Elizabeth Grayson (29 page)

“You’re making some serious charges, accusing two of your senior officers of smuggling contraband. You’re not wrong about this, too, are you, Captain Hardesty?”

Smuggling was an ugly claim to make against men he’d worked with most of the shipping season.

“I take it you have proof against them,” the commodore challenged.

Chase had known Rossiter would want proof. God knows, he wanted proof himself, confirmation that his suspicions were based on more than coincidence, supposition—and a knot in his gut that wouldn’t go away.

“I haven’t been able to find”—Chase began and Rossiter snorted in disgust—“any tangible proof. But on each of the Sioux City runs, we’ve delivered or been ready to deliver several suspicious-looking boxes—”

“We move hundreds of boxes every trip,” the commodore countered. “Tens of thousands in the course of the shipping season. How many of them are ‘suspicious?’ ”

“Not many are big enough or heavy enough to hold a dozen carbines,” Chase persisted. “I saw Skirlin and Curry deliver what I believe was the first shipment of rifles myself.”

“And you didn’t stop them?”

“I didn’t suspect what they were doing until afterwards,” Chase said, angry at himself all over again. “And this time Ann—”

“Ann!”

“—saw Skirlin and Curry preparing to off-load some big, heavy boxes ...”

... the afternoon Rue went overboard.

Chase sucked in a breath of air and felt the chill all the way to his diaphragm. Why hadn’t he made that connection before?

Ann had said that while Rue was down on the main deck he’d taken a particular interest in the boxes Curry and Skirlin were moving. Not ten minutes later, Rue ended up in the river.

Had it been Curry or Skirlin who’d tried to kill his brother?

The commodore’s harsh tone drew Chase’s attention. His eyes were slitted and dark with anger. “Did you—did Ann—see anything besides two of my officers doing their jobs?”

The chill in Chase oozed deeper.

“No,” Chase answered, instinctively shielding Ann
—
shielding Ann from her own father.
“Ann didn’t see anything except the boxes. Still, it seems best if we notify the federal authorities that we suspect—”

Rossiter slammed his hand down on Chase’s wrist, pinning it to the arm of his chair.

Chase looked into those black eyes and felt the older man’s rage roll over him. Is this what Ann had faced when she tried to oppose the marriage the commodore had planned for her? Is this how her stepfather looked when he hit her?

“Listen here, you young jackanapes,” he said, the strength of his grip reinforcing the menace in his voice. “You’re not going to tell anyone anything.”

“You know all about the contraband, don’t you?” Chase’s mouth went dry. “You’re the one behind it. Are all the Gold Star boats running guns to the Indians?”

The commodore blew out his breath in a huff, as if he were amazed that it had taken Chase so long to figure that out.

“Making the most of opportunities is how men like you and I get rich,” the commodore advised him.

Chase jerked his arm out of Rossiter’s grasp and lurched to his feet. “You’re willing to put the lives of people on the frontier in jeopardy to build your fortune?”

“We’re supplying a demand,” he said simply. “The redskins want guns. The freighters are willing to pay a premium to have a few boxes of carbines landed inconspicuously. We’re just one link in the chain, boy. It’s how our business works.”

“Not my business!”

The older man stared at him with an almost reptilian calm. “If you mean to stay in the shipping business, Hardesty, you’ll do as you’re told.”

“I’ll go to the authorities,” Chase threatened.

“Then you’ll lose the
Andromeda.”

Chase froze where he stood.

“You look over the terms of the agreement you signed the day you married Ann,” Rossiter went on to advise him. “The
Andromeda
only comes to you at the
end
of the shipping season. She only comes to you if you’re still married to Ann
and
you’re still the
Andromeda
’s master.”

Chase knew the terms well enough.

“If you cross me on this, Hardesty,” Rossiter threatened, “I’ll order the
Andromeda
burned to the waterline before I let you have her.”

Chase had known the moment he stepped aboard that the steamer was part of him. Since then, he’d courted his wife on her decks. His daughter had been born in the captain’s cabin. He’d felt like his own man for the first time in his life on the day they pulled the
Andromeda
in at Hardesty’s Landing.

Losing the
Andromeda
struck at the very heart of him. She was both his livelihood and an extension of himself.
But how much of the man he was would it cost to keep her?

He’d have to forfeit his reputation, his honor, and his self-respect. He’s have to break the law. He’d have to turn a blind eye to the people who were dying out West because he was smuggling guns to the Indians. He’d have to give up everything he believed in, the kind of man he’d been raised to be.

It would cost too much.

“Take the damn boat,” he muttered and wheeled toward the door. “Do what you will with her.”

“Well, if losing the
Andromeda
doesn’t matter, ask yourself how you’re going to provide for Ann and Christina when you lose your command?” Rossiter’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Once I put the word out that I had to let you go because you’re reckless and unreliable, no one between St. Paul and the Mississippi delta will hire you. How would your wife and daughter fare if you were arrested for smuggling contraband?”

“I haven’t known I was smuggling contraband.”

The commodore laughed. “There’s not a judge here in St. Louis who would believe that a captain with your reputation could have had contraband aboard his steamer without knowing it.”

Chase turned on him. “My God, man!” he shouted. “Do you think so little of your daughter and granddaughter that you’d put them in jeopardy to get to me?”

The commodore shoved to his feet. “And what will your precious Ann think of you if you go to the authorities and make charges that could send her father to prison?”

Ann knew what kind of man the commodore was, Chase told himself. God knows, Rossiter had manipulated her, forced her into marriage, and maybe even beaten her to bend her to his will.

Still, she cared enough about this man to bring Christina to see him everytime they landed in St. Louis. And wouldn’t both Ann and her daughter be dishonored if the commodore was tried and convicted?

“How can you threaten the people who love you, and live with yourself?” Chase demanded.

“What my life has taught me, Hardesty,” the commodore said as if he knew he’d won, “is that a man who wants to survive thinks first of himself.”

Chase nodded, knowing he was trapped. Knowing that while he might have been able to walk away from the
Andromeda,
he couldn’t ignore his commitment to Ann and Christina.

“Now, then,” Rossiter went on with a self-satisfied smile. “Some of those boxes you’ve been so curious about are going to be delivered to the
Andromeda
this evening. As a show of good faith, I expect you to take delivery personally. I want you to sign the receipt, and when the boxes reach their destination, I’m going to hold you responsible for seeing them delivered.”

“You’re making me complicit in the smuggling.”

“I’m giving you the chance to hold on to all that’s dear to you,” the commodore clarified. “So do as I tell you, Hardesty, and you won’t lose a thing.”

Except decency and honor.

“You can go to the devil, Rossiter!” Chase shouted and slammed out the study door.

He could hear Rossiter laughing all the way down the hall.

CHASE WAS WAITING AT THE HEAD OF THE
Andromeda
’s gangway when the boxes arrived. There were six of them, about five feet long and backbreakingly heavy. It took two husky stevedores to lift one of them from the wagon, heft it up the gangway, and stow it away in the hold.

Chase followed the boxes down and watched as Curry directed the rousters. “Put them there at the back,” he ordered. “We’ll pack lighter things around them.”

Once all six boxes were in place, Curry handed Chase the invoices for his signature. “Commodore’s orders,” he said with a sneer.

Chase nodded and took the papers in his hands, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the words. Still, he didn’t have to read them to know what they said.

What they meant.

They said that Chase Hardesty was a criminal and a coward, and once he affixed his name, James Rossiter would own him. He’d have the proof he needed that Chase was a smuggler, that he was a failure as both a captain and a man.

Chase fought a quick, fierce skirmish with his conscience, weighing what was right against the way Annie and Christina had looked sitting in the rocker the other morning. He weighed the things he’d always believed about himself against his fears for the future and his new responsibilities.

This wasn’t about keeping the
Andromeda.
It might tear out his heart to lose the boat, but Chase could give her up if it came to that. What he couldn’t sacrifice was his wife and child for principles and his good name.

He scrawled his name across the receipts, refolded the papers and handed them back to Joel Curry.

Now Chase was as guilty as the rest of them.

Curry smiled as if he enjoyed seeing the mighty fall, then followed the rousters up the ladder to the deck.

Chase stayed behind, listening to the muffled conversations and the footfalls crossing the landing stage. Only when he was sure everyone had gone on about their duties did Chase pry up the lid on one of the boxes.

There
were
guns inside. Spencer carbines that gleamed sleek and deadly in the lantern light. Here was the proof he needed to take his allegations to the authorities.

If he did, he’d save the lives of who-knew-how-many miners and settlers and soldiers out in Wyoming and Montana. If he chose to march right up to General Sherman’s house in town and report the smuggling, Sherman would order the provost marshal to confiscate the guns. They’d arrest James Rossiter and gradually round up the rest of the men who’d been part of the conspiracy.

There’d be a trial and Chase would testify. In the end Rossiter and his cronies would be found guilty and go to prison.

It was the right thing to do.
But Chase couldn’t move. All he was able to do was stand staring down at the carbines.

If he stayed this course, if he said nothing and transported these guns west, he’d turn against the way he’d been raised and everything he believed in.

How was he going to be able to face Ma and Pa when they pulled in at Hardesty’s Landing with these guns in the hold of the
Andromeda
? His mother would know there was something wrong the moment she laid eyes on him. And if Enoch ever found out, he’d know he’d been right all along, that Chase was unworthy of being his son.

And Rue ...

Oh, sweet Jesus! How would he face Rue after he’d made an alliance with the men who’d almost killed him?

Chase moaned and hunched over the box of rifles, gripping the edges with trembling hands. He was doing this to protect Ann and Christina. To make sure he could provide for them. He was doing this to keep Annie from discovering that her stepfather was brokering the death of innocent people out in the plains.

But after tonight, how much less guilty was Chase himself of that?

He stared down at the carbines’ sleek steel barrels, gleaming faintly in the lantern light. He’d just sold himself for this box of guns, sold himself to protect the people he loved and a life that had grown precious to him.

Yet in making that choice, he’d decimated who he was and forfeited everything he believed in. He’d relinquished his pride in his accomplishments, betrayed the honor he’d held close to the bone since he was a boy.

There was no going back.

Chase closed the crate of carbines and pounded the lid in place. As he did, self-loathing seared through him, and despair wrapped around his heart like a cold, black snake.

chapter fourteen

TODAY,” ANN CONFIDED TO HER DAUGHTER AS Christina nursed, “while your papa was unloading cargo, I went and met with Mr. Throckmorton. He gave me some of the money your grandmother set aside for us, and tomorrow we leave for Cincinnati. That seems as likely a place as any to start our new life, don’t you think?”

Only when she’d stood with the steamer tickets in her hands, did Ann admit to herself how much she loved this life and how much it grieved her to leave. How could she go when Rue’s recovery was still in jeopardy? How could she turn her back on the Hardestys after the way they’d opened their hearts to her? How could she leave the steamer that seemed like home and a crew who had taken to her and her daughter as if they were family?

How could she part from the man she loved—the man who’d become a true papa to her little girl and a wonderful husband to Ann herself?
Yet how could she stay, knowing that she could never be the wife Chase needed her to be,
that she would never lie with him or give him the children she
knew he wanted?

Ann was making the only choice she could possibly make. So she’d tucked the tickets away and gone to see her stepfather one last time.

Now that Christina had nursed herself to sleep, Ann needed to find Chase and tell him she and Christina were going away. There was a time when she might have simply left a note for him to find, but she was braver now. Being aboard the
Andromeda
had made her braver; being Christina’s mother had made her braver. Being Chase’s wife had given her a kind of courage Ann hadn’t imagined she was even capable of.

Besides, she owed Chase the truth—or at least as much of the truth as she dared to tell him.

Her hands were trembling as she shifted the baby from her breast to the crook of her shoulder. “I’ll be such a good mother to you, Christina,” she promised, patting her, “that you won’t even mind if Chase isn’t your papa anymore.”

After she’d settled her daughter in her basket, Ann re-fastened her clothes and went to look for her husband.

She didn’t have far to go.

Chase was right outside the cabin door, a dark silhouette against the yellowish bloom of St. Louis’s gaslights. He stood with his palms braced on the railing and his shoulders hunched.

Whenever she thought about Chase, it would always be out here on deck, standing tall and shouting orders, sitting in the sun with Christina gathered close against his chest, or waiting for Ann to join him in the rosy freshness of dawn. She’d never forget how a grin could transform that rugged face, that his eyes shone with the color of the summer sky, or that Chase was the only person in the world who called her Annie.

Though she knew lingering over the memories could only make the things she’d come to say more difficult, she dwelled on them anyway. She clung to the final moments of her marriage, waiting through one more breath, one more heartbeat. Finally she drew herself up and spoke her husband’s name.

He turned with a start and stared at her, his eyes as hollow and stark as the craters of the moon.

“My God, Chase!” Ann ran and clutched him to her. “What is it? What’s happened? Is it Rue?”

“I’ve had no word of Rue.” His voice was as desolate as his eyes.

Had he discovered the truth about her, about Christina?

Ann’s heartbeat lumbered. But if Chase had unraveled her most closely guarded secret, he wouldn’t be standing here on deck. He’d have sought her out and confronted her, or gone off to tear Boothe Rossiter limb from limb.

Whatever this was, it was worse than that.

Ann knotted her fingers in his clothes and tugged him closer. “Tell me what’s happened!”

“Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

Ann wasn’t concerned; she was terrified.

He was knotted up tight as a monkey’s fist. His muscles coiled like cables beneath his skin. His breath came in the harsh, quick puffs of a man in almost unendurable pain.

“Tell me what this is about. You mustn’t try to protect me.”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “As if
I
could protect you.”

He was coming apart before her eyes. “I’m your wife, Chase,” she implored him. “Let me help you.”

“Why?”

She flinched at that single softly spoken word. It called her feelings for him into account: her respect for him, the trust they’d built, the love she hadn’t dared to admit. It made her question her own intent, her offer to make this better. How much help could she be if she was leaving in the morning?

“Every time I’ve been in trouble,” she began because she couldn’t turn away, “you’ve stood by me. You’ve protected me, taken care of me. Whatever this is, I’ll stand by you.”

He shifted on his feet and stared past her toward the river.

“You’ve held my hand when I was afraid,” she went on in a whisper. “You stayed with me when I needed your strength. Tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll find a way to work it out.”

Chase hesitated as if he were weighing her words, then he turned the harsh beam of his desolation on her. The anguish she saw in his eyes nearly drove her to her knees.

“Annie ...” His voice was so raw and frayed she barely recognized her own name. “Annie, do you believe in me?”

How could Chase ask that?
Chase whose family loved him. Chase who was respected and revered all up and down the river. Chase who’d worked miracles in her life since she’d come aboard the
Andromeda.

But then, it didn’t matter why he was asking. What Chase needed was her answer and her reassurance.

She raised her hands to cup his face. She looked up into those eyes, so dark with pain and doubt. “I believe, Chase Hardesty, that you are the finest and most honorable man I’ve ever known.”

He seemed to falter under the weight of those words. “Am I, Annie?”

She saw how shaken and depleted he was, and all she wanted to do was hold him, give to him, and fill him up again.

“You are to me.” Tears welled in her eyes and her own voice caught. “I’ve believed in you when I didn’t have anything else to believe in.”

Ann pushed up on her toes and kissed him.

Chase did his best to turn away, as if he didn’t deserve what she was offering, but Ann clasped his face in her hands. She drew gently on his mouth. She caressed his lips, giving back the simple intimacies Chase himself had taught her. He tried to deny himself the solace she was offering, but with a shudder he gave in to his need for consolation. His need for her.

“Oh, Annie,” he moaned and kissed her as if he meant to devour her, as if she was the only one in the world who could ease his pain. He dragged her against him, his hands tightening and letting go. Claiming, relinquishing, and reclaiming.

Ann clung to him, her fingers skimming the planes of that rugged face, slicing through the strands of his thick hair.

He pulled her nearer, so close she could feel his ribs rise against her as he breathed and feel the surging of his heart.

“Oh, Annie.”

All at once it didn’t matter what was plaguing him. Chase needed to be held as tenderly as she could hold him and soothed with the stroke of her hands. He needed to be convinced that no matter what he’d done, he was worthy of the love she had to give him. The only way to do that, she saw suddenly, was to trust him, to offer up the thing he wanted most. What she hadn’t been able to give him.

Herself.

She needed to go to him tonight with a glow of love in her eyes and show how much being his wife meant to her. She needed to offer up her faith and ardor, her body and the solace it could give him.

But when the moment came to give herself, would she be
able to offer Chase everything?

Ann eased back in his arms, fighting down the squeeze of panic and resistance. Chase must have sensed her indecision, because he lowered his hands and stepped away.

And in that acquiescence, Ann recognized the truth: that Chase would never hurt her. He would never tear at her clothes or crush her beneath him. He would never force himself on her.

If she was ever going to overcome what happened to her, if she was ever going to be with a man and make love to him, it had to be Chase. It had to be here tonight, when he needed her so desperately.

Ann drew herself up and extended her hand in invitation.

Chase looked down at her open palm, then up at her. “Annie, are you sure?”

Was she?

“Yes.”

He waited a moment longer, as if he were giving her a chance to change her mind, then he placed his hand in hers.

She led him across the deck, through the silent sitting room, and into the captain’s shadowy sleeping chamber. They paused before the high, wide berth and stood with their hands linked and the flutter of their breathing roaring in the silence. The air hung thick with anticipation. Long moments slipped past them, slipped away.

“Annie?”

“It’s all right.”

“I understand why you don’t want to be with me.”

Her head came up. “You don’t understand.”
He would
never understand; she didn’t want him to understand.

It took everything in her to admit the truth. “I—I don’t know what to do.”

“What?”

She all but suffocated on the wave of mortification that swept up her throat. “I don’t know what happens next. I—I don’t know
how
to be with you.”

Chase stared down at her, saw the earnestness and confusion in her eyes. How could Ann have lain with a man and borne a child without having tasted seduction? Unless his suspicions had been right. Unless someone had taken her against her will.

He stared down at those delicate hands clasped in his own, at the fine-boned face and vulnerable mouth. How could anyone have hurt her?

The very idea cauterized his mind. Yet he was suddenly very sure they had. Knowing that made him want to roar with rage, gather his Annie up in his arms and protect her. Chase hesitated, trying to catch hold of himself, trying to tamp down the questions suddenly howling through his brain.

“Would you—” He gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Would you like me to show you?”

Her chin came up, her mouth gone soft with disappointment. “This—this is something
I
meant to give to
you.”

Something shifted in his chest.

“That’s very generous, Annie,” he murmured, “but when two people come together and make love, it doesn’t much matter who gives and who takes. If it works the way it should, things come out even in the end.”

“Oh?” Ann sounded perplexed.

Chase allowed himself the slightest of smiles; it was going to be such pleasure teaching her the way of things.

“When a man and a woman come together,” he went on instructively, “what they find can be wonderful. Just the simplest touching”—he traced a slow, deliberate circle on the back of her hand—“can become intimate and beguiling.

“And kissing is a pleasure”—he bent his head and brushed her lips with his—“that mustn’t be hurried. And lying down together—” He felt her shiver and did his best to believe it was in anticipation. “—can lead to other things. Things you’ll like, Annie. Things I’ll like showing you.”

Ann nodded and drew in a shaky breath.

“Do you trust me, Annie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe me when I tell you that I would never in this life do anything to hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you let me show you how wonderful loving can be?”

She looked up at him and nodded.

Chase lowered his head and pressed what he hoped was the tenderest kiss a man had ever given a woman to Ann’s lips. He began with a flutter of contact, a graze of sensation, a glide of touching mouth to mouth. He turned that kiss into a delicate tracery; a tender exploration; a slow, simmering exchange of breath.

Ann leaned into him and offered up more of herself.

Chase took what she gave, tasting the plush, warm, fullness of her mouth, letting one kiss trail into the next. He took up a slow, lazy cadence that was meant as much to tantalize as beguile. He nibbled the soft, sleek margins of her lips, delved deeper and tickled the tip of her tongue with his.

Ann shivered with what might have been daring and tickled him back.

He splayed his palms against her back and fought down the almost overwhelming need to lift her onto the bed, spread her body beneath his, and lose himself in her. Yet even as his arousal grew, Chase knew Ann needed soft words and encouragement, tenderness and courting. She needed every gram of patience he could find within himself.

“Oh, Annie!” Even as his breath raged hot and ragged in his throat, his caress was gentle. “I want so much to lie down and hold you in my arms. Do you think we could do that?”

“Will—” her voice wavered. “Will it be like that night at the point?”

The memory of the thick, cool darkness circled through his brain. Of how soft she’d been against him. Of how right it seemed to hold her and sleep with her in his arms.

“It will be almost exactly like that, Annie,” he promised.
“Only so much better.”

He felt her shiver again and stepped away, giving her a moment to collect herself.