A Candle in the Dark (8 page)

“A pigsty, then,” he said. “But my house—
mi madras
house—is far away from there, in a small
valle
near Panama City.”

She nodded, not taking her eyes from the shore, wishing Jiméne would simply shut up and enjoy the view.

He shook his head sorrowfully. “You do not care, do you,
mi amiga. hermosa
? Ah, how heartless you are.” He took a deep breath. “Nothing I say impresses you, Ana. Tell me how much harder I should try.”

Ana didn’t answer.

He bent closer, touching her arm. “Why are you with D’Alessandro,
cariña
? Leave him. Come with me.”

“No, Jiméne.” She withdrew her arm gently, suddenly feeling sorry for him. He
was
gallant and impulsive. It wasn’t his fault he’d become enamoured of a whore.

Besides, it was true that, every day, she came a little closer to accepting his offer and leaving with him. It would be easy, so easy. D’Alessandro confused her and made her uncomfortable—good enough reasons in themselves to leave. But even more than that, D’Alessandro had become a liability. She was afraid he was going to gamble all her hard-won money away—if he didn’t squander it on drink—before they even reached Panama City.

Yes, Jiméne’s offer was certainly tempting. If it wasn’t for the promise she’d made… A self-deprecating smile touched Ana’s lips. A stupid promise, but a promise nonetheless. Besides, it would be too much trouble to get rid of D’Alessandro now. No, she’d wait and hope he wouldn’t slow her down once they were on the trail.

But if he did… Ana frowned slightly. If he did, she would have to take matters into her own hands. She couldn’t abide the thought that he might delay her trip. San Francisco beckoned, her new life waited…

“Please,
cariña
?”

She looked up at Jiméne and shook her head. “I can’t leave him.”

“But why? What is it he holds over you?” His hand tightened on her arm, he leaned closer until she could read the pleading in his brown eyes. “I can offer you so much more…”

Ana looked past him, barely hearing his words as she saw D’Alessandro stagger onto the deck. He barely spared her a glance, but she knew by his sudden stiffness that he’d spotted her. It was what she expected after yesterday, what she intended—to keep him at a distance. If he hated her, so much the better. At least then she wouldn’t always be on the defensive, or feel the disconcerting intimacy of his gaze.

But again she felt an uncomfortable wave of guilt. Guilt that only increased when he looked straight at her and shook his head with a disapproving frown, and she realized that even after her dismissal of him yesterday, he was still concerned about the way her friendship with Jiméne appeared.

That surprised and confused her. Ana felt a deep, slow warmth that had nothing to do with the heat, and she looked away quickly, summoning indifference, pretending she didn’t care.

But he was right, and she knew it. There was too much gossip on the ship.

“Please, Jiméne,” she said, pulling away. “People will talk.”

“Let them talk,” he protested passionately. “I do not care.”

“But I do.” Ana moved so they weren’t touching. “Not here.”

“I see.” Jiméne’s eyes were dark. “Very well then,
cariña
, I will do as you wish. Today I will go. Tomorrow it will not be so easy.”

Ana watched Jiméne march away with a relieved regret. By tomorrow it wouldn’t matter. The ship’s gossip wouldn’t matter once they reached Chagres. Chagres, the beginning of the journey. The excitement that surged through her made her forget Jiméne’s anger.
The beginning
. At last. The ship was her escape, but once she set foot in Central America, she would truly feel everything was behind her.

Even New York. That night with Benjamin Whitehall had only been eight days ago, and yet it felt like another life, another time. Rosalie would have given up the search by now, Ana was sure. She was safe as long as she stayed out of New York, and since she’d intended to do that anyway, it was hardly an inconvenience.

Certainly there was no one she minded leaving behind. In the seedy quarter of the city called Five Points, friendships were temporary, usually ended by violence and death. Before long, even Rosalie would forget her, and with her memory would go Ana’s life in the city. It would be as if Anastasia, alias the Duchess, had never existed.

The thought made her sad for only a moment. She would start over in San Francisco, create another identity, a woman more in control of her life than the Duchess had ever been. A woman who didn’t need anyone.

“Everyone needs someone, Anastasia.”

Ana closed her eyes. Her skin felt hot suddenly, she tried to swallow the dry, tight lump in her throat. She heard her mother’s voice as clearly as if she were standing there. “
The only people to pity, my darling, are those who are alone
.”

Ana had believed that once. Once, when the little shanty house had been fall of light and hope and joy. When her mother had been beautiful, happy,
sane
.

Ana opened her eyes and looked down at her feet.

Forever ago. That fairy-tale life had turned into a horror story so long ago she wondered if the memories were really hers. She remembered an icy winter night, lugging home a bucket of precious water that was nearly frozen while Mama told the story of how she and Ana’s father had first met, how they’d danced and whispered perfumed intimacies, how they’d counted the stars in the Duvants’ garden while the musicians in the ballroom began the first strains of a waltz.
We knew we loved each other then. When he comes for us, darling
—
oh, you’ll see what a fine dancer your father was
!

Ana clenched her jaw. As a child, she’d memorized the things Mama told her about her father. A fine dancer. A handsome man. A lover of fine horseflesh. She knew him—oh, yes, she knew him.

But he had never bothered to know her, and the older she got, the more she told herself she didn’t care. As the years went on, and she watched her mother going slowly mad waiting for him, Ana realized she finally, truly
didn’t
care, didn’t give a damn about him at all.

That was when the loneliness started, the sense of being completely alone. Now the feeling never went away. She told herself it didn’t matter. It was a small price to pay for guaranteeing she would never be like her mother. Loneliness, vulnerability, would never destroy her that way, and the bitter memory of what her mother had become kept Ana strong, kept her from depending on anyone, or caring too much. No one had ever made her feel differently.

By the time her mother died, Ana learned to feel nothing. Not even love. Only pity and the will to survive. Only that. Loneliness was easy to ignore when she thought of the alternative.

The thought swelled inside her, and Ana shivered, hugging herself as a sudden chill went through her, consuming her until she stood there shaking. Lonely, yes, she could be lonely. She had been for years, she was used to it. She understood it. In a way she even needed it.

But in the back of her mind, she heard the faint strains of a waltz, heard the laughter of two people standing in a garden, counting the stars.

And she couldn’t stop shaking.

“Watch it!”

Jeb Wilson crashed into Cain, sending him stumbling over a trunk. With effort, he caught himself. His head pounded as he tried to move out of the way. He cracked his shin on the corner. “Damn!”

Jeb dropped his bags and mopped his brow sheepishly. “Sorry about that, D’Alessandro. Didn’t see you there.”

“Everyone’s in a hurry,” Cain said wryly, rubbing his shin as Jeb rushed past. He looked about the deck, strewn now with trunks, valises, and canvas bags, and piling higher with every passing minute. Passengers thronged the deck, chattering with excitement, their hurry to leave the anchored ship vibrating in the air.

In fact, Cain thought dryly, the only thing that kept everyone from rushing forward was the mile of water that stretched between them and the mouth of the Chagres River. And for some men, even that wouldn’t remain a problem for long. If the canoes spreading from the shore didn’t reach the
Delilah
soon, Cain fully expected to see them jumping into the shallow bay and swimming for shore.

He stared at the wild green mountains, letting his gaze travel from the plant-choked ravines to the old, brown battlements of San Lorenzo, the castle that guarded the point.

It was unlike anything he’d ever seen, foreign and primitive, and it only increased the trepidation he’d felt since they anchored outside of the narrow river mouth this morning.

The native canoes were swarming closer to the ship, moving so frenziedly he kept expecting them to crash into each other. Men crowded the rails, shouting, pushing, each one wanting to be first.

Yet Cain found the very idea of leaving the ship terrifying.

He stepped back, letting the others vie for his place, wishing he was drunk. He’d deliberately stopped drinking yesterday, wanting to be feeling well—or if not well, then at least sober—for their arrival in Chagres. As a result, he had a splitting headache, he was sweating profusely in the tropical heat, and his stomach lurched at every movement.

He blamed the Duchess for all of it.

Cain frowned sourly and sank onto a nearby trunk. It was all her fault. If she hadn’t managed to make him feel slightly lower than a snake, he wouldn’t be feeling this absurd urge to prove himself to her. If she hadn’t made it so clear that he was somehow incapable of being a man—if not a human being—he would be too numb to care if he drowned falling out of one of those damn canoes.

She had this way with words… He winced, remembering how she’d told him that she expected Casteñeras to take care of everything. The Panamanian was younger than Cain by at least ten years, he’d bet his life on it. Jiméne was more a boy than a man, still caring more about polishing his boots than learning to survive, spending his life flirting with women instead of loving them.

In short, he was a gentleman. And around Casteñeras, Cain was all too aware of how he didn’t measure up—at least in her eyes.

He sighed, raking his hand through his hair. The last few nights had hammered at his self-esteem. He’d buried himself in cards and conversation, trying to ignore the way Jiméne was always by the Duchess’s side: solicitous, charming, entertaining. Christ, Cain hadn’t even known she
had
the kind of bright, sincere smile she turned on the Panamanian.

And he told himself he didn’t care. He wanted—God, how he wanted—to leave her to Jiméne, to go back to his existence of traveling aimlessly, trading medicine for drink. He wanted to be free to drown in the failure that had haunted him his entire life. He buried his face in his hands.

But there was that damned agreement. He’d said he would pose as her husband, and regardless of what she thought that meant, he knew part of the job was to keep her safe.

Because of that responsibility, he’d vowed to himself that, in spite of what she’d told him about Castañeras, he would take charge once they arrived in Chagres, he would prove to her that her money was well spent.

Footsteps echoed on the deck beside him, then stopped. Cain peered through his fingers at the pair of boots stopped before him. Shiny boots.

“¿Estás enfermo?”

Cain lifted his head. “Hello, Castañeras.”

“You do not look well today,
amigo
.” Jiméne’s eyes widened in mock concern as he leaned down to look closer into Cain’s face.

“Thank you. I feel fine.”

“Fine?
Perdón
, but I must disagree. Perhaps it would be best if Ana and I went on.” Jiméne’s dark eyes lit maliciously. “You could sleep, perhaps. We could meet you later—say, perhaps, in Gorgona?”

Cain smiled thinly. “Have a care, Castañeras.”

“I am only concerned,
amigo
!”

“I am concerned too,” Cain said. “Concerned that you might find yourself floating in the harbor.” His gaze traveled pointedly over Jiméne’s bright mustard coat. “I would hate to see your fine apparel ruined. Who knows where you could get another coat in this godforsaken place.”

Jiméne’s mustache twitched, his eyes narrowed. “I do not know why she wastes her time with you.”

“Watch yourself,” Cain warned. “I am her husband.”

“So you say.”

“So does she.”

“I think,” Jiméne said thoughtfully, “that it is you who should watch yourself,
amigo
. I will warn you now: Know I will do everything I can to see that she leaves you.”

The warning was delivered with the force of certainty, and a stab of anger went through Cain. He suddenly ached for a drink so badly his hands trembled. But a loud noise at one side of the ship distracted him.

He followed Jiméne’s gaze to the source of the sound.

“The bungos,” Jiméne said tonelessly.

The natives had arrived, crowding the ship, colliding with each other, all shouting: “
¡Canoa! ¡Canoa
!” in their efforts to find the richest passengers. Trunks, valises, and bags were thrown haphazardly over the side, banging on heads and falling in the bay just as often as they landed in the canoes.

It was Cain’s chance. His chance to go forward and prove how indispensable he could be. His chance to hire a bungo and load their things, to be ready when Ana was.

But he couldn’t seem to rise from the trunk, and in the time it took him to realize that, Jiméne was already across the deck, shouting in Spanish. No doubt getting the best price as well, Cain thought grimly. The flask in his pocket grew heavier against his chest. It all seemed suddenly pointless—trying to be sober, to be indispensable. He could never compete with Jiméne, and she didn’t want him to anyway.

“Damn, they’re here sooner than I thought.” Robert Jameson hurried on deck, pausing beside Cain. He held a half-empty bottle of rum, and Ana was close on his heels. Cain caught the distinct, sweet smell of the liquor, and his stomach lurched in longing.

A longing that became almost painful when he saw Robert tip the rum into his hands and splash it over his arms.