I do, I do, I do (14 page)

"Well damn it, you'd be in a temper, too, if you were dying!"

Juliette ground her teeth. Zoe had picked up bad habits while growing up with six brothers. She considered pointing out that swearing was unbecoming behavior, but her advice would only fall on deaf ears. Instead, she silently glared at the two of them, then sailed out the door and up the staircase into cold clean air that smelled and tasted like ambrosia.

The coastline caught her by surprise. Though she should have, she hadn't anticipated the mountains. Even when she was purchasing heavy woolen underwear, she hadn't been able to imagine snow and cold. Well, here was her first glimpse of snow, and the afternoon air was cold enough to pink her cheeks.

And there was Mr. Dare, loitering beside the railing within view of the staircase as if he'd been waiting for her to emerge. A tiny frisson of pleasure skittered down her spine, accompanied by a damper of guilt.

Thank goodness the voyage ended tomorrow and with it her great pleasure in Mr. Dare's company. She and Mr. Dare would go their separate ways and she could stop lying awake nights listening to Aunt Kibble and her mother lecture about the dangers of married women spending time with handsome, engaging single men. Aunt Kibble muttered about playing with fire. Her mother reminded her that a respectable lady would rather die a painful lingering death than open herself to the slightest suspicion of impropriety.

"Good afternoon, Miss March." He removed his hat with a smile. "May I accompany you on your stroll?"

Shamelessly, she didn't even pretend to consider. "Please do." She hoped she was not begging for a painful lingering death.

"By now you know that Miss Klaus won the arm-wrestling tournament." His smile widened. "The story making the rounds is assuming the proportions of a legend."

Fire invaded her cheeks. She deeply regretted helping Clara alter the bodice of her dress. "It's a fine day," she murmured, changing the subject. She refused to spoil her final encounter with Mr. Dare by imagining him observing Clara's indecency.

"So," he said, "does your journey end at Dyea? Or are you traveling farther?"

"We're going to Dawson City." My, the air was invigorating today. On the other hand, she always felt invigorated when she spoke to Mr. Dare. Her heart beat faster, and she smiled more often. And recalling every word of their conversations had helped pass the time when she was stuck below with Zoe. Moreover, his flattering attention helped soothe the battering her self-esteem had taken since learning of Jean Jacques's betrayal.

"But not to seek your fortune," he said in a teasing voice. "You'll join a traveling party in Dyea?"

"We're not meeting anyone, no."

Stopping abruptly, he turned to her with a frown. "You're traveling to the Klondike alone?"

His expression raised a kernel of alarm in her chest. "Why does that surprise you?" she asked when his stare deepened.

"Has anyone explained the trail from Dyea to Dawson City?"

"I've been told it will be an arduous trek."

"It certainly will."

For a moment she was distracted by trying to decide exactly what shade his eyes were. She'd thought delphinium blue, but now the color had darkened, forming a thrilling contrast to his suntanned forehead and cheeks. And his voice roughened when he spoke seriously, something she hadn't really noticed until now.

"You do know, don't you, that you'll make the journey on foot, transporting your outfit?"

"We aren't going on foot. We'll hire a stage."

His beard was filling out, Juliette noticed. Zoe had shocked her by remarking that full thick beards were a sign of virility. It wasn't proper to think about such things, especially with him standing so close. Still…

"Damn." Taking her arm, the first time he had touched her, Ben led her to the rail.

Startled, Juliette frowned at her arm as if she could see the hot tingle that raced from his hand to her shoulder. How was it possible that his touch sent her nerves shooting to the surface? She didn't recall anything like this happening when Jean Jacques touched her.

When they stopped at the rail, Ben noticed that he still held her arm, and he dropped his hand immediately. It occurred to Juliette that they were not parting company any too soon. This man was dangerous. She was becoming entirely too fond of him.

"Miss March. There is no stage, no train, no carriages. Even horses can't make it over Chilkoot Pass."

His words disturbed her uneasy concentration on his mouth. Disbelief widened her eyes. "That can't be correct." She rubbed her tingling arm. "If what you say were true, then how would anyone get their outfits over the pass and down to Dawson City?"

"By carrying them on their backs."

She laughed. "The outfits can weigh a thousand pounds apiece."

"You carry as much as you can as far as you can, then you return for the next load and the next load and the next until you've assembled your outfit, then you start the process over. You'll cover each piece of ground at least ten times or more."

The smile faded from her lips. "But it would take forever to get there, doing it like that."

"It will take several months, working at it seven days a week," he agreed. "That's why I assumed you must be traveling with a larger party. A large party can pare duplicates and add sleds and dogs." He gazed down at her with a concerned expression. "And are you aware that you may have to winter over at Lake Bennett? Living in your tent," he added, watching her.

She gasped, and a hand flew to her throat. "Camp in a tent for a whole winter?" The question ended on a squeak. Trying to live in the outdoors was unimaginable enough. Doing it through a winter was inconceivable. From what she'd heard about snow and frigid temperatures, she didn't think she would enjoy either.

This was not one of their better conversations. She didn't like what he was saying or the images he placed in her mind.

"Some folks wait until the river freezes, then push on with dogs and sleds," he said slowly. "Others wait until the river thaws and go by boat. There are pros and cons to both approaches."

Juliette wasn't seeing any positives to any approach. The headache that signaled unpleasant choices began to build behind her eyes, and she picked at her gloves.

"You've given me a lot to think about," she said finally, speaking in a faint voice. Zoe had argued there were no stages, but she and Clara hadn't believed that Alaska would be too uncivilized even for stages. Zoe's experience was with men preparing to sail to the Klondike, not with those who had returned, so clearly Zoe didn't know everything.

But Zoe had a way of stating things that made it sound as if she were an authority. If they had known of the impossible hardships Mr. Dare listed, Juliette felt certain none of the Mmes Villette would have departed Seattle. The obstacles Mr. Dare described were insurmountable for women.

Suddenly she felt like weeping. Once or twice she had experienced a euphoric view of herself as an intrepid traveler braving the perils of a hostile land to reach her poor deluded husband. She had liked that image.

Now she grasped the impossibility. Alaska had defeated her before she ever set foot on shore. "Are there others who turn back when they learn of these hardships?" she asked in a whisper.

" The
Annasett
won't return to Seattle empty." He waved toward the mess hall. "Some are already talking about going home."

"I see." She, too, would be on the
Annasett
when the ship turned around. And all she would have accomplished was treating herself to a late-summer cruise, which she had spent confined in a stinking tiny room with two women she wished she'd never met.

She had to tell them what she'd learned. "Excuse me," she murmured, feeling an urgency build in her chest. "I must speak to my companions."

It wasn't fair. For two days she had occupied nearly every moment considering what her bittersweet parting words would be, and speculating how he might say goodbye to her. Now all she could think about was the horrifying knowledge that they were expected to carry their outfits on their backs.

She did the math in her head. If it was approximately seven hundred miles from Dyea to Dawson City—and they had to cover that ground at least ten times to move their outfits—then they would walk a trail that was seven thousand miles long.

Her eyes glazed in shock. She thought of Zoe and for the first time in her life understood the term
crime of passion
. At this moment she could happily have fallen on Zoe and strangled her. Juliette should never have listened, should never have agreed to undertake this wasted voyage.

"I have to go," she said abruptly, blinking at the headache rising hot behind her eyes. "It's been… I've enjoyed…" Abandoning any final tender words that he could remember her by, she turned in a swirl of skirts and rushed to the staircase.

When the little broomlike bristles adorning Miss March's hat had vanished into the stairwell, Ben frowned, then lit a cigar and turned toward the sea to watch the coastline drawing nearer.

His instinct was correct. She hadn't the faintest notion of the hardships that lay ahead, which made him wonder why she was traveling to Dawson City in the first place.

She was an interesting woman. Her delicate patrician face and trim figure had been first to catch his eye. He admired her sense of style and her thoroughbred carriage. He knew she'd led a sheltered life of genteel privilege. Yet, here she was in a place few ladies would ever go.

She lacked male relatives to look after her, but someone should have told her what to expect or stopped her from taking this journey.

Most likely she would turn around and return to Seattle now that he'd explained the realities of what lay ahead. On the other hand, maybe not. When he'd observed her in Yesler Park, she had clearly not wanted to be there, had appeared to want to jump from the bench and rush away from the two ladies he now knew as Miss Klaus and Miss Wilder. But she hadn't.

The same odd behavior had recurred in front of Wilder's Outfitting Store. She'd paced before the piles of goods in the street, wringing her hands and making faces that suggested a desperate desire not to proceed. But she had.

On board she kept saying, "I can't go back down there," meaning the cubicle and Miss Wilder. But she did return to her cabin and to her nursing duties.

Miss March sold herself short. He suspected she resisted challenges because she didn't believe she could succeed or because the goal frightened or worried her. Then she stiffened her shoulders and went ahead and did the thing.

Therefore he couldn't predict whether she would return to Seattle or if she would attempt the trail to Chilkoot Pass with her companions.

They, too, were a mystery. He didn't understand the relationship between the women, and Miss March hadn't offered an explanation. He'd searched for a family resemblance during the one visit Miss Wilder had managed on deck, but no resemblance existed. Nor did similarity of nature or interest bind them. That Miss Klaus had entered and won the arm-wrestling tournament didn't surprise him. But it was beyond imagining that Juliette would do such a thing.

Granted, he knew the ladies only superficially, but even their motivations for this journey appeared vastly different. From what he'd gathered from Juliette and Miss Klaus, Miss Wilder was determined to reach Dawson City to achieve some personal goal of a dark nature. Miss Klaus had said with a laugh that she was going to the Klondike looking for her fortune like everyone else. He had no grasp of why Juliette was going.

Frowning, he flipped the cigar toward the waves, and wondered if she knew how puzzling, amusing, contrary, and mysterious she seemed. And he surprised the hell out of himself by wondering if her shining dark hair was as soft as it looked.

Damn it. He wasn't ready for another woman in his life.

Chapter 7