Forget-Me-Not Bride (12 page)

‘He's still looking at you,' Lottie said again. ‘Do you think he think he knows you?'

‘I think he's thinking he'd
like
to get to know her,' Marietta said mischievously. ‘I don't think
I'd
object if he wanted to get to know
me
a little better! Have you seen the width of his shoulders? He's the nearest thing to a real live Hercules I've ever seen.'

‘He's a criminal,' Lilli said tartly. ‘He's a man who's been paroled only on the understanding that he makes a new life for himself in the far north.'

As every head on the ladies-only table turned in his direction the object of their interest returned his attention to his breakfast, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his well-shaped jaw.

‘Do you think he's a bank robber?' Edie whispered, wide-eyed. ‘Do you think he's a
murderer
?'

‘I think we should stop talking about him in case he overhears us,' Kate said wisely. ‘Does anyone know if we'll be able to make a detour to see the Whitehorse Rapids when we reach Whitehorse? And if we can, would anyone like to come with me?'

‘I'm going to play deck quoits with Edie,' Lottie said the instant breakfast was over.

‘And I'm going to play deck quoits, too,' Leo said, aware he was being left out of something and not liking it.

Lottie opened her mouth to protest and then changed her mind. She'd always taken a fair share of responsibility where Leo was concerned and there was no reason, just because they were aboard a boat, that she shouldn't be doing so now.

‘Can I come as well?' Lettie said, startling everyone who had become accustomed to her sullen silences.

‘'Course you can.' Lottie knew Lettie better than anyone else at the table apart, perhaps, from Lilli, and she knew Lettie's unsociability was only a form of shyness.

Lilli gave her little sister's hand a squeeze of gratitude. With Lottie and Leo and Lettie playing quoits she would be able to stroll the deck unaccompanied and again fall into conversation with Lucky Jack Coolidge. And this time she would make quite sure she told him she was a Peabody bride. And then, God willing, he would put all her doubts to rest and fulfil all her fevered expectations.

The minute she stepped out onto the crowded deck relief swamped her. He was standing bare-headed exactly on the spot where they had talked together the previous day. No-one else was with him. With his wheat-gold hair gleaming in the morning sunlight, his hands nonchalantly in his pockets, he was quite obviously waiting for someone. And with singing elation she knew that the someone was herself.

‘Good morning, Mr Coolidge,' she said demurely as she neared him.

He had been looking out to sea and he turned his head instantly, flashing her his easy, down-slanting smile. ‘Good morning, Miss Stullen,' he said, removing his hands from his pockets and inclining his head courteously. ‘Have we to take a turn around the deck while I tell you about Dawson?'

‘That would be nice.' She could hardly keep the jubilation from her voice. It was going to be all right. She just knew it was. ‘I've heard so many confusing things, Mr Coolidge. Have you lived in Dawson long?'

‘No-one has lived in Dawson for long, Miss Stullen.' Amusement was once again thick in his voice. ‘Until four years ago it didn't exist.'

He began to walk at strolling pace and she fell into step beside him. ‘But I guess I've lived there as long as most,' he continued as they skirted past a group of prospectors, one of them neatly kitted out in khaki, another wearing elegant riding-breeches. ‘I was in 'Frisco when the
Excelsior
docked in July ' 97. The prospectors who first struck gold in the Klondike were aboard her. They had brought so much gold out of Bonanza Creek they staggered beneath its weight when they disembarked. Even before the news hit the papers I'd booked a berth on the next ship going north.'

She looked across at him curiously, ‘But you told Leo you weren't a prospector,' she said as her stomach somer-saulted at the sheer handsomeness of his neatly trimmed moustache and chiselled mouth, his slightly aquiline nose and suntanned-skin. ‘That you'd never been a prospector.'

The breeze had blown a lock of hair low across his brow and he brushed it back. ‘I was telling him the truth,' he said, a grin in his voice. ‘There's more ways of making a fortune than digging it out of the earth.'

She looked puzzled.

‘It's easier to take it from a miner's pockets in a saloon than standing knee-deep in water in a creek, don't you think?'

Her mouth curved in a smile. ‘Yes. Of course. I wasn't thinking. And so you built and opened up a saloon?'

‘Saloons,' he corrected. ‘And hotels. By the end of '97 there were more millionaires per square inch in Dawson than any other place in the world and nearly all of'em were living in shacks not fit for dogs. Until I built the Palace. And then the Majestic.'

The relief she had initially felt when seeing him waiting for her, deepened. He was far more than merely a professional gambler. The ‘gambling hells'Miss Nettlesham had spoken off were nothing but a lurid flight of her imagination. Jack Coolidge was a businessman, and businessmen were
respectable
.

Some yards away, his elbows resting on the deck-rail, Ringan Cameron watched them, a slight frown creasing his brows. Although he had kept himself to himself since boarding ship he had heard enough drifts of conversation to know the identity of the man. He was Lucky Jack Coolidge, a professional gambler, who owned more than his fair share of Dawson. He didn't know the young woman's name. What he did know, though, was that she didn't look the kind of young woman who habitually associated with men of such raffish reputation.

As he watched them Coolidge obviously said something amusing because the young woman laughed. It was warm, husky laughter. There was nothing affected or raucous about it. He felt a stab of longing. It had been a long time since he had heard a woman laugh. Christ, until boarding the
Senator
it had been a long time since he had
seen
a woman. Before he could stop himself, before he could protect himself, his thoughts turned to Patti and the stab of longing became a scream of pain.

Patti. Patti was dead and he had served his time and now he was free. Free to do what, though? Though he had leapt at the chance of parole and the Klondike he couldn't honestly see himself grubbing for gold in creeks and gullies. Avarice had never been one of his vices. What he wanted to do was what he had always wanted to do; what he was trained to do. He wanted to practise medicine.

A stiff breeze tugged at his hair and sent a chill knifing through his green plaid shirt. Who the hell would patronise a doctor who had served a prison sentence for murder? Surely not even tough-as-old-boots prospectors would put their lives in the hands of a man who had taken a life. ‘Even if they knew the circumstances?' a small inner voice queried. Beneath his thick auburn moustache his lips tightened. The circumstances hadn't hampered the judge from finding him guilty and though other people might regard his ten-year sentence as having been light and his early parole as being generous, he didn't. Why should he? He had decked the man who had destroyed his kid sister's life; the man who had demanded she visit an abortionist; the man who had not even called for a doctor as she lay bleeding to death.

His jaw tightened. When he had driven his fist into Tad Rowntree's jaw he hadn't meant to kill him. But he'd felt no remorse when he had discovered he had done so. And he felt no remorse now. Rowntree had been scum. The lowest of the low. But if he felt no remorse for having taken Rowntree's life, what sort of creature did that make him? Certainly not a very moral one. And doctors were moral men. Or at least the doctors he had had always sought to emulate were moral men.

He could feel the black dog of depression beginning to gnaw at him and with immense mental effort he freed himself from its clutches. He would be damned if, now he was free, he would succumb to the despair that had darkened his days in jail. Not when the breeze was tugging at his hair and there was the tang of salt-spray on his lips and the heat of sunshine on his face. He was a free man, thank God, and he was never going to live in an enclosed space ever again.

Lucky Jack Coolidge and his companion, having completed one circuit of the deck, were now embarking on other. He heard Coolidge chuckle; heard again the young woman's husky warm laughter. There was something delightfully unchained about it. It reminded him of the natural laughter of a child. And then he saw the children running towards her.

He eased himself into a more comfortable position against the deck-rails. It was her easy joyful manner with the children that had first caught his attention. The boy looked a little imp. Full of life and intelligence. And the girl, with her sailor-hat perched jauntily on the back of her braided hair and her black stockings wrinkling slightly about her ankles, radiated well-being and a sense of responsibility beyond her years.

Lucky Jack Coolidge squatted down on his haunches to talk face to face to the the little boy, and as the girl took hold of the young woman's hand, another young woman, who had obviously had temporary care of the children, tentatively approached. She was dark and ungainly and obviously deeply embarrassed at being put in a situation where she had little choice but to acknowledge the disreputable Mr Coolidge.

As he watched the little scene he wondered again what the relationship was between the young woman who was so friendly with Jack Coolidge, and the children in her care. She couldn't possibly be their mother. The little girl was ten or eleven and the young woman looked to be no more than eighteen. His throat tightened. Patti had been eighteen. Eighteen and sweet and loving and very, very foolish.

With steely determination he forced his thoughts away from Patti and back to the young woman who had caught his attention when she had boarded the
Senator
in such haste, almost as the gangplank was being raised.

If she wasn't the children's mother, was she then their sister? It seemed a logical assumption. Her manner with them was too free and easy for her to be their nanny or governess. He liked the way the children's faces lit up whenever they ran to greet her. He liked the way she lovingly ruffled the little boy's hair, always lovingly took hold of the little girl's hand, always seemed as pleased to be with them as they were to be with her.

Coolidge was now standing tall again. The ungainly young woman was looking as though she wished the deck would open and swallow her up. The little boy was tugging at Coolidge's hand, obviously asking him something.

The breeze changed direction and he heard Coolidge say, ‘If you want to meet a genuine musher, young Leo, I can sure introduce you to one.'

Leo. It was a nice name. He wondered if it was short for Leonard or Leopold. He wondered what the young woman's name was.

Coolidge took his leave of the young women, strolling off in the direction of the upper-deck companionway, Leo happily at his side.

Ringan adjusted his stance against the rail so that it didn't dig as deeply into the small of his back. However notorious Lucky Jack Coolidge's reputation, he was obviously a man with redeeming qualities. Not many men would have had the sensitivity to realise that if they squatted down on their haunches when speaking to a child they would seem less intimidating.

The two young women were now talking and the little girl turned, looking for diversion. Her eyes met his, just as they had done a little earlier at the breakfast-table. He saw her stiffen and look almost of alarm cross her face. Realizing that it was beginning to look as if he were taking a far from healthy interest in her older sister, if it
was
her older sister, he broke eye contact immediately, pushing himself away from the rail, beginning to stride towards the stern.

‘Gambling saloons are gambling saloons,' Susan Bumby said, deeply troubled. ‘None of them are respectable.'

‘But they're not
hells
, are they?' Lilli persisted. ‘Miss Nettlesham made them sound as if they were pits of unimaginable iniquity.'

‘Some of them are. Some of them are little better than brothels. And though you weren't to know, and though I must admit Mr Coolidge is very charming, it really wouldn't do for people in Dawson to be under the impression that you were on friendly terms with him. They would think you were fast and …'

‘But Mr Coolidge is a businessman! He not only owns gambling saloons he owns hotels as well. Hotel owners aren't disreputable. Think of Mr Astor!'

Susan Bumby's gruff voice was troubled. ‘Mr Waldorf Astor is worlds removed from Lucky Jack Coolidge. I quite appreciate that you want to see him in the best possible light, Lilli, but please take my word for it, he is
not
a gentleman a respectable young woman should have dealings with. Some of his gambling saloons are very dubious indeed.'

Lilli clenched her jaw mutinously. She didn't believe it. She
couldn't
believe it. From the moment she had realized Jack Coolidge was aboard the
Senator
she had been utterly certain he was her Fate. She still was utterly certain. Life couldn't be so cruel as to have thrown her across the path of the handsomest, most charming man in the world, and then thrown them together again, aboard the
Senator
, both bound for a one-street town thousands of miles from civilization, and
not
destined them for each other. Not when her circumstances were what they were.

‘I really don't think …' she began and then Lottie, who had been amusing herself playing a makeshift game of hopscotch, suddenly looked up to the deck above them and gave a horrified cry.

‘
Lilli! Quick! Look at Leo
!
He's going to fall
!'

Lilli and Susan looked immediately in the direction Lottie was pointing.