His Californian Countess (9 page)

J
amie looked across the table at Amber. Tongue caught between her teeth, she shuffled a thick deck of cards with avid concentration, then looked up and smiled broadly.

At him.

Just him.

It felt as if the sun had burst through the clouds after a long week of rainy days. His heart lightened and brightened each and every time she smiled at him like that. He didn’t think he’d ever tire of seeing her look at him with such unadulterated love shining in her eyes. As if he’d found the secret way to bring happiness into her life.

He grinned while picking up his cards. She was unaware of how transparent she was at moments like this when she was so good at hiding what she was thinking most of the time. “I still think all this bluffing is dishonest.”

“I thought you liked all things American.”

“I do, but there is nearly as much corruption here as in Britain.”

Her eyes flashed. “At least here if someone has millions, kills someone and is caught dead to rights, he’s put on trial. In your country if someone has a title nothing is beyond him. And, by the by, there
is
a penalty for bluffing.”

“What penalty?”

“If you try bluffing, I’ll remember your expression and be ready to defeat you next time.”

Jamie wondered if he was ready to try it. He looked at his pitiful hand, grinned a bit and tossed in three buttons. They played for buttons from her trunk so he wasn’t betting money, just information. The loser of each pot had to tell a fact about their life.

“I’ll hold with the cards I have, thank you,” he told her, trying to look pleased with his cards while pretending to be trying to hide his elation. This game might be good practice for business—this bluffing.

She nodded and took two cards, with a little smile, quickly hidden.

In the two weeks since dinner in the captain’s cabin he’d learned a lot about her. And about himself. He had more patience than he’d ever have thought. Patience with the slow progress of their marriage. With kisses that were only kisses and not the prelude he wanted them to be. Patience with finding little privacy on the confines of the ship.

Amber still thought they were ill suited. But they were becoming friends. Which, he had to admit, was a novel idea. A wife who was a friend was nearly unheard of in his circles.

Oddly here he was, in the middle of the ocean, in a second marriage he hadn’t wanted, but this time he was having the time of his life. His thoughts only half on the
game, he raised the bet, trying to keep his expression neutral. She called and raised and he followed suit.

He’d come to think of the days during the voyage as a gift of time. Time the outside world couldn’t intrude upon. Without warning, a crash of thunder called him back from his thoughts and vibrated the deck below their feet. The ship seemed to drop a hundred feet. Amber’s eyes widened in fear and she paled. They’d been lucky so far with smooth seas, but their luck had run out. “Perhaps we should get aft before this gets much worse,” he suggested.

Amber stood and started scooping the buttons into the tin, as she beat back her fear of storms. He dropped his cards on top of the ones she’d held, then added those to the rest of the deck. She held out the tin so he could drop them in. She gave in to temptation and pulled his off the top to check them. Surprised, she looked up at him. “You had nothing.” But then neither had she.

He grinned. “I was bluffing. And doing quite a good job of it.”

She managed a smirk, hiding her near terror. “Mine were worse.”

Jamie laughed, clearly not realizing she was still bluffing.

Maybe he was right and they were made for each other.

Just then the ship dropped out from under them and she felt her feet come off the deck. She landed back in her chair as Jamie made a grab for the tin to keep it from tumbling to the floor.

His expression went suddenly tense. If the storm worried Jamie, maybe she wasn’t being such a child after all. “Jamie, I’m scared.”

“It’s going to be fine,” he said calmly. “These men sail these waters all the time. We’re in good hands.”

A cabin boy ran in, bringing wind and rain along. He stopped short and gaped at them. “Cap’n wants everyone tucked in their cabins,” he said, rushing about stowing loose objects in the cupboards. “Looks like a right nasty squall snuck up on us.”

She nodded and accepted Jamie’s support to stand. But for the first time in weeks, his arms didn’t feel as safe as she’d like. He had no control over the ship or the weather, after all. He could drown as easily as she could.

And
she
could drown as easily as
he.

Or be killed in a carriage accident.

Or by a runaway team.

Like the sun coming out from behind a thick bank of clouds, her mind cleared and showed her the truth. Love was uncertain, but so was life. Did she really want to stop living to avoid hurt in the future? She didn’t think so. He was taking a chance with this marriage, too. His first wife had hurt him, yet he was willing to let her be a mother to his daughter and to any other children they might have. She had to think on that.

Jamie steered her out on deck, holding her against him, sheltering her. She looked past him to the sky. It had gone nearly black; no moon and no stars shone in the dark heavens.

Jamie grabbed on to one of the ropes strung from the forward deckhouse back to the poop deck where their staterooms were housed. He tightened his hold on her and they made their way along the deck. The ship rocked to the side and seemed to leap off the crests of the waves or ride them into what the men called a
trough. It looked like a deep valley with mountains of water all around.

Waves washed over the
Young America
’s bow, then sluiced back toward the stern on the uphill climb out of the trough. The water rushing under Amber nearly knocked her off her feet, but Jamie pulled her deeper into his strong hold, keeping her upright. Her skirts were heavy with water by the time they reached the mizzenmast, weighing her down and making each step difficult. The wind stung her eyes, lashed her hair into them, making a miserable situation much worse. She might as well be blind while trying to negotiate the trip across the deck.

At last they reached the door to the saloon and stumbled inside. Both of them were soaked through. Warm as it had been all day, now she shivered uncontrollably. Amber wanted to cling to Jamie and beg him to stay with her, but she needed to think, not yet ready for that step. She turned at her door and looked back at him as he entered his stateroom. Longing to run to him and cling, instead she entered her own stateroom.

She stood for a moment, as the floor vibrated under her feet and thunder cracked overhead. The lightning that flashed revealed seawater lashing the porthole. A chill rushed through her, releasing her from her frozen state. She peeled the soaked dress down her arms and over her hips, letting it drop to the floor.

She started toward the clothes press, but stopped. Tonight she wanted the comfort of her own things. On unsteady legs she walked to her trunk and opened it. Still wrapped in tissue was the light green muslin she’d made just before Joseph’s death. The look on his face when he’d seen her dressed for the big Saint Patrick’s
Day social had made all her work worthwhile. That night it had never occurred to her that he would see her in it only that once.

Pursing her lips, Amber pulled it out and her own plain cotton underthings, as well. She’d finished dressing and was about to toss a shawl around her shoulders when it dawned on her that she wasn’t shivering from the cold, but quaking in fear of the storm. The big ship felt small and vulnerable against the furies of nature.

They could die.

Tonight.

“Pixie,” Jamie called through the door, knocking softly. “Are you all right? Why don’t you…?”

She wrenched open the door and ran into the safety of his arms. She wrapped her arms around his middle with no intention of letting go. Rubbing her cheek against the finely milled cotton of his snowy shirt, she closed her eyes and breathed in his lime-and-bay-rum scent. He wore no collar or cravat and he’d left his shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled back to nearly his elbows.

She closed her eyes and remembered the night he’d come to her pallet. She’d run her hands over that muscular chest. Absorbed the deep rumble of his groan into her body as she’d absorbed him.

It was then Amber realized it was Jamie’s arms she’d run to just now. She hadn’t thought of Joseph. She looked up at Jamie, tears all but blinding her. He’d replaced Joseph a little more each and every day. Amber hadn’t even noticed.

She waited for pain, but felt none. It wasn’t that it was time for her to forget her gentle miner, but that each day she saw more and more traits in Jamie that had
drawn her to Joseph, though on the surface they appeared complete opposites.

Jamie was always impeccably groomed. Poor Joseph had needed to bathe after work before he could even approach her or the coal dust clinging to him would have ruined her clothes. He hadn’t owned even one suit and Jamie seemed to have an endless supply. After their marriage, she and Joseph would have lived in the little house supplied for her as the town’s teacher. He’d never have earned enough to provide a house. It hadn’t mattered. Jamie had three houses in this country alone. He was apparently as rich as Croesus, but that didn’t matter, either.

What mattered was that Joseph had been a man of strong character with a kind heart and a gentle spirit. Strength and gentleness hadn’t been at war inside Joseph and they weren’t in Jamie, either. He would protect her with his life if the need arose, but also comfort her in her fear. She could trust him with her life. And her body.

Maybe someday she would be able to trust him with her heart, as well.

The ship rocked to the side violently. She gave a little squeal, but he managed to steady them both.

“Come. We’ll sit out here,” he said and stepped back, leading her into the saloon. He closed her door and they made their way to the comfy velvet sofa where passengers often sat at leisure.

“I’m sorry to be such a baby,” she said, perching nervously next to him. “This isn’t at all like being in a row boat on a river where we could row ashore at the first sign of bad weather.”

He put his arms around her just under her breasts and
pulled her against his side. She felt her nipples harden at just that slight contact.

Seemingly unaware of her reaction to his touch, Jamie settled his cheek atop her damp hair. “Try to settle your heart and mind, Pixie. I’ve got you. Let’s have a nice little coze here, just the two of us. Try to forget the storm. Did you ever get the chance to ride on the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway?”

“I don’t have a death wish.”

“Glad to hear it, but thirty-five thousand people rode it last year,” he countered.

She laughed. “You mean there are that many crazy people in my home state?”

“What happened to my adventurer?”

“She’s found out she doesn’t like some of the consequences of her scheme to help Helena Conwell.”

“And I’ve grown quite fond of all of those consequences.”

“I cannot imagine why. Everyone else is in their rooms tucked up in bed and here you are stuck in the saloon with Miss Nervous Nellie.”

He cleared his throat. “Countess Nervous Nellie, if you please.”

He’d said it so soberly he drew another laugh from her. He could do that. Make her laugh at the oddest times with an understated little quip.

“You look very pretty tonight, I don’t remember seeing that dress on you before this,” he whispered against her ear, raising delicious goose flesh on her arms.

“I haven’t worn it. It’s mine, you see. Um…not Helena’s. I know it’s simple compared to her things and I didn’t want to embarrass you by wearing an inferior
garment. But if I’m going to die, I want to die as myself.”

“We aren’t going to sink. Have a little confidence in Captain Baker.”

She crossed her arms over the one he had around her middle and found herself momentarily distracted by the crisp texture of the hair on his well-muscled arms. “It isn’t him I don’t trust,” she explained, trying to get her mind off the memory of his body under her hand—his whole body. “It’s the storm. The sea. Perhaps even the ship itself. My life has been utter chaos since I boarded the
Young America.
Which is why I wanted to wear something familiar even if it is out of fashion.”

“You look very pretty in green and I don’t see why you say this is out of fashion. And it certainly isn’t inferior in any way.” He fingered the material and she could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “It’s actually quite lovely, but to put your mind at rest, you should know you couldn’t embarrass me wearing rags.” He chuckled then added. “Or nothing at all. Though you did put the poor cabin boy to the blush, I didn’t mind in the least.”

She smacked the arm anchoring her to his side. “I was wearing my shift and a blanket. You were the one who wasn’t wearing a stitch. And the only reason you weren’t mortified by my cavorting about in the saloon in my state of undress is because you were probably in shock over the way I’d already embarrassed us both with my wretched temper.”

He chuckled again and it vibrated through her, awakening all the sensual feelings she’d fought for too long.

“I shall be forever grateful there wasn’t a chamber pot handy, or I think you’d have beaned me and
undone all your hard work,” he said, levity abounding in his tone.

“When we get to San Francisco,” he continued, “we’ll go shopping and you’ll have your own clothes. You’ll pick them yourself and you needn’t order anything just because it is in the latest fashion—unless it appeals to you.” He fingered her skirt. “Except I’d like there to be at least one for every time of day in some wonderful shade of green. Though I don’t think any will be as fine as this one.”

“Thank you. It was my best dress. The one I wore to church and socials.”

“I’m very glad you wore it tonight. Did it come this way? I know nothing of women’s fashion. To hear my valet tell it, I dress like a banker or a doctor and not as my station demands.” He sighed. “I do so like it in America where a station is a train depot.”