Worldly. And unimaginably rich. And, from the pleasure in Kate’s voice, perfectly charming. “He didn’t want to…”
“Well, I suppose he did. In fact”—she paused—“don’t you think we should head back to our cabin? Before some of those guards I saw strewn up and down the hallway begin to wake up? Or the prince decides to send for another wife and finds them?”
“I guess so.” Though it was going to be hard to walk, considering how wobbly his knees were and were likely to remain until he heard every single detail of what happened in that room.
They strolled together as if nothing unusual had happened, simply a couple on a pleasant evening turn around the ship.
“Now, where was I?” Did she torture him on purpose? he wondered. Of course she did. “Oh yes. Did the prince wish to…get to know me better? I believe he did, but do you know, they have this interesting custom in Balthelay. It seems no one of royal blood can spend their…essence…on anyone but a wife. Wouldn’t do for someone of regal blood to be born out of the royal line, apparently.”
“Is that right?” Relief flooded him.
“Yes. And once he understood that I really was poorly suited to become his thirty-second wife, well, there was no reason for me to stay, was there?”
Jim froze in midstep. “He proposed to you?”
“Hmm. Although he was so businesslike about it, it hardly seemed much like a proposal.”
“He wanted to marry you?” Vaguely he noted she was tugging at his arm, trying to get him to move, but his feet refused to budge.
“When you’ve so many wives to begin with, what’s one more?” She shrugged. “Still flattering, of course, but not quite the same when you are asked to be one of so many. And since he apparently has no interest in giving up all the rest, well, we had little else to speak of, did we?”
“You asked him to give up the rest?” The thought lodged in his brain, big and brash, unwelcome, impossible to evict.
“It merely came up in the conversation.” She laughed up at him, eyes glinting, and leaned against his arm, her breast soft and full against him until his brain fuzzed. “Can we go now? I’d like to get out of this dress.” She trailed her fingers across her chest, where the assertive red barely covered her nipples. “It’s really not my style.”
Chapter 22
The ship reached the French port ahead of schedule, as the sun barely lightened the sky to dove gray. The crossing back from New York, with the ship fully loaded, had taken twenty-eight hours longer than the inaugural voyage, but it was still faster than every other ship that sailed the Atlantic.
Despite the early hour, crowds thronged the docks, ready to welcome the Emperor home. On board, the regular passengers hung back, in no hurry to leave their floating palace, more than willing to allow the competitors to disembark first.
Kate and Jim stood near the back of the line. A few minutes at this point would make no difference, they decided, and the way the rest were jostling down the gangway someone was going to end up in the ocean.
Kate’s clothes might have been borrowed from Mrs. Latimore’s closet: a plain white shirt, severe khaki skirt—she’d finally abandoned her bustle—her hair braided simply down her back. “You look nice,” he said.
She squinted at him, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether she believed him or not.
“No, you do.” He tugged gently on her braid. “What’d you do with the red dress?”
Her lip curled. “Went back where it came from, and good riddance.”
“I’m going to miss it.”
“I’m sure you will.”
The line began to move. Jim grabbed his pack and one of her cases while she lifted the other. “You want me to get that?” he asked her.
“It’s fine,” she said, a bit miffed that he’d offered. Oh, it was only polite, and men had been offering to carry things for her most of her life. But he should have known better.
The portmanteau bumped against her knee as she walked down the gangway, Jim right behind her. She should have been anxious to get on their way. More adventure, the next clue, and all that. But her heels rang hollowly on the planks, and she had to force her feet to move.
They stepped aside when they reached the docks, out of the stream of people.
“Well,” she said. “To the Pyrénées, I suppose.”
“So it seems.” His hand rubbed lightly at the small of her back. They’d spent most of the past three days with his hands on her, and in far more intimate places. She should have been accustomed to it by now. But that was all it took, that slight, perfectly correct touch at her back, and her heart sped up, her mouth went dry. It seemed that the more he touched her, the more her body craved it, now that it knew the magic he could work.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Of course I am,” she said, completely unconvinced. Oh, she’d be in no danger. She knew that Jim would make sure of it. But she didn’t want him to have to watch out for her. To spend his time taking care of her when it could be much better spent winning.
“You will,” he said, touching her cheek, his fingers warm and familiar. “It’s more rugged terrain than we’ve been in thus far, yes, but you’ve learned a lot.”
Yes, she’d learned a lot. But she still knew her limitations, and clambering around rugged, remote mountains was one of them. It would only remind him, and her, of how different their lives were and how poorly she fit into his world.
But there was nothing she could do about it now. The map said the Pyrénées, so the Pyrénées it would be. “How are we getting there?”
“Train. For most of it, anyway.”
She sighed. “Can we try and sneak onto a car that doesn’t stink this time?”
“Oh, this time I think we’ll spring for a ticket. One with a private compartment.” He leered at her, so exaggerated she had to laugh.
“Lovely thought, Jim, but I doubt my funds will stretch that far.”
“Yes, well…”
“Hmm.” She set down her case and faced him squarely. “Now why, exactly, do you look so guilty?”
“Guilty? Me?” He reached for her case. “We’d best get started, don’t you think?”
“Jim?”
“We can talk about this later.”
“No, we can’t.” She grabbed the handle before he could and dragged her luggage out of reach.
“Kate…”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Oh, all right.” He dropped his own load. “I’m not, perhaps, quite as…destitute as I allowed you to believe.”
“Not destitute,” she repeated flatly. “How not destitute are you?”
“Not too much,” he assured her quickly. “Barely at all.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes,” he said with absurd enthusiasm. “Really, I’m sure I would have run through what little I had in no time if I hadn’t thrown in with you.”
She glowered at him. “The horses. The food. All the other stuff that you kept magically finding. You bought them, didn’t you?”
“I rented the mare.”
“Rented. Oh, that’s ever so much better, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “I thought you were stealing things.”
“Stealing?” He started laughing, hard enough that several disembarking passengers glanced worriedly his way.
“Jim.” When he didn’t answer, just laughed even more, she stood before him, perfectly straight, mouth sober. “Jim.”
He finally quieted, pressing one hand to a belly that had started to hurt.
“Why did you agree to come with me, if you didn’t need the money?”
And then his stomach really did ache, and not from amusement this time. “I could use the money,” he hedged. “I wasn’t flat busted, but I didn’t have enough to mount another expedition, nor enough to live on for much longer if I didn’t go out again soon.”
“Jim,” she repeated, and waited for the truth.
He’d no idea how she was go
ing to take it, Jim thought. He should have told her long ago, as soon as she became more than Dr. Goodale’s wife to him. But things were going so well, he’d never believed in rocking the boat, it hadn’t come up, and he’d really mostly forgotten about it.
And she’d see them all for the excuses they were.
“I promised the doc.”
“What?” Shock sprang clear in her eyes, disbelief edged with suspicion.
He scrambled to find the right words. He never cared much how he put things, never had to pick and choose words to guard another’s emotions. He was as out of his depth with her as she would be on a mountainside.
“Before…before we ever met. The first time, I mean. Maybe a year after Elaine died and he’d gone home to play father. He wrote me, right after he married you.”
“What did he say about me?” she asked.
“I—” He hesitated.
“Jim, I’m not going to be offended. I’m just curious.”
“Well, not much, to tell you the truth. That he’d married again, to someone who’d deal with the children. And that if something ever happened to him, he wanted me to make sure she was all right.”
“That’s it?” She shouldn’t have been surprised. It took a moment to sort through the mix of emotions, finding exactly where the source of her shock lay.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“Don’t be.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder and met his gaze fully. “Truth be told, the only thing surprising is that he thought even that much about my future.”
“He should have,” Jim said, sudden, unexpected anger surging. She’d been the doctor’s wife. She’d watched over his children. He should have done more for her than a casually penned line to an old friend.
She shook her head. “Emily had a home and an education. He kept his end of the bargain.” Her voice softened. “The only real question is why you felt bound by such a slight request.”
He shrugged. “I had nothing when I left England. Nowhere to go. Signed on a freighter and ended up in Belém with no plans whatsoever. He allowed me to join his expedition. I can’t even tell you how much I learned from him in the next five years. I…owed him,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. Because while it was not a lie, it was only the slightest portion of the truth, a truth that Jim did not fully comprehend himself. There’d been guilt mixed in, guilt that he’d been able to continue to explore and experience while the doctor had been called so reluctantly home. A deeper reproach that he’d wanted the doctor’s wife. Oh, that had begun unwittingly, but it hadn’t ended there. He’d wanted her, all those years. Wanted her when she’d walked away from him, wanted her as he rambled the world and tried to forget her, wanted her when she’d drifted into his hotel room.
She was watching him carefully, one brow raised, waiting for him to elaborate. But he couldn’t say it, not any of it. It was hard enough to admit to himself.
And then she lifted to her toes and kissed him, full on the mouth, brief but hard, and came away smiling.
“Ahh…” He glanced around at the milling crowds, the knowing smiles aimed their way.
“It’s all right,” she said. “We’re in France. It’s nothing they haven’t seen before.”
“Well, then…” He grinned and drew her closer. “How about we show them something they haven’t—”
“Hello!”
They both groaned, turning reluctantly to face something that was not going to be nearly as much fun.
Johnny bounded up to them, eager as a young puppy anticipating a treat. “Where is she?”
“Um…ah…”
“She’s gone,” Kate said as kindly as she could.
“Gone?” He frowned, as if the word were unfamiliar to him. “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean exactly that.”
“But—” His voice rose in panic. “You mean he found her? Come on, Jim, we have to go steal her back!”
“Johnny,” Kate said before he could go charging up the gangway, “it wasn’t the prince.” And truthfully, she didn’t think the prince was likely to expend much energy looking for her. Oh, his pride—something he certainly owned in abundance—might be pricked a bit, but from their brief conversation she suspected he wasn’t all that interested in his youngest bride. He’d married her as a favor to one of his nobles and, while he certainly understood his royal duties in the matter, thought of her more as a young cousin than a wife.
“But—”
“She’s safe, I promise you that much.”
Fists clenching, he spun on Jim. “What did you do with her?”
“Hey now, bud.” Jim raised his hands, palm out. “I kept you from getting yourself skewered trying to rescue a girl you barely know, and that’s all I did.”
“Jim.” Kate pursed her lips and shook her head slightly at him, hoping he’d get the message. A young man’s heart was a delicate matter, one she was far better suited to handle.
“Now, Johnny.” She took his hand in hers, bringing him around so he’d look at her. “She’s safe, you must believe me. Mrs. Latimore knew of a place, with an old friend of hers, somewhere that the young woman can rest and think and decide about her future. She’ll be well protected, far from the prince’s reach.”
“But—but—” His hand shook in hers. “I don’t understand.”
“You are very young. Both of you,” she said carefully. Young people never wanted to believe it, never understood when wiser heads said such things. It didn’t make it any less true. “We decided that—”
“We?” he shouted. “Who’s we? Isn’t we supposed to be her and me?”
“You barely know each other.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” He blinked rapidly and Kate’s heart softened. They’d done the right thing and she knew it. But she still appreciated the young man’s pain. “I love her!”
“Johnny,” she said. He might not believe her now. But she still chose her words with extreme care because later perhaps he might remember them and understand. “I know you do, my dear. But she was in a difficult situation, one with few options. She wanted a way out.”
He went rigid. “You think she used me?”
“Not quite that baldly, no. I am not insisting that she did, Johnny. Nor, if that is the case, may she have had any knowledge of her motives as she did so. I am saying that you cannot discount the possibility completely and it would be a grave mistake to make irreversible decisions based on such brief and dramatic events.”
For a moment she was afraid he would burst into tears, at which point she was far too likely to spill it all. “It is not forever,” she told him. “If it is truly love, it will not go away. And you can plan a future without any reservations whatsoever, knowing that it is love that holds you together and not merely circumstances.”
He yanked his hand from hers and she sighed. A few weeks, a few months…they seemed like a lifetime when one was seventeen.
“Mrs. Latimore, you said?” he asked thoughtfully. “I saw them leave the ship a while ago. Mrs. Latimore and Miss Dooley and Ming Ho. I did not see…” He trailed off as he saw Ming Ho bound off the bottom of the ramp alone, waving cheerfully. “But…”
It had been so easy that Kate nearly hadn’t believed it. In Ming Ho’s dark baggy pants and tunic, and her hair stuffed up under a large straw hat, the slight young woman had strolled off the ship with the ladies without anyone giving them a second glance.
Comprehension dawned. And then came the anger, finally pushing ahead of the shock. Johnny grabbed Kate by her upper arms and hauled her up. “Where is she?”
“Hey, now, easy there.” Jim deftly detached Johnny’s grip and stepped between them. “No reason to be angry with the lady.”
“Oh yeah?” He looked Jim up and down, worry leaking through his bravado. And then, squaring his shoulders, he put up his fists. “I don’t care how much you hurt me,” he said, then added honestly. “Much. But you’re going to tell me where she is.”
Arms crosse
d comfortably in front of his chest, Jim looked down at Johnny’s bobbing fists, hiding his smile. “I thought you were supposed to be such a crack reporter,” he said. “You want her that much?
“Then find her.”
Chapter 23
Regular articles appeared on the front page of the Daily Sentinel during the next ten weeks.
ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE EDITOR
We have received a number of inquiries as to the whereabouts of our anonymous reporter. At this time the management of this newspaper has made an editorial decision that we can no longer print articles without fully crediting their originators. However, we are certain that our faithful readers will continue to enjoy frequent reports from our intrepid reporter Charlie Hobson, who is closely shadowing the footsteps of the competitors as this goes to press…
COMPETITORS TANGLE NEAR ANDORRA
Many deemed Major Huddleston-Snell hopelessly out of the race upon his unscheduled and very wet departure from the Emperor prior to her sailing. But the major once again proved that he is not to be underestimated when he caught up with many of the other competitors as they approached the mountains. Though this reporter did not personally observe the events hereafter described, numerous witnesses attested to an ensuing physical confrontation between the major and Lord James Bennett, which was abruptly interrupted by Lord Bennett’s beautiful, ever-mysterious assistant and the arrival of Mrs. Latimore’s party before serious damage could occur. It seems that countrymen do not compatriots make…
It is fortunate for Mr. Eiffel that he was not in residence at his apartment at the top of his brilliantly engineered tower the third week in October. For those seven days the elevator to the top, previously perfectly reliable, suffered an inexplicable malfunction which took longer than expected to repair. Most unfortunately for our competitors, that was precisely during the week that most of them arrived in Paris in pursuit of their next clue. But a balky elevator could not daunt our intrepid contestants…
A Wedding Story Page 26