“I most certainly am,” Kate answered, and wondered why she wasn’t nearly as happy as she should be.
Chapter 16
It’ll do, Hobson thought. The handsome, shirtless adventurer with a wild reputation and the beautiful woman, cloistered together on a romantic island rising out of the mists and the sea. Yeah, it will do.
He gave a hard pull on his oar, feeling the twinge all across his shoulders, knowing he’d be feeling it tomorrow, too. Beside him, Lord Bennett was stroking smoothly, barely putting any effort into it. But that was his way, wasn’t it? Born with position and looks and money, he’d probably never had to put much effort into anything his entire life.
It would have been better, Hobson knew, if he’d have found them in a more compromising position. That was certainly what he’d hoped for, planned on. Readers ate that kind of thing up. You could write the best story in the world about a legislative committee, really important stuff, and they’d go for the lurid every time. He’d gotten two raises in six months once he’d finally figured that out.
But while he could selectively present the truth, had no problem nudging it along now and then, he couldn’t outright make it up. He’d been in Havana Harbor when the Maine had been blown up, for Christ’s sake. Teddy Roosevelt himself had said he’d written the very best account of the taking of San Juan Heights, so vivid he’d requested his own signed copy of the article. He was a real reporter, not a novelist. And he never forgot it.
But these two…they’d sell a few papers for him before he was done. And let that mystery reporter Fitz had dug up who’d gotten so damn lucky with his first story try and keep up with him this time.
Dear Emily,
I have only a moment to dash this off, but I trust you will make sure the important points find their way to Anthea as well. I’m sure I’ve had the wires humming and the cables flying between Montana and Colorado for the last few weeks already.
I know the news is abysmally slow to reach you two out in the hinterlands, but maybe you’ve heard of the Great Centennial Race? Sponsored by the Daily Sentinel? I suggest you begin paying attention, for I’ve entered.
All right, take your time. Finish laughing. I have. You won’t read about me in the papers—I’m traveling under an assumed name. No reason to let that out if I don’t have to. And I’m not going to tell you what it is. You can guess. Consider it fair compensation for all you put me through this year.
And here, my dear sister, is where you can say “I told you so.” I know you love that. Perhaps there is something to be said for this adventuring thing after all. Not that I’d ever want to do it again, mind you—heaven forbid!—but it is rather educational to have experienced it once, if only to reinforce my previous opinions of such matters.
You cannot imagine all the places I’ve been sleeping! Some of them make me downright nostalgic for that horrible floor of your hut. Last night I stowed away on a railroad car! I am almost certain it was once used to transport cattle.
I must go. We’re behind, and you know how I hate that. One last thing, however. You remember that other helpful suggestion you made? About having one wild affair in my life?
I confess I am seriously considering it.
Must go. I’ve got a boat to catch.
All my love,
Kate
“Are you sure they’re going to be all right?” Kate asked.
“I promised, didn’t I?” Jim replied with admirable patience, given that he’d answered that question at least three dozen times in the last thirty-six hours as they’d raced to reach New York before the Emperor sailed. “I made it worth the kid’s while to make sure of it. He’ll get both horses back to the stables at the Rose Springs. And if he doesn’t, he’ll be answering to me. I made that very clear, believe me.”
“Now there’s a terrifying thought, answering to you.” She gave a mock shudder, her eyes sparkling with that teasing light that seemed to reduce him to stuttering faster than anything else on earth. Then she sobered. “I’m going to miss her, that’s all.”
“I know.” Kate had grown almost absurdly fond of her little mare. Not that kindness to animals wasn’t a truly commendable quality, but still—“After we win, you can go back and buy her, all right?”
“Promise?” she asked, and he would have done anything in the world she requested just to put that expression on her face.
“I swear,” he said solemnly, and then turned his attention to the matter at hand. Around them bobbed the chaotic, colorful hubbub of the Hudson River piers; above them beamed a warm, benevolent autumn sun. “So what do you think?”
Kate contemplated the Emperor, moored snugly into her jetty. If the ships got any bigger, she thought, they were going to have to rebuild the docks to get them to fit. Out in the river, her attendants awaited her, a floating court of tugboats, lighters, fireboats, and what had to be the entire membership of the New York Yacht Club, decks packed with partiers.
The Emperor lived up to her name. France’s attempt to finally wrest the prize for the fastest Atlantic crossing from England and Germany, who’d held the title for years, she’d done just that, winning the coveted “Blue Riband” on her maiden crossing from Le Havre. But she was a beautiful thing as well, majestic in her size, glorious in her formal tuxedo colors of black and white, punched with a few vibrant shots of red. She settled firmly into the water, commanding it easily, her four funnels—the first full four-funnel ship built in France, none of that three-funnels and a dummy business for her—tilted slightly back, making her look as if she were steaming quickly through the ocean even while at rest. Flags snapped from every pole, fluttering against the clear sky, as if she were dressed for a party. Which, in a manner of speaking, she was.
“Hmm. I might be able to…” She glanced down at herself and grimaced. “Not like this, I can’t.” She snatched up her bag and slung it over a shoulder, an easy gesture that looked as if she’d been packing it herself for years. “Will you wait?”
“Will I wait for what?”
“You’ll see.”
She glanced around, then clipped off across the docks toward a small office building, entering without knocking. For five minutes, perhaps more, he waited for her return before wandering over to the edge of the pier.
Water, a deep gray-green, threaded with dying seaweed, bobbing with refuse tossed from ships and shore, slapped at the pilings, the dark wood slick and green where the water slid over it, striking and retreating again, a relentless attack, and he started to plan.
“There you are,” she said from behind him, her voice breathless, a bit perturbed. “I thought you were going to wait.”
“I did. I’m still here, aren’t I? I…” He turned and whatever he was about to say evaporated like alcohol held on the tongue.
Surrounded by the ragged, work-grimed men that toiled on the wharf, she stood as if alone in the sunlight, everything else gray and smudged. A queen’s necklace in a pile of tin and dirty crystals, shining and true.
Silk shimmered and flowed over her elegant form, the fabric the color of the very heart of the orchids he’d found in the jungle where they bloomed in wild luxury. It was a perfectly proper dress, tight-necked, long sleeved, but with dozens of buttons like tiny pearls, winking at him in the sunlight as if they dared him to pop them off. A swath of filmy fabric encircled her waist, drawn through twin circles of hammered silver before fluttering to her hem, drawing his eyes to the narrow slope of her waist, the lush curve of her hip beneath the silk.
Her hair was almost completely uncovered, bits of lace and feather peeping flirtatiously from within the rich tumble of gold. She’d twisted and turned the strands, pinning them in a haphazard manner that looked as if a maid had labored over it for hours to achieve just that studied disarray.
“Where the hell did you get that?”
“Magic bag.” She patted it fondly before dropping it to the ground. “Aren’t you glad you let me pack it myself?”
“How—” He had to stop
to breathe. He’d nearly forgotten she could look like this, every man’s fantasy taken human form, just real enough to dream about but too far beyond any human’s reach ever to think that she might actually be yours. To admire, but never touch. “But—”
“Oh, stop stuttering,” she snapped. “You’ve seen me in my natural state—” She stopped, reddened prettily. “You’ve seen me in an unguarded state for weeks. You, of all people, should no longer be reduced to idiocy.”
Interesting. She’d made no secret of her wish to be admired, nor of how accustomed she was to the appreciation of men. And here she didn’t want his, at least not like this…interesting, he thought again.
“It’s just shock. Not to mention annoyance that you’ve been wasting precious storage space hauling around useless fripperies like that. I could have used more rope.”
“Oh, it’s not useless,” she said airily. “Just you wait and see.”
Three men—two bearded dockworkers with shoulders the size of tugboats and a tall, thin gentleman in a charcoal gray suit, a gold-tipped cane swinging over his arm—stopped dead at the sight of her, spurring a logjam in the human traffic on the docks. She flashed them each a smile in turn, one that somehow managed to make them preen and blush but held them all at a safe distance.
“Somebody should have pressed you into the diplomatic core long ago,” he mumbled under his breath. “The Americans might have avoided that whole business in the Philippines.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He grabbed her elbow and tugged her a few feet away from her clutch of admirers, who had now expanded to five. “We’ve got to get you out of here before there’s a riot.”
Stunning as she was, Jim wasn’t at all sure he liked this version. The woman who’d chased up and down the seacoast with him, that was his Kate. The one that only he had been allowed to see and appreciate. This Kate—this was the Kate that belonged to Dr. Goodale. Or rather, he decided, a woman who might have allowed a few men along the way to believe that, but who’d never given away a piece of herself that she hadn’t calculated to the precise quarter-inch.
His Kate, he thought, bemused and more than a little concerned. Just when had he started to consider her that? Better he was reminded now, before it was too late, that she was not his Kate and would never be. She was her own Kate, and any man who believed otherwise was a fool.
“Not to worry,” she said. “I’m going.” She turned to face the harbor. “Will you wait again?”
“For what?”
“For me to take care of things.”
“There’re barely two hours before she sails,” he reminded her.
She tossed her head and gold shimmered like a king’s treasure. “This won’t take long.”
Except that it did, much longer than Kate anticipated. Talking her way onto the ship proved to be simple, but tracking down the captain was nearly impossible. Truly, shouldn’t the man be at his helm this close to sailing? There were people everywhere, rushing here and there, the decks crowded with passengers, reporters, and dignitaries with temporary passes, and workers still loading supplies. So by the time she’d completed her business and dashed back to the dock, Jim was gone.
There’d been no time to look for him. She’d hesitated only a moment before scurrying back aboard.
And so now she sat in her cabin, on the little pseudo-Louis XIV settee which was no less pretty for being pseudo—and tried to decide what to do next. Unpack? Freshen up for the departure? Begin searching this monstrous behemoth of a ship for the next clue?
She’d become so accustomed to Jim’s ordering her around—whether she followed his commands or not—that his absence now was unsettling, as if she were listening to an orchestra where one instrument was perpetually a beat behind.
And then her door flew open and he was there, soaked to the skin, clothes clinging to a form that seemed much larger in the small space of the cabin than he had in the open air.
“You’re dripping seawater on the carpet,” she told him. “It’d be a shame to ruin it already.”
“Toss me a towel, would you?” Unconcerned, he dropped his pack, as sopping wet as he, to the floor and shook himself like a dog, spraying droplets.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She raced over to the small armoire bolted to the wall beside the porcelain sink, grabbed a thick white towel off the stack, and tossed it to him. “It’s a very good thing you’re usually in a tent, if this is how you treat a decently decorated place.”
He scrubbed the towel briskly over his head and then looped it around his neck, hanging on to both ends as he contemplated her through the dark, damp strands of his hair drooping over his eyes. “What were you doing?”
“Right now?” At his nod, she continued, “Waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me?” he repeated with enough surprise to make her smile.
“Oh, I had a suspicion that a little detail like a ticket wouldn’t keep you off this ship,” she said, then looked pointedly at the puddle around his feet. “Though if you’d had a bit more trust in me and waited, I could have gotten you on without quite so much…trouble.”
He shrugged. “Needed the exercise.”
“How’d you find me so quickly?”
“Believe me, darling, all I had to do was eavesdrop on a couple of the sailors. Your arrival on board was not exactly unremarked upon.”
“It’s so nice to be noticed.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, carefully neutral, then quickly surveyed the cabin. “Nice place.”
“Yes, it is.”
One of the smallest of the first-class cabins—a fact for which Captain Dupree had apologized most profusely—it was nevertheless well appointed. The berth stowed neatly away, leaving a charming salon with furniture that looked as if it had been stolen from a lovely chateau. There were taps for both cold and hot water, subdued electric lighting, and a button which the captain had assured her would summon a steward in a matter of moments.
“So? What did you have to promise to get it?”
“Jim!” Pain stabbed, quick and sure. How dare he, after all this time—
“I’m sorry.” He took a step toward her and lifted one hand, as if he meant to touch her. Water trailed off his cuff. He grimaced and stayed where he was. “Jesus, Kate, I’m sorry. Sorry. It was a reflex. An idiotic one, I’ll admit. But there you were, looking like…” He trailed off.
“Like Dr. Goodale’s wife?” she asked tightly.
“I—” He clamped his jaw together.
Sometime in the last few weeks, she noted, the man had finally learned when to shut up. “Never mind,” she said, wondering just why it bothered her so much. It wouldn’t have before—when had she ever cared what others thought, except as necessary to further her own ends? But he’d seemed to believe her so easily in that cave, the kind of faith that no one but her sisters had ever shown in her. It had…touched her, tempted her.
Oh, grow up, Kate, she scolded herself. The man had a reflex reaction. And hadn’t she had enough of building him up into something he wasn’t by now? “Besides, I do owe this”—her gesture encompassed the entire cabin, and perhaps more—“to Doctor Goodale. Have you heard of Emile Marcil?”
“Who hasn’t? Banking magnate, railroad magnate, shipping magnate. Not to mention owner of this fine vessel.”
“That’s the one. Also an old acquaintance of Dr. Goodale’s. And mine.”
“An admirer,” he said.
“Well. Of a sort.” She would have given a lot to know what was going on behind Jim’s neutral expression. There were few men who could hide things from her, especially after she’d spent some time and effort into discovering their secrets. It was alternately frustrating and immensely intriguing that he continued to be able to do so. “Marcil came over on the maiden voyage, of course, and is staying for some time in New York. He’s quite pleased at the publicity generated by having part of the competition take place on his ship, and more than delighted to allow me passage back.”
“Oh, no, he’s more than happy to keep my little secret. And you, by the way, were to be my trusted manservant. He even offered you a third-class cabin. Not nearly as nice as this, of course, but I’m sure it would be far more comfortable than you’re going to be as a stowaway, bedding down in some hidden corner of the cargo hold. Not to mention having to work off your passage as a stoker once you get caught.”
“Lucky for me that won’t be a problem, isn’t it? Since I’ll be staying in here with you.”
Her blasé confidence evaporated. A bed. A door. Jim.
Trouble. “What?”
“What’s the problem? You’ve been sleeping with me all along—”
“I have not been sleeping with you.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“I—” Mercifully, the long blast of the ship’s horn split the air, saving her from having to explain something that she couldn’t.
“Guess we’re shipping out,” Jim said. “Want to go?”
“I suppose we shouldn’t miss it, should we?” And we shouldn’t stay in here alone, skirting on the edge of things that were best approached cautiously, if at all, she thought.
“We shouldn’t.” He offered his elbow, which dripped steadily, and for a moment Kate wondered if it were only the launch he referred to.
“Aren’t you going to change?”
“Into what?”
“Oh.” She started to take his arm, then thought better of it. She tugged off her gloves and tossed them on a small, marble-topped table before linking her hand through his arm. His flesh was cold, the fabric so wet as to be no barrier at all. She swallowed hard.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” she said. Ready for what, she wondered. Ready for anything?
A Wedding Story Page 19