Elizabeth Grayson (4 page)

There in the woodlot on the edge of the Missouri River, Lydia had proved him right. Over the years she’d taken in or given birth to fourteen children. Her easy manner and generous heart had made the Hardestys one of the largest, loudest, most unruly families on the river. A family who teased and scrapped, and would lay down their lives for one another.

Chase had made Rue his personal responsibility twenty-four years before, when a slave escaping North had stumbled up to the Hardestys’ cabin and given birth to a baby boy practically on their doorstep. So when a burly young policeman came poking around behind the skid of barrels, Chase just figured he’d be looking after his brother in jail tonight.

“Now, then,” the soft-spoken Irish police sergeant wanted to know, “why exactly are you fellows standing over here when a brawl involving half the city went on not twenty yards away?”

Chase had no idea where his hat had gone, but he did his best to smooth down his hair. He was preparing to swear they’d been innocent bystanders to the fight that had already filled one paddy wagon and was rapidly loading a second, when Rue spoke up.

“We just now came out of the tavern for a smoke, sir.” He flashed the policeman his most ingenuous smile and produced several slightly mangled cheroots from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Would you care to join us?”

The officer looked the two of them up and down.

Chase had no doubt the man could see their skinned knuckles and mud-spattered clothes. He figured they were as good as hauled off to the police office on Chestnut Street until the sergeant extended his hand for one of the cigars.

“Don’t mind if I do have one of your smokes,” he said.

Chase hastily pulled a pressed-tin match safe from his trouser pocket and lit the cigars.

“You boys have any idea what touched off this brawl?” the officer asked them, appreciatively blowing out a long, smooth ribbon of tobacco smoke.

“No idea in the world,” Rue assured him.

“And you don’t know any of the fellows involved?” Just then, Big Teddy Peterson turned from where he was being prodded into the police van and shook his fist at them.

“I’ve never seen any of those ruffians in my life,” Chase lied earnestly.

The sergeant raised his eyebrows, then took another pull on his cheroot. “Got that lot loaded?” he called to where two of his colleagues were closing the back doors of the paddy wagon.

“You got more brawlers to take to the clink?” a fresh-faced young patrolman called back.

Chase held his breath as the sergeant looked them up and down again.

“Nah,” he finally answered, grinning around the butt of his cigar. “I think we’ve made all the arrests we’re going to. Besides, we need to get that bunch back to the station.”

Chase and Rue thanked the policeman, then stood watching the paddy wagon roll south on Wharf Street.

They were just congratulating each other on their narrow escape when the passengers from the
Andromeda
began to disembark. Chase recognized three of the men as officers of Boatman’s Bank. He knew two others from his occasional visits to the Carondelet shipyards. The captains of several of the Gold Star steamers followed them down the landing stage and nodded at Chase and Rue as they passed by.

Then Boothe Rossiter stepped into view at the top of the gangway. Chase’s stomach curdled at the sight of him.

From his slick, dark Macassared hair to his shiny black boots, Boothe was buffed and polished until he gleamed. He was trim and broad-shouldered and handsome enough to be an actor in one of the shows that played at the Varieties Theatre. He was also the laziest, most mean-spirited and arrogant son of a bitch Chase had ever had the misfortune to be partnered with.

“Surely Commodore Rossiter knows better than to give the command of the
Andromeda
to him,” Rue muttered under his breath. “He’ll break that darlin’s back sure as we’re standing here.”

But then, Boothe was James Rossiter’s son, the heir apparent to the packet line. It made sense that he’d be promoted from pilot to captain and given the most desirable posting.

Chase just didn’t have to like it.

Rossiter must have known how he felt, because once he’d given instructions to Jake Skirlin, who seemed to be acting as the
Andromeda
’s clerk, Boothe sauntered down the gangway toward where Chase and Rue were standing. If he noticed they were more than a little battered and their clothes were in disarray, he chose to make no mention of it.

“Admiring my new command, Hardesty?” he asked, smiling to show teeth so white he must spend his evenings polishing them.

“It’s a beautiful steamer, Rossiter.” Chase almost choked, saying the words, but the steamboat itself was graceful and powerful and obviously of the latest design. “You sure you’re the man to captain her?”

“I’m the one who took her out today,” Boothe observed. “Who else do you think should get the appointment? You?”

That was closer to the truth than Rossiter knew. “Why shouldn’t he get it?” Rue spoke up. “He’s twice the steersman anyone else is. If any pilot deserves to be promoted, it’s Chase.”

“Standing up for your master, are you, cub?” Boothe sneered.

Chase saw the color come up in his brother’s face, but Rue had already started one brawl today, and taking on Commodore Rossiter’s son just didn’t seem smart. If he crossed the
Andromeda
’s new captain, Rue might lose his hard-won berth with the packet line.

Chase shrugged philosophically. “What people get and what they deserve don’t always coincide.”

Boothe Rossiter let it go at that. Instead he inclined his head toward the
Andromeda.
“You want to have a look at her?”

Chase knew he was letting himself in for a big dose of envy and a bigger one of regret if he took Rossiter up on his offer. But he’d just defended the
Andromeda
with his fists, and even if the steamer wasn’t his, that gave him a proprietary interest.

“Sure,” he answered.

Boothe gestured them aboard and led them across what seemed like half an acre of satiny wooden planking to the front of the main deck. A battery of five boilers nearly twenty-four feet long and more than three feet in diameter lay horizontal to the hull. They were an impressive sight.

“The boilers and engines were built by James Rees and Sons, in Pittsburgh,” Rossiter told them. “According to the engineers, they’ll use less wood and produce more steam than earlier models.”

Chase had read about the new designs and was impressed by the iron sheathing above the firebox, the improved mud scupper, and the redesigned safety valves.

Boothe showed them through the open cargo area and stalls amidships to the back of the steamer where the engines lay. Big cylinders with their long, brass reciprocating rods were connected to the central shaft of the paddle wheel.

Chase nodded, recognizing several improvements that had been made to the engine’s design. “Very impressive,” he observed.

“Now let me show you the rest.”

With rising enthusiasm Boothe led them up the grand double staircase from where the engines and boilers lay on the main deck to the boiler deck above with its salon and cabins.

Chase was immediately struck by the grace of the wide promenades and, as they entered, the beauty of the salon. A line of brass and glass chandeliers ran down the center of the room. Gleaming mahogany chairs and tables clustered beneath them on bright, flower-patterned carpets. The gilt-trimmed doors that led to the first-class cabins were each numbered with a hand-painted china plaque.

Chase had never been a man who coveted things, but he wanted this. He longed to enjoy this beauty and opulence every day, to have something so unique and lovely under his command.

“It’s all very grand,” Rue mumbled begrudgingly.

Rossiter grinned. “Wait ’til you see the pilothouse.”

Pausing to glance into one or two of the well-appointed staterooms and the spotless galleys, the three of them climbed past the Texas deck, where the crew and captain had their accommodations, to the most vital ten square feet on any steamer.

No expense had been spared in furnishing the wheelhouse. The lazy bench that ran across the back of the cabin was upholstered in deep-maroon leather. In the left front corner a squat, potbellied stove radiated heat, while the pilot’s private water cooler sat on the right.

But what drew Chase immediately was the huge semicircular wheel that rose through the floorboards. Set well forward in the alcove created by the side windows and the cabin’s open front, the steersman would enjoy a commanding view of the river.

Chase stepped up before the chest-high wheel and curled his hands around the dark, burnished wood. As he did, a sensation he could never remember having radiated from the wheel into the palms of his hands. Warmth penetrated flesh and bone bringing with it a welcome so intense that his chest tightened and his eyes burned.

He wrapped his hands around the broad curve of the wheel, absorbing purpose and resolution and serenity through the very whorls of his fingertips. The
Andromeda
was more than wood and paint and machinery. It was more than graceful galleries, gleaming chandeliers, and opulent cabins. It was the single place in the world where Chase belonged.

“Quite a boat, isn’t she, Hardesty?”

Boothe Rossiter’s words shattered Chase’s haze of wonder. He blinked the wheelhouse into focus around him, and with that clarity came the truth. No matter how right all this felt, the
Andromeda
wasn’t his.

It belonged to Boothe Rossiter.

Chase would never stand with his feet braced on this deck and guide the
Andromeda
up the treacherous Missouri. He’d never ease her safely past the sawyers and sandbars that could fool a less proficient pilot. Nor would he ever duplicate this sense of rightness with any other vessel.

Knowing that didn’t change a thing.

Chase couldn’t think of any way to answer that wouldn’t reveal his envy of Boothe Rossiter’s new command. He simply nodded and relinquished his hold on the steamer’s wheel, feeling as if he’d yielded up some part of himself.

Rue stepped up to take his place. The younger man clasped his hands around the wheel, then turned back grinning. “Oh, yes! She’s wondrously fine!”

Though Chase saw the delight in his brother’s face, there was none of the wonder or intensity. None of the magic. The
Andromeda
had spoken only to him.

“I can’t wait to get her out on a clear stretch of river,” Boothe enthused, his voice rising. “We’ll tie down those damn safety valves, feed her fatwood, and just see what kind of speed those boilers can give us.”

Chase compressed his lips. Rossiter spoke with the kind of reckless arrogance that killed a hundred steamers a year. With the kind of willful disregard for safety that littered the river with wrecks and cost scores of passengers their lives.

And all at once, Chase knew he couldn’t stand idly by and let this irresponsible bastard destroy the
Andromeda.
She was his, by God! She was his destiny.

And all he had to do to claim the steamer was go back to James Rossiter and tell him he was willing to marry his daughter.

The idea of confronting Ann Rossiter and telling her what he’d done made his palms sweat. She’d be convinced he was betraying her—and he probably was.

When he had a chance to talk to her, he’d have to be prepared to make concessions, to offer whatever assurances she needed so he could have his way. So he could have the
Andromeda.

He’d promise her a house with a garden where her child could play in the fresh air and sunshine. He’d offer her money for passage back to Philadelphia. He’d promise her anything so he could claim the
Andromeda
and make it his own.

By the time Boothe had escorted Rue and him back to the landing stage, Chase had made up his mind. He muttered his thanks, then set off up the levee.

Rue caught him as he turned up Locust Street. “Where the devil are you going in such a hurry?”

Chase heard the steel in his own voice when he gave his answer. “I’m going to see a man about a riverboat.”

chapter two

MISERABLE, LYING WEASEL!” ANN ROSSITER HISSED, cursing Chase Hardesty, the man who’d led her on, and then betrayed her trust.
The man she was supposed to marry
in less than an hour.

“Slimy, odious miscreant!”

Ann smacked her silver-backed hairbrush down on her dressing table and stalked across her bedchamber to the pair of tall, lace-curtained windows that overlooked Lucas Place. She’d been shut up in this room for the last two days, alternately weeping and pacing and calling Chase Hardesty every name she knew.

In a little while her stepfather was going to knock on her door expecting to escort her down to the parlor where Reverend Schuyler and her bridegroom were waiting.

“Vile, despicable conniver!”

And once they got downstairs, she was supposed to speak her vows to that
deplorable
man.

God knows, she should have expected Mr. Hardesty’s duplicity. Hadn’t men been taking advantage of her,
failing her outright,
since she was nine years old? She was the world’s greatest fool for thinking—even for a moment— that Chase Hardesty was different.

Yet there had been something in his manner, a warmth in his eyes that swayed her. Because he seemed to care what she wanted, Ann had let herself believe there was something fine in him. Something forthright and honorable. Something she could trust.

Ann stared down from her window to the wrought-iron gate. On Tuesday afternoon Chase Hardesty had stood
right there
and lied to her. He’d given her the secret smile and confirming nod that assured her he’d refused her stepfather’s offer.

Ann had gone down to dine with James Rossiter a few hours later, armored with new confidence. She should have noticed the glint in her stepfather’s eyes as he held her chair or recognized the lie in his solicitousness, but Ann had been distracted when she saw her stepbrother’s place at the table was empty. That’s why the commodore’s announcement had caught her so much by surprise.

“Chase Hardesty came back to see me late this afternoon,” he began as Mary Fairley, their housekeeper, served the consommé.

“Oh?” Ann had said, registering not so much as a twinge of apprehension.

“It seems Mr. Hardesty has reconsidered my proposal.”

Ann looked up.

“In exchange for ownership of the
Andromeda,
he’s agreed to give your child his name.”

Her spoon had clattered into her bowl, spattering the soup down her bodice. “He said he’d marry me?”

“Indeed he did.”

“Are you sure?” she’d been surprised enough to ask him.

“I should be. Your Mr. Hardesty and I spent an hour negotiating concessions that include which of my best men will be assigned to the
Andromeda.”

But he promised!
Ann had very nearly wailed at him. Chase Hardesty said he’d do what she wanted!

“Now, then,” her stepfather continued, “I’ve gone ahead and made arrangements to have the wedding here at the house on Thursday morning.”

“This
Thursday morning?”

“Reverend Schuyler will come by to conduct the ceremony.”

“But Thursday is the day after tomorrow!”

“The river’s just opened for shipping,” the commodore explained. “The
Andromeda
’s leaving Thursday afternoon.”

Ann stared at him, panic burning up the back of her throat.

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to send a note around to Reverend Schuyler,” she advised him as coolly as she could when her voice was quaking. “Tell him we won’t be needing his services. I’m not marrying Mr. Hardesty on Thursday—or any other day, either.”

“Oh, my dear.”
Her stepfather looked at her over the bowl of his spoon. “You most certainly will marry him.”

By the set of his jaw and the coldness in his eyes, Ann could see he meant it. Though his conviction lay over her like a heavy snow, she pushed to her feet.

“I have absolutely no intention of marrying some ruffian you lured in off the levee!” she said, her tone nearly as icy as his eyes. “I will not be sold into marriage—not even for the price of so fine a steamer.”

“I say you’ll wed Chase Hardesty!” the commodore thundered.

“I say I will not!”

Ann had turned and fled upstairs. She was frantically jamming clothes into the satchel gaping open on her bed a few minutes later when she heard her stepfather’s tread in the hall outside. No matter what he said or did, no matter how he threatened her, she vowed she wasn’t going to marry Chase Hardesty.

But instead of bursting in to argue with her, her stepfather simply turned the key in the lock on her bedroom door.

Ann had scrambled across the room and tried the knob.

“Father!” She smacked her palm against the wooden panel. “Damn it, Father, you can’t just shut me up like a prisoner!”

But then, wasn’t that exactly what she’d been since her father’s men had dragged her home from Memphis?
The truth swelled over her like water breaching the lip of a levee. James Rossiter was never going to relinquish his hold on her—or on this child. He was never going to allow her to make a life for herself.

He was going to marry her to Chase Hardesty, whether she wanted a husband or not. She might just as well start embroidering the linens in her hope chest with neat little H’s.

Ann wobbled back toward her bed, then slid to the floor beside it. Huddled there, curled in upon herself, she was intensely aware of the fullness in her breasts and belly, intensely aware that she was carrying a child. For weeks she’d tried to pretend it didn’t exist, to will it away, but she couldn’t deny it any longer.

She splayed her hands over the mound of her stomach and accepted that the child growing inside was hers to provide for and protect. The responsibility terrified her. Tears sprang to her eyes. How was she going to do that?

Was marrying Chase Hardesty the answer?
As long as he worked aboard James Rossiter’s boats, he’d have to see that there was food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Could Ann promise even that much if she succeeded in leaving the town house? She had no place to go, no clear idea of how she’d make a living, no friends who’d help her or take her in.

In the end, there was only Chase Hardesty. Chase and Chase and Chase and Chase. There was only marriage to a man she barely knew, to a man who had promised one thing and done another. To a man who owed his allegiance to her stepfather.

Ann curled up tighter. How could she make vows to such a man? To someone who’d proved he had no honor, gave no credence to his promises? What kind of a father could a man like that be to her child?

But then, she couldn’t imagine the rawboned riverman wanting anything to do with a baby. She couldn’t believe there was enough gentleness in those broad, rude hands to hold one, or enough room in that deceiving heart for someone else’s bastard.

She wiped away a freshet of tears and heaved a sigh.

She had hoped for so much more from Mr. Hardesty, far more than she ever expected from the men in her own family. He’d inspired a wonderful and unexpected trust in her, then turned right around and broken his word.

Still, Chase Hardesty was her only chance, her only hope.

Ann had stayed balled up on the floor in her bedchamber half the night, sorting through her options, turning them over in her mind like the pieces of a puzzle she was determined to solve.

In the end she found a way to live with the inevitable—and if marriage to Chase Hardesty didn’t give her all she wanted, at least it promised more than she had.

Still, when the commodore came knocking on the door, Ann wished with all her heart she could send him away.

“Ann,” he called out. “The parson’s waiting.”

Her hands started to tremble.

“Ann?”

In spite of her stepfather’s growing annoyance, she detected a shading of real concern in his voice. It stirred the rich, dark roux of resentment and promise that had seasoned relations between them since her mother died.

Before she could respond to him, James Rossiter snapped the lock and shouldered his way into the room. He made a quick perusal, as if he expected conspirators lurking in the corners, then let his gaze come to rest on her.

“You look very nice.”

Ann did her best not to be pleased. “You ought to like the way I look.
You
picked out my wedding dress.”

Her maid had delivered it scarcely an hour before.

“Still, it suits you.”

Ann allowed herself a glance at the mirror that hung above her dressing table and saw a slender woman in an ivory-colored gown of silk and lace. Someone pale and gossamer and almost fragile—except for the undeniable rise of her expanding belly.

“I ordered a veil, too, didn’t I?” the commodore prompted.

Ann turned to the froth of netting draped across the coverlet. If she were making vows to someone she truly cared for, the circlet of silken flowers and gauzy lace would be a delicious indulgence. As things were, that veil made a mockery of marrying in purity and for true love.

Shame washed her cheeks. “Please don’t make me wear that.”

She heard her stepfather draw breath as if he meant to insist, and then he shrugged. “Do what you like about the veil.”

He offered his arm, and Ann lay her icy fingers against his sleeve. They were halfway down the stairs when Ann caught the sweet, rich scent of roses and saw through the open parlor doors the towering vases of hothouse flowers that flanked the mantel. Someone was playing the wedding march on the piano, and as they crossed the hall, Mary Fairley smiled encouragement and handed Ann a bouquet of rosebuds.

It was almost as if this was a real wedding, as if what followed was going to be a real marriage.

Ann stole a glance at where the minister stood with her bridegroom and a smaller, darker man before the fireplace.

No matter how she’d tried to prepare herself, Ann wasn’t ready to face Chase Hardesty or take her vows. She most especially wasn’t ready to take on the duties of this stranger’s wife.

In spite of that, James Rossiter steered her into her place before the parson and abandoned her to her bridegroom.

For a moment Ann diligently studied the toes of Chase Hardesty’s polished boots. She raised her gaze to the sharply creased pinstripe trousers, then to his black broadcloth frock coat. His linen was dazzlingly white, and his cravat was perfectly tied. She could smell the heavy dose of Macassar oil he’d used to tame his curly hair.

Finally, knowing there was no help for it, Ann raised her gaze to her bridegroom’s face—and went cold with shock.

He might be turned out well enough, but his lip was split. There was a red scuff along the side of his jaw. His left eye was all but swollen shut and the color of ripe plums.

Why, he’d been brawling!

Fiery outrage scalded up Ann’s throat and flared in her cheeks. Not only had Chase Hardesty proved himself a liar and a cheat, but here was evidence that he was of a pugnacious and violent nature! How could her stepfather marry her off to such a man?

Ann might have turned and demanded an answer of the commodore directly, except that she’d made her decision. She had no choice if she wanted to get out of the town house.

“Dear-ly Be-lov-ed.” Reverend Schuyler launched into the wedding vows, his sonorous voice far more suited to Christ Episcopal Church’s vaulted sanctuary than the Rossiter parlor. “We are gathered here before God and this company to unite this Man and this Woman...”

The words of the ceremony broke over Ann like high surf. The magnitude of the charges, the admonitions and implications left her breathless and reeling.

Chase Hardesty spoke his vows clearly and gravely, almost as if he meant them.

The foul, contemptible liar.

When Chase was done, Reverend Schuyler turned to her. “Repeat after me,” he directed. “I, Ann, take thee, Chase...”

Ann couldn’t help the momentary flare of truculence. To speak another word would seal her fate, bind her to a man who had already proved himself false and unreliable. It would seal the fate of her child. She didn’t want this baby born and raised in this house, did she? She didn’t want this child manipulated the way she’d been manipulated for most of her life.

Some final bit of resistance inside her crumbled. She drew a long uneven breath and spoke the words that would change everything.

“I, Ann, take thee, Chase...”

As she continued, Ann did her best to shade the familiar phrases with some semblance of sincerity. In marrying her Chase had agreed to look after her and her child. She supposed she should be grateful.

Yet for all her good intentions, when Chase reached to slide the simple gold band onto her finger, Ann clenched her fist.

He looked down at those balled fingers, then up at her.

She’d closed her hand involuntarily, but somehow once it was knotted up tight, she couldn’t bring herself to open it.

Her new husband’s lapis-blue eyes iced over as he relentlessly pried open her hand. He forced the gold band over her knuckle and held it in place.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” he insisted implacably.