Gwyneth Atlee Page 9

  “We have a saying in the Quarter,” Yvette continued. “Chacun sait ce qui bout dans son chaudron. ‘Everyone knows what boils in his own pot’ is the translation, but we use it to mean there are no secrets within society. Marie’s secret didn’t last long, so of course the only proper thing to do was see the couple wed. Even Maman, who hates Yankees more than a dog hates fleas, could see the necessity of that. Everyone could . . . except for me.”

  Gabe almost felt sorry for the captain. Little as he knew of Yvette, he suspected she could be a formidable adversary. The kitten leapt from her lap and rubbed across Gabe’s lower legs.

  “I mentioned how many families Captain Russell had befriended who had so suddenly fallen on hard times, but Papa was quite taken with him all the same. Still, I wondered more and more about the man. I suspected he was meeting Marie in secret, spending time alone with her, yet he did not offer for her hand. I . . . I began asking among the servants.”

  A brief smile lifted the corners of her mouth and touched her eyes with genuine affection. “But if it is true there are few secrets in society, there are fewer still among the quadroon nurses, the old house slaves, and cooks. Before very long, a letter came into my hands. A letter from this Captain Russell . . . to his wife.”

  Gabriel felt outrage as he imagined an older, married man trifling with one of his two sisters. He would pound the fellow into paste. Lacking the brute strength to do that, he wondered what Yvette had done and how it could have led to a criminal charge and a northward flight.

  “As bad a shock as that was,” Yvette continued, “the letter also confirmed my true suspicions. Captain Russell gave instructions to his wife on how to access the accounts of the Gayarrée family’s recent New York investments. I know little of such things, but even I could guess this letter would cause the captain a great deal of trouble.”

  “What happened?”

  She poured each of them a glass of water from the pitcher. After sipping at hers, she continued. “My first thoughts were for Marie, of course. Before I showed anyone, even Papa, this terrible letter, I had to speak to her. It was very difficult. Marie imagined I had written it myself and forged Captain Russell’s name. She accused me of being jealous that she would wed while I would never—”

  “How could she say that?” Gabe asked. “You’re so beautiful, and you’re her sister, after all.”

  Yvette lifted a hand to stop him. “You are very kind to protest, but perhaps you have guessed already the cost of one mistake. For a young man such as yourself, there may be a second chance, but for a proper young lady—”

  “What’d you do? Use the wrong fork at some fancy dinner party?” He offered her a smile, eager to lift her sadness.

  She shrugged to indicate indifference, then raised an eyebrow, as if in amusement. “Perhaps I understated the number of mistakes I have made. And certainly Marie overestimated their importance. But now, mon Dieu, now there is no hope at all for a good marriage. Not after that monster’s accusations.”

  Lafitte rubbed against Gabe’s lower legs and mewed. He rubbed its ears. To quiet it, he told himself. He didn’t want its noise to drown out Yvette’s soft voice or perhaps draw the attention of a passerby outside the door.

  “Did you ever convince your sister to believe you?” he asked.

  “I did not think so at the time. She begged me to let her speak to this man she claimed she loved, to give him a chance to tell her this was all some terrible mistake, I suppose. I told her I would go to the Union lieutenant I had learned was investigating Russell.” She shook her head. “If only I had done just that . . . But Marie began to cry then, and she begged me.”

  Yvette pressed her fingertips above her eyes once more, as if the memory pained her. Her jaw quivered, and Gabe heard her teeth chatter. Just as his had when he’d leapt into the frigid river after Matthew and when he’d seen his brother’s face above a stranger’s Rebel uniform. Mute tears slid down her cheeks, and at their appearance, Gabe rose and went to her.

  She glanced up at him, her eyes full of such fear and desperation that he didn’t hesitate a moment. Instead, he took her hand and drew her toward him, let her sob while encircled by his arms.

  “I would have done it, anyway, but Marie—she said she was with child. She was hysterical, screaming that she would rather take her life than face such a scandal. She wanted desperately to believe the letter was some sort of fabrication, that he would marry her once he knew of her condition.”

  “So you didn’t go to the lieutenant?” Gabe asked. He felt her head shake against his chest.

  “God forgive me, I did not. I had to give Marie her chance. And then she disappeared . . . within the day. Two days later, she was pulled out of the Mississippi River. But two days wasn’t long enough to obliterate the bruises on her throat.”

  “He killed her,” Gabe said flatly. The scheming bastard had murdered a naive young woman—and the mother of his child.

  Yvette nodded. “Killed her—and the lieutenant, too. When I tried to see him, I found his body lying on the carpet of his office. And I know that Captain Russell plans to kill me also to keep his secret safe.”

  Dear Lord, how she had suffered, how she was suffering right now. He wanted so badly to fix it for her, to keep her safe and see her sister and the other man avenged. But neither was in his power, so instead he let her lean into his strength and weep.

  How right it felt to hold her, and how natural, though he couldn’t recall the last occasion he’d held a woman so very close. He bowed his head and brushed her jet-black crown with his lips, but gently, very gently, so that she would not pull away. Comforting this woman, who had eased his pain such a short time before, felt like a balm for all that ailed him, a salve upon his soul.

  To his utter amazement, she lifted her face toward his, as if her lips felt drawn by the same force that seemed to pull his own. He kissed her, once again feeling some soul-deep connection, feeling her woman’s curves against him, imagining her opening like pale magnolia petals.

  His body responded to her need with want, to her softness with almost painful hardness. His mind reacted, too, part of it appalled by the recklessness of this attraction, part of it realizing that for all their differences, their losses had a striking similarity. Her sister, his brother. Her Louisiana, his Ohio home. As long as the kiss lasted, he felt convinced that both were dim reflections of something stronger that had been touched off by their connection. When she broke the kiss, he felt diminished, a fragment of that newfound, greater self.

  “That was very foolish,” Yvette said, though she seemed to be admonishing herself, not him. Despite her words, she did not step out of his embrace. “I thought that perhaps I’d grown beyond such rashness.”

  He touched her cheek and gently kissed her temple, then smiled as he felt a shudder ripple through her. “It didn’t feel at all foolish,” he whispered in her ear. But he knew exactly what she meant.

  “Each of us has trouble enough alone,” Yvette declared. This time, she turned away.

  Gabe felt her absence, as sharp as pain. Lust, he told himself. No more than physical lust. A stallion felt it for every mare it scented. What he felt could mean nothing more.

  Yet he could not still his reckless tongue. “Each of us needs a friend now.”

  She risked a cautious smile, though it vanished quickly. “I have had many friends, Monsieur, family friends and young ladies from the convent school. That did not feel like friendship. It felt like something other, something we must not allow.”

  He returned her smile. “I’ll admit, it felt like something other to me, too. Something very . . . pleasant.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “I watched another Yankee ruin poor Marie. I’ll be cursed if I learned nothing from her error.”

  Offense wiped the smile from his face. “You take me for a Captain Russell?”

  She did not immediately answer. Instead, she studied him keenly. His anger and disappointment steeped a bitter brew. How could
he have imagined she’d see past this uniform, that the kisses she’d bestowed meant more than either impulsiveness or pity?

  He turned for the door and unlocked it. Her silence gave him all the answer that he needed.

  The door was halfway open before she caught him by the elbow. “You have to understand how hard this is for me. I have never kissed a man before today.” Color rose into her face with the admission. “I scarcely know how I feel about it. Except that . . .”

  She turned him toward her, then leaned against the door until it once again clicked shut, isolating both of them amid a crowd of thousands.

  “Except that what?” he prompted.

  She glanced up at him through her long lashes. “Except that I am frightened and alone for the first time in my life, and I can’t imagine I am thinking very clearly.”

  “Must be brain fever,” Gabe told her, despising the irritation in his voice, hating the fact that her admission so disturbed him. “Only a damned fool would want anything to do with a man like me. I hope you get your troubles ironed out, Yvette. I hope you get to go back home again. But until you manage that, I hope our kiss will give you something to remember. Something to make you wish for more than lonely nights.”

  Without waiting for her reply, he strode out of the room, pausing only long enough to hear the door lock in his wake.

  * * *

  After Gabe sent for the head steward, he wondered if Seth had been right. Maybe he was only tempting trouble. As if he found it preferable to returning home. He held on to the thought, picked it up, and turned it, examining the possibility from every angle.

  Despite the unpleasantness he knew he’d face from his father, he didn’t want to die. The dream of Oregon glittered brightly as a star on his horizon. His inheritance from his grandmother’s estate, though modest, would be enough to get him there, half a world away from Father’s ever-present, unasked question: Why in God’s name did you live instead of Matthew?

  With that thought came relief that no one in Oregon would know he’d had a younger brother. No one there would wonder why he hadn’t gotten to Matthew in time, dragged him out from that hole in the ice, and brought him home. No one would ever ask why, unable to be the hero, he had instead run like a coward in the war.

  Gabe swallowed past the painful lump of his delusions. At the edge of the Pacific, no one would know what happened. No one except him. The harsh truths of his life would shadow his journey across the continent like a pack of hungry wolves, always waiting for him to stumble so they could pounce and savage him.

  The thought angered Gabe. He’d had a bellyful of running. Whatever slunk up behind him, he’d rather turn around and fight. Why else would he have left a safe deck to scout another place to sit? Why else did he feel the need to help Yvette with her problems?

  Gabe glanced around uneasily. If either Capt. Darien Russell or Silas Deming caught him before he made it back upstairs, he’d have the opportunity to see how much he really wanted trouble. After about fifteen minutes, the head steward finally met him outside the main cabin. A slight man with a thick, white mustache, he looked distinctly annoyed.

  “We’re very busy settling in deck passengers and the officers. Before you ask, I cannot do a thing about the overcrowding or the distribution of your rations. Those are military matters. My concern lies mainly with our civilian passengers. So tell me quickly, what is this important matter you must discuss?”

  “One of the lady passengers, a civilian,” Gabe emphasized, “confided in me that she is experiencing a, ah—delicate problem with one of the high-ranking officers aboard, a Captain Russell. Apparently, she— ah, discouraged his attentions some months ago, and ever since he has been sending her alarming notes, troubling her on the streets, and so forth. Finally, she decided to flee north to stay with family for some time. Unfortunately, he followed her on board the Sultana.”

  “Have there been problems here?” the steward asked, his irritated expression dissolving into interest.

  “I saw him grab the girl myself. I think he might have harmed her if I hadn’t been able to distract him. Of course, since he’s a captain, this is an awkward problem. I’m afraid he may invent some wild story and convince crew members to help him search the staterooms.”

  “He most certainly will not!” The steward’s voice bristled with indignation, and he straightened his spine, adding half an inch to his modest height. “I will alert the cabin crew immediately that no information may be shared and no civilian passengers disturbed.”

  “The young lady will be very grateful.”

  The steward peered up at Gabe, his sharp-eyed gaze appraising. “You’re a fine young man to stick your neck out for a stranger. Wait here. I’ll bring you something for your trouble.”

  “That’s all right, I—” Gabe began, but the older man whisked away.

  Once again, Gabe peered nervously up and down the deck and hoped to heaven that none of the men crowded nearby had overheard his story. If any of them related it, he could add military prison to his list of worries. He realized now that Yvette had never said what crime she’d been accused of committing. If he were abetting someone charged with something serious in nature, he might even be risking a hanging.

  And for what? For those brief moments that their kisses felt like something real? Those moments before she’d wondered aloud how she could allow herself to feel attraction to a Yankee?

  He shook his head, disgusted with his own foolishness. Not wanting to risk staying here another moment, he started toward the stairway.

  “Wait!” someone called from behind him.

  Gabe’s pulse roared in his ears until he realized it was only the old steward with the flowing white mustache. Noticing the covered basket the man carried and the delicious scents that rose from it, Gabe could not suppress a grateful grin.

  Food. He’d never tire of eating, but this meal would be shared with his friends.

  If he could make it back up to the hurricane deck without being hurled overboard or arrested.

  Six

  Wednesday, April 26, 1865 On the Mississippi River, North of Helena, Arkansas

  On the Avenue in front of the White House were several hundred colored people, mostly women and children, weeping and wailing their loss. This crowd did not diminish through the whole of that cold, wet day; they seemed not to know what was to be their fate since their great benefactor was dead. . . .

  —Gideon Wells,

  after the death of Abraham Lincoln

  The Sultana had to fight the river’s current to carry them northward, just the way Gabe fought his misgivings every mile of the trip. Everything about the journey felt precarious, from the possibility of Rebel snipers to the enemies aboard the steamer and his ill-advised attraction to a Southern woman.

  He’d tried so hard to put Yvette out of his mind, to focus on the problems at hand instead of those his attraction to her represented. This morning, he’d succeeded, at least for a while, when they’d had that scare back near Helena. Someone had shouted out that a photographer was taking their picture from the shore, and every fool aboard had crowded to the port side, trying to get his face into the photograph. Top-heavy with prisoners, the steamer had listed over so far that it nearly capsized. The officers quickly shouted orders for the men to keep their places for the duration of the journey. But sticking to one spot was difficult, especially with the lack of the barest requirements for human comfort.

  In spite of both the scare and the conditions, it was hard not to take cheer from the way the morning sun slanted through the trees to their east and the sky shone sapphire-bright with promise. If he had a thimbleful of sense, he’d cast last night’s temptation to the river and leave it safely behind him in the South. He needed to fix his thoughts instead on his new beginning.

  With that admonition firmly in mind, he tied a long rope to the handle of a borrowed bucket, then cast it far over the boat’s side. Within moments, the bucket splashed into the Mississippi, and Gabe almost w
ished that he could follow. It might be a bit nippy yet, but a swim would feel like heaven after all the time he’d spent cramped on the upper deck. Opting for sanity instead, he settled for the exercise of hauling the full container back up, pulling the rope hand over hand.

  Jacob joined him.

  “Zeke’s not doing so well this morning.” Jacob leaned over to pull the bucket over the railing. Half the water had sloshed out the sides during its journey past the lower two decks. “He feels hot as hell.”

  “Fever? Damn. Is it the leg?”

  Jacob ran strong fingers through his dark brown curls. Frustration was evident in the set of his square jaw. “Yeah. I think so. It doesn’t look good, Gabe.”

  “It’s infected, isn’t it?”

  His brown eyes filmed with emotion, Jacob looked away. “I have to get him home, Gabe.”

  Gabe put a hand on his forearm. “We’ll help you do it, both Seth and me. You know that. We’re going to get Zeke back to Indiana. He’ll be all right then.”

  “It’s a damned disgrace,” Jacob growled, his impatience bubbling through the worry. “Packing us on board this boat without water or decent food or even a damned privy we can get to. Then telling us, ‘Be still. You’ll roll the steamer.’ You notice most of the ones saying that are sleeping in their fancy staterooms or on cots in the main cabin. They aren’t jammed on top a bare deck with their legs rotting off.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? That Zeke will lose the leg?”

  Jacob shook his head, his features taut with tension. “No, not now. Now I’m worried he won’t let them take the leg if they have to. He swears he won’t do it. . . . I’d make him, anyway, but there’s something you don’t know. Something in our sister’s letter, the one that caught up to us in Vicksburg.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Our pa’s real sick. It’s his breathing. He’s always had his troubles with the dust from the grain, but not like this. It’s bad enough so Eliza was worried we won’t make it home in time.”