Celine (25 page)

“Cameron did the string pulling, not I.”

“If you think I wouldn't turn this world upside down to see these two well married,” Cameron replied, “then what can I say?”

The guests were on board. The food, the music, everything was in place for the sparse two hours they would have to see the couple off. Felicité was beside herself, giddy with excitement. She had already begun to bother her father about a trip to San Francisco to visit her brother and his wife before they sailed off to China. “
Quelle heure,
Trevor?”

“Five forty-five. Have patience.” He patted her shoulder and did his best to appear calm, but he, too, was growing anxious.

Justin regarded Trevor. “I doubt I have ever seen you looking so content.”

Trevor rocked back on his heels, his gaze still on the dock. Damn it, he wished she would hurry. “Why would I not be?”

“I hadn't expected to see you so relaxed. It's obvious you are at peace with your decision.”

Trevor grinned. “That I am.”

The priest looked a little confused, but said nothing.

Felicité pointed toward the dock and jumped up and down in place. “Here they come! Here they come!”

Everyone peered toward the wharf as the cumbersome dray careened dangerously around a mountain of shipping crates, righted itself, and raced full speed toward them. A grimacing Marie bounced around on the seat beside the driver, holding on to its edge for dear life with one hand while her other crushed her brown velvet hat to her head. Steamer trunks piled high teetered perilously as the cart turned at a sharp angle and stopped abruptly in front of the ship.

Trevor peered beyond the dray, searching the crowd for the carriage that carried Celine.

Marie dug into the front of her bodice and retrieved a scrap of paper. She scrambled off the seat and raced up the plank, waving the folded sheet at Trevor. He rushed down to meet her, snatching the paper from her hand.

She bent over, hands on hips, panting to catch her breath.

Trevor read the note. “Dear God!” A horse kicking him in the chest could not have done more damage. “When, where?”

“I don't know.” Marie wrung her hands, the pitch of her voice winding higher. “The most I could make out is sometime around two o'clock. That's the last I saw her. She said she was going for one last walk through the city, so I thought nothing of it. Then I found this note on the table by the door. Oh, I don't know, Mischie Trevor, I don't know where she went, but she took her traveling bag with her.” Marie began to wail.

Justin and Cameron rushed to Trevor's side. “What in God's name?” Justin demanded.

Trevor handed the note to his father, threw his face to the sky, and sucked in a deep breath. His hands went to his hips for balance. He fought tears.

Justin, with Cameron over his shoulder, opened the note and read aloud:

Trevor continued to breathe deeply, but now his head was down, his face buried in the palm of his hand. She was lost to him.

“What the devil has happened here?” Justin demanded, the red in his face deepening with each huffed breath. “It doesn't sound as though she had a clue there was to be a wedding.”

Trevor was silent.

“Answer me!” Justin roared. In his fury, he shook the letter in Trevor's face. “Had you bothered to ask this woman to wed you?”

“No.” Trevor raised his hand against the letter, and stared beyond the wharf, as if she would appear and tell him this was some terrible hoax.

“Why the hell not?”

Trevor turned his eyes skyward again, closed them, and took in great gulps of the air. He breathed out his answer. “I intended to surprise her. She was aware the clipper was scheduled to sail beyond San Francisco after it made port. I didn't want her to have any inkling I was taking her to China as a wedding gift.”

Struggling for words, Justin swept his hand through the air toward the guests and the tables filled with food. “What . . . the reception, the guests? All of this? Don't tell me you kept your marriage plans as a surprise as well?”

It wasn't that Trevor refused to answer—he couldn't speak.

His father stood motionless, his face distorted in furious disbelief, his hand still suspended in the air. The veins in his temples and up his neck, blue and bulging, throbbed angrily. He looked incredulously at the note in his hand, then again at Trevor.

“These are the writings of a pained woman, not one who's been told she's to be a bride. Had you even bothered to inform her that you were in love with her, you . . . you pompous ass!”

Trevor kept his eyes sightless on the sky. “I did not.”

“Well, why not?”

“She knew, Father. How could she not have known? I was saving the words ... for the ceremony.” Trevor heard the absurdity of his own deeds.

“You fool. You stupid, damn fool!” Justin bellowed.

Trevor looked at his father. “I know,” he said softly. “I know.” His shoulders sagged.

Cameron stepped in, and touched Justin's elbow. “Uncle, this isn't going to help matters. Foolish as it was, I was part of this.”

“You?” Justin blustered.

Cameron nodded. “It was my bloody idea in the first place. We were well-intentioned, we just weren't clearheaded. Let's not forget what has recently transpired in our lives.”

Justin blinked as if his head was clearing from a fog. His gaze flickered from one to the other. “Why didn't any of this come out in our meeting this morning? I thought you were only keeping the reception secret. And you two run a profitable business together?”

Cameron wiped a hand across his brow. “Bloody damned stupid of us, wasn't it?”

Trevor stood, shaking his head, trying to keep from crumbling in front of the entire world. He finally spoke. “I've been such a bastard all my life, I don't deserve her, anyway. Christ, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I disappointed her, I'm sorry I disappointed you.” He swept his hand toward the clipper, indicating the people standing along the ship's railing, looking as though they'd seen a ghost. “And I am sorry I disappointed all of you.”

He caught sight of Felicité's sad, wet face. And he broke. He turned his back on everyone as great tears streamed down his face.

Justin reached out to him. “Don't, son. I blame myself in part for this. And you know why.”

Cameron stepped forward. “I don't see what the hell the problem is, Trev. You know she loves you. You know she's worth going after, and she can't possibly be that hard to find.
Mon Dieu!
”

He grabbed Trevor by the arm and pointed toward a shirt-sleeved man jotting figures in an open ledger. “If you'd stop and think for a minute instead of spending your time cursing one another, all we have to do is walk the few steps over there and check the bloody log to know who left port today. How long do you think it would take to catch up with her using our clipper? I can guarantee you nothing on the water can move faster than us.”

Cameron shoved himself in front of his cousin, leading the way. “You can figure out how to get your sorry
derrière
back in good stead with her later. Come on, old boy, time's awasting!”

Chapter Nineteen

Celine sat on a bench in the Vieux Carré, across the street from Dianah's former home, rubbing at her arms as if the humid air contained a chill wind. She hadn't felt so alone since she was six, when her mother died of the ague, and her father drank himself into a stupor and then disappeared.

The clapboard three-story house was painted the same soft yellow, the trim the same pristine white, but that was where any resemblance to the life she'd once shared with the Morgan family ended. A stranger climbed the few stairs to the wide veranda that stretched the width of the house—a veranda where she and Dianah had spent many hours. He entered the house without knocking, and why not? The place was an inn now.

Celine chewed on her bottom lip. What a vacuous place New Orleans had become. There was nothing left here for her. Accepting Justin's invitation to remain at Carlton Oaks would be sheer folly. Would she live there and dread Trevor's visits every few years? And when he showed up with a wife at his side, and children in tow, what then? Pain shot straight through her heart at the idea. Far better to start a new life in San Francisco, surrounded by people she knew and loved.

The problem now was how to get there. With only the Andrews Company ships sailing in that direction anytime soon, that route seemed out of the question. Perhaps she could take a train. Or a stagecoach. Oh, she didn't know what dangers might await a woman traveling alone. But she could not linger. Most of what little she'd made off the sale of the meager plantation her husband's family had owned had gone to a bank in San Francisco. The rest was sewn into her skirts, and that wouldn't last long.

Celine stood, brushed the front of her skirts, and walked the three blocks to Jackson Square. She sat down on another bench. A couple of street vendors looked familiar. Even though they weren't likely to remember her, she turned her head. That was her past, and she wanted nothing more to do with it.

Well, whatever she was going to do, she had to come up with something soon. Her stomach growled, but she was in no mood for food. Perhaps some coffee.

She made her way to the coffeehouse on the square. As she approached, a familiar face caught her attention. Now there was a man who might have advice to offer. Jacques Pierre was well known in the Vieux Carré for helping one obtain whatever was needed.

She approached him with a tentative smile.

He stood, pulled out another chair, and offered it to her with a gallant sweep of his small hand. He wasn't any taller than she, and close up, signs of aging etched the corners of his eyes and mouth. His temples had gone a bit gray since last she'd seen him. “Mademoiselle. May I offer you something? Anything?”

“A coffee, please.” She slid onto the seat, and after introductions and his claiming to recall her as a young girl in the French Quarter, she got directly to the point. “I need passage to San Francisco, and I was wondering if perhaps you might offer some advice. While I understand the fastest route is by sea, I am not altogether certain I wish to take that route. Unless you are aware of a ship sailing rather soon that does not belong to the Andrews Company.” Very soon. Very, very soon.

His dark eyes narrowed.

Apprehension slid under her skin. “I was hoping to take a train west, but I was told the only trains from here go east and north.”

A sharp look passed over his visage and then disappeared. He lifted his cup to his mouth. “You would not want to take the ship, oh,
non,
mademoiselle. Has no one told you the trip around the Horn is like meeting up with the devil himself?”

She set her cup down with a clink. “Whatever do you mean?” None of the Andrews men had said a word about any hardship.

Jacques Pierre gave a flip of his hand. “Oh, my, oh, my. The winds howl like a pack of wolves, and the seas ramp so high they are known to wash sailors right over the sides, never to be seen again. Sailing around the Horn is no place for you, mademoiselle, no place at all.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“Why the train, of course. It may be somewhat slower than by ship, but it is not uncomfortable like a stagecoach, nor will it cause you to fall overboard in a storm. There is, however, a bit of a predicament.”

She was about to unravel. Any minute now. She held herself steady and took a sip of her coffee. “Which is?”

“The train is booked for months ahead. However, I know someone who can secure you a ticket. It will cost a bit more, but well worth it, because you will be assured of a seat once you arrive in St. Joseph.”

“Missouri?” Oh, dear.

“Yes, mademoiselle, all trains west leave from there.”

Jacques Pierre returned some twenty minutes later and explained that he'd arranged for her to leave within the hour. She nearly collapsed when he told her the fee. There was only one thing she could do. She produced the necklace Justin had given her along with the matching earrings from Cameron. The money sewn into her skirts would hopefully last her until she reached San Francisco.

There was no mistaking the greed that passed over the man's face when he snatched up the jewelry, but Celine didn't care. She was desperate, and distressed to the point of barely being able to breathe. She could not get out of New Orleans fast enough.

 

 

The passage Jacques Pierre procured on the barge upriver was sorely inadequate. After a day's travel, no matter what the vessel's owner did to ease her discomfort, it was of no avail. The small cabin in the middle of the keelboat with its low ceiling had no door, affording Celine little privacy, and leaving her prey to mosquitoes. A quilt tossed on the hard wooden floor served as her crude bed, leaving her hips bruised and tender. Stale biscuits, dried sausages, and fruit were her only sustenance. Drinking water came from a bucket dipped in the river. After a while, she ceased her complaining, and suffered in silence, taking things one day at a time. She spent most of her hours doing nothing but staring into the dark waters of the Mississippi.

When she reached St. Joseph, she honestly wondered if the good Lord had delivered her but one small section of a brain. She'd been told, through loud guffaws, that the railroads had not yet been built past the Mississippi. In her entire life, she could not recall having had a conversation regarding the rail system or the nation's progress westward. Such worldly discussions took place in libraries, among clouds of cigar smoke and glasses of whiskey, never in withdrawing rooms filled with women who were expected to discuss the more prosaic aspects of life.

Jacques Pierre, the little rat, had tricked her out of a necklace and earrings, and left her stranded.

Three days in a small rooming house staring at the ceiling convinced her that a return to New Orleans might prove far worse than riding a stagecoach. But passage aboard the stagecoach line was booked six months in advance. Desperate, she searched for any alternative. A wagon train would depart in a week or so. She'd been told there wouldn't be another until the following spring, and that she might be able to find a family in need of funds who would allow her to join them.

Celine stood among a crowd of hopeful passengers, disheartened by their aggressive glares. She dared not skip to the front of the line for a simple inquiry, lest her actions be misinterpreted.

A foul odor crept around her. Not certain where the smell originated, she surreptitiously surveyed the area. When she turned around, she stared into the shifty eyes of an oily mop of a man and nearly gagged.

He couldn't have been more than five feet two. A baggy, homespun herringbone Sunday suit hung from his disproportionate frame. He stood with his pelvis thrust forward, the hem of his pants hanging higher in front than in back, above his scuffed boots. Dirty blond hair hung in greasy strands about a pinched face. He turned sideways at her scrutiny, hunched his shoulders, and flicked his snakelike tongue about his dry, cracked slit of a smile.

She jerked her head up to avoid staring any longer and turned toward the front of the line. But she caught the stony glare of the woman behind him before she turned—his mother?

“Where's your husband, lady?”

Celine ignored his question, and covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief.

“Ain't got one, huh? That's what I figured.” The rasp of his voice, filled with lecherous intent, slithered up her spine, and raised the hair on the back of her neck.

The silence was as disconcerting as his meddling—she knew he was not finished. “They don't let no single women on wagon trains, ain't you heard? Not less they's with family. Too much trouble.” He chuckled, a low, antagonistic wheeze.

“Leave her be, Will. She don't want your advice, son.”

So the woman standing behind him was his mother, after all. No single women on wagon trains? Celine's heart beat a drumroll in her throat. She stood only three people away from the front of the procession—she had to find a solution, and fast.

The wagon master appeared from nowhere, surveying the queue.

A tall, broad-shouldered, thick-waisted woman standing directly in front of Celine pinched the sleeve of her husband's jacket and turned around to give her a querulous frown. “That pus of a man is right—no single women allowed on wagon trains.”

“Well, what about him?” Celine questioned faintheartedly. “He's single.”

“Don't matter with men. He's got family anyway.” The woman jerked her bonneted head toward the female behind Will, then put her stiffened back to Celine.

Will's whiny mockery ran the length of her spine once again. “You can be my little sister. Can't she, Momma?” His voice turned flat, serious. “It'll cost you, though. We need the money. Bad.”

The wagon master walked the line. When he approached Celine, he paused. Even worn and wrinkled from the trip upriver, her stylish clothing was about to give her away. She held her breath, panic biting at her gut.

He drew an imaginary line in front of her with his hand. “We'll cut this group off here, ma'am. Start a new party of wagons with you and yours.”

Mutely, she nodded. He'd looked as though he was going to speak again, but he only hesitated, and then moved to the rear of the line.

She turned around, avoided the grunting little man, and introduced herself to his mother, and promptly asked about terms. She figured she could find another solution later.

The woman assessed Celine and her clothing, comparing them to her own simple cotton dress. “I'm Katarina Olssen. How're we going to pass you off as my daughter? You sure don't resemble us.”

Will snickered and dragged his sleeve across the bottom of his nose, then sniffed. “How's about something like, our father sent her off to some fancy finishing school down South 'cause she kept bothering after me?”

He let go a high-pitched giggle. He still stood hunched over and sideways, but he'd begun to pick dirt from beneath his fingernails with a pocketknife.

Celine stared at his hands, finally noticing what it was that made them so odd—the tip of each pinkie finger was missing.

Still holding the knife, he lifted both little fingers in the air and wiggled them. “Papa didn't take none to nose picking.”

Celine's riveted gaze moved up to Will's clotted nose and rheumy eyes, and bile roiled in her stomach.

His mother gave him a nudge on his shoulder. “That's enough, Will. He's right about needing the money though. And we could use an extra hand with the wagon. So if you're thinking on it, his story could hold up . . . the part about you being in finishing school, I mean. My husband's been three years mining for gold near San Francisco. He finally sent for me and Will, our youngest. Could be you decided to give San Francisco a try now that you're done with your education. It could work.”

Celine surveyed the line behind them. There had to be another family.

Katarina's brows knitted together. “How far are you headed?”

“San Francisco.”

The woman waved her hand at the crowd. “The people you see lined up here are headed in all directions. Once we reach Fort Hall, how many of them are going to be willing to take you aboard the rest of the way along the California trail?”

“Next.”

The outfitter's loud announcement startled Celine. She had to make a decision. Now. “All right, we'll figure something out.”

 

 

After countless futile inquiries as to Celine's whereabouts, Trevor finally located Jacques Pierre. The jeweler who'd made Celine's necklace and earrings notified the family that Pierre had attempted to sell the items back. Wild and angry, Trevor strode through Madame Olympée's, Cameron by his side. Grabbing the back of Jacques Pierre's neck, Trevor lifted the squealing man from his chair.

“
Merde!
You are breaking my neck,
monsieur.
Christ!”

“I'll break more than that, you little weasel.” Trevor turned to Cameron. “Escort this questionable excuse for a man to his home so he can pack. We'll be leaving immediately.”

Cameron smoothed his moustache, ever so slowly. “Can I do damage along the way?”

Red blotches mottled Pierre's cheeks. He straightened the stock tie about his neck, then reached back to rub at the pained muscles. “Leaving? Where,
monsieur?
Wh . . . what for?”

It took only Trevor's fierce expression to start him talking.

“
Non, monsieur,
I . . . I cannot go with you. I have many appointments. But I will tell you all I know, and show you the man who took her upriver. She would not be harmed by him. I assure you, he is the kindest of men. I saw to that.”