Merline Lovelace (15 page)

Hattie’s heart began to thump. Eyes burning, she stared at the dark, shadowy bulkhead. She could almost see the future unfolding on the oak paneling.

With that blond bitch out of the way, Zach would turn to her. Hattie knew he would. He’d smile at her in that particular way of his and take her hand the way he did the night of the Cotton Balers’ Ball. And he’d take her to his bed.

Barbara Chamberlain wasn’t the only one with an itch that needed scratching. Swine that he was, Thomas had given Hattie the rare moment or two of pleasure. With Zach, those moments would pile one on top of each other.

All she had to do was find the right chance.

H
attie watched and waited. She was sure an opportunity would present itself, but she hadn’t counted on the suicidal desire for speed that possessed the captain of the
Natchez Star.

With so many steamers competing for river traffic, every steamboat company tried to lure passengers with new speed records to augment the luxurious accommodations. Ten years ago, the run from Fort Gibson to Cincinnati had taken twenty-five days. Now the same journey took only nine. The captain of the
Star
seemed determined to best even that record.

Despite the ever-present hazards of sunken stumps, shifting river channels and busy river traffic, he kept the boilers roaring night and day. The boat docked at the major towns along the route only long enough to discharge and take on passengers, but
didn’t stop between. Not even to take on fuel. The bargemen who supplied wood for the boilers tied their flat-bottom skiffs alongside in mid-channel and tossed cut logs to
Natchez Star
’s crew and passengers, who stacked them willy-nilly on the deck.

A mere sixteen hours after departing Fort Gibson, the
Star
hit the confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi. The following day, the boat had docked at Memphis. Sometime during the next night, it left the muddy waters of the Mississippi for the Ohio. Louisville lay behind them now, Cincinnati just ahead. There they’d take another steamer to Wheeling, West Virginia, where Zach intended to hire a coach to convey them over the National Pike to Washington.

With each passing mile, Hattie’s hate festered like an open, oozing wound. With each hour the
Star
drew closer to Cincinnati, her frustration mounted. She barely saw Barbara. When she did, the woman was almost always in Zach’s company. The two took their meals together in the elegant dining room. Strolled the upper deck in the frosty morning air. Joined the other first-class passengers for cards or a minstrel show each evening.

Worse, far worse, the whore spent every night in the lieutenant’s bed. The only occasions she spoke to her maid were when she came to her cabin to bathe or change her dress.

Between times, Hattie prowled the decks. By day she watched Zach with Barbara and ached inside. By
night she pawed through her mistress’s things. It was during one of those sessions alone in the cabin that she found the folded oilskin. The small packet was tucked inside the lining of the valise Barbara had shoved under her unused bunk.

“What’s this now?”

Carefully, she unfolded the oilskin. The parchment inside rustled. Curious as a cat, she smoothed the document out and scanned its lines. She couldn’t read or write except to make her “X,” but the red wax seal at the bottom looked properly impressive. Frowning, Hattie traced the seal with a fingertip.

Instinct told her the document had something to do with Louise Morgan. Maybe this was proof of the tie between Louise’s first husband and the Chamberlain woman. Maybe the English cow had brought it to back up her claim of kinship. And maybe it was something else altogether.

Pursing her lips, Hattie glanced at the stateroom wall. Zach and the whore were on the other side of the partition. If the past few nights were any measure, they’d go at each other for hours before falling asleep in Zach’s bunk.

Folding the parchment, Hattie slipped it into her pocket. A moment later, the stateroom door closed quietly behind her. Surely there was someone still roaming about who could read the lines to her.

The task took longer than anticipated. The first cabin steward she approached could read English,
but this, he informed her, was written in what he guessed was Spanish or French. Finally she found a farmer’s wife among the steerage passengers with Creole blood and a knowledge of both languages.

The steerage compartment on the upper deck reeked of sweat-stained woolens and boiled onions. Closing her nose to the stink, Hattie hovered at the woman’s shoulder as she translated the document in exchange for a copper penny filched from Barbara’s purse.

“Near as I can tell,
ma cher,
this is written by the bishop of Reims. It’s a place in France, you understand. With a big cathedral.”

Hattie wasn’t interested in the where. “What does this bishop say?”

“Something about another priest. A Jesuit. Ahhh, he was a rogue, this Jesuit. The bishop declares him
défroqué.
”

“What’s that?”

She waved a hand. “He loses his sanctity and cannot perform baptisms or marriages. Any that he performed while here, in America, hold no validity. Including the marriage of…”

Frowning, she squinted at the document. Hattie held her breath and guessed the answer before the Creole supplied it.

“The ink is blurred here, but I believe… Yes, it refers to the marriage of one Henri Chartier to a woman of mixed French and Indian blood.”

Hattie almost snatched the paper from the other’s hand. With a muttered word of thanks, she hurried back downstairs. She didn’t fully grasp the import of what she’d just learned, but she knew it must be significant. Why else would Barbara have hidden away this bit of paper?

Alone in the stateroom once again, Hattie debated whether or not to take the parchment to Zach. She’d have to think on the matter, she decided. Be certain showing him the paper would be to her advantage.

Carefully, she wrapped the oilskin around the document and slipped it back into its hiding place. A small, sly smile played at her lips as her glance went once again to the bulkhead separating this cabin from Zach’s.

On the other side of the partition, Barbara stretched lazily. Zach lay sprawled beside her, magnificent in his nakedness.

After their first night, he’d taken care to feed the potbellied stove before stripping off his clothes and peeling away Barbara’s. The stateroom was now warm and cozy and pungent with the scent of sex.

Idly, she propped her head in one hand and traced a fingertip through the curling hair on his chest. He opened one eye and flashed her a grin.

“Again?”

“No!” she protested, half laughing, half alarmed. “Not yet.”

Folding his hands over his naked belly, he closed his eye. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his blatant male complacency. The man had every right to feel smug. In the past week he’d pleasured Barbara in ways she’d never imagined possible.

She found it hard to believe an entire week had passed since they’d boarded the
Star.
The days had flown. And the nights…

Sweet heaven, the nights!

Every one of them was branded on her soul.

The realization they had only one more left aboard the
Star
crept into her mind and slowly pushed aside the pleasure. Tomorrow they’d dock in Cincinnati. Three more days aboard another steamer would bring them to Wheeling, where they’d board a coach for Washington. By this time next week, Barbara would be searching out a ship to take her to Bermuda.

Chewing on her lower lip, she played with the wiry curls on Zach’s chest. She could tell him her plans, confess that the evidence against Harry was too damning to overturn his conviction and secure his release from prison by any legal mean. She could also admit the bank draft tucked safely in her reticule was intended to fund outrageous bribes and a dangerous escape.

She
could
tell Zach all, but should she?

He’d sail to Bermuda with her. She knew him
well enough now to accept without question that he’d hold true to his promise to help her and, by extension, Harry.

The problem was she was fast tumbling into love with the man. The thought both thrilled and disturbed her. She wasn’t sure quite how to deal with it or the emotions Zach stirred in her.

Should she confess her feelings and draw him further into her schemes? Allow him to risk his reputation, his career, and perhaps his own freedom by helping Harry escape?

For the first time in her selfish, tumultuous life, Barbara found herself worrying more about the prey she’d snared in her web than about her brother or herself.

“Easy, sweeting!”

Zach’s mumbled protest startled her out of her thoughts. He snared her wrist, and Barbara looked down to see she’d twirled his chest hair into a tight corkscrew.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t, but I’m thinking one good pull deserves another.”

With a lazy move, he levered up, rolled her onto her back and pinned her wrist to the tangled sheets. His eyes glinted as he dipped his head and took her nipple between his teeth.

Barbara gasped at the small pain and gave a whimper of pleasure when he began to suckle.

Later, she thought. She’d decide later what to tell Zach. When her mind wasn’t spinning with delight and her body curling in desire.

Five days passed, and still she couldn’t come to a decision.

They’d transferred to the
John Hawley
for the trip upriver to Wheeling. As she had aboard the
Star,
Barbara spent almost every waking hour with Zach. Each night she fell asleep in his arms.

The weather worsened as they neared the end of this leg of their journey. Freezing November rain pelted the upper decks. A stiff wind churned the river. Barbara began to feel queasy well before they docked at the bustling town set on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River and transferred to the coach Zach hired.

The jostling, jolting ride along the crowded National Pike was even more uncomfortable than the boat trip. Barbara soon saw the truth of Zach’s assertion that the road was the most traveled highway in the country. Wagons and carts filled with immigrants seeking land in the Ohio or Oregon Territories rolled westward in a line that stretched for miles—so many that the noses of their oxen or horses almost touched the rear of the carts ahead. Almost as many vehicles traveled eastward.

Faster-moving curricles and coaches slowed time and again to inch around wagons with broken axles,
long strings of packhorses or overturned stages driven too recklessly over the crushed-rock road. Tollgates every few miles further slowed progress, as did the ever-increasing climb through the pine-and mist-shrouded Allegheny Mountains to the Cumberland Gap.

Travelers crowded every inn and tavern along the route. Barbara was forced to share accommodations with Hattie and an assortment of other women, children and female servants while Zach bedded down with their male companions. He did secure private dining parlors when he could. Some were richly appointed, others mere cubbyholes off the main taproom. Smoky fireplaces, greasy venison cutlets and the ripe aroma of unwashed bodies added to Barbara’s queasiness.

To her embarrassment, she was obliged to have Zach halt the coach the afternoon of the second day so she could toss up her lunch. The same mortifying event occurred the third afternoon.

Only later that evening, when they stopped at a busy hostelry, did Barbara begin to suspect the reason for her brief bouts of nausea. Extra coins had secured her and Hattie beds in the large dormitory set aside for women travelers, but they shared the quarters with a half-dozen other women. One of them was bent over a bucket of water, muttering about her monthlies while she attempted to rinse bright red stains from her petticoat.

With a small frown, Barbara drew the curtain partitioning her cot from the rest of the room. Come to think on it, she should be facing a similar dilemma. When had she last bled? Just before she arrived at Morgan’s Falls, she remembered counting back the weeks.

With a sudden, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, Barbara dropped down onto the thin straw mattress. Panic followed hard on the heels of dismay.

She couldn’t be increasing! She couldn’t!

Zach had pulled away before he spilled his seed their first few times together. Of late, he’d taken to using a lambskin sheath.

Even as her mind shouted denials, a traitorous longing crept into her heart. She hadn’t been more than five when she and Harry had left Whitestone Manor to live with their cousin. Neither of them had ever been made to feel at home there. In the years since, they’d occupied every sort of temporary quarters.

What would it be like to have a real home again? A child to cradle in her arms and dress in lace-trimmed gowns? And a husband, she thought with a sudden ache in her chest. One who would cherish and protect her. A husband like Zach.

Sometime during this journey he’d slipped past the barriers she’d always maintained around her heart. She was an expert at flirtation. Desire, she could handle. But this aching need, this constant
hunger to hear his voice or feel his arms about her, was altogether beyond her experience.

Swinging wildly between the fear she might be pregnant and worry over what she’d do if she was, Barbara shed her outer gown and curled under the covers.

Their hired coach rolled into Washington late the following afternoon. Barbara barely made it to the luxurious suite of rooms Zach had rented for them in the Arlington Hotel before snatching up the chamber pot and rushing behind a screen in the bedchamber. She was too miserable to object when he followed a few moments later and held the pot steady.

After she finished emptying her stomach, he put the pot aside and drew a silver traveling flask from the pocket of his military greatcoat. The drizzle that seemed to have followed them all the way to Washington spotted the wool cape of the coat and added a damp sheen to his lashes and eyebrows.

“Here, drink this.”

Mortified, she sat back on her heels. The brandy burned her throat but took away the vile aftertaste. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually such a poor traveler.”

“No need for apologies. Do you want me to fetch a physician?”

“Goodness, no! I just needed to empty my stomach of those johnnycakes we had for lunch. I thought at the time they tasted odd. The grease used to fry them must have been a bit rancid.”

He helped her to her feet, concern stamped on his strong, chiseled face. “Are you sure that’s what caused you to become ill? Rancid grease?”

“That and all these days of jolting about in a coach.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m fine now. Truly.”