Elizabeth Grayson (3 page)

She’d seized the opportunity Chase Hardesty offered—and refused to become his wife. Had she been right to do that, to throw away the only chance she might ever have of securing a name for her child? A name that wasn’t Rossiter?

A shudder slid the length of her back.

As if she could outrun her own uncertainty, Ann paced from one end of the room to the other, paused at the wide double doors and pressed her ear to the wood. Chase Hardesty must be in her stepfather’s study, facing up to James Rossiter and explaining—she hoped—that he wasn’t going to marry her. He should be telling the commodore that no matter how compelling the inducement, Chase wouldn’t take another man’s leavings.

The truth of that assessment made her belly flutter. She bent and peered through the keyhole, but the hall was empty. She couldn’t even hear the sound of voices.

Ann straightened and paced, making a circuit of the room again. She stopped at the window and peered down the street. She had to be sure Chase didn’t leave without her knowing, but except for a carter delivering wood, the street was empty. She crossed her arms and chafed her hands up and down her sleeves, trying to dispel the chill that seeped through her.

She could scarcely believe what had passed between Mr. Hardesty and her during the last half hour, how they’d stood right here discussing a marriage between them as if she were goods to be bought and sold and his good name could be hawked to the highest bidder. They had talked with remarkable candor about her condition, and what he’d been offered to make her his wife. He’d been honest about his ambition, and she’d said as much about her reticence as she could.

She didn’t know what it was that made him give her the chance to decide her fate, but she was grateful. She’d done what was best for all of them—for her and Mr. Hardesty and her unborn child. It wouldn’t have been right to embroil a man of Mr. Hardesty’s evident scruples in her stepfather’s machinations.

She curled her hand around the curve of her belly. She’d find her own way to protect this baby—if Mr. Hardesty just held to his convictions. If the commodore accepted Chase’s refusal. If she could find a way to escape this house before her stepfather drummed up another suitor who’d prove less accommodating than Chase Hardesty—

Just then, the man himself emerged from the town house and took the row of limestone steps two at a time. Ann leaned close to the window, trying to discern from the set of his shoulders and the expression on his face how things had gone with the commodore.

As he reached the iron gate, Chase paused and turned. He looked back at the town house as if he knew she’d be waiting.

Her first impulse was to shrink back out of sight. Instead she pressed her hand to the glass until fuzzy moons of condensation formed beneath her fingertips. Across the patch of winter-yellowed grass, Chase’s gaze held her own. He knew why she was there and what she wanted to know.

He lifted one eyebrow and gave her a quick conspiratorial smile that confirmed that at no small price to himself, he’d told her father he wouldn’t marry her.

Relief spilled through her, warming her, making her throat burn and her eyes blur with tears. She drew one long, shuddery breath and then another.

Her gaze lingered in the sea-dark depths of his eyes. She wished she could tell him how grateful she was, how much she appreciated that a man she’d never seen before today would sacrifice his chance to be master of the
Andromeda
for her sake.

She inclined her head, holding the pose to indicate her deep appreciation. He gave a quick acknowledging nod, settled a broad-brimmed hat over his curly hair, then turned up Lucas Place. With long, sure strides, he stalked off in the direction of the river. As he did, there was about him an almost electric vitality, a stark, brazen confidence that came from sneering in the face of caution.

She’d done that, too, but she wasn’t energized by it the way Chase Hardesty seemed to be. She didn’t feel stalwart and dauntless. She was scared to death.

She watched Chase’s progress down the block clinging to what confidence she could borrow from him, but when he disappeared around the corner, he took her courage away with him.

She stood at the window shivering and feeling unbearably alone. She was pregnant, without resources, and facing the greatest challenge of her life. She needed to flee this house and make a life for herself and her child.

If only she had some idea how to do that....

CHASE FOUND HIS BROTHER RUBEN WAITING OUTSIDE Mason Baxter’s riverfront saloon.

“How’d your meeting with the commodore go?” the slighter, darker man asked him, rocking a little on his feet.

“Interesting,” Chase answered, giving nothing away.

“You hear anything about our berths?” It was going to be Rue’s first season as a licensed pilot, and he was even more fidgety than usual.

“No,” Chase answered, looking out across nearly thirty yards of cobblestone paving to where the bronze-green river lapped at the toes of the levee.

The Mississippi was arguably the longest and the most important waterway on the continent, and more than half a hundred steamers of all sizes and configurations were tied up and bobbing in the stiff spring current. Men swarmed over the boats, finishing up a bit of painting and polishing, hoisting cargo nets and scurrying up gangways, loading goods for the first run of the new shipping season.

Chase nodded in satisfaction at their industry. Like every pilot who’d been dry-docked all winter, he wanted to get underway.

“The assignments won’t be posted ’til midday tomorrow,” he said for Rue’s sake. “So there’s no sense getting all wrought up about which boat you’ll be on. You’ll do fine.”

At Chase’s reassurance, Rue seemed to settle some, though not a minute later his brother nudged him with his elbow. “You ever see anything so pretty?” Rue all but purred.

Chase turned to where a brand-new stern-wheeler was swinging across the current to tuck into an empty slip between two veteran steamers.

“Bright as a new penny, she is,” Rue continued, never taking his eyes off the boat.

“Yes.”

“Graceful as swifts winging at twilight. Just imagine how that sweetheart would respond under your hand.”

Chase could imagine. Every riverman dreamed about piloting a riverboat as sleek and fast as this one, dreamed about easing her into an upstream crossing and feeling her skim across the current. Dreamed about standing tall in the wheelhouse and surveying the world from bank to bank.

He slid a glance in Rue’s direction and read those same aspirations in his brother’s eyes.

Then Chase recognized the Gold Star emblem entwined with the wrought-iron cross braces that stabilized the steamer’s two towering chimneys. Even before he read the name emblazoned in dark blue and gold across the front of the pilothouse, he knew what ship this was.

It was the
Andromeda.

Regret caught him hard. His stomach dropped. His chest ached in a way that must be somewhat akin to a broken heart. If he’d agreed to marry the commodore’s daughter, this steamer—this magnificent steamer— would have been his.

Chase jammed his hands into his trouser pockets and muttered a string of curses under his breath. Had he been a fool to refuse Rossiter’s offer? Had he been a bigger one to allow Ann Rossiter to decide his fate?

Standing toe to toe with him in the parlor, she’d seemed so confident, so sure she knew what was best for her and her child.
She seemed so sure she knew what was
best for all of them.

But when he’d come out of the town house and seen her waiting at the window for an indication of how things had gone with her father, she hadn’t seemed all that certain. She’d looked scared, hollow-eyed—and unbearably fragile.

The same clutch of concern he’d experienced earlier nipped his belly. What was it about the expression in Ann Rossiter’s eyes that made him feel as if he had abandoned her?

Chase scowled and shoved the impression away. He’d done exactly what she asked him to do. That was the end of it.

He sauntered down the levee toward where the
Andromeda
was tying up. The boat seemed to be everything the commodore had promised. Her hull was sleek and black, narrow enough to slice through the current like a blade. Her decks rose in perfectly proportioned tiers, their graceful promenades inviting passengers to linger and enjoy the river breeze. Each post and railing was adorned with brass or paint or some doodad or another. A prim fringe of carpenter’s lace dripped from the lip of the pilothouse roof, giving the place a hint of refinement.

Rue trailed Chase. “Have you heard who gets command of her?”

“Command of the
Andromeda?”
Chase echoed. For a split second he was tempted to tell Rue about Ann Rossiter and her father’s extraordinary offer. Instead he shrugged the inquiry away.

“Well, whoever it is,” Rue’s voice was tinged with awe, “he’s one lucky bastard!”

“Oh, hell,” a voice drawled from directly behind where the two of them were standing. “It’s just another damned steamer.”

“There’s nothing so special about them Gold Star tubs,” someone else put in, “even if their crews do like to claim there is.”

Annoyance spiked up Chase’s back. Beside him Rue bristled in disagreement.

“I’d as soon pilot a barber’s basin as one of them.”

Chase and Rue both swung around to where Philo McKee, John Rogers, and Big Teddy Peterson stood amidst the gaggle of businessmen, passengers, and roustabouts who’d gathered to gawk at the handsome new steamer. All three were pilots for the Anchor Line and were well-known along the St. Louis riverfront as men who spent their off hours looking for trouble.

Chase figured a little trouble was just the thing to dampen his disappointment.

Rue fell right in with his line of thinking. “I’d say the
Andromeda
is about as well set up as any boat I’ve ever seen!” he challenged. “I’d be willing to bet she could outrun any tub the Anchor Line cared to put up against her!”

John Rogers braced his hands on his hips and spat. “So you think this new packet’s fast enough to give the Anchor Line steamers a run for their money, do you, Hardesty?”

Chase barged into the argument. “You put Rue or me in the wheelhouse and let Cal Watkins handle the boilers, and we’d show you a race. You’d be chasing our wake all the way to Alton.”

“Hell, I admit that new scow can probably maneuver from one sandbar to the next”—Big Teddy gave a snort of disgust—“but none of the Gold Star boats has a chance of showing stern water to an Anchor Line packet.”

“The hell you say!” Rue shouted and punched Big Teddy square in the nose.

Chase instantly raised his fists. This wasn’t the first riverfront brawl his brother had started, and he was purely looking forward to joining in. He got his guard up just in time to keep John Rogers from taking off his head.

With his ears buzzing from Rogers’ blow, Chase staggered back a step. He’d only just regained his balance when Philo McKee blindsided him.

Twisting and grunting with the effort, Chase heaved the redheaded giant backwards. McKee staggered and caught his heels on a coil of rope. He tumbled, howling curses as he went down.

Chase had no more than a moment to stand grinning over McKee before John Rogers came at him again. He scrambled for footing on the uneven stones, and prodded Rogers with his left. The other man feinted right. Chase saw his opening and smashed an uppercut through Rogers’ guard.

Rogers went down like a pile of bricks.

Chase danced back a step, shock waves shimmying up his arm.

More than a dozen men had jumped into the fray. Businessmen grappled with roustabouts. Passengers battered one another with their valises. The waterfront taverns spewed drunkards into the midst of the brawl. More men pelted up the levee from where the Illinois ferry was docking.

Philo McKee plowed into Chase again. The two of them went down, thumping and flailing.

McKee grazed Chase’s cheekbone with one beefy fist, then landed a bruiser that all but buckled his ribs. Gasping and rabid, Chase fought for breath. He hammered his knuckles into the other man’s face.

McKee’s nose began to bleed, smearing both of them with red. They kept on punching.

The brawlers roved between the buildings and the waterline, moaning and growling like mongrel dogs. Many of them had been idle all winter and were spoiling for a fight. Everyone else just seemed to catch the spirit. They were a punching, gouging, mass of men thoroughly enjoying themselves, until three sharp, shrill blasts of a policeman’s whistle sliced through the babble.

Chase pushed back on his haunches from where he’d pinned McKee. McKee stopped thrashing beneath him. The men around them lifted their heads.

Two policemen came running down Wharf Street. Several more burst out of one of the old stone warehouses that hemmed the waterfront. A paddy wagon with more police rumbled around the corner at Market Street.

The fight broke up as if by magic. With a few last shoves, the brawlers scattered.

Chase stumbled to his feet. He grabbed Rue by the collar and dragged the smaller man up the levee. They ducked behind a head-high pallet of barrels and struggled to catch their breath.

Chase braced his hands on his knees, panting. “Someday that damn Creole temper of yours is going to get both of us killed,” he gasped. His side throbbed as if he’d been kicked by a mule.

Rue swiped blood from his split lip and grinned. “I can’t help that my mama was a high-spirited octoroon and yours was some prissy white lady.”

In truth, Chase didn’t know who his real mother was, or his real father, either. When he was about three, Enoch Hardesty had found him huddled in the ash-filled firebox of a burned out cabin. As far as he knew there’d been no sign of his folks. Not a soul for ten miles around knew the family who’d built the cabin, much less whether they had kin to look after the half-starved toddler.

Because he hadn’t known what else to do, Enoch had brought Chase home to Lydia. They’d had a baby of their own not long before, and Enoch figured it was as easy for Lydia to raise up two children as it was one.