Nan Ryan (43 page)

“You are drunk!”

“Who, me?” he said with mock sanctimoniousness. “I think not!”

“I think so,” she said, and began clawing at his imprisoning fingers.

“Well, perhaps a wee bit,” said he, smiling. “And it’s your fault.”

“My fault? Really, John, can you never accept the blame for your own actions?”

Johnny shook his dark head in chagrin. “Looks like you’re really on to me.” He bowed then and said, “I, madam, accept full responsibility for everything. Further, I’ve finally realized that you do not care for me.”

“Good for you!” she said sarcastically. “Keep trying and you’ll soon be able to grasp all sorts of obvious truths.”

“Now, now,” he scolded. “Remember you’re a lady. Ladies shouldn’t be nasty to anyone.” He grinned accusingly, then announced, “To prove I’m a man of some principle, I am going away.”

Nevada’s eyes flickered. “You are?”

“I am. I know when I’m not wanted and I shall take my leave.” He urged her a bit closer. “Just one last request.”

Skeptically, “Oh, what is that?”

“Sit in on tonight’s game with me aboard the
John Hammer
. Bring me luck. I’ll win some money, then clear out and leave you in peace.” Nevada was frowning up at him and Johnny mistook her failure to reply immediately as a sign of hope. “What about it, sweetheart?” His voice dropped, softened. “Just a few hours out of the rest of your life.” He grinned a little crookedly. “You rubbing my right shoulder and leaning on—”

“Certainly not!”

Johnny blinked. “Why not?”

“You, John Roulette, are unbelievably insensitive. In forty-eight hours. I’m marrying your stepbrother. Do you really suppose I’ll dash off to gamble the night away with you as though I have no obligations?”

Nevada knew as soon as she had said it that she had chosen the wrong word.

“
Obligations
?” Johnny swiftly parroted. “Is that how you look on your evenings with old Malcolm?”

“No, of course not.” She sighed with annoyance. “I’m going to a special performance of the ballet tonight with Malcolm and Quincy and I’m looking forward to it. While you’re at the poker table, I’ll be in the Maxwell family box watching—”

“And you’ll be bored and wishing you were with me,” he stated, daring her to deny it.

She said nothing. Her thick dark lashes lowered over her blue eyes.

Johnny put his free hand beneath her chin, lifted her face. “I’ll say it again so there will never be any doubt. I love you, Nevada.”

She tried to shake her chin free, but he refused to let her.

“I love you, honey.” He fell silent then and stared at her; his eyes, brightened by the whiskey, were filled with love and longing. “If you were to fall in love with me, what would it take?”

“A magician.”

Johnny said, “I’ll find a magic wand and—”

She interrupted. “Please let me go before someone catches us together.”

Johnny nodded, smiling sadly. “Anything you say, sweetheart. I’ll leave St. Louis right after the game.”

Nevada smiled bravely. “I appreciate that, John.”

“Since I’ll have to miss your wedding, guess I’d better kiss the bride now.”

Nevada stiffened, began to struggle, and found herself easily pulled into Johnny’s embrace. Commandingly he took her in his arms, bent her head back across his cradling arm, and lowered his dark face to hers. His lips an inch from hers, so close she could smell the whiskey on his breath, he said, “Stop calling me John. I’m Johnny. Your Johnny.” His arms tightened around her, pressed her closer to his hard muscular body, “Kiss me, Nevada. Kiss your Johnny good-bye.”

40

At eight-thirty
P
.
M
. Thursday, August 9, 1877, Miss Marie Hamilton, stunningly beautiful in a gown of rich white silk painted with bouquets of flowers with a light mixture of gold in the pattern, swept regally up the grand marble staircase of St. Louis’s magnificent Theatre Royal on the arm of her tall, chestnut-haired fiancé.

The city’s elite, all in their finest, filled the big hall with its enormous crystal-blossomed chandeliers and its gold-leaf Corinthian columns topped by scrollwork. The orchestra, in a pit below center stage, played the overture while elegantly clad patrons of the arts leisurely located their seats.

In the Maxwell family box Nevada settled herself on a gilt-and-satin Louis XVI chair beneath a lighted wall sconce of French hand-blown glass roses. Her slippered feet rested on rich wine-color Savonnerie carpeting. Her bare shoulders were as smooth and white as the alabaster statuary worked in vermeil that graced the private loge jutting from the theater’s high curving walls.

From behind her jeweled fan Quincy Maxwell, seated just on the other side of her son, leaned forward and whispered, “Nod to your admiring gallery, my children. Everyone is watching.” She smiled at Nevada, then added, “Malcolm dear, why not give Marie a kiss on the cheek.”

“Certainly, mother.” Malcolm said, quickly putting an arm around Nevada’s bare shoulders and brushing his cool soft lips to her cheek in a polite caress. Nevada’s lids lowered as the scent of peppermint emanating from the slim pale man brought to mind another man, another kiss. A big dark man who had kissed her with whiskey on his breath and lips as hot as the Missouri August.

The auditorium’s massive chandeliers began to dim as the heavy scarlet curtains rose on the Frenchman Delibes’s lauded ballet,
Sylvia
.

Three miles away from the Theatre Royal, down on the riverfront, an imposing, well-lighted steamer rode the calm waters of the harbor. Gentlemen as elegantly turned out as those attending the opera climbed the long companionway of the floating vessel
John Hammer
, where the summer’s highest-stakes card game was about to be played.

Their hearts drumming with anticipation, their hopes high, the old Mississippi’s most skilled gamblers boarded the large paddlewheeler at dusk to try their luck.

The session began promptly at nine o’clock in an opulent below-decks salon where a fully stocked bar and bartender awaited. One large round green baize table with chairs for only six players dominated the richly paneled room.

An even dozen players had shown up for the game. Half would have to wait for a turn at the table. Coins were tossed to determine who got first chairs. Johnny Roulette was one.

As Johnny was taking his seat in the paneled card salon, a temperamental chef in the ship’s galley, directly forward of the salon, was angrily slamming pots and pans about, complaining that it was far too hot an evening to be frying shrimp for a “bunch of degenerate gamblers.”

Muttering to himself, the little man in the tall white hat and fresh white apron irritably dipped a large serving spoon into a pail of lard and slapped the thick grease into a waiting skillet.

Opera glasses lifted, shoulders held regally straight, her left hand held loosely within Malcolm’s, Nevada watched the French ballet and wondered cynically how many others besides herself in the vast auditorium were counting the moments until it was over.

And you’ll be bored and wishing you were with me
. Johnny’s taunting words came back to her. She was bored, damn him, and she did wish she were with him. Could she help it if sitting in on a poker game with Johnny Roulette was ten times as much fun as sitting through a dull ballet with Malcolm and his mother?

Nevada’s eyes slid closed behind the shielding opera glasses as the sobering thought flickered through her brain that all tins—the ballet, the opera, the Shakespeare Society—was to be her very life for the rest of her life and she didn’t enjoy it!

Quickly she lectured herself. She would learn to enjoy it. She’d not been raised to appreciate Malcolm’s way of life, but in time she’d grow to love it as much as he. Besides, there’d be other pleasures in her life.

A chill skipped up her spine when she couldn’t for the life of her bring to mind what those other pleasures were.

All six players were courtly, impeccably turned out, and bore the unmistakable stamp of the well-to-do. Johnny, in clothes of the smartest cut, languidly smoked a cigar while with his other hand he toyed with a stack of twenty-dollar gold pieces. His black eyes were unreadable, as they always were when he played cards.

Although generally more keenly alert than any of his opponents, Johnny was curiously distracted. His heart was just not in the game. His thoughts kept straying to the dark-haired woman whom he had kissed for the final time that afternoon in the foyer of the Lucas Place townhouse.

Preoccupied, Johnny made foolish mistakes, costly mistakes: bet when he should have folded, allowed others to take pots that ought to have been his.

Miscalculations and blunders in that kind of fast company spelled rapidly dwindling resources. After less than two hours at the table, Johnny was out of the game. Tapped out. And he didn’t particularly care.

Saying his casual good nights to the others, he left the card salon and was making his way topside when he heard a piercing scream coming from the direction of the ship’s galley. His pulse quickening, Johnny hurried down the passageway toward the sound, flung open the swinging double doors, and saw, atop the wood stove, flames from a huge cast-iron skillet shooting all the way up to the ceiling.

Finally the ballet ended. Nevada felt like giving a great shout of delight. Instead she graciously stood in the theater’s marble-floored lobby to visit with the Maxwells’ friends and acquaintances. She nodded and smiled and agreed that the performance was absolutely marvelous. And, oh, yes, how very fortunate they were to have the visiting French troop in St. Louis.

It was well past eleven when the Maxwell carriage was finally heading for home, the fully recovered Jess on the box. Nevada, spotting a bright orange glow in the night sky, pointed and said, “Malcolm, look!”

“Some sort of fire at the riverfront,” he said casually.

Nevada felt all the air leave her body. A fire on the riverfront? Johnny was at the riverfront! “Malcolm, order Jess to go there at once.”

Malcolm looked at his fiancee as though she had taken leave of her senses. “Dear, why would you want to go to the river at this hour?”

“Johnny’s there!”

Quincy spoke up. “How do you know where John Roulette is this evening?”

Ignoring the question, Nevada, addressing only Malcolm, said, “Please. You must have Jess drive to the levee.”

Malcolm began shaking his head. “Marie, even if John is down there, there’s no cause for concern. Why, there are often fires on the river and—”

“I know that! I was raised on the river and a fire aboard a riverboat can be a disaster. Tell Jess to turn toward the river!”

Old Jess didn’t wait for the command. Already he was turning, changing directions. Lifting the whip from the landau’s floorboard, the uneasy old black man flicked it smartly over the backs of the matched team and the steeds nickered loudly and picked up their pace.

The small kitchen fire became a roaring inferno within minutes. The grease-fed flames swiftly began to lick hungrily at the galley’s low ceiling. The terrified little chef and his scullery cook fled, leaving only Johnny to fight the blaze.

“Get help!” Johnny shouted over his shoulder. He shrugged out of his jacket and began beating at the flames. It was hopeless. The galley was soon totally engulfed, and flames were leaping toward the paneled salon where the engrossed poker players and a dozen onlookers were unaware of the imminent danger.

Johnny made his way through black choking smoke toward the card room, intent on saving the lives of his fellow gamblers. By the time he reached the salon an entire wall was already in flames. Rushing inside, Johnny reached one bewildered player, quickly tossed the man over his shoulder, and called to another, “This way! Follow me!”

By the time Johnny reached the deck with his burden, the entire steamer was afire. Boilers exploded. Whole buckheads blew out in the blast. Screaming, panicked people were fleeing staterooms in their nightclothes. Late-night diners were scurrying from the endangered dining hall. Desperate pleas for help filled the night air. Men from other craft in the harbor hurried forth, carrying buckets of water and shouting commands to fear-numbed passengers, urging them to jump overboard.

Johnny went back down to the fire-enveloped card salon, bent on saving the trapped players. His eyebrows singed, his face glowing with heat, he lifted an overcome gentleman—still clutching his cards—up in his arms, staggered to the burning door and up the stairs, handing his human cargo to a big, bare-chested stevedore.

Johnny shouted, “He’s unconscious but breathing,” then turned and went back below. Coughing and blinking the sweat from his eyes, Johnny again entered the burning salon. Looking frantically about, he heard a moan and started toward the sound. His hands out like a sleepwalker’s, he moved through the dense black smoke and heat. He didn’t hear the groan and creak of wood until it was too late. The burning ceiling collapsed; heavy wooden beams came crashing down, blocking the only path of escape.

Trapping Johnny in the holocaust.

Nevada offered up silent prayers as the landau clattered ever closer to the huge blaze lighting the night sky. Her heart gripped with fear, her palms clammy, she stared with fixed horror at the bright orange flames shooting high into the air.