Gwyneth Atlee Read online

  But when that “boy” pulled up short, looking so very ill at ease, he found himself shocked once more at Yvette Augeron’s audacity. He sprang out of his place among the shadows, eager to grab her before she saw him coming.

  “Run!”

  A shouted warning from the opposite side of the gangway ruined Darien’s plan. Yvette whirled around, saw him, and took off running. But because he was closer than she was to the gangway, she fled in the direction she’d come from.

  She fled with him—that insufferable blond soldier who’d interfered before. Clearly, the two of them had formed some sort of bond. Sly little bitch was probably flipping up her skirts for his protection.

  The two of them melted into the hordes perched along the deck, their dark uniforms blending into the shadows cast by the lanterns bracketed along the outer walls. He pursued, trying to keep his gaze fixed on their movement and thread his way through the men, too, but where a gap opened to Yvette and her accomplice, it as often closed for him.

  “God damn it, stand aside or I’ll have the lot of you arrested!” Darien ordered, hating the loss of his composure nearly as much as Yvette’s escape.

  “Mister, here’s your mule!” called one soldier, referring to that idiotic camp song about a farmer led on a merry chase as he searched for his errant equine.

  “Arrest away, Cap’n,” another man called, his voice slurred by liquor. “After Georgia, any federal prison’s bound to seem like paradise!”

  Tin cups were raised, and the shouts of laughter that followed served only to inflame Darien’s temper more. How in God’s name had this rabble gotten whiskey?

  From all along the deck, mischievous former prisoners took up the raucous cry.

  “Mister, here’s your mule!”

  Every goddamned one of them seemed to think himself hilarious. Their laughter made Darien want to ship the whole worthless lot back to the Southern prison camps and let the Rebels finish what they’d started.

  Ignoring them, he tripped past outstretched legs, but by the time he escaped the mob, the pair he sought had vanished like candle flames blown out by the wind.

  Again he swore and returned to guard the gangway. At least he knew she was aboard, still trapped within the crowded confines of a two-hundred-sixty-foot-long boat. Once they left Memphis, she’d have no way of escaping. No way except the cold and swollen waters of the Mississippi River in spring flood.

  Nine

  April 27,1865 Just north of Memphis, Tennessee

  It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.

  CSA general Robert E. Lee,

  to Lt. Gen. James Longstreet,

  Battle of Fredericksburg

  “Damn it!” Jacob shouted at the stern of the retreating steamboat. How was he to catch up with Zeke and his friends now?

  He could feel more blood oozing through his scalp. He tried to wipe the drip tickling his forehead, but he suspected all he’d done was smear his face. With a frustrated sigh, he turned and nearly missed another Indiana soldier who was bargaining with the owner of a skiff.

  “I have to get back aboard,” the soldier insisted. “I’ll pay you to row me.”

  The skiff’s owner, a man whose arms were corded with hard muscle, bargained with him until he set a price.

  Jacob stepped closer. “Mind if I come, too?”

  “You gotta pay,” the riverman insisted.

  “I was just jumped. They took my money.”

  “You’re still bleeding,” the soldier pointed out. Then, turning to the riverman, he said. “Go on and take us both, why don’t you? I paid you more than fair for two.”

  The skiff’s owner frowned, then glanced toward the receding steamboat. With a curse, he agreed, probably because he realized the longer he spent arguing, the farther he would have to row.

  “Much obliged,” Jacob told the other soldier. “How about a meat pie for the journey?”

  The two ate in near silence, never taking their eyes off the Sultana, which was pulling steadily away.

  * * *

  Capt. J. Cass Mason tripped on his way out of the main cabin. Pull yourself together, he admonished himself, or they’ll imagine you are drunk.

  Though he had been drinking, Mason was a man who knew his limits—and his boat’s. The thought chilled him that this crowd may have exceeded the Sultana’s.

  A steamboat was a fragile means of transportation. Few survived as many as five years. They hit snags and sank. They caught fire and burned. They blew apart in spectacular explosions. The only strategy for a riverboat captain was quick profit. Pay for the vessel and bank every cent you could so you could build a new one when she died.

  The war had interfered with that bold plan. Mason had no savings, only a meager one-sixteenth share in the Sultana.

  As he made his way toward the stairs that would take him to his quarters, a nightmare vision rose before his eyes. Bodies floating in the river, illuminated only by the hellish flickering of a burning hulk.

  His mouth went dust dry in spite of the drink he’d just imbibed.

  One of the prisoners, a lieutenant, asked Mason if he knew a spot to sleep.

  Ignoring the question, Mason said only, “I’d give all the interest I have in this boat if only we were safe in Cairo now.”

  * * *

  Yvette didn’t know how much time had passed before her shaking subsided enough to allow her the power of speech. It seemed an eternity, hiding in a place that felt nearly as dangerous as the gangway. She wondered, Would there ever be a time when she felt safe again?

  “Can’t we find somewhere else? It smells bad here.” Yvette wrinkled her nose at the pungent odors of horse sweat and manure.

  The culprits, tethered so close that she felt the heat radiating from their bodies, shifted on restless hooves. They loomed frighteningly in Yvette’s vision, gigantic shapes carved from the darkness. As a child, her ribs had been badly bruised by a kick from Pierre’s pet pony. She’d been suspicious of all equines ever since.

  The nearest of the animals nickered and flung its huge head up and down. Yvette flinched and took a step back, into the wall of Gabe’s chest.

  “Shh. It’s all right.” Despite his quick and heavy breaths tickling her ear, Gabe’s voice was calm and reassuring.

  Yvette wondered if he meant to soothe the horses or her. She was surprised by the way his words formed misty puffs along the outside border of her vision. After running in the woolen uniform, she felt so warm, so damp with perspiration, that she hadn’t noticed that the temperature had dropped.

  “We can’t very well stay here all night,” she told him. Following his lead, she pitched her voice lower. “I have to get off now, while there’s still time.”

  “Look, Yvette.” He reached over her shoulder to point toward the lights on shore, which were receding. “You’ve already missed your chance.”

  She forced herself to stillness, noticed for the first time the familiar churning of the paddle’s blades, the deep rumble of the engines, and the steamboat’s forward motion. Down here on the main deck, the sounds were louder, so much so that she could not imagine why they’d failed to register before.

  The two of them had found a section of deck reserved for cargo, not all of which had been offloaded in Memphis. They had slipped past a sleeping guard to hide among the horses and mules being transported.

  “I-I don’t much care for horses,” she admitted. Gently, she set down the handbasket with Lafitte. Thankfully, the kitten had grown quiet.

  “Could’ve been worse, Yvette. They drove off the pigs in Memphis.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “They’re so awfully huge. I-I’m afraid of them.”

  His arms wound around hers to cross her body, and she felt his solidity behind her. Bolstering her strength and courage, making her own breath puff out in swifter plumes. Making her conscious of the effect their nearness was having on his body, the growing hardness that pressed against her. She felt reassured and
excited all at once, and far less mindful of the horses, which had by now grown complacent in their presence.

  She shifted her arm to swing around the reticule she had tied behind her back, beneath the dark blue jacket. When it no longer lay between them, she leaned toward him once more, enjoying his quiet gasp beside her ear. Enjoying the way fear melted with the tingling heat ignited by his warm breath, only to ripple through her body, everywhere.

  She could not suppress a sigh, as if she’d stepped into a warm bath on a frigid day.

  “Still frightened?” Gabe whispered. The words kissed at her ear, or was that the heat of his lips instead?

  Some part of her looked on in disbelief. Here they stood, among a score of dozing horses, hiding from a man who meant to have her hung. Yet her body still took pleasure from this illicit contact, this man’s loving touch.

  He must be caught up in the spell of it as well, for his lips traveled along her neck. His hands reached up beneath the army jacket. And then he held her breasts, which no other man had ever touched. He seemed to scoop and lift them, and his fingertips played lightly at their almost painfully hard tips.

  “Mon Dieu . . .” she whispered, her whole weight leaning backward, her whole being possessed with this new pleasure. And she knew in that moment there would be no pretense of denial, no abandoning whatever little miracle had taken hold aboard this boat. She would lie down if he asked her, right here among the horses’ steel-shod hooves, for she would rather die of trampling than live without fully understanding what love offered.

  She turned, suddenly desperate to kiss his mouth, to know how it felt to touch him, too. But in a moment, he grasped her hands to stop her, then pulled away his lips.

  “Yvette, honey,” he whispered. “You have to stop now. We have to stop before I can’t.”

  “What if . . . what if I don’t want to?”

  “Hiding here won’t do us much good if we spook the horses.” She could hear, rather than see, the smile behind his words.

  He let go of her hands so he could hold her, then bent to kiss her head. “You deserve better than this—”

  Tears made the receding lights of Memphis swim in Yvette’s vision, and she felt the breeze of their passage chill her face. “What if we never get the chance at anything better? What if Russell captures me before I reach my uncle?” He squeezed her tighter to him. “I won’t let that happen. I swear it, Yvette.”

  She shook her head, suddenly feeling desolate. “Russell planted evidence. He left the poison in my room. No one in New Orleans believes I didn’t kill that lieutenant. They didn’t even want to see my proof. They’re going to hang me, Gabriel. And I don’t want to die without being with you first, without knowing—”

  “You won’t die,” he interrupted, as if he were convinced his words could make the situation better. As if he thought his love could stop the future from opening before them, a somber banner unfurled by a baneful wind.

  She laid her head against his shoulder, felt the itchy wool against her face, the way her tears dampened the fibers.

  “Say you’ll come with me to Oregon,” Gabe told her, his every word throbbing with his need. “Say you don’t care that I’m a Yankee and you don’t mind that I couldn’t kill that boy in Tennessee. Tell me that you’ll marry me, Yvette. I don’t care if you don’t mean it; I want to hear it from you, anyway. Give us both a future we can look forward to tonight . . . even if it isn’t real.”

  She pulled away from him, but her hands sought his. Her hands, which, like the rest of her, hesitated to break their connection. “I couldn’t lie to you. I couldn’t do that to myself. Can’t you feel how much I want you? I don’t care about those other things— where you’re from and what you did or didn’t do before we met. I think people must change into something different in war, something separate from their better nature. I know that I did, but I’ve only seen it in these past few days. I’ve only noticed it since meeting you.”

  He withdrew a hand to touch her cheek. “You’re not like me. You’re innocent.”

  She shook her head once more. “I didn’t kill Lieutenant Simonton. But I am guilty. Of being jealous of my sister’s love. Jealous enough to bring the whole world crashing down upon our heads.”

  “But you were right about Captain Russell, weren’t you?”

  “I was right, yes, but my reasons were all wrong. And I was wrong about a lot of other things as well. But I’m not wrong in saying this. I love you, and I’d give anything for the chance to marry you. If only I hadn’t thrown away that chance before I knew you.”

  “You said that you had proof, Yvette. Proof that Captain Russell is not the man he claims to be.”

  “I do. I have it right here with me, and when— if—I can get it to my uncle, he might know how to make the Yankees listen.”

  “Will it prove your innocence as well?”

  She shook her head. “Non, it cannot do that. It can only cast suspicion on my chief accuser.”

  “Then come with me. Don’t risk it!”

  She shook her head once more. “I must do this . . . for my sister. And I must do it for myself. I could never be happy in Oregon, even with you, if I failed to make the murderer pay.”

  “Then I’m going to help you,” he answered. “I swear, I’ll never leave your side.”

  She wasn’t certain whether his words increased her burden or relieved it. Though she could hardly bear to think of him hurt or imprisoned on her behalf, some part of her exulted that she would not have to go through this alone. That she would not have to die alone, if that came to pass.

  Selfish, that desire. To have someone who loved her in the end. Too selfish, for in the end she would be just as dead as if she were alone.

  And she would destroy this kind man, too.

  What sort of woman was she to even think of causing him such grief? The thought shamed her, so deeply that she knew that she must say no.

  But not yet. Not now, while he was holding her so tightly. Not when this man’s touch might be her last.

  With the thought, waves of exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her. The hour was very late, and her day had been so troubled.

  So was it too much to ask that she should rest now? Rest and let him hold her before she said good-bye.

  * * *

  The skiff owner grunted at Jacob’s thanks. The hour was late, and the row out to the coaling barge had apparently drained him of whatever civility he might possess.

  The Indiana infantryman scrambled aboard the Sultana but paused to offer Jacob a hand.

  “I appreciate you talking him into letting me come, too,” Jacob told him.

  The two edged along the crowded deck. Jacob looked for an opening that would eventually lead him to his friends and hoped there would be room for him to lie down.

  The infantryman turned, clearly intent on another path. “After all we’ve been through, seems like every mother’s son of us ought to make it home.”

  * * *

  As his hand stroked her back, Gabriel thought how Yvette’s situation was yet another tragedy of war. So fine a woman, with her beautifully made dresses and her fancy stateroom, ought not to have to hide amid the livestock tethered near the stern. She ought not to have to lean against a ragged soldier, either, and a damned poor excuse for one at that.

  “I love you, and I’d give anything for the chance to marry you.”

  Strange how little comfort her admission brought him. He felt like another Yankee looter taking advantage of her dire straits. Because that’s what he had done, was doing even now. He knew damned well that even though his family had prospered during this war, he didn’t have the kind of pedigree her family would demand. He knew it as soon as he had heard her speak and had noticed the expensive trim of the violet dress she had been wearing when he met her.

  Certainly he loved her, but was taking advantage of her gratitude and desperation right? Or could their connection, which both had felt almost from the first, transcend their different backgroun
ds and the terrible things both had experienced?

  He tightened his hold on her and kissed her temple. Though he’d imagined she was dozing, she answered softly, with a murmured sigh. And in that sigh he heard others in their future, ten thousand sighs of pleasure in the wake of making love.

  There might be at least that many reasons why this love between them could not work, but her one sigh was enough. For on the power of its promise, he knew he would stand by her and do whatever he must to keep her safe from harm.

  “You there!” Deep with authority, the voice boomed in the dark stillness.

  A nearby horse tossed back its head and snorted with the suddenness of the interruption. Its warm breath formed twin plumes of steam. Another shifted restlessly, and the lantern light flickered across its rolling eyes.

  He felt Yvette stiffen, more frightened than the animals around them. For an instant, he wondered if she might bolt and climb over the railing. But after her initial jolt, she stood stock-still, as if that would hide her.

  “Come out of there and get back with your unit,” the guard ordered.

  “Just trying to keep warm near the horses,” Gabe lied as he turned toward the man. He glanced behind him and saw Yvette, her head lowered as if to hide her face.

  “This boy’s teeth were chattering so loud I couldn’t sleep,” Gabe explained. “Thought this might be a good place to take him till he got to feeling better. It’s almost toasty here.”

  The guard took a step nearer and peered over Gabe’s shoulder at Yvette. The dark beard wagged as he nodded.

  “Had a hard time of it, haven’t you, son?” The deep baritone resonated with both sympathy and anger. “Those bastard traitors ought to be lined up and shot for what they did to all you fellows. Bet you’d pull the trigger if you could. Wouldn’t you, boy?”

  A pause stretched taut as he waited for an answer. Gabe prayed that Yvette wouldn’t choose this moment to rail against Yankee atrocities. Finally, as Gabe prepared to spin some yarn about the “poor boy’s” muteness, she murmured her agreement.