After that, she kept more to herself, not wanting to burden her hosts with her constant presence in their dining room and their parlor. She longed for her own home and started to dream of setting up her old bedroom as a nursery. Yes, she would get her life back, free and clear. She would start behaving as a Prentice should, not this helpless, dependent woman she didn't recognize.
Stop sniveling, she ordered herself as the train rumbled through another town, and she did stop. In little less than an hour, she would be at the Oquawka Junction where she would spend the night before changing railway lines to Hamilton.
Besides the frisson of fear at confronting Jack, Eliza felt immensely satisfied in arriving back at Stoddard's boat of her own accord, not because he'd dragged her. She pictured herself marching right up to him and telling him she had had enough of this nonsense. Finished! She was through running and way past done being scared.
By the time she reached Jack, she might already be a free woman, but if she wasn't, she was determined to beat him at his own game—all or nothing.
* * *
Thaddeus discovered Ellie had boarded an east-bound train. Unfortunately, he hadn't found out until he'd wasted hours at Boston's main terminal, asking everyone if they'd seen her. Finally, he met a conductor changing trains who recalled the stunning blond lady traveling alone.
After Thaddeus determined her route, even though she could be heading to Spring City, he knew with sick certainty that she was, indeed, returning to Stoddard's riverboat.
For God's sake, why? He tossed his bag onto the rack above him and took a seat on the train. As he stared out the window, thinking of the rumpled bed in Stoddard's riverboat stateroom, he entertained the briefest of notions that the baby Ellie carried was Stoddard's. But he banished the appalling idea as violently as he hurled his last pack of cigarettes out the train window. If he got her back, he vowed he'd never smoke again.
Summoning memories of their lovemaking, he knew Ellie had never been with any other man but him. What a humbling gift she'd given him. Try as he might to pretend she'd casually chosen him, she was beautiful enough to have any man she crooked her finger at. Yet for some reason, she'd picked him. And he'd treated that remarkable occurrence as ordinary.
He smacked his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. He should have been down on his knees, begging her to wait for him to return from Montana territory and promising his undying devotion. Instead, he'd left her with hardly a backward glance.
Thaddeus knew why, if he was honest with himself. He had been scared, plain and simple. What if he'd ask her to wait for him and she'd up and left anyway, crushing his pride again the way someone squashed an unwelcome bug? Truth be told, he was even more afraid she would have waited for him, depending on him to be the man she needed. Either way, his feelings for her frightened the bejesus out of him.
He fidgeted in his seat. Ellie was days ahead of him, and the train seemed to be moving like molasses. Chilling thoughts tormented him—of Stoddard playing the ultimate trump card and keeping Ellie, taking their baby and raising it as his own, out of pure spite. Stoddard had already played for high stakes—for life and death and for a woman's hand in marriage. Wouldn't playing for the life of an unborn child be the next most exciting prize imaginable?
Thaddeus ruminated for hours, trying to figure out Ellie. That she'd leave the safety of his sister's home, especially while carrying a child, seemed so pig-headedly irresponsible. However, he could understand her wanting to take matters into her own hands. After all, she'd always been a headstrong, independent woman. She would think nothing of waltzing back onto Stoddard's boat, making threats, issuing demands—if her dander was up. But she didn't know that Stoddard had his ring back.
Thaddeus hit his fist against the armrest, imagining her believing she held that particular ace up her sleeve, only to have Stoddard flash the gem at some devastatingly inopportune time. She was walking into an ambush.
He was tempted to buy another horse and get to Hamilton faster. So tempted, that's what he did. No more stopping at stations and waiting for endless passengers to board and disembark.
Jumping off the train in Pittsburgh, he bought a horse and began the long trek across Ohio and Indiana, and finally into Illinois, heading back to the goddamned Mississippi River. He couldn't beat Ellie to the riverboat, but he could try to reach her in time.
* * *
"Take your hands off me," Eliza said to Blackheart Bart, who had an iron-clad hold on her upper arm. "I am here to see Jack."
The man just grinned, showing his yellow teeth. "Oh, you'll see him all right."
He shoved her ahead of him up the inside staircase into the main cabin. Jack was seated at his personal table with no other gamblers anywhere in sight. It was Sunday, she realized, so the boat was closed up, nearly deserted.
He didn't appear surprised to see her. After she'd been spotted walking along the road toward the boat, Bart had picked her up in Jack's signature black and red carriage. She'd appreciated the ride, but not the way she was being treated.
Jack stood up. He was not a tall man, and standing, he was eye-to-eye with her. He had on his familiar bowler and a pinstripe suit, a cigar in his right hand and his other hand casually in his pocket.
He smiled at her, but it didn't encourage her. His smile usually came on the heels of a big win, or in this case, as a prelude to what he must see as her abject defeat. She had returned, and she was unaided and unaccompanied.
"No one runs out on Jack Stoddard," he said, taking a puff at his cigar. "I was sure you'd be back."
She almost laughed. "So sure that you had your men," she gestured toward Bart and another who lounged on a chair, "chasing me clear across the country months ago. Not to mention your Indian tracker. So sure that you've already kidnapped me once. Yet still, I slipped away." With Thaddeus's help.
Without being invited, she sat down at his table. "I've had my lawyer working on an annulment," she added.
"Yes, I know. His partner was here recently."
Ellie felt a prickle of fear. Why was Jack smiling then? And where was Reed's partner?
"Is he still here?"
"No, I sent him on his way."
Bart laughed, and Eliza hoped Reed's associate had been smart enough to come with a sheriff or a marshal. She fervently hoped he wasn't now lying at the bottom of the Mississippi because of her.
"What did he say?" she asked.
Jack took another puff of his cigar. "Don't you know? He works for your lawyer."
She ignored the cat and mouse game.
"I assume you signed the annulment papers."
He cocked his head. "And if I didn't?"
"Then I will instruct Mr. Malloy to sell your ring."
He clucked and shook his head. "That wouldn't be very nice of you, Eliza. And what will you do if I have signed?"
"If you were anyone other than who you are, I'd say, thank you, kindly." She tossed her head and then returned his level gaze. "In your case, however, I'd just be on my way without another word."
"And my ring?" He stuck the cigar back in his mouth and crossed his arms.
At that point, she saw it plain as day. The diamond ring sat firmly on the small finger of his left hand.
She gasped, realization dawning at once.
"We're not married anymore," she surmised, her voice becoming a whisper. Reed would never have let Jack have the ring back, not unless he'd signed the annulment papers.
A sense of sweet relief washed over her after all these months; the huge debt had evaporated, and her property was her own again. It was as if she'd never stupidly entered into Jack Stoddard's private train car and played poker with him.
She looked around herself. Instead, she'd even more stupidly returned to his riverboat—on a Sunday of all days, with no witnesses and no help of any kind.
"I reckon you're right," Jack agreed. "You are no longer my 'beloved'." He laughed.
Suddenly, she felt like a hen in the rooster's clut
ches. Trying to recall the speeches she'd rehearsed on the train, full of bravado and nerve, Eliza took a deep breath.
"Then we have nothing more to discuss," she said, keeping her voice calm. Don't show him you're scared, she told herself. She would simply stand up and walk out.
"How about a little game?" he asked, sitting down across from her. "For old time's sake."
She felt sweat break out in the middle of her back. He was not going to let her go easily. She didn't answer, so he continued.
"If I win, I keep your daddy's holdings."
She chuckled, trying to sound at ease. Why would I do that? she nearly asked, but because she had a feeling she wasn't going to be given a choice, she asked instead, "Why would you want anything in Spring City?"
"I fancy owning a town. Maybe I'll be the mayor." He looked at his men, lounging at tables nearby. "Right boys?"
"Sure, Mr. Stoddard. I mean, Mayor Stoddard," one said with a snigger.
Bart merely stared.
Eliza could imagine the disgust on the faces of the people she'd known all her life. She couldn't let Jack get his claws into Spring City. Why, he'd make her father's domination of Spring look like a little girl's tea party. Ada's saloon would become an all-out bordello. Fuller's would be turned into a gambling house.
No! No matter how good she knew she was, she wouldn't play with him, not for such important stakes.
"I prefer not to play," she said, standing up.
"Well, that won't do at all." He shook his round head before puffing on his cigar. "You have to give me a chance. Besides I beat you before, and now I'm left with nothing. No wife and no property."
For someone who professed to have nothing, he was sitting pretty. And he had never "beat" her before—not fairly. She wanted to call him a cheat to his face, but she'd heard that was a certain path to a quick demise.
"And if I win?" she asked, deciding not to pussyfoot around.
"I let you live." He slapped his hands on the table making her jump.
Involuntarily, she clasped her hands over her stomach, in which grew the baby she'd started to feel moving about a week earlier. Then she watched while his horrid smile evaporated as rapidly as water in the desert. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more.
She'd been foolish to react as she did. Slowly, she dropped her arms to her sides, relaxing her posture. She prayed he hadn't detected her condition—not with the pregnancy corset she wore, all laced up nice and tight.
"I'll need some kind of assurance that you won't renege," she said, knowing she actually had no leverage at all.
"Renege?" He stood up, all bluster. "Are you calling me a cheat?"
She arched an eyebrow at him and said nothing. She was not going to give him a reason to kill her outright.
After a moment, he took his seat again. After all, he knew and she knew that he'd cheated her before. He rubbed his hand over his chin.
"Okay, little lady. Bart here will give you his gun."
"Boss?" Blackheart Bart ground out the word.
Eliza flashed her gaze up to his ugly face. Uncertainty and even defiance settled onto his features.
"Give it to her," Stoddard ordered. "Set it on the table. That should be assurance enough—" He pulled out his own gun, a small but deadly derringer with intricate silver scrollwork on the cylinder, laying it on his side of the table, before adding, "—for both of us."
Watching distastefully as Bart laid a heavy-looking, long barreled Colt revolver on the table, Ellie met the man's gaze briefly. He fixed her with a cold stare, making a point to rest his hand on his other firearm, still seated in its holster at his waist.
She swallowed though her mouth was dry as dust, her hopes dashed that the brute had been disarmed.
How she wanted to be on her porch in Spring! Goshdarnit! Maybe she could still get there.
"I choose the game," she insisted, taking a seat once more.
He paused, then nodded. "Ladies first," he agreed.
"Five-card stud," she said, picking her best game; she'd be able to see some of his cards, and some was better than none. Less luck, more skill—and she never considered that luck had been her closest companion. "Twenty points over to win, or we can do two out of three."
Jack eyed her with more appreciation. "Good choice. Let's play. Twenty points over."
He pulled toward him a deck that was already on the table.
She laughed. "I wasn't born yesterday and I was your wife, no matter how briefly. Don't take me for a fool."
She stood up and went to a cupboard behind the bar where she knew he kept the cards. Pulling out a new pack, she brought it over and broke the seal in front of him. Perhaps she could have palmed an ace, perhaps not, but she didn't want to be shot before they even started, so she restrained herself from trying.
She slammed the deck down between them.
"Now, we can play."
And they did. The twenty-point spread meant an indefinite number of games. Closely matched, they'd each won one hand and were on the third, bringing her five points up over him.
"I need a beverage and something to eat," she said. This was going to take a while and she might as well be comfortable.
Stoddard whistled loudly and a lady appeared as if out of nowhere wearing the same style gown that Thaddeus had stolen from the other dancing girl. Ellie smiled ruefully. It seemed a lifetime ago. And here she was, back in the same pickle. The girl went off with orders for meat pies and sarsaparilla.
Ellie lost the next hand. It was becoming insufferably hot in the stateroom with the late afternoon sun beating down on the boat, and she was tired. Still, she won the next round and surged ahead ten points.
The food came and they ate; she considered asking him if they could stop and resume the next day. She'd been counting cards for too long and her weary mind was bound to become sloppy. Though if she ever got off Jack's boat again, she wasn't ever returning, game or no game.
Stoddard laughed at her suggestion to break. "We keep going. If we sleep, who guards the deck? No, we play on until I win."
"Then I need coffee," she said, and he sent his man to get coffee. Another half hour and despite Stoddard's smug grin, she was up by thirteen points. Then she heard his voice—the same one that occupied her memories and her dreams.
"Stoddard!" Thaddeus called out. "Where the hell is she?"
Eliza's heart skipped a beat then began pounding, even as she felt a slug of relief. She wasn't alone anymore. Thaddeus had come—though how he'd found her, she had no idea. And she wasn't sure exactly how he could help matters. Perhaps if she lost, Stoddard wouldn't kill her in cold blood, not with Thaddeus as a witness. There was that. But she wasn't going to lose. Not this time.
She stood up, and Stoddard grabbed for his gun.
"Keep your shirt on," she snapped. "I'm just going to show Mr. Sanborn that I'm all right." In truth, she was dying to lay eyes on him.
She walked out of the stateroom and over to the railing.
"Ellie," he called out when he saw her.
"Thaddeus." She feasted her eyes on him, love of her life, on a tired-looking horse, his gun drawn. "How on earth did you find me?"
"Never mind that. What are you doing here?"
"Playing cards," she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Playing for my freedom."
"You don't need to do that. Reed got you your annulment."
"I discovered that, but now, I'm playing to keep Spring City." No need to mention the threat to her life.
"Christ! Ellie. That's—"
A shot rang out, and the dirt next to Thaddeus exploded into the air.
"Thaddeus," she screamed as his horse bolted for the trees while he struggled to get it under control. Next to her, Bart grinned and kept his weapon raised.
"Boss says he wants you to finish the game." She eyed him but had little choice. After glancing back to where Thaddeus remained out of range of gunfire, she went back inside and stopped dead. She'd left the cards on t
he table. Not her own hand of cards, which she clutched tightly, but the rest of the deck.
The cards remained right where she'd left them, or were they?
She'd broken one of Kelly's first rules: Never let the hot deck out of your sight. She had bungled, perhaps fatally.
"Let's continue," Stoddard said, grinning and gesturing to her chair.
"I want a new deck," she stated flatly.
He shook his head. "Nothing in the rules says you can ask for one. It wasn't me that left the table."
He had her there.
"Tell you what I'll do." He smiled even more broadly as she sat down and her heart sank. "I'll let Sanborn live, too, if you win."
Showing up right when he had, Thaddeus might very well have gotten them both killed.
* * *
Without a crowd and without Jo to dazzle the men who worked for Stoddard, Thaddeus saw no way to get on the boat without being seen. An armed man stood at the rail on the starboard side, and he'd seen one go to the port side, preventing him from trying to climb aboard somehow from the river.
When darkness fell, he would have a chance, but he didn't want to wait that long. Nor could he try to pick them off one at a time, as he would have done if Ellie hadn't been inside. Carrying his baby. With that profound circumstance, everything had changed.
The world had narrowed down to her safety and that of the life she carried. And he'd never felt more inadequate. He could not afford to make a mistake. No doubt Stoddard would come out with a gun to Ellie's head when he heard the first shot.
But what if there was nothing for him to hear?
Thaddeus wasn't as accurate an aim with a blade as he was with a gun, but he was better than most. Of the two knives on him, one for hunting and a smaller one for skinning, both could kill. He merely had to get close enough, which turned out not to be so hard. Stoddard hadn't picked an unadorned bank for his steamboat's dock. It was at the end of a parade of trees, lining either side of the walkway to the gangplank.
Thaddeus took to the trees and worked his way closer to the boat, until he crouched in a branch within feet, not yards, of the upper deck. Waiting until the man on the leeward side ventured close enough, Thaddeus hurled his best knife. A moment later, it stuck out of the man's chest, right above his heart.
An Inescapable Attraction (The Defiant Hearts Series, Book 3) Page 23