Janet Quin-Harkin (5 page)

“Will you let go before I call for help!” Libby shouted, wriggling desperately as the man lifted her off the ground with enormous strength. Fear was beginning to replace her anger. The arms around her waist were almost crushing her while a big hand felt upward for her breast. She struggled helplessly, wondering if anyone would even come if she screamed. Perhaps scenes like this were a normal occurrence in the back streets of New Orleans and nobody would even care.

“Please,” she begged, trying now to appeal to their decency. “Please let me go. I’m not the girl you want. Please, you’re hurting me.”

“Leave her alone, boys,” said a quiet, smooth voice, and an elegantly dressed man stepped from the doorway. “Can’t you see you’ve made a mistake?”

“But she came out of the St. Pierre, I saw her,” the first man insisted.

“Take a look at her,” the smooth voice continued. “Look at the way she’s dressed. She’s not one of Yvette’s girls. She’s a lady. She’s not what you’re looking for. Go ask Yvette. She’s got plenty of them.”

Slowly, Libby felt the giant arms loosen around her waist. The men stumbled off, one of them murmuring, “Sorry, ma’am. No offense?”

Libby tried to straighten her dress and turned to face her rescuer. He was tall, made even taller by the black top hat he was wearing. He was dressed in a fashionable tailed jacket and she could see the glint of gold from his watch chain. There was a neat line of moustache on his upper lip but he was otherwise cleanshaven. In his hand he carried a cane topped with either gold or silver that sparkled in the light spilling from the window.

“Thank you very much, sir,” she stammered. “You saved me from a very difficult and unpleasant situation. I was just walking past when these men attacked me.

The tall man smiled, bowing slightly. “My pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “I’m always glad to be able to help a lady in distress. Although you really were asking for trouble, you know.”

“I?” she said. “I certainly did not. I was out for an evening stroll, minding my own business.”

She saw a smile spread across his face. “Hardly the place for an evening stroll,” he said. “You should have kept to the Rue Royale.”

“I’m staying across the street at that hotel,” she said. “When I booked the room during the day I had no idea this was a dangerous part of town.”

The man’s smile was now even broader. “You’re staying at the St. Pierre?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, annoyed by the amused eyes on her. “Is something wrong with that?”

“Ma’am, that hotel just happens to be a place that the, er, ladies of the night take their, er, escorts,” he said with a chuckling cough.

Libby’s face flushed bright scarlet as she digested this. She was very glad of the darkness of the street so that he could not see her embarrassment. “You mean, those men thought I was . . .?” she asked.

He nodded. “They said they saw you come out of the St. Pierre. What else were they to think?”

Libby’s hand flew to her mouth in horror. “My children,” she gasped. “I’ve left them sleeping in that place.”

“You have children?” the stranger asked. “You don’t look old enough, if you’ll pardon the impertinence.”

“I have two little girls,” Libby said stiffly, “aged four and seven and I’m older than I look.”

The man chuckled. “I’d say your children were quite safe,” he said. “It’s big girls the men are looking for. But if I were you, I’d go back to your room and lock the door before there’s any more unpleasantness. I’ll escort you, if you’ll allow.”

“I’d be most grateful, Mr., er?” Libby said.

“Gabriel Foster at your service, ma’am,” he said.

“I’m Elizabeth Grenville,” she said. “Mrs. Hugh Grenville.” He took the hand she offered, bowing slightly over it.

“Well, Mrs. Hugh Grenville,” Gabriel Foster said evenly, “if I might be so bold as to make a suggestion, I would recommend that you change your place of abode in the morning for a safer part of town.”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you, Mr. Foster,” she said, “because I intend to leave this place in the morning, heading up the river.”

“Ah,” he said. “You’re sailing on the
Mississippi Belle
?”

“If I can get a cabin,” she said. “I hear they are all taken.”

“Tell the captain that Gabe Foster says to find you a cabin and I think you’ll have no problem,” he said, smiling at her.

This time she smiled back. “Why thank you, Mr. Foster. You really seem to be my guardian angel tonight. You must have great influence in this city if even the steamboat captains obey you.”

Gabe’s smile broadened. “Let us say that there are many doors that are open to Gabriel Foster.”

They stopped at the doorway to the hotel. “I would come up with you, but it would not be seemly,” he said. “I trust you can make one flight of steps without mishap.”

“I’m sure I can, now that I’m aware of the situation,” she said. “Thank you once again. I was indeed lucky that there was one true gentleman passing through this part of town.”

He took her hand. “Good luck on your journey, wherever it takes you, Mrs. Hugh Grenville. Or may I presume to say Elizabeth?”

“Thank you for your good wishes, Mr. Foster,” she said, “and I’m usually known as Libby.”

“Libby,” he said as if considering it. “It suits you. Good night, Libby Grenville.”

“Good night, Mr. Foster.”

“Gabe.”

“I hardly think we need to be on first-name terms when we will not be meeting again.”

He nodded seriously. “The world is much smaller than you think, Mrs. Hugh Grenville.” He raised his hat to her with the slightest of bows and went on his way. Libby turned to watch him go, then made her way cautiously up the stairs, strangely disturbed by the encounter.

The little girls were still sleeping just as she had left them, lying close together like two puppies in a litter. Libby smiled as she looked down on them. Before going to bed she wrote in her diary:
May 28, 1849. Tonight I had an unpleasant encounter and I met a most fascinating man
.

T
HE REST OF
the night in the dubious hotel passed without incident and in the morning Libby found that there was indeed space for her on the
Mississippi Belle
. As the big stern-wheeler drew away from its berth and started to churn northward against the current of the river, Libby began to relax again, glad to be getting on with the next stage of her journey. She had learned a lesson last night and would know how to be more careful in the future, she decided, watching the traffic along the levee grow smaller and smaller as they pulled into midstream. She felt free and very alive, as if she had woken, like Rip van Winkle, after many years of sleep. For the first time she considered the possibility that her desire to undertake this journey was as much the desire to escape from the restrictive life of her parents as it was to find Hugh.

Eden and Bliss were delighted with the river, first watching the giant wheel thrash through the muddy water and then, when they tired of that, leaning at the railings to watch the countryside slip past, waving to slaves in the cotton fields and delighting when they waved back. The scene was a peaceful one; large trees festooned in Spanish moss along the banks, half concealing low white mansions surrounded by magnolias in bloom.

“Look, Mama, the trees are so old they have beards,” Bliss shouted delightedly.

“I like those houses, Mama,” Eden commented. “I’d like to live in a house like that one day.”

“Maybe we will, darling one,” Libby said.

“Really?” Eden asked excitedly. “Really truly?”

“When we find Daddy we might all go and live in a big house just as grand as that,” Libby said.

“Did you hear that, Bliss?” Eden asked, grabbing her Little sister. “Mama says we’re all going to live in a big house like that one.”

“And I’m going to have my own pony, right Mama?” Bliss asked.

“What a charming family group,” said a smooth, deep voice behind them. Libby spun around to see Gabriel Foster leaning against the railing farther down, watching them. “You have very beautiful children, ma’am. Although I see that neither has inherited Mama’s delightful red hair.”

“Who is that man, Mama?” Bliss demanded.

Libby’s cheeks had flushed bright red. For a moment she had thought that she was imagining things and that the man was not her rescuer from the night before. But there was no mistaking the even drawl or the smile.

“But perhaps you don’t recognize me in daylight,” Gabe Foster went on, seeming to enjoy her confusion. “We met last night in considerably less pleasant circumstances. Gabriel Foster at your service again, ma’am.”

“But why didn’t you tell me you were also to be a passenger on the ship today?” Libby stammered, fighting to regain her composure.

“I hadn’t intended to be, until last night,” he said, leaning back against the railing as if to survey her better.

“I sincerely hope you did not decide to take a trip up the river just to act as my guardian angel for a few more days,” Libby said, having regained her Bostonian frostiness. “In which case it will be a very wasted journey. I am usually perfectly able to take care of myself and, in any case, I’m going to join my husband.”

Instead of embarrassing Gabe Foster, this outburst made him look even more amused. Libby noticed that there were laugh lines around his eyes when he smiled, which he seemed to do most of the time. She found them disturbingly attractive. She also noticed in daylight that there were small streaks of gray at the sides of his dark hair. Maybe in his thirties, she found herself thinking.

“Pray don’t concern yourself about my wasted journey, Mrs. Hugh Grenville,” Gabe Foster said. “I had been intending to take the trip for some time. Your being a travelling companion was enough to spur me into action.”

“But I understood the ship was full.”

His smile broadened. “As I said, the captain can always find a corner for Gabe Foster. Would you care to take a stroll around the deck?”

“I’m afraid I can’t leave the children,” Libby said politely.

“Then they can stroll too,” Gabe said. He bent down to them. “Would you young ladies care to take a stroll around the deck?” he asked. “It’s the thing done when on board ship.”

The two little girls looked at each other and giggled.

“Oh, forgive me,” Gabe said seriously. “I forgot that in polite society a lady cannot walk with a gentleman until they have been formally introduced.” He held out his hand to Eden. “My name is Foster, ma’am. Gabriel Foster. And yours?”

“Eden Grenville,” Eden said.

Gabe looked up enquiringly at Libby. “Eden?” he asked. “Is that a nickname?”

“It’s my proper name. My daddy chose it. He’s a poet,” Eden said, as if that explained everything.

“And I’m Bliss,” Bliss said, pushing in front of her sister. “And I’m four years old.” She held up four fingers.

“Are you indeed—that old?” Gabe asked. Bliss giggled.

“Well, now that we’re over the formalities, what about that stroll?” Gabe asked. He held out a big hand to Bliss, who took it instantly.

The matter having been settled, Libby could hardly refuse to fall into step beside him.

“You have business in St. Louis, Mr. Foster?” Libby asked him.

“Possibly,” he answered. “Couldn’t we dispense with the Mr. Foster if we’re to be companions for at least ten days?”

“I hardly need to remind you that I’m a married woman, Mr. Foster,” Libby said. “And since you are not a friend of the family, I think it would be wiser to remain on formal terms.”

“How do you know I’m not a friend of the family?” he asked.

“Your business takes you often to Boston?”

“Boston? Know it well,” he said. “In fact I could swear that I’ve seen you before, when I dined at your parents’ house and you were a little bitty thing. Great big brick house, it was close to the park, or was it the river, and you had on the prettiest muslin dress, or was it white silk? And a black ribbon in your hair. Remind me what your parents’ name is again?”

Libby had to laugh. “Mr. Foster, are you sure you are not Irish? They say in Boston that the Irish have the gift of the blarney and you most certainly share it.”

He laughed too. “But I made you laugh, didn’t I?” he asked, “and you were looking so serious before, as if you carried a big burden on those young shoulders.”

“A journey like this is a serious undertaking, alone and with two such small children,” she said. “Every now and then I am overcome with concern for them.”

“But you will soon be meeting your husband and all your worries will fade at journey’s end?” he asked.

“Not that soon,” Libby said.

“He’s not going to be waiting on the dock in St. Louis?”

“He’s in California, Mr. Foster. I’m taking the children to join him.”

“Holy Mother,” Gabe Foster mumbled, taken off guard for the first time since they had met. “That’s certainly an undertaking for a woman alone. I tip my hat to you, Mrs. Grenville. You are indeed a woman of courage.” He solemnly lifted his hat.

“This husband of yours,” he went on as they resumed their walk, “He has already made his fortune in gold and is sending for you to share it?”

“I doubt it,” Libby said. “He only left a month before me. I’m going because he was not born to be a backwoodsman. I don’t think he can survive the rigors of the outdoor life alone.”

“He’s a lucky man,” Gabe said softly. “You must love him very much.”

“It’s not a question of love. It’s a question of duty,” Libby said. “A wife’s place is with her husband. I married him for better or worse.”

“I do not think you would undertake such a journey for duty alone,” Gabe said, “not to join an overweight, bad-tempered, middle-aged bully, for example. Therefore I still suggest that it is love that drives you.”

“Love, duty, what’s the difference?” Libby asked.

He gave her a long, even stare. “If you have known love, I’m surprised you need to ask that question.”

“Of course I love my husband,” Libby said curtly, “and I am not used to discussing the affairs of my heart with a stranger.”

He touched his hat again. “Forgive me. We southern gentlemen are known for our boldness,” he said. “The hot climate brings out the passion, so they say.”