Forget-Me-Not Bride (32 page)

‘Josh Nelson's intent on auctioning Edie!' Marietta said urgently, panting for breath. ‘If you don't come quickly, Miss Dufresne, Edie's going to find herself married to The Pig!'

‘Oh no she isn't,' Kitty said grim-faced, not pausing in momentum as she reached the bottom of the stairs and began to walk quickly towards Marietta. ‘I've just about had enough of the male sex for one day and The Pig is one member of it who's not going to get things his own way!'

Lottie was almost as out-of-breath as Marietta. Within seconds of Lilli being herded with Kate and Susan and Edie and Lettie downstairs to the
Phoenix's
dance-floor, she had left Miss Nettlesham and run out of the building. She had to find Ringan. Ringan would know what to do. He always knew what to do. The problem was, where to find him?

Front Street was thick with men and the vast majority of them seemed to be heading towards the
Phoenix
. She began to run down the boardwalk in the direction of the river. Ringan would probably have rented a room at one of the hotels. On her way to the
Phoenix
she had seen several,
The Fairview, The Palace, The Majestic
.

The din from the saloons rattled up and down the thoroughfare. On an open platform two young girls, little older than herself, were singing ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage'to the accompaniment of a wheezing portable organ played by a big beefy woman with a pompadour hairstyle. From a restaurant there came the improbable sound of a string orchestra playing
Cavalleria Rusticana
. Everywhere there was a sea of signs proclaiming, ‘Gold! Gold! Gold dust bought and sold … Jewelry … Fine diamond work … Watches … Tintypes … Cigars … Souvenirs and fine native gold …'

And then, just as she was about to race inside
The Fairview
, she saw him. He was striding down the boardwalk on the opposite side of the wide, busy street, head and shoulders above the mass of men swarming around him, his thick shock of red hair as fiery as a beacon.

‘
Ringan
!' she shouted, her voice breaking on a sob of relief as she sprinted across the street towards him, dodging through the crowds, avoiding a horse and trap by inches. ‘
Ringan
!'

He was heading in the direction she was coming from but the instant he heard her voice he halted, scanning the street for a sight of her.

She burst from the throng on the street and leapt up on to the broadwalk.

‘
Oh, Ringan
! Please come quickly! Lucky Jack hasn't paid Mr Nelson off for Lilli and Mr Nelsn is going to auction her as a Peabody bride!'

The dance hall at the
Phoenix
was full of smoke, men, noise and laughter. On a rickety stage five upright chairs were positioned and Josh Nelson led his unwilling flock towards them. A huge roar went up from the male audience as he did so. Lilli flinched. This was worse than anything she had ever imagined. It was unspeakable. Vile beyond description.

Edie's hand gripped hers tightly, ‘I want Marietta,' she whimpered. ‘I want Mr Saskatchewan Stan.'

Vainly Lilli's eye scanned the sea of faces for a glimpse of Marietta or Kitty or Lucky Jack. Instead she saw The Pig. He was in the forefront of the men standing ten and twelve deep on the sawdust-covered dance-floor. Her heart contracted. What was about to happen was so monstrous she couldn't even begin to imagine how she had ever thought it could possibly be otherwise. And Lucky Jack could have saved her from it. He had promised to save her from it. And he had reneged on his promise. He had let her down in the most gross, unforgivable way possible.

Bitterly she wondered if he had done so because a card game had prior claim on his attention. Whatever the reason, whatever his eventual excuse, she would never again think of him as being her Fate, her Destiny. However scintillating his vivid charm, he had none of the qualities that really mattered. He wasn't dependable. And as Kitty Dufresne had so perceptively pointed out, if being kind clashed with his own needs and pleasures, he wasn't even kind.

‘Come on gentlemen! This is it! This is the moment you've been waiting for! Which of these lovely-looking ladies are you going to take to Nome as your bride?'

‘Not the one in the middle!' some wit called out coarsely, referring to Susan.

There was a gale of laughter.

Lilli couldn't bear to look across and witness Susan's suffering. Rage was licking through her. Rage so hot she thought it was going to consume her.

‘I think this lovely lady should be the first to start the ball rolling,' Josh Nelson announced, stationing himself behind Kate's chair. ‘Now, gentlemen! You couldn't ask for a fairer bride than Miss Kate Salway! What about a thousand dollar bid for a start?'

‘What about ten thousand dollars?' a clipped, cut-glass English accent suggested tightly.

Uproar broke out as the crowd made way for Lord Lister. In cream silk shirt and khaki flannels, looking as different from the other men in the dance-hall as if he came from another planet, Lord Lister vaulted on to the platform.

‘Ten thousand?' Josh Nelson repeated, not knowing whether to be pleased at the unusually high bid or angry that, as it was unlikely to be topped, there was no entertainment mileage in it. ‘Gold or cash?'

‘Cash,' Lord Lister said tersely.

‘Then unless there's a raise on ten thousand I guess we're one down and four to go,' Josh Nelson announced to his barracking audience.

There was no raise on ten thousand dollars. Lord Lister bent solicitously over Kate. ‘Kate?' he said gently. ‘Kate? It's me, Perry.'

Dazedly she stared up at him, her face blank.

‘It's me, Kate,' he said again, realising how deep her mental withdrawal had become. ‘I love you, Kate. We're going to be married. We're going to be together for always.'

Her eyes opened wide, understanding beginning to dawn. ‘Perry?' she said uncertainly, ‘Perry? Is it really you? Have you really come to take me away?'

‘Yes, my darling,' he said thickly, ‘And you're never going to be on your own again, not for as long as I live.'

She gave a little cry, her hands fluttering from her lap, sliding up and around his neck. Tenderly he lifted her up in his arms and her head fell against his shoulder. Watching, tears glittering on her lashes, Lilli doubted if Kate would remember a single moment of the last hideous hours.

‘Three cheers for the happy couple!' Josh Nelson exhorted and then, as the cheers willingly rang out, he stationed himself behind Edie's chair.

Even before he had opened his mouth The Pig was swaggering forward, thumbs tucked down the broad leather belt at his waist.

‘Five hundred dollars,' he shouted aggressively.

‘Six hundred,' someone else shouted.

‘Seven hundred.'

It was The Pig again. He had walked forward from the crowd and there was now no way Edie could remain ignorant of his presence.

‘Seven hundred and fifty,' a third voice chimed in.

Josh Nelson grinned. Simple looking girls were always popular and this one, in her childish, too-tight dress, had the advantage of being as pleasingly plump as a partridge.

‘Eight hundred,' The Pig bellowed, clambering up on to the platform.

Edie clutched even tighter hold of Lilli's hand. ‘Don't let him frighten me!' she begged. ‘Oh, where is Marietta, Lilli? Where is Mr Saskatchewan Stan?

Lilli didn't know. What she did know, though, was that she wasn't going to allow the present obscenity to continue. Dragging her hand from Edie's she sprang to her feet.

‘Stop this!' she said in raging tones to Josh Nelson. ‘Miss Hobson is little more than a child and she isn't here willingly! She was sent here against her will!'

‘Makes no difference,' Josh Nelson said, enjoying the interruption because he knew his audience were enjoying it. ‘A little unwillingness can be right pleasing, can't it boys? Do I have any bids on eight hundred? No? Then the little lady here is going, going
gone
for eight hundred dollars!'

The money was peanuts but he didn't care. It covered the cost of her passage and left enough over to split nicely between himself and Mrs Peabody. And it brought crowds into the
Phoenix
. Crowds who would still be there, drinking and gambling, at five and six in the morning.

‘
Lilli
!' Edie screamed as The Pig lunged towards her.

‘
Nelson
!' Kitty shouted, men parting before her like the Red Sea.

‘
Edie
!' Saskatchewan Stan bawled, his roly-poly figure hurtling across the sawdust-covered floor in front of the makeshift stage.

As dozens of pairs of willing hands lifted Kitty on to the right hand of the stage, Saskatchewan Stan scrambled up onto the left hand of it.

The din from the audience was deafening. Kitty was one of the most popular figures in Dawson and what the hell she was doing in a dance-hall rival to her own, no-one could begin to figure out.

‘What the hell …' Josh Nelson began as Kitty marched to the centre of the stage and stood, facing the audience, her hands on her hips.

‘I want you all to know what's going on!' she announced in a voice that still managed to remain throatily enticing. ‘I want Miss Hobson as a personal maid and I'm prepared to stump up a handsome pay-off for her. If any of you gents make it difficult for me, none of you will ever step across the threshold of the
Gold Nugget
or the
Mother-Lode
ever again!'

‘I'll make it difficult for you!' The Pig roared, dragging a terrified Edie to her feet by her arm. ‘A thousand dollars, Nelson! See if Goolidge's tart is willing to top that!'

‘If she does you won't be able to outbid her!' Saskatchewan Stan roared, barrelling across the stage towards him.

‘A thousand and five dollars,' Kitty said, reading Stan's intentions exactly.

‘A thousand and …' The Pig began.

He didn't get any further. Saskatchewan Stan drew back his fist and then rocketed it at The Pig's jaw. The shouts and cheers and stamping feet, shook the walls.

‘And now this little lady is coming with me,' Kitty said to an outraged Josh Nelson.

Hiding his fury with difficulty, Josh made a show of shrugging his shoulders and smiling. Kitty wasn't fooled. She'd made an enemy but she didn't care. She'd had enough of men to last her a lifetime. None of them were worth a cent. Not even Lucky Jack.

As The Pig's cohorts dragged him away by his heels she led Edie by the hand to where Marietta was waiting and where Saskatchewan Stan shortly joined them, Josh Nelson regained control of the proceedings yet again.

‘We're having quite an evening, aren't we, boys? Two brides out of the running and only three to go!' Maliciously he strode towards Susan's chair. No-one would be fighting to put an end to the bidding for Miss Bumby, that was for sure! ‘And now we have a lady who knows all about living in the Yukon! A lady so refined the man marrying her will find himself hob-nobbing with Commissioners and Governors! Now boys, who will start of the bidding? Have we to start it at a thousand dollars?'

‘You'd do better starting it at five hundred and decreasing till you get a taker,' someone shouted coarsely occasioning a storm of laughter.

‘Now, boys. Let's have a little gallantry please. A thousand dollars. Am I bid a thousand dollars?'

He was not. To his utter astonishment, and to the disbelief of his audience, he was bid five thousand dollars. It was the entire wealth at the bidder's command and if he had had more, he would have bid more. Not because such a bid was necessary in order for him to be assured of gaining Miss Bumby as his bride, but because in his eyes she was a pearl without price; because it was his way of showing her how much he respected and honoured and loved her.

‘Sweet saints'alive!' It's the new minister!' someone shouted.

As the Reverend Mr Jenkinson approached the stage, the laughter and cat-calling reached new heights. Lilli doubted if either he, or Susan, heard any of it.

With tears of happiness streaming down her face Susan had risen to her feet. With a dignity that wrung Lilli's heart the Reverend Mr Jenkinson mounted the stage and walked towards her.

‘My dear Miss Bumby,' he said, taking both her hands in his, ‘I would be so proud … so honoured … if you would agree to become my wife.'

The tears that had glittered on Lilli's lashes when Lord Lister had lifted Kate in his arms, now blurred her vision altogether. Part of the nightmare was over, thank God. Kate was safe and secure, loved by the man she loved with all her heart. As was Susan. Only she, herself, had not been claimed by the man she had believed loved her.

Her eyes no longer even roamed the sea of faces, looking for him. He wasn't going to come. She knew it just as surely as she knew she had never truly loved him; that she had merely been foolishly and girlishly infatuated with him, intoxicated by his surface glamour and Greek god good looks.

‘And now for a little bit of real business!' Josh Nelson was announcing. ‘This little lady,' he stood behind Lettie's chair, resting his hands on her shoulders, ‘this little lady has come North to find herself a husband. She's darn pretty and worth her weight in gold. Now, belly up boys and let the best man win.'

Lilli looked across to Lettie in anguish. Lettie
did
look pretty. Her dishwater-blonde hair was brushed until it shone, twisted high into an elegant chignon. Her raspberry-pink dress shimmered in the lamplight. Her composure was total. With her hands clasped in her lap, her knees and feet primly together, her back straight, she looked for all the world as if she were in a church, not a tawdry, sawdust-floored dance-hall.

As the bidding grew heated and frenzied Lilli reflected that at least Lettie wasn't being humiliated in quite the way Susan had been humiliated. Men aplenty wanted her as a wife. And Lettie wanted to be a wife. She wanted the respectability she believed it would bring; a home of her own; a new beginning in a raw, wild country she found healingly clean and pure.