to stay, but she had been speaking the truth when she had said Leo and Lottie would be wondering where she was and even if she hadn’t been, the deck was getting quite crowded with strolling groups of men. Too crowded for them to be able to continue kissing and caressing.
He raised her hand to his mouth, kissing the tips of her fingers. She forgot all about the mortification she had felt when Ringan Cameron’s shocked eyes had met hers. She was in love. Truly in love. Just as her parents had been. Just as she had always dreamed of being.
Later that night, as she lay in her uncomfortably narrow bunk, she tried to his image against her closed eyelids. Frustratingly though it was Ringan Cameron who loomed large in her mind’s eye and as she recalled the disbelief that had flared through his eyes, followed so swiftly by shock, the emotion that accompanied her into sleep wasn’t joy, but deep, deep discomfort. A discomfort so deep it was almost regret.
Chapter Seven
‘So I’m going to be paying Nelson off for two Peabody brides, not just one,’ Jack said wryly as he partially unbuttoned his shirt and dragged it over his head.
It was the early hours of the morning and he had just returned to the state-room after a highly successful game of poker.
‘Why the sudden altruistic concern?’ Kitty asked, bemused. ‘You’re not about to suddenly start saving girls from ruin instead of leading them to it, are you? Because if you are, you’re going to have one mighty big job on your hands!’
He chuckled, easing off his boots. ‘Nope. I reckon I prefer my women to be happily on the road to ruin rather than respectability, but Lilli Stullen would never be happy ruined, it shows in her eyes.’
And Lilli Stullen’s happiness matters?’ Kitty asked queryingly, wondering if, just for once, she should start to worry a little.
Jack unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants. ‘I owe her,’ he said simply, no longer grinning. ‘If her kid brother had drowned this afternoon it would have been my fault. Hell, I was the one supposed to be looking after him.’
His hair was ruffled where he had dragged his shirt over his head and he looked far younger than his twenty-eight years.
‘She should have known better,’ Kitty said dryly, wondering how old she would have to be before the seven years difference in their ages began to be chronically noticeable. ‘I wouldn’t give you a dog to look after. Not if I valued it.’
He hooted with laughter, striding towards the bed magnificently naked. ‘Is that so?’ he asked, smacking her on her negligéed rump.
‘Then maybe I should teach you to think differently and have a little more respect.’
Kitty slithered voluptuously down against her pillows, chuckling throatily. ‘I don’t think there’s much you or anyone else can teach me, but you’re sure welcome to try. Especially if all the trying is going to take place between the sheets!’
‘You’re a wicked woman, Kitty Dufresne,’ he said, rolling his hard muscled weight on top of her. ‘And what the hell I’d do without you I can’t begin to imagine.’
‘I’m not being patronising!’ Kate protested next morning to Lettie. ‘This dress really is too small for me and it really would fit you perfectly!’
‘I don’t like charity,’ Lettie persisted mulishly, making no move to take the dress from her.
Lilli swung her legs over the edge of her top bunk. ‘If Lettie’s going to be idiotic about it, I’ll have it. I’ve never owned a raspberry-pink day-dress. It looks heaven.’
‘You’re the same curvy shape as Kate so it would be too small for you,’ Lottie said, knowing that Lilli hadn’t meant her statement seriously but was simply trying to provoke Lettie into being sensible.
She turned her attention towards their sulky cabin-mate. ‘Come on, Lettie. At least try it on. If you don’t, Kate will cut it up into dish-rags.’
Lettie looked at the dress, longing in her eyes. It wasn’t in the least worn out and even if it had been, it’s cut and colour were far superior to the drab dress she was wearing or any dress she had ever worn.
‘Come on,’ Lottie said again persuasively, ‘You can wear it when we reach Whitehorse and visit the rapids.’
The temptation and combined coercion were too much for Lettie. ‘All right,’ she said, trying not to sound desperately eager, ‘if you’re really sure it isn’t charity.’
‘Lord, if you say that word again I think I’ll scream,’ Kate said, exchanging a triumphant wink with Lilli as Lettie began to unbutton the monstrosity she had been wearing day and night since boarding the boat. ‘And I’ve a nightdress I’ve replaced too. You may as well have that as well. It will be less for me to carry when we disembark.’
A few minutes l
ater Lettie stood before them in the cramped confines of the cabin, arrayed in her new finery, It was obvious to both Lilli and Lottie that Kate had been fibbing when she had said the dress was too small for her, for the waist was a good two inches or so slack.
‘I’ll just tighten that up while you’re wearing it, Lettie,’ Kate said, a needle and thread already in her hand. ‘And then if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a shot at putting your hair in a French knot.’
By the time they left the cabin for breakfast Lettie was a young woman transformed. Her dull looking dark-blonde hair had been brushed to an almost metallic sheen and pinned in a neat, sophisticated knot high on the top of her head. The raspberry-red dress fit her like a glove, the colour draining the sallowness out of her complexion and imparting instead a rosy glow.
‘You look beautiful, Lettie,’ Leo said when he saw her. ‘Almost like a princess!’
Lettie blushed and told him not to be ridiculous, but she was pleased and her pleasure showed.
‘Did you know Susan has a beau?’ Kate said companionably to Lilli as Lettie and Leo walked hand in hand ahead of them. ‘I was going to tell you last night but I couldn’t find you anywhere.’
‘Susan?’ Lilli couldn’t help the surprise in her voice. Susan had admitted that she had never had a beau and she couldn’t quite imagine Susan being courted by any of the Senator’s rough and ready prospectors. ‘Are you serious?’ she asked, wondering if Kate was teasing her.
‘Absolutely. You may have seen him. He’s a clergyman. A Methodist minister.’
Lilli’s eyes widened. If what Kate was saying was true, Susan’s life might just be about to be transformed. A Methodist minister would be an ideal beau for her and if he were to propose marriage …’
She began to giggle. If he proposed marriage and paid Josh Nelson off it would leave only four Peabody brides available out of a total of seven.
Immediately she entered the crowded, smoky dining-saloon she glimpsed red-gold hair and green plaid. He raised his head, his eyes meeting hers. Discomfort swept through her. He thought her fast. He had seen her embrace with Jack the previous night and he had leapt to quite erroneous conclusions. As he gave her a brief, acknowledging nod she wished fiercely she had an engagement ring on her finger. Then he wouldn’t think her fast.
Forget-Me-Not Bride Page 11