Jo Goodman (14 page)

Decker's head swiveled in the direction of the heavy wooden door as the observation panel slid open. He would have raised an eyebrow at the turnkey's cursory glance, but he recalled even that small movement made his face ache.

The door opened, and the turnkey poked his head in. "You're free to go," he said. "They're waiting for you upstairs."

"They?"

"Miss Remington and Mr. Quincy. They came together."

Decker didn't dwell on how Jack had heard about what happened; he was simply grateful that he had. Jack's influence would have had something to do with Jonna's quick response. Indeed, Jack's presence now was going to make it a little easier for Decker to do what he must. "Is there a back way out?" he asked.

The turnkey blinked. "You're not serious?"

Decker slid off the cot and came to his feet. He straightened slowly, wincing again as pain knifed his side. "In my place, would
you
want to face her?" Decker saw immediately that he was understood. The guard's expression was sympathetic. In other circumstances Decker would have laughed. Right now it would have hurt too much.

"She did manage to get the magistrate out of his house," the turnkey said thoughtfully. He opened the door wider so that his substantial bulk was framed by the entrance. "Not everyone can do that this time of night."

"My point exactly."

There was a hesitation. "I don't know...."

Decker went to the door and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "I don't expect you to let me out the back for nothing," he said. Decker's knees buckled a little under the effort of standing, and the turnkey had to support him momentarily. "I'd be willing to give you something for your trouble."

The guard was interested. He made sure Decker could stand on his own before he let go of him. "How much?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Decker reached into his coat pocket and extracted two silver dollars. "Is this enough?"

The turnkey thought about the two coins he had in his own pocket. Four dollars would pay his bill at Wayfarer's Tavern and set up credit for a few rounds. "Is that all you have?"

Decker wavered on his feet as he held up his hands. "Search for yourself. This is the best I can do."

"All right," the turnkey said. He turned out his palm for the coins.

"When you show me out," Decker said.

There was another hesitation, but greed and a taste for liquor won out. Decker was halfway to the ship before the turnkey realized the coins his prisoner had given him were his own.

* * *

"Decker Thorne no longer works for me," Jonna told Jack as soon as they were back in the carriage.

Jack didn't argue. While he believed there was some good explanation for Decker's behavior, he wasn't wasting breath to convince Jonna. If her eyes had been like ice chips when they'd entered the jail, now they were glacial. Jack figured silence was his best recourse.

"And you won't be the one telling him," she said. "I will."

Jack nodded but said nothing. He looked out the window, took note of the landmarks they passed, and estimated their arrival at the harbor to have taken about four minutes. God help Decker if he is there, Jack thought. Then he reconsidered. God help him if he isn't.

Decker was supervising the unloading of the last six crates from the hold when he saw Jonna's carriage approaching. She had wasted no time in searching him out, and he had no illusions about what it meant to his future with Remington Shipping. He waved off the wagon driver when the crates were secure, then held his ground as the carriage stopped directly in front of him.

Jack jumped out of the carriage first. The hand he put out for Jonna was ignored. Armed with her cane and her anger, she managed quite well.

The night sky was overcast. The harbor was illuminated by lanterns on the ships and wagons and by the ones the dockworkers held. Light shifted and shadows lurched as the lanterns swung in concert with the movements of tide, wagons, and workers. Decker raised the one he carried. It lighted a circle around them. It also revealed his face.

Jonna had opened her mouth to speak, but now there were no words. The thought that rolled through her mind could not be said aloud, not in front of Jack Quincy, perhaps not even in front of Decker Thorne.

Jack found his voice when Jonna lost hers. "What the hell happened to you?"

Decker's smile was a pathetic parody of his careless grin. The right side of his face was swollen, and there was a cut on his bottom lip. There was a certain amount of humor in his eyes, but even that was tempered by the discoloration and bruising around his brow. Decker indicated Jack's leg with a small nod. "I was going to ask you the same thing. Where's your splint?"

Jack shrugged and pointed to Jonna. "She told me tonight that she knew I was faking. I thought the splint and crutch were a bit much after that."

"Faking?" Decker's puffy eye narrowed to a thin slit. "Do you mean you didn't break it?"

Jonna stepped forward and took the lantern from Decker's hand. "You needn't pretend you didn't know for my benefit," she said. "Get in the carriage."

Jack started to come to Decker's defense, but Decker gave him a look that said he shouldn't bother. "It can't matter one way or the other," he said quietly. "She'll think what she wants to."

Jonna's mouth flattened at the reproof. It was never a pleasure to be considered small-minded. It was even worse to be small-minded
and
wrong. In this case she didn't believe she was either. "The carriage, Captain Thorne."

"I have duties here," he said. He indicated the men milling around behind him on the wharf as well as the ones still on the ship and the gangway. He could imagine they were all trying to look busy, but in a way that would give them the best view of this confrontation.

"It appears you've unloaded the last of the cargo," she said. "I don't see the men bringing anything else up from the hold."

"It's unloaded," Decker said. "But you know that's not the end of it."

"It certainly isn't." Her voice was pleasant enough, but the words were not meant strictly as a reply. "You can get in my carriage on your own, Captain, or I swear I will have you thrown in."

Jack gave Decker a frank assessment. "She'll do it, and you can't fight it. Go on with you. I'll do what's needing to be done here." He tapped Decker lightly on the shoulder, not missing the younger man's wince. "And I'll come round to your room to check on you."

"That won't be necessary, Jack," Jonna interrupted. "He'll get good care in my home." Ignoring Jack's unflattering astonishment and Decker's raised eyebrows, she tapped her cane once and pointed to the carriage. "Now, Captain Thorne."

Decker climbed in. He braced himself in one corner, fully expecting Jonna to sit on the bench seat opposite him. Instead she sat at his side, and when the carriage rolled forward she held him still.

"I was told you were in a fight," she said. "From the look of you I'd say I was misinformed."

"No, you heard correctly."

"I didn't say I misheard. I said I was misinformed. I'm not naive, Captain. A fight is between two people. No one person did this to you. You were in a brawl."

Decker let his head be cushioned by the padded leather. He closed his eyes. "Perhaps I just couldn't defend myself."

"I don't believe that." She thought about it a moment. "Not unless you were held down."

He opened his eyes long enough to give her an arch look.

Jonna's own eyes widened. "That's what happened, isn't it? You were held down."

"Close enough."

"Then why
were
you
arrested?"

"I suppose because I was the only one left when the authorities arrived."

"The magistrate told me it was because you started it."

"That would be the other reason," he said dryly.

His quiet amusement bewildered Jonna. "Do you shrug off everything with an ironic comment?" she asked.

"Not everything." His tone was serious again. He let her think about that. "Why didn't you tell me about the wagon driver?"

The change of subject set Jonna off balance. "What driver? What are you—"

Decker raised one finger. It was as much energy as he could muster, and it was the least painful movement he could make. It was enough. It got her attention and stopped her from talking. "The day your ankle was injured on the dock," he explained. "Why didn't you tell me it wasn't an accident?"

Jonna stiffened and knew her reaction did not go unnoticed. Decker's arm tightened slightly over hers as if he expected her to pull away. It was his injuries, not his strength, that stopped her from doing just that. "It
was
an accident," she said. "Why should I say otherwise?"

"Before I left for Charleston I spoke to three people who remember the incident a little differently than you."

"Who gave you leave to do that?"

One corner of his mouth turned up at her rather priggish tone. "I don't need your permission to talk to people," he reminded her.

"When I'm the subject you do." The effect of this statement was the opposite of the one Jonna wished for. Instead of being put in his place, Decker actually laughed out loud. Her only satisfaction, and it was a small one, came from the fact that it hurt him to do so.

He had opened his eyes and was watching her out of the corners of them. He didn't miss that smug smile hovering about her mouth. The hell of it was, he thought, he liked that expression. He liked the faintly haughty lift of her chin, the shadowed dimple at the corner of her lips. He liked the controlled steadiness of her breathing and the way she sat so still against him. Jonna Remington was a singularly beautiful woman and didn't know it. Decker thought he liked that best of all.

"Your permission aside," Decker said, "the fact remains that I asked some questions."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because the driver of that wagon should have come back to make amends, and he didn't."

"I told you I was gone by the time he had his horse under control."

"He could have found you," Decker said. "He
should
have found you. Everyone at the harbor knows who you are. The only reason he didn't come back to apologize or to inquire about your condition was because what was done was done deliberately."

Jonna said nothing, and she noticed that Decker did not seem to require a response. She looked past him to the carriage window, beyond that to the lamp-lighted street. She realized that they were within minutes of reaching her home, yet she still knew almost nothing about the fight that had caused his injuries and his arrest.

Then, suddenly, intuitively, she
did
know. She had been asking about the brawl, and he had begun talking about the accident. What she thought had been a change in the subject had merely been one part of the whole. He hadn't shifted the subject as much as brought it around to what was important to him.

As the carriage slowed she felt it sway when the driver leaped down from his perch to help them out. "The fight was about me," she said softly, just before the door opened. "You fought about me."

Her tone was neutral as if she couldn't decide whether she were astonished or appalled. That uncharacteristic indecisiveness made Decker smile. "It was a brawl," he reminded her. "And I lost."

* * *

Decker woke in the middle of the night. At first he couldn't identify his surroundings. The fact that his cabin wasn't rocking was in itself disconcerting. Then there was the softness of the bed, the scent of freshly laundered sheets, and the cocoon-like warmth of several thick blankets. It was the portrait above the mantelpiece that finally oriented him.

John and Charlotte Remington were looking at each other, but Decker felt as if they were watching over him.

He sat up. Instantly there was a movement on the other side of the room as someone rose from the rocker. Backlighted by the flames, the figure at first seemed to be one of the servants. Only as it approached the bed did he recognize Jonna.

"Can I get you something?" she asked. "Water? More laudanum?"

He frowned. There was a muzzy memory of something being spooned down his throat as he was put to bed. Laudanum would explain the cotton head he had now. And unfortunately, although his mind was dull, the pain was still sharp.

Jonna reached for the dark bottle of opiate on the nightstand, but Decker put out his hand to stop her.

"I don't want any," he said. His hand closed over her wrist, and even though she made no further move to get the bottle he did not let her go. "What time is it?"

She looked over her shoulder at the mantel clock. "Just past four."

"Have you been here all night?"

"Only this last half hour. I woke a while ago and couldn't fall asleep again. I thought I would check on you and discovered the maid in attendance wasn't having the same difficulty with sleep that I was. I sent her to her room." Jonna felt the lightest pressure on her wrist. It was all that was needed to draw her down beside him. Her eyes slipped over his bruised and battered face and came to rest on his mouth. "I suppose if you don't need anything I should go back to my room," she said.