Elizabeth Grayson (24 page)

Ann pressed a hand to her lips, too surprised for a moment to speak. “You mean, I’ve inherited money from my mother? After all this time?”

“Indeed,” Throckmorton continued, thumbing through the paperwork. “There were several conditions to the trust.”

Ann should have known there would be. Hadn’t there always been restrictions and qualifications to every good thing that came her way?

“And just what are those conditions?”

“The main one, the reason I’ve come to you now after all these years,” Mr. Throckmorton went on, “is that your mother stipulated that the inheritance was to come to you only after you were married.”

But why would her mother make that particular provision? Ann wondered.

“The other term of the trust,” he told her, “is that you must agree that the monies you inherit must be held and controlled solely by you as long as you live.”

Ann stared at him taken aback not only by the gift, but by the stipulations her mother had put on it. How old must Ann have been when her mother decided this? And why on earth had Sarah Pelletier been so adamant about Ann coming into the money only after she was wed?

If she’d had this money last spring, Ann found herself thinking, she could have left St. Louis. She would have had the means to go where her father would never find her. She could have started a new life, a new life for her and her daughter.

But then, she might never have met or married Chase. She might never have been embraced by his wonderful family, might never have lived aboard the
Andromeda,
had adventures or given birth to Christina. The very idea made her throat knot tight.

Mr. Throckmorton went on, breaking into her thoughts. “When most people receive news of an inheritance, Mrs. Hardesty, the first thing they ask is how much money is involved. Of course if you have other questions you prefer I answer first ...”

“Can you tell me why my mother made these specific stipulations? What was it she hoped to accomplish by providing this money to me the way she did?”

“I’m afraid it was my father, God rest his soul, who wrote the will. I’m just not privy to your mother’s motives.”

Ann clasped her hands in her lap and nodded. “Very well, then, Mr. Throckmorton. I suppose I
am
curious about how much money’s involved.”

The lawyer gave her the slightest of smiles. “I hope you will not think ill of me if I tell you, ma’am, that our firm has a certain reputation for husbanding their clients’ funds wisely.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“In your case,” he said with a twinkle of pride, “we’ve managed to increase the initial amount by about a third.”

Ann nodded again.

“Which means that your inheritance now, Mrs. Hardesty, is a little in excess of fifty-two thousand dollars.”

Ann blinked at him, then burst out laughing. “Oh, Mr. Throckmorton! There must be some mistake. My mother never had that kind of money in her life!”

The lawyer looked affronted. “I assure you, ma’am. I have the figures right here.”

Ann stared at the financial statements, trying to imagine how much fifty-two thousand dollars really was. It was enough to buy a second
Andromeda.
A magnificent house in town. Land out West that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Or the life she’d dreamed about forging for herself and her
daughter last fall.

“Now if you’ll just sign these papers, Mrs. Hardesty”— Throckmorton put a pile of legal notices before her—“I’ll begin to put things in order. And of course you’ll have to decide if you prefer to have us continue to administer your holdings, or whether you want to take control of the monies yourself. Either way, it shouldn’t take more than a month or two to get everything finalized.”

Ann nodded, too stunned by her mother’s bequest to think beyond the astonishing thing Throckmorton had revealed to her. “I think I’d like you to oversee the money for a little while, at least,” she murmured.

Still shaking her head, Ann read over the documents, asked questions about the passages she didn’t understand, and finally signed her name.

“I wish you well, Mrs. Hardesty,” Mr. Throckmorton said as he gathered everything into his satchel and offered her his card. “And if there’s anything else I can do for you ...”

“Oh, Mr. Throckmorton!” Ann laughed again. “I think you’ve done more than enough for me already. Thank you.”

Ann walked the lawyer to the head of the grand staircase, said good-bye, then hurried upstairs. Her meeting had taken most of the morning, and Ann knew Christina would be hungry.

“She was just starting to fuss,” Evangeline reported as she bustled into the cabin.

Ann took the baby in her arms, then shooed Evie out on deck. “It’s too nice a day to be shut up in here,” she told her.

Yet the moment the girl was gone, Ann closed the door and drew the curtains. With the news Mr. Throckmorton had brought, Ann’s world had suddenly become too wide, too bright, too filled with choices she had no idea how to make.

By carefully husbanding her inheritance, she could have the freedom to do whatever she wanted to do, to go wherever she longed to go. She could find a place where no one knew her, where she never need acknowledge the misfortunes that had befallen her. She could escape the commodore’s domination and Boothe’s malevolence. She could protect her sweet Christina from scandal. She could start all over again.

But if she chose to leave, she’d forfeit the life she’d begun aboard the
Andromeda.
She’d have to deny her love for Chase, turn her back on a man who’d accepted her without question, and given her the happiest months of her life. She’d have to take Christina away from a father who adored her and a family who’d claimed the two of them with no questions asked.

Yet in order to stay, she’d have to tell Chase the truth. She’d have to acknowledge what Boothe had done to her, and how Christina was conceived. She’d need to find the courage within herself to go to Chase, to open herself to him, and show him in the most intimate way possible how much she loved him.

Ann didn’t know if she could do that. The very idea sent hot blood scorching through her, made her hands shake and her breath catch in her throat. Ann squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fight down the sear of panic, to silence the clamor in her head.

She did her best to concentrate on where she was and the child in her arms. Gradually the weight of her daughter, the scent of her skin, and the rhythmic pull of her baby’s suckling helped Ann settle.

She stroked Christina’s face, wondering if her own mother ever held her like this. Had she taken Ann into her arms for the pure joy of holding her? Had Sarah Pelletier ever bound her close against her heart and wished she could hold her safe forever? Was this unexpected legacy Sarah’s way of providing her little girl with a kind of security Sarah herself must always have wanted?

Ann struggled to part the veil of her own feelings for her mother and was dismayed by how little she found behind it. She remembered Sarah Pelletier’s thick, honey-brown hair and the dimple in her chin because Ann faced them in her mirror every morning. She recollected that her mother had worn a small lion-head stickpin in her collar because it had belonged to Ann’s father. She could still call up the scent of her mother’s lily of the valley perfume and the swipe of her lace handkerchief against her cheek. She remembered her mother had liked buying hats; some of Ann’s best memories were of milliners’ shops.

But Ann had no idea who her mother was or why she’d made the choices she had while she lived. Regret and a kind of childlike longing, tugged at her. She missed her mother today as she had not missed her in years.

Now that Ann was older, she understood the decisions women were forced to make for the sake of their children. Had Sarah Pelletier married the commodore to make sure she could provide for Ann? Had she subjugated her will to make a life with a man who ruthlessly oversaw every facet of their lives? Had her mother left Ann this inheritance with its odd stipulations, so that when her time came to marry, Ann would have a kind of independence and security Sarah never had?

Ann wished all at once that she could clasp her mother’s cool, petal-soft hand in hers, pillow her head on her rustling skirts, and tell the woman who’d left her so long ago that she thought she understood. She wanted to tell her mother—after all these years—that she’d forgiven her for abandoning her. She wanted Sarah Pelletier to know that now that Ann had a daughter of her own to consider, she understood so much more about love— about resignation and sacrifice.

Ann was still holding her sleeping daughter when Chase came into the cabin a good while later.

“We’ll be pulling out in a few minutes,” he told her, “but before I got too busy, I thought I’d see how you made out with that lawyer.”

Ann looked at Christina. “Oh, things went well enough.”

“What was it he came to see you about?”

For reasons Ann couldn’t in any way justify, even to herself, she lied to Chase.

“It wasn’t anything important. Really nothing at all.”

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT. MOONLIGHT LAY IN A SHIMMERING silver band across the breadth of the river. Ann could hear the high, bright notes drifting up from the main deck where someone in one of the immigrant families was playing a mandolin. The sultry smell of distant rain drifted on the freshening wind, and she paused at the head of the Texas deck to tuck the tails of her shawl more securely around herself.

Chase stepped up beside her, close enough that she was aware of his solidity and his warmth. Usually she enjoyed the time they managed to spend together: their coffee at dawn, an occasional stroll on deck in the afternoon, and these quiet moments after supper. But tonight Chase couldn’t seem to keep still; she sensed a restlessness about him that wafted toward her like the scent of his shaving soap.

“Wasn’t it good of Mary Fletcher to bring the children down to see us?” Ann said, needing suddenly to fill the silence between them.

It had been five months since the night the
Andromeda
had tied up at Glasgow, five months since Chase had rescued two of the Fletcher children from the house fire. Ann could almost feel the waves of heat and see the flames flaring treetop high. She could almost hear the timbers moan as the roof gave way.

“I was pleased to see they’d all recovered,” Chase agreed, shifting uneasily beside her.

Ann could remember watching the house disintegrate board by board. She could remember praying for Chase’s safety, though she’d been sure he was lost. Then he’d come stumbling out of the fire with the Fletcher baby clutched close against his chest.

When he spoke again, Ann knew the memories were as clear to him tonight as they were to her.

“Do you have any idea how much it meant to find you waiting for me in the yard that night?” Something thick and husky in his voice made Ann turn and look at him. “You were my anchor, Annie, someone to hold on to.”

She remembered how he’d knotted his fists in her clothes. How he’d shivered beneath her hands. And whispered his fears into her hair.

“I needed you so much that night.” He raised his hand and touched her face, grazed along her throat with his fingertips. He cupped his hand around her shoulder and drew her toward him. “And it didn’t take seeing Mary Fletcher and her children to remind me how much I still need you.”

He lowered his head and kissed her. His lips grazed hers in a slow, sentient slide, moved over hers gentle as a flutter of breath. He began to nibble the tender curves of her mouth.

Ann tilted her chin, offering up more of herself.

Chase deepened his kisses, until their mouths meshed and clung, until that languid exchange became something sweeter, richer, hotter.

Ann wrapped her arms around his neck and was surprised all over again at how much she liked kissing him. How much she liked the taste of him, the shape and texture of his lips, the way he gathered her up in his hands as if she were something delicate and infinitely precious. She liked the way his tongue sought hers in the sweet, humid hollow of their mouths. A thick, lulling tide of warmth seemed to rise between them.

“I’m so glad that you’re my wife,” he breathed. “That you’re here for me to kiss and touch.”

Beneath the soft drape of her shawl, Chase raised his hand and cupped her breast. Ann’s pulse rate leaped at her wrists and in the hollow of her throat.

He held her in his open palm, caressing gently, almost reverently. In spite of her best resolve, her muscles tightened; she fought the urge to pull away.

“As much as I needed you the night of the fire, Annie,” he whispered. “I need you even more now.”

She did her best to put some small space between them. Somehow she had to have that distance.

“The
Andromeda
’s tied up for the night,” he proposed. “Evie’s looking after Christina. There’s an empty stateroom just downstairs. No one will miss us if we slip away.”

She fumbled for a way to put him off.

“Annie, please.” His voice was deep, persuasive; the timbre shot a quiver deep into her belly. “I want so much to be with you tonight. I want so much to make love to you.”

You want to strip away my clothes. Lie over me and crush
me. Force yourself inside me.

The idea of someone doing that, even Chase, sent a jolt of panic ripping through her. She braced her palms against his chest and pressed away.

“I can’t do that now,” she said, her voice tight with both reticence and regret.

He looked down at her as if he could see right past the evasions to the fear. “You know, Annie, not every man who touches you is going to hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

Ann felt the color drain out of her face. Just how much did Chase understand? Did he still believe the reason she kept her distance was because the commodore had beaten her? Or did he suspect ...

“I just can’t!” she blurted out.

She knew she ought to tell him the truth. But how could she explain what had happened to her, then watch the concern and respect in his eyes change to pity or disappointment or regret? How could she risk losing his regard when it was what she’d built her new life on?